ice

The Trump administration has deployed ICE agents to airports across the United States amid staffing issues and delays. It’s seen as a negotiating tactic in a funding dispute with Democrats, who describe it as a dangerous move.

March 23 (UPI) — President Donald Trump‘s border czar Tom Homan has confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will be deployed to U.S. airports starting Monday, despite strong opposition from unions and Democrats.

Homan told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that he was working on the plan’s execution with acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and Transportation Security Administration Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill.

“So, we’ll put together a plan today and we’ll execute it tomorrow,” he said.

On Sunday, Trump threatened to send ICE agents to U.S. airports over a protracted fight with Democrats over Department of Homeland Security funding.

Funding for DHS lapsed Jan. 31 after Congress failed to pass legislation to keep the department open, with Democrats are demanding reforms in response to federal immigration agents deploying aggressive tactics during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The partial shutdown is affecting the TSA, which is under the DHS. Airports are reporting long lines and congestion due to a shortage in TSA staff, who haven’t been paid since DHS funding ran out.

Trump threatened on his Truth Social platform that ICE will perform security at airports where they will arrest undocumented migrants, raising questions about whether the agents are being sent only to relieve pressure on TSA or to carry out immigration enforcement at major travel hubs.

Homan on Sunday sought to frame the move as a way to alleviate congestion and move long lines of travelers though security.

Asked if ICE had the specialized training to inspect bags and passengers, Homan said he doesn’t expect the immigration agents to be ‘looking at an X-ray machine, because we’re not trained in that.”

“But there are certain parts of security that TSA is doing that we can move them from those jobs, and put them in the specialized jobs to help those lines,” he said, adding that discussions with the TSA concerning what security roles ICE agents would perform were ongoing.

“We will have a plan by the end of today … what airports we’re staring with and where we’re sending them,” he said, suggesting that the worst affected airport will be given priority.

“So it’s a work in progress, but we will be at airports tomorrow helping TSA move those lines along.”

He also confirmed that ICE agents will perform immigration enforcement at the airport, underscoring that their deployment is mainly to aid TSA.

Republicans have attempted to characterize the shutdown as Democrats prioritizing undocumented immigrants over airport security, while the Democrats have blamed Republicans for blocking more than half a dozen attempts to pass legislation to fund the TSA, including on Saturday. The GOP lawmakers say they want to fund the entirety of the DHS.

“Instead of sending ICE agents to harass travelers at airports, why don’t Republicans get their act together and agree to pay TSA workers like we’ve asked them to SEVEN TIMES now?” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement on X on Sunday.

Vice President JD Vance accused Schumer of continuing “to hold TSA funding hostage.”

“Thankfully, ICE will bring sanity to our airports starting tomorrow, but it’s far past time for Democrats to fund DHS,” he said.

Following Homan’s interview, Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., accused the Trump administration of using ICE “to strike fear and terror on our airports.”

“Mr. President, it’s pretty simple: if you want TSA agents to get paid (as they should), then pass the Democrats’ bill to fund TSA,” he said on X. “No need for your out-of-control paramilitary to do yet another thing they aren’t trained to do.”

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has been informed it is among those where ICE agents will be deployed Monday, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said in a statement.

The agents will report to the TSA and will be assigned to line management and crowd control within domestic terminals, he said, adding that federal officials have indicated that they are not intended to conduct immigration enforcement activities.

“Our administration remains hopeful the Federal Government can soon find a way to fully fund TSA and pay their employees to resume standard operations at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — and all airpots we connect to,” he said.

The deployment of ICE agents is also being lambasted by the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest government worker union in the United States.

It accused the Trump administration of sending ICE agents to do the jobs of the more than 50,000 TSA employees who have worked without pay for more than five weeks.

It also expressed worry that the ICE agents will be undertrained for what they may be required to do, arguing that stationing them at security checkpoints will create security risks.

“Our members at TSA have been showing up every day, without a paycheck, because they believe in the mission of keeping the flying public safe,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.

“They deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be.”

The leaders of several flight attendant unions also criticized the Trump administration on Sunday for using the TSA and frontline security officers “as pawns in this dangerous game,” stating that the DHS can use its billions of dollars in discretionary funding to pay them.

“This latest threat of ICE invasion at the airports is another distraction from solutions that protect Americans,” the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 135 and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said in a joint statement.

What began as a social media post from President Trump on Saturday has grown quickly into a full-scale plan to deploy ICE agents to U.S. airports.

Amid a partial government shutdown, TSA lines have grown to be hours long at some U.S. airports, creating problems for travelers across the country. Call-out rates have started to increase at some airports, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said at least 376 TSA agents have quit since the partial shutdown began Feb. 14.

White House border advisor Tom Homan said that ICE plans to dispatch agents to airports as soon as Monday, and that he was working with other officials to determine where to send agents.

“It’s a work in progress,” Homan said during a Sunday appearance on CNN. “But we will be at the airports tomorrow helping TSA move those lines along.”

Homan stressed that ICE agents would provide support where possible, so that TSA staffers could better fulfill specialized positions.

“I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine, because they are not trained in that,” Homan said.

On Saturday, President Trump posted to social media, “If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before.”

