Lawsuit Seeks to Stop Trump’s $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas

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Lawsuit Seeks to Stop Trump’s $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas

(Headline USA)  In what appears to be the first major challenge to the new $100,000 fee required for H-1B visa applications, a coalition of health care providers, religious groups, university professors and others filed a federal lawsuit Friday to stop the plan, saying it has “thrown employers, workers and federal agencies into chaos.”

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Sept. 19 requiring the new fee, saying the H-1B visa program “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.” The changes were slated to go into effect in 36 hours, which caused panic for employers, who instructed their workers to return to the U.S. immediately.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, said the H-1B program is a critical pathway to hiring healthcare workers and educators. It drives innovation and economic growth in the U.S., and allows employers to fill jobs in specialized fields, the lawsuit said.

“Without relief, hospitals will lose medical staff, churches will lose pastors, classrooms will lose teachers, and industries across the country risk losing key innovators,” Democracy Forward Foundation and Justice Action Center said in a press release. “The suit asks the court to immediately block the order and restore predictability for employers and workers.”

They called the new fee “Trump’s latest anti-immigration power grab.”

Messages seeking comment from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which are named as defendants along with Trump and the State Department, were not immediately returned.

The H-1B visa program was created by Congress to attract high-skilled workers to fill jobs that tech companies find difficult to fill. About a third of H-1B workers are nurses, teachers, physicians, scholars, priests and pastors, according to the lawsuit.

Critics say the program is a pipeline for overseas workers who are often willing to work for as little as $60,000 annually, well below the $100,000-plus salaries typically paid to U.S. technology workers.

Historically, H-1B visas have been doled out through a lottery. This year, Seattle-based Amazon was by far the top recipient of H-1B visas with more than 10,000 awarded, followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google. Geographically, California has the highest number of H-1B workers.

The $100,000 fee will discourage the best and brightest minds from bringing life-saving research to the U.S., said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors.

Mike Miller, Region 6 Director of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, said Trump’s plan “prioritizes wealth and connections over scientific acumen and diligence.”

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, contends the “exorbitant fee” invites corruption and is illegal. Congress created the program and Trump can’t rewrite it overnight or levy new taxes by executive order, the groups said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Administration from Deploying Troops in Portland, Oregon

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Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Administration from Deploying Troops in Portland, Oregon

(Headline USA)  A federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from deploying the National Guard in Portland, ruling Saturday in a lawsuit brought by the state and city.

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut issued the order pending further arguments in the suit. She said the relatively small protests the city has seen did not justify the use of federalized forces and allowing the deployment could harm Oregon’s state sovereignty.

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote. She later continued, “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”

The Trump administration late Saturday filed a notice of appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

State and city officials sued to stop the deployment last week, one day after the Trump administration announced that 200 Oregon National Guard troops would be federalized to protect federal buildings. The president called the city “war-ravaged.”

Oregon officials said that characterization was ludicrous. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in the city has been the site of nightly protests that typically drew a couple dozen people in recent weeks before the deployment was announced.

Generally speaking the president is allowed “a great level of deference” to federalize National Guard troops in situations where regular law enforcement forces are not able to execute the laws of the United States, the judge said, but that has not been the case in Portland.

Plaintiffs were able to show that the demonstrations at the immigration building were not significantly violent or disruptive ahead of the president’s order, the judge wrote, and “overall, the protests were small and uneventful.”

“The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” Immergut wrote.

Following the ruling, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that “President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement — we expect to be vindicated by a higher court.”

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield called the ruling “a healthy check on the president.”

“It reaffirms what we already knew: Portland is not the president’s war-torn fantasy. Our city is not ravaged, and there is no rebellion,” Rayfield said in a statement. He added: “Members of the Oregon National Guard are not a tool for him to use in his political theater.”

Trump has deployed or threatened to deploy troops in several U.S. cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, including Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and Memphis. Speaking Tuesday to U.S. military leaders in Virginia, he proposed using cities as training grounds for the armed forces.

