homeland security

WASHINGTON — The House passed a short-term measure Tuesday to fund the federal government into early December, a move designed to avoid a chaotic shutdown as lawmakers campaign for reelection.

Lawmakers needed to act before the fiscal year concludes at the end of September to avoid a funding lapse. They were determined not to bump up against that deadline during the campaign season following this past year’s historic shutdowns.

The House passed the bill by a vote of 370-48. The Senate has already overwhelmingly approved the measure, so it now moves to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.

“It gives the nation and our constituents certainty, certainty that the government will remain open, certainty that our service members will be paid,” said Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

A record 43-day shutdown occurred last fall when the two parties disagreed on renewing an expiring tax credit that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Then came the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which lasted 76 days before lawmakers agreed to fund much of the department but not its immigration enforcement operations.

Lawmakers were wary of a repeat before voters go to the polls. They also blamed the other party for the recent impasses.

“We’re going to avoid the threat of another Democratic shutdown,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters in advance of the vote.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the lead Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, encouraged her Democratic colleagues to vote for the measure during a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning.

She said the bill was much improved from the product that passed the House earlier this summer on a mostly party-line basis. For example, she said it prevents the Department of Homeland Security from transferring funds to the Border Patrol, and it delays a proposed rule that would give political appointees in the Trump administration more authority to stop federal grants from going out for programs they view as not in line with the president’s agenda. Those changes were made when the Senate approved its version of the bill.

Democrats fear the administration will use the proposed regulation on grants to steer money away from Democratic-led states. DeLauro called the delay an important first step, but said more must be done to block the policy from taking effect.

“Whether a community receives disaster relief should not depend on who they voted for in the last election,” DeLauro said.

The short-term measure funds federal agencies generally at current levels through Dec. 11. It will give lawmakers more time to find compromise on a full-year measure, though that will likely be quite difficult.

Republicans are seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending for the military while cutting most non-defense programs. Democrats say that’s a non-starter and insist on a bipartisan approach that treats domestic programs with parity.

Freking writes for the Associated Press.

British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos has been deported to the United Kingdom after his arrest by American immigration authorities.

The Department of Homeland Security said Saturday that Yiannopoulos was returned to his home country Friday after being accused of overstaying after entering the U.S. legally in May 2019. An immigration judge issued a final order of removal July 22 after he failed to show up for an immigration hearing, a Homeland Security spokesperson said.

Yiannopoulos was arrested Thursday at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in Louisiana and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“He chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws,” a Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement.

Yiannopoulos and his representatives did not respond to requests for comment, and he has not posted on the social platform X since Thursday.

Yiannopoulos is a well-known champion of conservative causes and has frequently taken provocative public positions criticizing feminism, Islam and immigrants. He has been especially supportive of President Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement policy, aimed at people in the country illegally.

“Zero immigration for the next 20 years. No ifs, no buts,” Yiannopoulos said on X last year.

Yiannopoulos’ arrest and deportation come amid a nationwide uptick in detentions as part of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

In social media posts, the Department of Homeland Security touted Yiannopoulos’ arrest and posted a booking photo of him. It added that it encourages people in the country illegally to leave voluntarily, saying the U.S. offers “$3,000 and a free flight to self-deport.”

“We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return,” the department said.

Collins writes for the Associated Press.

The San Diego Padres minor league catching coordinator is in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and will remain so “pending removal proceedings,” a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday in a statement.

Oswaldo Pirela, a former Texas Rangers minor league player, was detained Sunday morning at El Paso International Airport.

Pirela, 34, was flying to Phoenix, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. The Padres’ triple-A affiliate is the El Paso Chihuahuas, and Pirela was with the team during its home game Saturday night against the Salt Lake City Bees, an Angels affiliate.

The Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Pirela came to the United States from his native Venezuela in September 2014 and that his permission to remain expired Feb. 10, 2018.

Homeland Security said Pirela was not carrying his work permit at the time he was detained. Pirela’s brother Juan Pirela presented Phoenix multimedia news organization Arizona’s Family with Oswaldo’s work permit, which indicated it was issued in 2024 and is valid until 2029.

“It’s very hard. He’s authorized to work in the United States,” Juan Pirela said. “So, the same department, Homeland Security, issues a work permit but then somehow it’s not enough.”

The Homeland Security statement addressed the issue: “To be clear, work authorization or a pending application do NOT confer legal status in the United States.”

“In violation of our nation’s laws, [Pirela] overstayed his welcome. When approached by law enforcement officers, he was not in possession of legal documentation granting him status in the country. He will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings and will receive due process.

As a roving catching instructor, Pirela is based out of the Padres’ spring-training complex in Peoria, Ariz., and travels to the organization’s minor league affiliates in San Antonio, Fort Wayne, Ind., and Lake Elsinore in addition to El Paso. He spent the 2024 season as bench coach for the Class-A Lake Elsinore Storm and became the organization’s catching coordinator in 2025.

“We recently became aware of the detainment of minor league catching coordinator Oswaldo Pirela in El Paso, Texas,” the Padres club said in a statement. “We are working to gather additional information and will not have any further comment at this time.”

