NationalWatch

The Trump Department of Homeland Security has requested that Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger and officials in immigrant-friendly Fairfax County not release an adult illegal alien charged with groping several high school girls on school grounds.

Illegal alien Israel Flores Ortiz, 19, is facing nine counts of assault and battery for groping girls at a Fairfax County high school he was attending. Victims and parents have alleged that Ortiz approached about 12 girls from behind in crowded hallways, grabbed them between the legs, and groped their private areas, according to 7News.

The outlet reported that parents said the incidents have occurred throughout the school year. Ortiz attends the school and is in the eleventh grade, per 7News.

According to DHS, Ortiz illegally entered the U.S. in 2024 and was released into the country by the Biden administration.

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He is currently being held without bond in the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center, which is operated by the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, led by Sheriff Stacey Kincaid. 

According to the sheriff’s office website, the office does not honor ICE administrative detainers — requests to hold inmates — unless the detainer is accompanied by a criminal judicial order.

Further, as governor, Spanberger has rolled back state policies mandating cooperation with ICE. Spanberger has said that “when state and local law enforcement are pulled away from upholding our Virginia laws to do the job of federal agents, it weakens their ability to deepen trust — contributing to a culture of fear and distrust that makes it harder for officers to do their jobs.” 

In a later executive order, Spanberger added that Virginia law enforcement efforts “focus on upholding the rule of law, investigating and stopping criminal conduct, and protecting public safety, not the administrative enforcement of civil status.”

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In a Monday statement, DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said that the agency is “calling on Fairfax County sanctuary politicians to NOT release this predator from jail back into our communities to assault more teenage women.”

Bis slammed Spanberger for ending former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s policy of cooperation with ICE, saying it is “siding with criminal illegal aliens over American citizens.”

“This 19-year-old criminal illegal alien should NOT have been attending a Virginia high school and allowed to prey on innocent teenage girls,” Bis said, adding, “This is yet another example of the Biden Administration’s failed open border policies.”

In response, Allyson Conroy, a spokesperson for the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, told Fox News Digital that Ortiz currently “remains in the custody of the Sheriff’s Office in the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center.” 

Conroy said that “while it is still too early in the process to know the outcome of his case, ICE has been notified of Ortiz’s location at the ADC” and “they are able to execute their detainer by responding to the ADC and taking Ortiz into custody if and when he is ordered released.”

Conroy emphasized that the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office “does not obstruct or prevent ICE from acting on their civil detainers.”

Meanwhile, Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, a mother of three students in the Fairfax County School System, told Fox News that “this entire horrifying situation is the direct consequence of policy with really dysfunctional priorities,” which she said are attempting to “shield adult illegal immigrants at the expense of children’s safety, even in their public schools.”

ICE BUSTS HUMAN SMUGGLING RING THAT KIDNAPPED FAMILY, SEXUALLY ASSAULTED PREGNANT WOMAN

Lundquist-Arora claimed officials at the high school waited two weeks to inform parents, and that the move only came after parental pressure.

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In an emailed statement, Fairfax County Public Schools said that while it is “unable to comment on specifics due to federal and state privacy laws, we prioritize student and staff safety and we fully investigate any time someone shares that an incident has occurred at school, or that they do not feel safe at school.”

The public school system added that it is “grateful to our law enforcement partners who continue to work swiftly and thoroughly when there are safety concerns in our schools” and that the “safety of all FCPS students and staff remains a top priority.”

Spanberger’s office and the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Taylor Penley contributed to this report.

Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois is unopposed for his party’s nomination as he seeks a third term steering the nation’s sixth-most populous state.

But the billionaire governor and potential 2028 White House contender has plenty on the line as Illinois on Tuesday holds a slew of competitive primaries that are grabbing national attention.

The contest at the top of the list is the race in the blue-leaning state to succeed 81-year-old Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who is retiring after nearly three decades in the Senate.

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Pritzker is backing Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who is facing off against two other major candidates, Reps. Robin Kelly and Raja Krishnamoorthi, among a crowded field of contenders in the contentious and extremely expensive showdown.

If Kelly or Stratton were to win the primary and then the general election in November, they would become the second Black woman elected to the Senate in Illinois. And Krishnamoorthi, who was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. with his family as a child, would make history as the nation’s second Indian American in the Senate.

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Krishnamoorthi is the clear fundraising frontrunner in the race, and has spent big bucks to run ads. And a super PAC funded by crypto titans has shelled out nearly $10 million to back Krishnamoorthi.

The governor, a member of the Pritzker family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain and who has launched several venture capital and investment startups, has dipped into his large war chest to dish out millions to fund a super PAC supporting Stratton.