Last month a federal judge ruled that the president’s deployment of some 4,700 National Guard soldiers and Marines in Los Angeles this year was illegal, but he allowed the 300 who remain in the city to stay as long as they do not enforce civilian laws. The Trump administration appealed, and an appellate panel has put the lower court’s block on hold while it moves forward.

The Portland protests have been limited to a one-block area in a city that covers about 145 square miles (375 square km) and has about 636,000 residents.

They grew somewhat following the Sept. 28 announcement of the guard deployment. The Portland Police Bureau, which has said it does not participate in immigration enforcement and only intervenes in the protests if there is vandalism or criminal activity, arrested two people on assault charges. 

On Saturday, before the ruling was released, roughly 400 people marched to the ICE facility. The crowd included people of all ages and races, families with children and older people using walkers. Federal agents responded with chemical crowd control munitions, including tear gas canisters and less-lethal guns that sprayed pepper balls. At least six people were arrested as the protesters reached the ICE facility.

Later in the evening, federal agents again emerged from the facility and deployed tear gas on a crowd of about 100 people.

Trump sent federal officers to Portland over the objections of local and state leaders in 2020 during long-running protests following George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. The administration sent hundreds of agents for the stated purpose of protecting the federal courthouse and other federal property from vandalism.

The government agreed this year to settle an excessive force lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union by paying compensating several plaintiffs for their injuries.

 

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

 

Trump Plans to Federalize 300 Troops in Illinois, as Judge Blocks a Similar Mobilization in Oregon

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Trump Plans to Federalize 300 Troops in Illinois, as Judge Blocks a Similar Mobilization in Oregon

(Headline USA) President Donald Trump authorized the deployment of 300 Illinois National Guard troops to protect federal officers and assets in Chicago on Saturday, marking the latest escalation of his use of federal intervention in cities.

But the same day, a similar mobilization of 200 National Guard troops in Oregon was temporarily blocked after a federal judge found President Donald Trump was likely overstepping his legal authority in responding to relatively small protests near a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson confirmed that the president authorized using the Illinois National Guard members, citing what she called “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness” that local leaders have not quelled.

Trump has characterized both Portland and Chicago as cities rife with crime and unrest, calling the former a “war zone” and suggesting apocalyptic force was needed to quell problems in the latter. Since the start of his second term, he has sent or talked about sending troops to 10 cities, including Baltimore, Maryland; Memphis, Tennessee; the District of Columbia; New Orleans, Louisiana; and the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

But the governors of Illinois and Oregon see the deployments differently.

“This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.”

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek talked to Trump in late September and said the deployment was unnecessary. She refused to call up any Oregon National Guard troops, so Trump did so himself in an order to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. That prompted the lawsuit from city and state officials.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has issued a memo that also directs component agencies within the Justice Department, including the FBI, to help protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, including in Chicago and Portland.

Protesters have frequently rallied near an immigration facility outside the city, and federal officials reported the arrests of 13 protesters Friday near the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Broadview.

The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that federal agents shot a woman Saturday morning on the southwest side of Chicago. A statement from the department said it happened after Border Patrol agents patrolling the area “were rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.”

“The officers exited their trapped vehicle, when a suspect tried to run them over, forcing the officers to fire defensively,” the statement said.

No law enforcement officers were seriously injured, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.

The woman who was shot was a U.S. citizen and was armed with a semiautomatic weapon, according to McLaughlin. She said the woman drove herself to a hospital for treatment, but a Chicago Fire Department spokesperson told the Chicago Sun-Times that she was found near the scene and taken to a hospital in fair condition.

U.S. District Court Judge Karin J. Immergut and issued the ruling temporarily blocking the deployment on Saturday afternoon, saying the relatively small protests the city has seen did not justify the use of federalized forces and allowing the deployment could harm Oregon’s state sovereignty.

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote. She later said: “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law.”

Trump has called Portland “war-ravaged” and suggested the city is “burning down.” 

On Saturday, before the judge’s ruling was released, about 400 protesters marched from a park to the Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention facility. The group included people of all ages and races, families with children and retirees with walkers, the Oregonian reported. Federal agents used chemical crowd control munitions, including tear gas canisters and less-lethal guns that sprayed pepper balls, and arrested at least six people as the group reached the ICE facility.