The pushback to the White House plans was immediate.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security, released a statement that read, “Masked, armed police at travel checkpoints is a hallmark of dystopian movies. Now, Donald Trump is threatening to bring this tool of fascism to America. He is manufacturing chaos at airports for political leverage and trying to force Democrats to accept unaccountable secret police at security checkpoints around the country.”

Also speaking to CNN on Sunday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “The last thing that the American people need are for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize or, in some instances, kill them. We’ve already seen how ICE conducts itself.”

Representatives from Los Angeles International Airport did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for Orange County’s John Wayne Airport said she was not currently aware of any communication or Homeland Security guidance on the proposed plan.

A spokesperson for San Francisco International Airport said airport officials have not yet received anything specific from Homeland Security about a deployment of ICE agents. He said SFO security personnel are not part of TSA, and as a result, the airport has not had any checkpoint backups.

March 21 (UPI) — President Donald Trump threatened to send U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents to airports to cover for the Transportation Security Administration unless Democrats agree to Republican funding plans for the Department of Homeland Security.

On Truth Social, the president posted: “If the Democrats do not allow for Just and Proper Security at our Airports, and elsewhere throughout our Country, ICE will do the job far better than ever done before! The Fascist Democrats will never protect America, but the Republicans will.”

In an earlier post, he said ICE agents at airports “will do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia, who have totally destroyed, with the approval of a corrupt Governor, Attorney General, and Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, the once Great State of Minnesota.”

Former acting ICE Director John Sandweg told The Washington Post that the threat is being used as a punishment.

“This is again an example, it seems to me, of the president seeking to utilize ICE in a way that achieves political goals, almost as a punishment,” Sandweg said. “The operations, to me, don’t seem to be designed to focus on public safety.”

The DHS, which includes TSA, shut down on Feb. 14 because Congress couldn’t agree on a funding bill for the department. Democrats don’t want to fund it until guardrails are put on the agency, and Republicans haven’t agreed to Democrats’ demands.

Because of this, TSA workers have been working without pay for more than a month. Some are quitting or taking days off work, creating long lines at airports.

Earlier on Saturday, billionaire Elon Musk offered to pay the TSA salaries during the shutdown.

“I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country,” Musk said on X. Axios reported that based on TSA’s headcount, it would cost him more than $40 million per week. The White House didn’t respond to Musk’s offer.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Saturday told Republicans to support a Democratic bill to fund TSA. He said airport delays have reached a “boiling point.”

“If you want TSA workers to get paid, then vote yes,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement that Trump should focus on his own party.

“Surely, the next thing people want after waiting hours in long TSA lines is to get wrongfully detained by ICE,” she said. “Here’s an idea: instead of sidelining TSA agents and sending ICE to harass travelers, the president should tell Republicans to stop blocking our bill to pay TSA.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Saturday that he will order federal immigration officers to take a role in airport security starting Monday unless Democrats agree on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

In a pair of social media posts, Trump first threatened and then said he had made plans to put officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in airports if the congressional standoff continues. He made the announcement as a partial shutdown contributes to long lines to pass through screening at some of the nation’s largest airports.

The president suggested ICE agents would bring the administration’s immigration crackdown into the nation’s airports, promising to arrest “all Illegal Immigrants.”

“I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday, and have already told them to, ‘GET READY. NO MORE WAITING, NO MORE GAMES!’” Trump wrote while spending the weekend in Florida.

The move appears to be a pointed effort to expand the type of immigration enforcement that has become a sticking point in Congress. Democrats pledged to oppose funding for the Department of Homeland Security unless changes were made in the wake of a crackdown in Minnesota that led to the fatal shootings of two protesters. Democrats are asking for better identification for federal law enforcement officers, a new code of conduct for those agencies and more use of judicial warrants, among other measures.

The Minnesota operation was tied in part to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. On Saturday, Trump said ICE officers sent to airports would focus on arresting immigrants from Somalia who are in the United States illegally. Repeating his criticism of Somalis, he said they “totally destroyed” Minnesota.

“If the Democrats do not allow for Just and Proper Security at our Airports, and elsewhere throughout our Country, ICE will do the job far better than ever done before,” Trump said.

Trump’s posts did not offer additional detail on how ICE would take a role in airport security and what it meant for the Transportation Security Administration, which screens passengers and luggage for hazardous items.

The vast majority of TSA employees are considered essential and continue to work during the funding lapse, but they are doing so without pay. Call-out rates have started to increase at some airports, and Homeland Security said at least 376 have quit since the partial shutdown began Feb. 14.

On Saturday, in a rare weekend session, the Senate rejected a motion by Democrats to take up legislation to reopen TSA and pay workers who are now going without paychecks. Republicans argue that they need to fund all parts of the Department of Homeland Security, not just certain ones. A bill to fund the agency failed to advance in the Senate on Friday.

There were signs of progress, though, with the restarting in recent days of stalled talks between Democrats and the White House. On Saturday, Republican and Democratic senators were set to meet for a third consecutive day with White House officials behind closed doors as Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York spoke of “productive conversations.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) urged the bipartisan group to act quickly. He has said that Democrats and the White House need to find compromise as lines at airports have grown.

“If that group that’s meeting can’t come up with a solution really quickly, things are going to get worse and worse,” Thune said Saturday.