Pritzker’s support for Stratton is drawing pushback. Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, accused the governor of trying “to tip the scales” in the primary.

“A sitting governor shouldn’t be heavy-handing the race. Quite frankly, his behavior in this race won’t soon be forgotten by any of us,” Clarke emphasized in a statement.

Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will be considered the clear front-runner in the general election in a state where no GOP contender has won statewide in a dozen years.

Former GOP state party chair Don Tracy and attorney Jeannie Evans are among four Republicans seeking their party’s nomination.

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But for Pritzker, the Senate primary is viewed as a test of his political clout in his home state as he likely gears up for a 2028 presidential run. The governor has seen his national profile skyrocket over the past year as he’s become a top Democrat leading the resistance to President Donald Trump‘s second-term agenda.

Four Republicans are seeking their party’s gubernatorial nomination, in hopes of facing off against Pritzker in the general election. Among the GOP challengers is former state Sen. Darren Bailey, who lost to Pritzker by more than 12 points in the 2022 governor’s race.

Also grabbing attention in Tuesday’s primaries are the Democratic showdowns in four blue-leaning House districts.

There are crowded and competitive races for Kelly and Krishnamoorthi’s seats, as well as for retiring longtime Democratic Reps. Danny Davis and Jan Schakowsky.

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Polls in Illinois close at 7 p.m. Central time.

More than half a million ballots had been cast in early voting as of Friday.

EXCLUSIVE: Google’s AI chatbot Gemini flagged several Republicans — but no Democrats — when asked to identify senators who have made statements that violate its hate speech policies, author Wynton Hall told Fox News Digital. It’s just one example of what the author believes is a deeply ingrained bias against conservatives found in artificial intelligence tools. 

Hall used the “deep research” function on Google’s Gemini Pro. Fox News Digital reviewed a screen recording of Hall’s prompt and findings. Google did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

One of the Republicans flagged by Gemini in Hall’s research, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, was listed for characterizing “transgender identity as a harmful cultural ‘influence’ and has used ‘woke’ as a derogatory slur against protected groups.” Another, Arkansas’ Sen. Tom Cotton, was cited for cosponsoring legislation “to exclude transgender students from sports.”

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The finding stood out against a backdrop of inflammatory rhetoric from some Democrats in recent years.

In 2023, Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., warned that then-candidate Donald Trump was “destructive to our democracy” and needed to be “eliminated.” However, he quickly apologized for his comments, claiming that it was a “poor choice of words.” 

Last year, Texas Democratic House candidate Rep. Jolanda Jones made a throat-slashing gesture while rejecting former first lady Michelle Obama’s famous mantra, “when they go low, we go high,” on CNN’s “Outfront.”

“If you hit me in my face, I’m not going to punch you back in your face. I’m going to go across your neck,” Jones said while making a slashing motion across her neck. “We can go back-and-forth, fighting each other’s faces. You’ve got to hit hard enough where they won’t come back,” she added. 

But for Hall, Gemini’s seemingly partisan answer underscored the central argument of his new book, “Code Red: The Left, The Right, China and the Race to Control AI.” In it, he argues that AI systems marketed as neutral are increasingly shaped by the ideological assumptions of the people and institutions who create them, which are far from neutral. 

His book starts out with a clear example. 

Less than 10 weeks before the 2024 election, a series of viral videos appeared to expose a strange double standard in American homes. When users asked Amazon’s Alexa why they should vote for Kamala Harris, the device delivered a polished endorsement. When asked why they should vote for Donald Trump, Alexa declined, citing a policy of neutrality.

“I cannot provide content that promotes a specific political party or a specific candidate,” Alexa said.

Hall says the concern extends beyond a single Gemini output.

“AI’s Silicon Valley architects lean left politically, and their lopsided political donations to Democrats underscore their ideological aims,” Hall told Fox News Digital.

To Hall, episodes like this show how AI can shape political perceptions while maintaining the appearance of objectivity. “Through algorithm throttling and shadow bans, Big Tech centralized control over which voices soar and sink across social networks. Now AI has put Big Tech’s consolidating control on steroids,” he writes.

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

He argues that this imbalance reflects the politics of the people building the systems. The billionaires driving the AI revolution, he says, invest their money and political energy where their values lie. As PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel once put it, “Silicon Valley is a one-party state.”

The money appears to bear that out. According to Hall, 85% of political donations from employees at Apple, Meta, Amazon and Google go to Democrats. 

After Trump’s 2024 victory, major tech companies made the customary $1 million inauguration donations. But Hall argues those gestures did little to hide where Silicon Valley’s loyalties had long been. Aside from Elon Musk, he says, most of Big Tech’s leading figures remained firmly on the left.