By 4 p.m. the crowd had thinned significantly.

On Wednesday, Hegseth, Bondi and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller rallied members of a federal law enforcement task force that began operating in Memphis as part of Trump’s crime-fighting plan. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, has supported the effort.

Bondi said via social media that the task force made more than 50 arrests over a two-day period. More than 200 officers were deputized, including personnel from immigration and drug enforcement. They were serving criminal arrest warrants and teaming with state agencies on traffic stops.

On Sept. 30, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry asked for a guard deployment to New Orleans and other cities to help fight crime.

In a letter to Hegseth, Landry also praised the president’s decision to send troops to Washington and Memphis.

He said there has been “elevated violent crime rates” in Shreveport, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, as well as shortages in local law enforcement.

But crime in some of the state’s biggest cities has actually decreased recently, with New Orleans seeing a particularly steep drop in 2025 that has it on pace for the lowest number of killings in over five decades.

Trump deployed guard soldiers and active duty Marines in Los Angeles during the summer over the objections of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who sued and won a temporary block after a federal judge found the president’s use of the guard was likely unlawful.

The Trump administration appealed, and the block was put on hold by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate case is still underway, but the panel has indicated that it believes the administration is likely to prevail.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

 

Calls for Santos Pardon Surge after Diddy’s Light Sentence

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Calls for Santos Pardon Surge after Diddy’s Light Sentence

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Some Republican lawmakers urged President Donald Trump to pardon disgraced former Rep. George Santos after Sean “Diddy” Combs received a light sentence for far worse crimes.

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., made the calls in separate X posts on Friday, pointing directly to Combs’s four-year sentence on prostitution-related charges.

“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sentenced to LESS than [Santos],” Burchett wrote without explicitly calling for a pardon. “Where is the justice?”

Greene echoed Burchett’s sentiments but made the direct call for the pardon.

“Sean Diddy Combs gets 4 years in prison but George Santos got 7 years!!!” She wrote. “Oh and George is currently in solitary confinement and was expelled by a Republican controlled House of Representatives.”

She added, “I’m purely disgusted. George should be pardoned!”

Greene has repeatedly demanded a pardon for Santos, who was targeted by the Biden administration on wire fraud and identity theft charges. He was sentenced to seven years in federal prison and is locked away in solitary confinement.

Democrats openly celebrated Biden’s indictment of Santos as a political victory, as it gave them an opportunity to flip his congressional seat. At the time, Republicans held a razor-thin majority of just eight seats.

In an August interview on Newsmax, Trump did not rule out pardoning Santos, saying only that he hasn’t been asked to do so.

Santos, meanwhile, accused House Speaker Mike Johnson of blocking any pardon discussions, claiming Johnson feared it would hinder Republican chances in the 2026 elections.

Santos was expelled from the House before being convicted or pleading guilty to the Biden-led charges — a stark contrast to the treatment of Democrats like Rep. Henry Cuellar and now-former Sen. Bob Menendez, who both remained in office despite federal indictments.

Meanwhile, Rep. LaMonica McIver, another Democrat, has been indicted on multiple counts for assaulting federal immigration officers during a visit to a Newark detention facility. She still holds her seat.

 

Secret Service Allows ANOTHER Security Breach as Trump, Granddaughter Attend Golf Tournament

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Secret Service Allows ANOTHER Security Breach as Trump, Granddaughter Attend Golf Tournament

(Headline USA) As concerns about the thoroughness of its security measures continue to plague the U.S. Secret Service, another apparent breach on last week revealed ongoing vulnerabilities in the protection of President Donald Trump.

Melvin Eng, a detective with the New York Police Department, was suspended after sneaking onto Trump’s security detail at the Ryder Cup golf tournament in Long Island, N.Y., Fox News reported.

Eng was out on sick leave, but rather than staying home in bed he reportedly showed up in full tactical gear on the first day of the three-day event, which Trump was attending with his eldest granddaughter, Kai.