Binkley writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

DALLAS — A federal jury Friday convicted nine people — eight on terrorism charges — over a shooting at a Texas immigration facility that federal prosecutors tied to antifa, the decentralized far-left movement that has become a target of the Trump administration.

One person was also found guilty of attempted murder after prosecutors say he opened fire last summer outside the Prairieland Detention Center outside Fort Worth, wounding a police officer. The Justice Department called the violence an attack plotted by antifa operatives, but attorneys for the accused denied that characterization, saying there were no antifa associations and that there was merely a demonstration with fireworks before gunshots broke out.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of President Trump, presided over the nearly three-week trial in Fort Worth. It was closely followed by legal experts and critics who called the proceedings a test of the lengths the government can go to punish protesters.

FBI Director Kash Patel had said the case was the first time charges of providing material support to terrorists had targeted people accused of being antifa members.

“Today’s verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America’s streets,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement.

Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not an organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

Protesters denied having antifa ties

Defense attorneys told jurors that there was no plan for violence on July 4 outside the facility in Alvarado.

Of the nine defendants on trial, eight faced the charge of providing material support to terrorists, among other charges. The ninth defendant, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, was charged with corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents. He was found guilty of both.

Sanchez Estrada’s attorney, Christopher Weinbel, said he can’t believe jurors “came to this conclusion.” Weinbel said his client had deployed as a member of the U.S. Army several times and he’d hoped what he sacrificed for the country “meant something.”

“But I feel like it turned its back on justice with this. … The U.S. lost today with this verdict,” Weinbel said.

Prosecutor Shawn Smith told jurors during closing arguments that the group’s actions — including bringing firearms and first aid kits and wearing body armor — were all signs of nefarious intent. He said they practiced “antifa tactics” and were “obsessed with operational security.”

Attorneys for the defendants have said that there was no planned ambush and that protesters who brought firearms did so for their own protection — in a state with very lenient gun laws.

A test of 1st Amendment rights

The terrorism charges followed Trump’s order last fall to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Those charges did not require a tie to any organization, and there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. That’s in part because organizations operating within the United States are protected by broad 1st Amendment rights.

Critics of the Justice Department’s case have said the outcome could have wide-reaching effects on protests.

“That opposition is something that the government wants to squash, so a case like this helps the government kind of see how far they can go in criminalizing constitutionally protected protests and also helps them kind of intimidate, increase the fear, hoping that folks in other cities then will think twice over protesting,” said Suzanne Adely, interim president of the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive legal group.

Trial focused on shots fired

Attorneys for the defendants have said most protesters began leaving when two guards from the center came outside. That was before any shots were fired.

Prosecutors said Benjamin Song, a former Marine Corps reservist, yelled, “Get to the rifles,” and opened fire, striking one police officer who had just pulled up to the center.

Though it was Song who opened fire, prosecutors charged several other protesters with attempted murder of an officer and discharging a firearm, but they were found not guilty. The prosecution had argued that from the group’s planning, it was foreseeable to those others that a shooting could happen.

The officer who was shot, Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross, testified that when responding to the scene he saw a person clad in all-black with their face covered and carrying a rifle. He told jurors he was shot with a round that went into his shoulder and out of his neck.

Song’s attorney, Phillip Hayes, told jurors during closing arguments that there wasn’t a call to arms before Gross arrived on the scene and “aggressively” pulled out his firearm. Hayes suggested that Song’s shots were “suppressive fire” and that a ricochet bullet hit the officer.

Leading up to the trial, several people pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists after being accused of supporting antifa. They face up to 15 years in prison at sentencing.

Some of them testified for the prosecution, including Seth Sikes, who said he went to the detention center because he wanted to bring some joy to those held inside.

“I felt like I was doing the right thing,” he said.

Stengle writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Republican and Democratic senators vented their frustrations with the lack of progress in funding the Department of Homeland Security, which is resulting in more Americans enduring long lines at airports around the country. It’s a problem that is expected to intensify as the impasse enters its fourth week.

Democrats stressed they were willing to fund some of Homeland Security, but not Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection, without changes in their operations. Republicans made clear that some of the Democratic demands were a non-starter. The result was that each party blocked the other’s proposal for temporarily resolving the standoff during an hours-long debate Wednesday on the Senate floor.

The stark divide over a shutdown that began on Feb. 14 was acknowledged by members on both sides of the political aisle.

“We are in a negotiation. However, we are not close,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said at one point. “You may think this is some issue that we think we’re going to turn to our political advantage, but I promise you, when we saw Renee Good and Alex Pretti killed, this became an issue that was beyond politics.”

“And there are a lot of us who are not going to provide resources to this agency that is acting in such a ways that makes citizens of the United States so unsafe.”

Some Republicans were just as adamant that they oppose some of the changes Democrats are seeking to make.

“Let me be clear, we are going to do nothing — nothing — that kneecaps ICE’s ability to enforce our immigration laws,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.).

Following the longest federal shutdown in the country’s history last year, Congress completed work on 11 of this year’s 12 appropriations bills. Only the bill for Homeland Security remains outstanding.