Pirela was signed by the Rangers at age 17 out of Barquisimeto, Venezuela, and played catcher, first base and the outfield from 2009 to 2011 for the team’s Dominican Republic Summer League affiliate.

PORTLAND, Maine — The person Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents targeted in Maine last month when an officer shot and killed a motorist was a roommate who was not subject to a final removal order, a Democratic congresswoman from the state said.

Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian national, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in a car near his Biddeford home on July 13. Rep. Chellie Pingree said during a hearing in Maine on Monday that ICE’s intended target was Durán Guerrero’s roommate, who was the owner of the car Durán Guerrero was driving.

Pingree called the discovery a “shocking revelation in clear contradiction to what ICE” and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have said about the shooting. She added that it was previously established Durán Guerrero was not the intended target and also did not have a final order of removal, but did have a pending asylum case and a valid work permit.

“Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero should be alive today,” Pingree said during the hearing. “More than a month later, there are still so many basic questions that remain unanswered by ICE and the Trump administration.”

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement late Monday that it stands by its prior assessment of the shooting. ICE was conducting “targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal,” a spokesperson for the agency said.

“We are not going to disclose law enforcement sensitive intelligence and methods. Nowhere did we state that Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero or his roommate were the target of the operation,” the spokesperson said.

The shooting of Durán Guerrero remains under investigation by the office of the Maine attorney general. Pingree was among several Democratic House members who spoke at a hearing in Biddeford on Monday to discuss ICE’s use of deadly force in the state. The Department of Homeland Security said at the time of the shooting that Durán Guerrero attempted to flee the scene and the ICE officer discharged his weapon because he feared for public safety.

Pingree and other Democratic members of Congress have also called for answers from Homeland Security about its training and vetting of agents after it was disclosed that the ICE officer involved in the shooting had a history of violent behavior and mental health issues. The shooting also appeared to lead to a policy change in which ICE would suspend most vehicle stops, but President Trump swiftly expressed opposition to that change.

Whittle writes for the Associated Press.

A U.S. soldier’s wife who spent more than a month in federal immigration detention said she is back home after officers removed her from a deportation flight to Brazil.

This month, the Associated Press highlighted Maisa Lopes Eliaser as one of dozens of spouses or parents of U.S. troops who had been detained after President Trump’s administration rolled back protections for military families amid its push for mass deportations. Following the AP’s reporting, a group of Congressional Democrats launched an investigation into deportations of military service members and their families.

Eliaser was placed on a deportation flight Wednesday to her native Brazil when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on the plane received a phone call about her mid-flight, she told the AP. She said she was then asked by an ICE officer whether she wanted to continue on to Brazil or go back to the U.S.

“Who made the call? We don’t know,” said Eliaser’s husband, Army Staff Sgt. Alexis Jaramillo. “But someone made the phone call, and then she came back.”

While other detainees were led off the plane in Brazil, Eliaser stayed on board and returned to Louisiana. ICE officers told her she was “famous” because there were videos about her case, she said.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Homeland Security previously told AP that Eliaser, 32, had been issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge on April 15, after overstaying the tourist visa she used to enter the U.S. in 2019.

Jaramillo, a 43-year-old aviation operations specialist who has served in the Army for more than a decade, took leave of his duties training soldiers in Fort Polk, La., to care for Eliaser’s 5-year-old son after she was detained on July 8.

Jaramillo said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former Navy officer, also looked into his wife’s case. Kelly’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“This family’s reunion is proof of what’s possible when people set politics aside and do right by those who serve,” Danitza James, who heads Repatriate Our Patriots, a nonprofit that supports military families facing deportation and helped with Eliaser’s case, said at a news conference. “We won’t stop until every military family facing detention gets the same chance at justice.”

Eliaser, who was detained in July while at an immigration appointment, has another appointment scheduled for Monday in an effort to reopen her case and advance her green card application. Jaramillo is a U.S. citizen, and the couple have been married since 2024.

Jaramillo said he has been told that there will be no further issues with Eliaser’s case, but the couple is still concerned.

“We are really, really, really scared about it, but you know, we have to go,” Jaramillo said. “I told the person who gave me the appointment, ‘Hey sir, don’t play with me, I’ve been through a lot.’”

Eliaser said she still is struggling to sleep and is afraid she will be sent back to the detention facility, where she said she was treated like “an animal.”

“It felt like I was in a nightmare,” Eliaser said. “I could not believe what was happening until I returned to my house. Day by day, I’m trying to recover from this trauma.”

There have been similar interventions in other high-profile cases over the last year. Annie Ramos, 22, was detained by immigration authorities as her husband, an Army staff sergeant, was preparing to deploy. She was released after a public outcry. Around the same time, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat and combat veteran, told the AP that she personally contacted Homeland Security to call for the release of Deisy Rivera Ortega, the immigrant wife of an Army sergeant who did three tours in Afghanistan, after learning about her case from advocacy groups. She eventually was released from custody.

Brook and Riddle write for the Associated Press.