Eng was discovered after dropping his magazine clip in front of actual security and eventually escorted out, although some reports suggested that he may have returned for the tournament’s final day.

“During questioning, Detective Eng provided conflicting information about the reasons he was at the golf course,” state police spokesman Beau Duffy said in a release, according to the New York Post.

“After further investigation, it was determined that Detective Eng was not affiliated with any of the law enforcement security operations at the tournament,” Duffy added. “He was removed from the park and [the] NYPD was notified.”

Eng now faces administrative charges for “theft of services” due to his having been admitted to the tournament for free.

Initial reports indicated that Eng had showed up the day after Trump attended, but a police source told Fox News that Eng “got in there with his gun, past Secret Service, past the state police.”

It is unclear whether any disciplinary action or investigation would result for those who failed to properly screen Eng.

The episode occurred just a week after alarming security breaches during Trump’s address to the United Nations.

Trump’s security team seemed baffled when an escalator stopped just after First Lady Melania Trump stepped onto it, resulting in a momentary halt before the first couple proceeded to climb the stairs.

The White House said it was investigating the incident, which UN officials had reportedly joked about ahead of time, even leading the London Times to report on it.

Meanwhile, RealClearPolitics slammed the Secret Service specifically after a uniformed guard at the UN General Assembly appeared to fall asleep on the job and left his semiautomatic rifle unattended while taking a bathroom break.

The lapses come despite a recent uptick in left-wing political violence that has included fatal attacks on a Christian school, multiple ICE facilities holding illegal immigrants, and the Sept. 10 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

One Secret Service agent was subsequently fired for celebrating Kirk’s killing in a Facebook rant.

The agency has been hammered for its incompetence following the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on Trump during a rally in Butler, Pa., and narrowly averting a second attempt at Trump’s golf course in Palm Beach, Fla.

Would-be assassin Ryan Routh was found guilty last month in the latter plot and is expected to face sentencing in December.

Illegal Alien Wins Request for Hearing on Whether Smuggling Charges are Illegally ‘Vindictive’

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Illegal Alien Wins Request for Hearing on Whether Smuggling Charges are Illegally ‘Vindictive’

(Headline USA) A federal judge has concluded that the Department of Justice’s prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on human smuggling charges may be an illegal retaliation after he successfully sued the Trump administration over his deportation to El Salvador.

The case of Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien Salvadoran national who was a construction worker in Maryland, has become a proxy for the partisan struggle over President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration policy and mass deportation agenda.

U.S. District Court Judge Waverly Crenshaw late Friday granted a request by lawyers for Abrego Garcia and ordered discovery and an evidentiary hearing in Abrego Garcia’s effort to show that the federal human smuggling case against him in Tennessee is illegally retaliatory.

Crenshaw said Abrego Garcia had shown that there is “some evidence that the prosecution against him may be vindictive.” That evidence included statements by various Trump administration officials and the timeline of the charges being filed.

The departments of Justice and Homeland Security did not immediately respond to inquiries about the case Saturday.

In his 16-page ruling, Crenshaw said many statements by Trump administration officials “raise cause for concern,” but one stood out.

That statement by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, on a Fox News program after Abrego Garcia was charged in June, seemed to suggest that the Department of Justice charged Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful deportation case, Crenshaw wrote.

Blanche’s ”remarkable statements could directly establish that the motivations for (Abrego Garcia’s) criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights” to sue over his deportation “rather than a genuine desire to prosecute him for alleged criminal misconduct,” Crenshaw wrote.

Likewise, Crenshaw noted that the Department of Homeland Security reopened an investigation into Abrego Garcia days after the U.S. Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration must work to bring back Abrego Garcia.

Abrego Garcia was indicted on May 21 and charged June 6, the day the U.S. brought him from a prison in El Salvador back to the U.S. He pleaded not guilty and is now being held in Pennsylvania.

If convicted in the Tennessee case, Abrego Garcia will be deported, federal officials have said. A U.S. immigration judge has denied Abrego Garcia’s bid for asylum, although he can appeal.

The illegal alien from El Salvador has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years. 