Democrats are seeking several changes at the department that include prohibiting ICE enforcement operations at sensitive locations like schools and churches, allowing independent investigations into alleged wrongdoing, requiring warrants to be signed by judges before federal agents can forcibly enter private homes or other nonpublic spaces without consent, and requiring agents to wear identification and remove their masks.

A push for more talks

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said his side has made repeated overtures to Democrats on a funding bill. He said the last offer on Homeland Security funding came from the White House nearly two weeks ago and there has been no response from the Democrats.

“Usually, around here, in order to get a deal, there has to be a negotiation where the two sides sit down together,” Thune said. “And my understanding is that has been completely rebuffed by the senator from Washington.”

The senator Thune was referring to, Sen. Patty Murray, the lead Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she’s continued to talk with Republican colleagues, but those aren’t “real negotiations.” The White House needs to be at the table for that to occur. She said she needed assurance that Stephen Miller, the influential White House deputy chief of staff, would not upend any agreements that senators reach.

“I am willing to talk to people, but I’m not willing to sit in a room, have coffee, give away a few things and have Stephen Miller override whatever we all agree to,” Murray said. “ … We need to know the White House is serious.”

Homeland Security has been central to President Trump’s sweeping changes in immigration enforcement. Under Trump, the number of people ICE arrests and detains each month has climbed dramatically. The tactics that ICE has employed have generated alarm among Democrats, and some Republicans have also called for a more “strategic” approach.

During bipartisan negotiations earlier this year, appropriators agreed to a Homeland Security funding bill that did include more resources for de-escalation training and $20 million to outfit immigration enforcement agents with body-worn cameras. But that deal unraveled after the Pretti shooting in Minneapolis.

“My side was not going to stand down and say, ‘oh well, nothing happened,’” Murray said.

For the second time in two weeks, Murray offered a proposal to fund all of Homeland Security except for ICE and Customs and Border Protection, but Republicans objected.

Similarly, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) offered a proposal to fund all of Homeland Security for two weeks so that federal workers could get paid and government operations could continue while the two sides negotiate their differences on immigration enforcement. This time, Democrats objected.

The result was the standoff continues, but lawmakers were at least talking to each other, perhaps one small sign of progress.

Shutdown strains air travel

The large majority of the more than 260,000 employees at Homeland Security continue to work but are going unpaid. It’s the second time in recent months they’ve had to work without pay after last fall’s record, 43-day shutdown. The most visible sign of the shutdown has been a shortage of Transportation Security Administration screeners at airports.

Houston’s secondary airport weathered the worst problems, with lines consistently lasting over three hours for much of Sunday and Monday. Passengers also had to wait more than an hour to get through security at several other airports, including in New Orleans and Atlanta.

Homeland Security in a social media post Wednesday blamed Democrats for a shutdown that “has led to HOURS long security lines at airports across the country, leading Americans to miss their spring break flights.”

Trade groups are also worried about the economic impact of the travel delays. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called on Congress to quickly approve a funding bill and end the department’s shutdown.

“Blocking operational funding and paychecks for those who help us travel safely is wrong and strains the air travel system,” said Neil Bradley, the business group’s executive vice president and chief policy officer.

Freking writes for the Associated Press.

Her gleeful cruelty was matched only by the audacity of her incompetence.

Packaged in cosplay costumes — cowgirl, solider, even firefighter and pilot — we were supposed to see her as strong. But far from the mother of dragons she seems to envision herself as, she came across as the killer of Cricket (poor pup), a childish narcissist in a deadly serious job.

It was so over the top, you don’t even need a name. You know who I’m talking about. So there’s little wonder that when President Trump dumped Kristi Noem as the head of Homeland Security this week, much of America — even a bipartisan slice, I dare say — reacted much like the residents of Oz when the house landed on the wicked witch.

From late-night talk shows to the halls of power, there was more than a bit of celebration, and some actually reasonable schadenfreude. Normally, the misfortune of others isn’t something I pile on, but oh, did that woman earn some scorn.

But while I’m not one to discourage a moment of joy in these troubling days, Noem’s unceremonious firing and what comes next likely won’t provide the relief and reset many are hoping for — or are claiming this is. For all the chaos and pain that federal agents from various departments have caused under Noem’s leadership, there’s every reason to believe Trump has plans to continue and even expand his deportation efforts, and maybe even use these poorly trained, poorly vetted troops to impose his will on the next election.

What we are witnessing, rather than any acknowledgment of policy gone awry, is spotlight envy from a petty president who doesn’t like to share attention, and a backroom concession that maybe optics do matter when you’re attempting to cram white nationalism onto a pluralist country.

It was, according to Fox News and other media, a claim under oath that Trump authorized Noem to spend more than $200 million on commercials promoting herself instead of him that got her canned. Pointing to just how deeply unpopular Noem made herself even within the Trump-verse, this death knell came courtesy of a set-up by a GOP senator, John Kennedy (R-La.), who walked Noem to her own demise with awe-inspiring political skill.

After forcing Noem to claim on the record multiple times that Trump knew about and approved the mega-spend on Noem’s ludicrously over-produced ads (while also raising questions about the contract and who benefited), Kennedy — almost certainly knowing Trump would see it — laid this dig on her with dripping Southern knife-in-the-back charm.

“To me, it puts the president in a terribly awkward spot,” Kennedy drawled, likely implanting grievance directly into the president’s brain. “I’m not saying you’re not telling the truth. It’s just hard for me to believe, knowing the president as I do, that you said, ‘Mr. President, here’s some ads I’ve cut, and I’m going to spend $220 million … running them,’ that he would have agreed to that.”

Soon after, Trump posted on social media that Noem was out. I bring this up because it wasn’t, after all, the substance of Noem’s actions that ultimately got her fired. In that same hearing on Capitol Hill, Democrats blasted Noem for the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis and her subsequent false portrayal of them as domestic terrorists; the conditions inside our ever-expanding network of detention centers that have led to deaths; and even her mile-high airplane bedroom where she may or may not be conducting an extramarital affair.

None of that seems to have bothered Trump. It was her self-promotion. And it was that same self-promotion, the constant demanding of attention, that likely also ultimately convinced those around Trump to dump her — because it was adding to the deep unpopularity of immigration roundups that have been dragging down Trump’s approval ratings and which therefore could hurt the midterm chances of down-ballot Trumpers.

Last month, a Quinnipiac poll found that 58% of voters wanted Noem removed, and almost 60% of voters disapproved of Trump’s immigration policies.

Noem was the public face of that disapproval, strutting forward with arrogance in the face of public censure, a veritable clown show of ineptitude. With her ouster, and the possible replacement by another Trump stalwart, Oklahoma first-term Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Trump removes the most visible and annoying sign of the unpopularity of his policies.

While pugnacious (he’s a former MMA fighter) and happy to create his own questionable headlines, Mullin is also far more low-key than Noem, and knows who the spotlight belongs to. He is almost certain to put a more palatable face on deportations and detentions (for some anyway) simply by not being so thirsty for press. A low bar, but there you have it.

But Mullin has made it clear that he backs the most extreme immigration policies Trump world can offer, and has little difference of opinion from Stephen Miller, the architect of this bleak moment, who seems to be running things slightly off screen.

The risk now is that Mullin can continue these policies, even expand them, with less scrutiny simply because he’s less offensive than Noem. Detention centers are being built at breakneck speed. In Arizona, ICE has begun charging legal immigrants with a Cold War-era law if they don’t carry their papers with them at all times. The Department of Justice is gutting the ability to appeal deportations, in an effort to hasten them without recourse. Nothing is changing — except the speed and force with which ICE is moving forward.

And Trump has doubled down on claims that illegal immigrants are responsible for massive voter fraud, laying the groundwork for some sort of intervention in the upcoming election. Election deniers have been installed in key positions — Mullin himself is one of them.

So far from a reset, Noem’s removal is a retrenching — an effort to remove our focus from the deeply troubling link between immigration policy and the threat to democracy while actually grinding forward on that dark path.

Because Noem was a train wreck we couldn’t help but watch, at a moment when the government would prefer we stop looking.

The judge was perplexed.

“Why were state law enforcement officers excluded?” U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder wanted to know.

The judge pressed California Deputy Atty. Gen. Cameron Bell to explain the thinking behind a pair of trailblazing new laws meant to unmask the federal immigration agents patrolling Golden State streets and compel them to identify themselves.

One of the laws required all law enforcement operating in the state to visibly display identification while on duty, with narrow exclusions for plainclothes, undercover and SWAT details. It applied to everyone else, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

But the other law, a ban on masks worn by on-duty law enforcement officers, applied only to local cops and federal agents, with a broad exemption for the California Highway Patrol and other state peace officers.

Snyder wanted to know: Why were the laws different?

She never got an answer. Bell said she couldn’t comment on the actions of the Legislature.

State Sen. Scott Wiener attends the California Democratic Party convention in San Francisco in February.

(Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)

In the halls of the statehouse last year, Sen. Scott Wiener’s (D-San Francisco) No Secret Police Act and Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez’s (D-Alhambra) No Vigilantes Act were referred to as “legislative twins,” a nod to their shared gestation and conjoined legal fate. If passed, both would immediately be challenged by the Trump administration.

That’s precisely what happened. Both measures became law — but only the ID law survived its first court battle, sending state legislators back to the drawing board on the mask ban.

Polls show unmasking ICE is overwhelmingly popular with voters, and both Wiener and Gov. Gavin Newsom took credit for getting the bill passed.

But behind the scenes, according to nearly two dozen sources familiar with the legislative process who spoke to The Times, a fight had been brewing between the two Democrats.

Days before the amendment deadline last summer, Newsom’s office proposed changes to Wiener’s mask ban that, according to legal experts and opponents, would have exempted most ICE and Customs and Border Protection operations from the bill. The governor’s team denies that was the intent of their proposal. The resulting compromise exempted state peace officers from the law instead.

Snyder struck it down on Feb. 9, writing that she was “constrained” to do so because the exemption of state police “unlawfully discriminates against federal officers.”

Interviews with more than 20 lawmakers, policy advisors, law enforcement and legal experts show how the Labor Day weekend deal came together, ensuring both Wiener and the governor a political victory that in short order became a court triumph for the president.