In 2019, he was arrested by immigration agents. He requested asylum but was not eligible because he had been in the U.S. for more than a year. But the judge ruled he could not be deported to El Salvador, where he faced danger from a gang that targeted his family.

The human smuggling charges in Tennessee stem from a 2022 traffic stop. He was not charged at the time.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have denounced the criminal charges and the deportation efforts, saying they are an attempt to punish him for standing up to the administration.

Abrego Garcia contends that, while imprisoned in El Salvador, he suffered beatings, sleep deprivation and psychological torture. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has denied those allegations.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

Pritzker: Trump to Federalize Illinois National Guard

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Pritzker: Trump to Federalize Illinois National Guard

(Dan McCaleb, The Center Square) President Donald Trump will federalize 300 Illinois National Guard troops, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a statement Saturday.

“This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Pritzker said. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.”

Trump for weeks has said he was considering deploying members of the Illinois National Guard to Chicago to fight rampant crime there.

Last month, after a particularly violent weekend in the Windy City when 11 people were murdered, 28 were shot and a hundred were shot at the previous weekend, Trump criticized Pritzker for not taking the crime problem in the city seriously.

“That’s what I call dangerous, and Pritzker’s going out and saying, ‘We’ve got crime under control,’” Trump said, noting that additional FBI agents in the city helped but wasn’t enough.

“What you really need is our big, strong soldiers to get them into shape. We’re not letting Chicago fail,” Trump said.

But Pritzker maintains Chicago doesn’t need federal help.

“In the coming hours, the Trump Administration intends to federalize 300 members of the Illinois National Guard,” the governor said in the statement. “They will pull hardworking Americans out of their regular jobs and away from their families all to participate in a manufactured performance – not a serious effort to protect public safety. For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control.”

U.S. Immigration and Customes Enforcement agents conducting operations in the Chicago area have clashed with protesters in recent weeks.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Frday that two vehicles were used as weapons against ICE officers a day earlier.

The separate incidents happened in Bensenville and the other in Norridge. DHS said that two illegal aliens deliberately tried to ram and injure officers enforcing federal immigration law. The suspects are in custody with removal proceedings pending.

Clashes also have occurred at ICE’s Broadview facility. Saturday morning, DHS said its agents were surrounded by as many as 10 vehicles in Broadview One of the drivers was armed with a semi-automatic weapon, DHS said. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News that ICE agents “were forced to deploy their weapons and fire defensive shots” against an individual identified as a U.S. citizen.

But Pritzker, in his Saturday statement, insisted the ICE activity was “not in pursuit of justice, but all of it was in pursuit of social media videos. ​ 

“I want to be clear: there is no need for military troops on the ground in the State of Illinois. State, county, and local law enforcement have been working together and coordinating to ensure public safety around the Broadview ICE facility, and to protect people’s ability to peacefully exercise their constitutional rights. I will not call up our National Guard to further Trump’s acts of aggression against our people.”

Crime dropped significantly in Washington D.C. after Trump deployed National Guard troops there.

Trump Says U.S. in ‘Armed Conflict’ with Drug Cartels in Caribbean

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Trump Says U.S. in ‘Armed Conflict’ with Drug Cartels in Caribbean

(Brett Rowland, The Center Square) President Donald Trump told Congress that the U.S. is engaged in “armed conflict” with drug cartels in the Caribbean shortly after ordering four military strikes on suspected drug boats in the region.

“The President determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations,” according to the confidential notice the administration sent to Congress. Trump directed the U.S. Department of War to “conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict.” 

“The United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations,” the memo said.

Trump ordered military strikes on Sept. 2, Sept. 15, Sept. 19 and Oct. 3 on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. Trump said the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was using the boats to smuggle drugs to the U.S.

On his second day in office in his second term, Trump issued an executive order designating Mexican cartels, the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, and Salvadoran La Mara Salvatrucha (known as MS-13), as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists under the U.S. Constitution, Immigration and Nationality Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

The U.S. said the four boat strikes resulted in 21 deaths. The Sept. 2 attack killed 11. The strike on Sept. 15 killed three, as did the strike on Sept. 19. The Oct. 3 attack killed four. U.S. officials have released a few details about the strikes. Trump posted videos of two strikes on social media. He told reporters about the third. U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted a video of the fourth strike, which killed four people, on social media on Friday.

“Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route,” the secretary of War wrote. “These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”

David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, said the military strikes were a significant change in U.S. policy and could pose legal challenges.

“The strikes are both illegal and unconstitutional,” he told The Center Square. “The law is clear that the military is only authorized to intercept vessels to communicate with them and refer them to civilian law enforcement. The Constitution prohibits war without congressional authorization, and even in a war, the military may not intentionally kill civilians.”

After one of the U.S. strikes against a speedboat, agents from the Dominican Republic’s National Drug Control Directorate and the Dominican Republic Navy seized 377 packages of suspected cocaine about 80 nautical miles south of Beata Island, Pedernales province. 

Bier said President Barack Obama and Trump, during their first terms, used the military to kill suspected terrorists abroad, but not drug suspects.

“There is some precedent for the U.S. covertly helping foreign countries use their militaries to kill drug suspects, which was exposed in 2011 when the CIA helped kill a U.S. missionary in Peru,” he said.

However, Trump’s tactics won’t dent drug supplies in the U.S significantly, Bier said.

“It will certainly reduce drug trafficking by boats near Venezuela, but will do little to reduce total supply coming to the United States because drug trafficking is a global phenomenon with a variety of channels,” Bier told The Center Square.  

The White House said the president is protecting Americans.

“As we have said many times, the President acted in line with the law of armed conflict to protect our country from those trying to bring deadly poison to our shores, and he is delivering on his promise to take on the cartels and eliminate these national security threats from murdering more Americans,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said.

After the first boat strike on Sept. 2, Trump warned smugglers operating in the area.

“The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”

In late September, Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for a criminal investigation into Trump and other U.S. officials after the deadly strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. Petro said “unarmed young people are being shot at with missiles in the open seas” moments after taking the podium at the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City.

“Criminal proceedings must be opened against those officials, who are from the U.S., even if it includes the highest-ranking official who gave the order: President Trump,” Petro said.

Vice President J.D. Vance has defended the strikes over the objections of some members of his own party.

“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vance wrote Sept. 6 on social media.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., pushed back.

“Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the ‘highest and best use of the military.’ Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird? Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation?? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial,” Paul responded.

FBI’s Ties to Antifa-Linked SPLC Raise Questions about Domestic Color Revolution

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FBI’s Ties to Antifa-Linked SPLC Raise Questions about Domestic Color Revolution

(Headline USA) A recent report outlining the direct ties between the FBI and domestic terrorism accomplice the Southern Poverty Law Center led FBI Director Kashyap Patel to sever ties with the erstwhile civil rights organization.

Yet, questions remain as to what, exactly, the nature of that relationship was in the first place, and whether it was limited to the Biden Justice Department’s use of the SPLC to persecute political opponents or even more nefarious.

The embattled SPLC—which restructured in 2019 after allegations of racism and sexism forced the ouster of longtime president Morris Dees—came under additional scrutiny in September following an expose by investigative journalist Tyler O’Neil.

The report focused on the SPLC’s controversial “hate map” amid reports that it had issued a de-facto “fatwa” against Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk just a few months before his Sept. 10 assassination, as Federalist CEO Sean Davis observed.

It followed recent shocking reports that the Biden DOJ, under the direction of former Attorney General Merrick Garland, had targeted TPUSA and other conservative organizations while working in coordination with the SPLC, as part of its “Arctic Frost” operation.

O’Neil went even farther, linking the rebranded SPLC to Antifa, which President Donald Trump recently re-designated as a domestic terrorist organization.

The combination of outrageous disclosures about the group’s activities led prominent conservative influencers including Elon Musk, Jack Posobiec, Mike Cernovich and Alex Lorusso to press the FBI to cut its ties.

Patel agreed, announcing on Friday that the relationship first formally cultivated under disgraced FBI Director James Comey had come to an official close.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine,” he wrote in a post on X announcing the decision. “…That disgraceful record makes them unfit for any FBI partnership.”