There are now more than a dozen similar bills winding through statehouses from Olympia, Wash., to Albany, N.Y., as legislators try to rein in a practice the majority of Americans see as dangerous and corrosive. In Sacramento, similar efforts are underway to pass a narrower version of the law, and both Newsom and Wiener have said they were proud to make California the first state to pass an ICE mask ban.

Both sides said the legislative process is messy, and that eleventh-hour amendment fights are inevitable in a statehouse where more than 900 bills were passed and close to 800 signed into law last year.

Yet neither the governor’s office nor the legislator’s team has offered clear answers for why both accepted a last-minute change on a nationally watched bill that each was informed could kneecap the law’s constitutional standing in court.

“Seeing the carve-out, I was immediately really surprised,” said Bridget Lavender, staff attorney at the State Democracy Research Initiative, the nation’s leading expert on the myriad legal efforts to unmask ICE across the U.S. “That’s ultimately what doomed it.”

Others were more blunt.

“When I saw the final bill I said, ‘What happened here?’” said one prominent constitutional scholar, who asked not to be identified because they were advising several other state legislatures on similar mask ban efforts. “I can’t believe this happened.”

Legally, the mask ban was always going to be a cat fight. Law enforcement groups loathed it. Constitutional scholars were wary. The Justice Department contends both the mask ban and the ID law illegally interfere with the operation of the federal government, a violation of the Constitution’s supremacy clause, while California likens them to highway speed limits, which apply to everyone equally.

“There is a very strong argument that the law is constitutional so long as it applies to all law enforcement,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berekely Law School and an early champion of the original No Secret Police Act, known in Sacramento as SB 627.

Others saw it differently.

“It’s a very complicated question as to whether states can enact law enforcement policies that bind the federal government,” said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law. “The answer [here] is probably not. I regret that’s the law, but I’m pretty sure that’s the law.”

Everyone agreed, the Golden State would set the precedent.

“All eyes were really on California,” Lavender said.

Judge Snyder agreed with the state, upholding the ID law. Judges for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sharply questioned both the federal government and California in a hearing Tuesday, repeatedly emphasizing the lack of clear precedent and constitutional uncertainty of the law.

“California has done something that we just haven’t seen before,” said Judge Jacqueline Nguyen.

Most scholars believe it will ultimately be settled by the Supreme Court.

The mask ban would be on the same track now, if not for the state police exemption.

“We knew we really had to thread that needle very carefully,” said state Sen. Patricia Fahy of New York, whose mask ban bill could soon be fast-tracked in Albany. “You had to put all law enforcement in it. I say that as a non-lawyer, but I knew that.”

Wiener knew it too. A Harvard-trained lawyer and a former deputy city attorney for San Francisco, he’d rebuffed early requests to exempt state and local officers from the bill and circulated Chemerinsky’s July 23 op-ed in the Sacramento Bee explaining the necessity of a universal ban, including to the governor’s team.

The state’s powerful law enforcement unions were livid. They railed against the bill in public and in the Legislature, testifying relentlessly about the harm that would flow to them from a ban — including being required to enforce it against armed federal agents.

“The last thing you want is two people with firearms on their hips getting into an argument,” said Marshall McClain, a regional director in the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California, among the state’s richest and most powerful lobbying groups.

Law enforcement objections shaped the changes the governor’s legislative office sought just days before the Sept. 5 amendment deadline, according to a stakeholder involved in those discussions.

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference in Los Angeles in 2024.

(Eric Thayer / Associated Press)

The most controversial ask from Newsom’s team was an exemption for all types of officers engaged in “warrant and arrest related operations” — precisely the type of enforcement Alex Pretti was filming when masked CBP agents tackled him to the ground and shot him to death in Minneapolis last month.

The governor’s office also sought an exemption for all officers engaged in “crowd management, intervention, and control” — the work ICE agent Jonathan Ross was doing when he shot and killed Renee Good less than three weeks earlier.

“We were working to ensure state officer safety and operational effectiveness, not exempt ICE,” said Diana Crofts-Pelayo, Newsom’s chief deputy director of communications.

Yet California Deputy Solicitor Gen. Mica Moore told the 9th Circuit on Tuesday that the state’s ID law only applies to officers engaged in “arrest or detention operations or … crowd control” — activities she characterized as central to its purpose.

Rather than swallow bad terms or risk Newsom’s veto, Wiener countered with the state police carve-out — a move constitutional experts advised him would leave the law at least some chance of survival.

The governor’s legislative team quickly accepted, leaving Bell and the attorney general’s office on the hook to defend the exemption.

Boosters argue that even with its fatal flaw, California’s law advanced such bans nationally in a pivotal moment last September.

“The politics have changed dramatically,” said Hector Villagra, vice president of policy advocacy for MALDEF, one of the mask ban’s sponsors. “[Today] people realize this is not normal in a democracy like ours.”

WASHINGTON — 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.”

“What we’ve seen is a disaster under your leadership, Ms. Noem, a disaster,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. “The fact is you can’t even admit to a mistake. It looks like an investigation is going to prove that Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back.”

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.

“We’re not going after the people who did that damage at the expense of running numbers that Stephen Miller wants out of the White House,” he said. “We just want numbers. We want 1,000 a day, 6,000 a day, 9,000 a day. Because numbers matter, right? No, they don’t matter. Quality matters.”

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) also brought up Pretti and Good: “Did you determine whether there was any basis for the sensational claim, a claim that proved to be utterly false, that these two victims were engaged in domestic terrorism?” he asked.

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.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) pointedly asked about a $200-million ad campaign promoting immigration enforcement — a campaign that features Noem and was awarded to a firm led by a friend. Such spending “troubles me,” he said, adding, “I just can’t agree with that, Madam Secretary. My research shows you did not bid this out.”

Noem maintained that Trump directed the messaging strategy and argued it has been “extremely effective” in deterring illegal immigration. She said she “didn’t have anything to do with picking those contractors.”

The back-and-forth became increasingly heated as Kennedy also peppered Noem for characterizing Good and Pretti as domestic terrorists.

“What got my attention was that you blamed those statements on Mr. Stephen Miller,” Kennedy said, referencing an Axios report quoting Noem.

She dodged the line of questioning, saying the sources Axios used in the report were “anonymous,” and, by her logic, not credible.

“This wasn’t anonymous. It was you,” Kennedy said. “They’re quoting you on the record saying it was Stephen.”

On numerous occasions throughout the hearing, the secretary was asked about her purchase of two luxury Gulfstream G700 jets at a combined cost of $200 million in taxpayer funds.

Reportedly designed by New York designer Peter Marino, the planes include private bedroom suites with queen-size beds, bathrooms with stand-up showers and electric bidets, and a lounge with a wet bar and wine chiller, according to images obtained by NBC.

Noem argued the purchases were authorized by Congress for executive travel and deportation operations.

In another testy exchange, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons pressed Noem over recent statements that she planned to station ICE officers at polling locations in November, to “make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders.” She said her department had no such plan in place but fell short of committing to ruling it out.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) endorsed investigations into ICE shootings, though his statements were largely designed to cast Noem in a favorable light.

“I’d like to make sure if there was a bad shooting as documented as such, and people pay a price. But I will not apologize to anybody in this room to try to clean up the mess that Biden started, and you empowered,” he said.

Democrats, meanwhile, accused Noem of presiding over “thuggish” and “illegal” enforcement tactics and demanded independent investigations into several incidents throughout the U.S.

Accusing Noem of routinely making false statements about ICE shooting victims while impeding state, local, and independent investigations, Schiff cited an episode in which immigration agents shot U.S. citizen and Chicago resident Marimar Martinez. In November, a federal judge raised concerns that agents mishandled or destroyed key physical evidence in the case.

“Our internal investigations are following the same policies as they always have,” Noem responded.

“Will you take some responsibility?” Schiff said. “How is the public supposed to believe anything your agency says or finds?”

Over 180 lawmakers have co-sponsored articles of impeachment against Noem. Tillis and Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski last month called for Noem to resign or face impeachment by Congress.

On Tuesday, Tillis said her responses to the committee amounted to stonewalling. “That’s a failure of leadership, and that is why I’ve called for your resignation,” he said.

“Sinners,” the blockbuster film that has been a major contender during awards season, was the dominant winner at the 57th NAACP Image Awards.

The film scored trophies for outstanding motion picture and most of the acting awards, including breakthrough performance, awarded to Miles Caton. Michael B. Jordan, who won for actor in a motion picture, also won entertainer of the year.

Before the ceremony, Ryan Coogler won writing and directing honors, while Wunmi Mosaku and Delroy Lindo won the supporting actress and actor awards, respectively.

But the ceremony was not only about honoring Black excellence in entertainment. The event was also flavored by several remarks from celebrities addressing the divisive political climate and recent events that have targeted and affected Black entertainers.

Viola Davis received the chairman’s award during the 57th NAACP Image Awards on Saturday.

(Chris Pizzello / Chris Pizzello/invision/ap)

Host Deon Cole kicked off the ceremony by welcoming the audience to “the Trump Image Awards. Because you know he wants his name on everything.”

Asking permission to “buy a curse word,” he made a joke that was bleeped out during the live stream, but was apparently aimed at federal ICE agents. The comment sparked a standing ovation from the predominantly black-tie audience, many of whom wore anti-ICE pins.

“I don’t want to see no ICE ever again,” he said. “When I looked at the guest list, I took off Ice Cube, Ice-T, Ice Spice. I don’t want no ice cream, I don’t want no ice in my drink.”

Samuel L. Jackson said in a tribute to the late Jesse Jackson, who died earlier this month, that President Trump’s attacks on diversity and his quest to remove references to slavery and Black history from museums would not succeed.

Utilizing one of Jackson’s trademark slogans, Jackson said, “We will not be erased from this country’s history because I am somebody.”

And in accepting the award for actor in a drama series for “Paradise,” Sterling K. Brown added, “Like Sam said, they can’t erase us because there is no country without us.”

The event also continued to put a spotlight on the uproar surrounding the shouting of a racial slur during the BAFTA Awards last week.

Jordan and Lindo were presenters during the BAFTA Awards, which took place at London’s Royal Festival Hall. As they were introducing the visual effects category, a member of the audience shouted the N-word. The two actors paused momentarily before continuing.

Director Ryan Coogler, left, and actor Delroy Lindo presenting the award for actress in a motion picture. The pair addressed the incident at the BAFTAs in their remarks.