O’Neil posted another X thread recounting the process and thanking Patel for taking action.

But some right-wing skeptics continue to question why it took so long, while asking what else the FBI’s partnership with the SPLC may have entailed.

Indeed, it appears that the SPLC may have been a sort of prototype for the NGO model frequently used by intelligence agencies and other federal bureaucrats to circumvent legal prohibitions, including First Amendment free speech protections and Fourth Amendment privacy rights.

The SPLC’s well-documented effort to eradicate the Ku Klux Klan through litigation in the 1980s coincided with the FBI’s efforts to infiltrate the white supremacist group, which had once been a leading voice in shaping the Democratic Party platform.

That relationship appears also to have remained intact during the Clinton administration, when SPLC informants were used in the investigation of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

The series of circular, incestuous interconnections spanning several decades calls to mind other recent scandals—notably the Russia-gate conspiracy, in which Comey and others used legitimate institutions such as the Washington Post and New York Times to launder false narratives devised by Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives in order to justify their investigations into the Trump administration.

Given the SPLC’s Antifa ties, it also raises serious questions about what role the FBI may have played in the 2020 George Floyd riots and subsequent anti-government protests against the Trump administration, pointing to the likelihood of a government-led domestic color revolution that culminated in the fraudulent 2020 election.

With Comey’s recent indictment and indications that former FBI Director Christopher Wray may have been complicit in the Jan. 6, 2021 psy-op at the U.S. Capitol, the truth about decades of seditious FBI activity may soon come to light—assuming the bureau under Patel is truly willing to hold its past self accountable.

Hamas Agrees to Release Hostages, Trump Calls on Israel to Stop Bombing

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Hamas Agrees to Release Hostages, Trump Calls on Israel to Stop Bombing

(Kyle Anzalone, Antiwar.com) UPDATE: In response to Hamas’s statement agreeing to release the hostages and entering into negotiations, President Donald Trump called on Israel to immediately cease bombing Gaza.

“Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly! Right now, it’s far too dangerous to do that. We are already in discussions on details to be worked out,” the President wrote on Truth Social.

Hamas responded to President Donald Trump’s 20-point proposal to end the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Hamas said it is willing to release all Israeli captives, turn administration in Gaza over to an independent Palestinian committee, and enter into negotiations to end the conflict. 

In a statement released on Friday, Hamas said it is willing to release the remaining 48 Israeli captives under the framework proposed by Trump. “Out of concern to stop the aggression and the genocide being inflicted upon our steadfast people in the Gaza Strip,” the group explained. “The movement announces its approval to release all prisoners of the occupation according to the exchange formula included in President Trump’s proposal.”

On Monday, Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House and released a 20-point proposal to end the war in Gaza. The deal would involve an immediate ceasefire followed by Hamas releasing all remaining Israeli captives. Once that happens, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Palestinians thrown in Israeli prisons after October 7th, 2023.

Trump’s proposal includes turning Gaza over to the control of apolitical Palestinians that will be overseen by an international “Board of Peace” that will include Trump as chair and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. 

Hamas said it is prepared to “immediately enter into negotiations, through the mediators, to discuss the details.”

Control of Gaza following the Israeli withdrawal may be a potential issue in reaching a final agreement. Hamas said, “The movement also reiterates its approval to hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian body composed of independents (technocrats).”

While Trump said Netanyahu had agreed to his proposal, it’s unclear whether Israel will be willing to implement the deal. The agreement called for a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the possibility of the Palestinian Authority taking over as the government in the Strip. 

Netanyahu has previously rejected the PA having any role in post-war Gaza. Additionally, after Trump announced his proposal, Netanyahu said, “Now the whole world, including the Arab and Muslim world, is pressuring Hamas to accept the terms that we created together with Trump, to bring back all the hostages — the living and the dead — while the IDF stays in the Strip.”

Hamas issued its response to Trump’s proposal after the President gave Hamas until Sunday evening to accept the deal or “all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas.”

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com. 

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