(Chris Pizzello / invision/AP)

Later, awards host Alan Cumming addressed the outburst, referencing the nominated film “I Swear,” which is about Scottish campaigner John Davidson, who has Tourette syndrome and shouted the racist slur from the audience. Cumming apologized, while Davidson, an executive producer for the BAFTA-nominated film, left his seat midway through the ceremony. BAFTA later issued an apology to the actors.

Cole delivered a comic prayer referencing the incident: “Lord, if there are any white men out there with Tourette’s, I advise you to tell them to read the room tonight, Lord. It might not go the way they think.”

Actor Rebecca Hall early in the awards show said she wanted to pay tribute to “two kings. Thank you for your grace.”

Lindo later in the ceremony said, “We appreciate all the support we’ve been shown in the aftermath of what happened last weekend. It is an honor to be here among our people this evening … It’s a classic case of something that could have been very negative becoming very positive.”

Here is a list of the night’s winners:

Entertainer of the year
Michael B. Jordan

Outstanding motion picture
“Sinners”

Actor in a motion picture
Michael B. Jordan, “Sinners”

Actress in a motion picture
Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked: For Good”

Breakthrough performance in a motion picture
Miles Caton, “Sinners”

Drama series
“Reasonable Doubt”

Actor in a drama series
Sterling K. Brown, “Paradise”

Actress in a drama series
Angela Bassett, “9-1-1”

Comedy series
“Abbott Elementary”

Actress in a comedy series
Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”

Actor in a comedy series
Cedric the Entertainer, “The Neighborhood”

Chairman’s Award
Viola Davis

Hall of Fame Award
Salt-N-Pepa

President’s Award
Colman Domingo

WASHINGTON — New whistleblower documents detail substantial cuts by the Trump administration to the training requirements for new immigration officers.

Among the cuts are the elimination of practical exams, use of force and legal training courses, and an overall reduction in training time, contrary to an official’s testimony to Congress earlier this month.

The documents, provided to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) by whistleblowers from the Department of Homeland Security, were publicly revealed ahead of a forum Monday afternoon with congressional Democrats — the third in recent weeks probing what the members view as abusive and illegal tactics used by federal agents.

Lauren Bis, deputy assistant public affairs secretary at DHS, said no training hours have been cut.

“Our officers receive extensive firearm training, are taught de-escalation tactics, and receive 4th and 5th Amendment comprehensive instruction,” she said. “The training does not stop after graduation from the academy. Recruits are put on a rigorous on-the-job training program that is tracked and monitored.”

Blumenthal’s office also disclosed the identity of one whistleblower: Ryan Schwank, an attorney who most recently served as an instructor for new Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruits at the ICE Academy within the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia. Schwank, who resigned Feb. 13, is scheduled to testify at the forum.

Schwank is one of two whistleblowers who made a confidential disclosure to Blumenthal’s office last month regarding an ICE policy allowing agents to enter people’s homes without a judicial warrant.

In excerpted quotes from Schwank’s prepared testimony shared with The Times, he calls the training program “deficient, defective and broken.”

“Deficient training can and will get people killed,” he wrote. “It can and will lead to unlawful arrests, violations of constitutional rights, and a fundamental loss of public trust in law enforcement. ICE is lying to Congress and the American people about the steps it is taking to ensure its 10,000 new officers faithfully uphold the Constitution and can perform their jobs.”

Blumenthal’s office did not confirm whether Schwank or the other, still anonymous whistleblower provided the documents released Monday in a 90-page memorandum from minority staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The documents show ICE has eliminated more than a dozen practical exams that ICE officers previously needed to graduate. In July 2021, a cadet needed to pass 25 practical exams to graduate. Now, nine are required.

Eliminated exams include “Judgment pistol shooting,” “Criminal encounters,” and “Determine removability.”

“All of these are now instead evaluated, if at all, mainly by open-book, multiple-choice written exams and without any graded practical examinations,” the memo states.

Comparisons between the program’s syllabus table of contents and general information sections from July 2025 — before the surge in hiring — and this month show that ICE appears to have cut whole courses, such as use of force simulation training, U.S. government structure, criminal vs. removal proceedings, and use of force.

Earlier this month, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons testified to Congress that while the agency had reduced the number of training days to 42 from 75, “We went from five days a week to six days a week. Five days a week was five eight-hour days. We’ve gone to six 12-hour days.”

But the documents appear to contradict Lyons’ testimony.

“The schedules reflected on these documents indicate that current ICE recruits receive nearly 250 fewer hours of training than previous cohorts of recruits,” the memo states.

The training reductions come as ICE plans to bring up more than 4,000 new Enforcement and Removal Operations officers this fiscal year, which ends in September. One of the documents notes that ICE had graduated 803 new officers in 2026 as of Jan. 29 and projected 3,204 more graduates by the end of the fiscal year.

In a written statement, Blumenthal encouraged more whistleblowers to come forward.

“We know about the Trump Administration’s decimation of training for immigration officers and its secret policy to shred your Constitutional rights because of the brave Americans who are speaking out today,” he wrote. “They are coming to Congress because we have the responsibility to not only bear witness to these crimes, but to do something to make sure they don’t happen again.”