Hall points to Democratic fundraising in 2024 as evidence of Silicon Valley’s political influence, citing major support from figures including Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, Reid Hoffman and Laurene Powell Jobs.

But Hall argues the bigger issue is not campaign money. 

It is the growing influence of AI systems that many people assume are neutral and objective. He warns that users often trust those answers too much, even when they may be biased.

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To Hall, this bias is reinforced by the relationship between tech companies and legacy media. He argues AI systems are trained on enormous amounts of content from outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic and Reuters, while conservative outlets are largely excluded.

The result, he says, is a closed loop: AI absorbs the assumptions of legacy media and repackages them as objective truth. Hall argues conservatives must respond by demanding transparency in training data and ending taxpayer-funded contracts for vendors whose systems show political bias.

“Whoever wins the AI fairness battle,” Hall concludes, “will shape the minds and political attitudes of future generations. The time to act is now.”

FIRST ON FOX: A key conservative group is accusing Democrat-run states of launching frivolous lawsuits against the Trump administration with no actual cause, and is calling on Congress to intervene.

America First Legal, a nonprofit founded by Trump advisor Stephen Miller, is urging House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to open a probe into “lawfare” conducted by blue states that it says is part of a larger effort to block President Donald Trump’s goals.

“America First Legal Foundation (‘AFL’) has uncovered a nationwide pattern to subvert the agenda of the Trump administration: Democrat-controlled states have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, yet in many cases, the states are unable to show any support for their alleged injuries,” the group’s legal counsel Will Scolinos wrote.

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There are over 200 active cases challenging various Trump administration policies right now, according to Lawfare Media’s litigation tracker. Dozens of those have been launched by states like California, Colorado, Minnesota and New York.

Scolinos said AFL launched a probe into various blue states’ lawsuits — and allegedly found many of them have been filed without concrete evidence to back up the claims they make.

“AFL’s investigation reveals that these Democrat-controlled states are pleading allegations of harm for which there is no corresponding evidence to support their claims,” the letter said.

“The fundamental problem is not merely that courts are failing to rigorously enforce standing requirements, but that state attorneys general are filing complaints premised on speculative injuries that their own client agencies cannot substantiate.”

TRUMP ADMIN SEEKS TO OVERTURN FEDERAL RESTRAINING ORDER LIMITING ICE OPERATIONS IN LOS ANGELES

The letter said it “raises serious questions about whether these lawsuits are being filed in good faith or are instead designed to obstruct the lawful policies of the Trump Administration through judicial intervention.”

Four states that sued the Trump administration over its transgender policies, for example, said “they lacked records” necessary to respond to AFL’s inquiries over the basis of those lawsuits, the letter said.

Five of 20 states that joined a lawsuit over the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) getting access to federal Medicaid data to probe whether illegal immigrants were getting health benefits similarly told AFL that it could not provide records it requested, the letter said.

“Such conduct not only undermines the integrity of the federal court system but also abuses the judicial process to obstruct the lawful policies of the Trump Administration—policies that the American people voted for,” AFL said.

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“Given the Committee’s jurisdiction over Title 28 and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, we request that you investigate this pattern of conduct and consider whether legislative action is warranted.”

A spokesperson for the House Judiciary Committee told Fox News Digital when reached for comment, “We appreciate this tremendous work from America First Legal. We are evaluating the report and everything is on the table.”

EXCLUSIVE: California mother and grandmother Angie Morfin, whose 13-year-old son, Ruben, was executed at point-blank range by an illegal alien gang member, shared a message for incoming Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin: “Make sure no other mother has to get the call I did.”

“Ruben was just a little boy with dreams of growing up, getting married, and having a family of his own,” she told Fox News Digital, adding, “For 34 years I’ve fought to keep his memory alive, so he didn’t die in vain.”

She shared that she is hopeful that Mullin, a current Republican senator from Oklahoma who is set to take the reins at DHS at the end of the month, “will continue to listen to Angel Families and stand with us as we fight to make sure no other mother has to get the call I did.”

In a recent interview with The American Border Story, shared exclusively with Fox News Digital, Morfin said her family remains devastated decades after losing Ruben.

“I cry for him today, like if it was just yesterday,” she shared.

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In the winter of 1994, Ruben, a young Hispanic teenager with no gang affiliation, was chased down and shot in the back of the head by Mexican national Ezequiel Mariscal near Orange County, California. Ruben had been walking with a group of friends to a party.  

Morfin said that though her family was living in Oceanside, just north of San Diego, at the time, she had sent Ruben to stay with his grandparents during the holidays over concerns about gangs in their area.

Then one night, just after midnight, Morfin said she got a call.

“I grabbed the phone, and I could hear my mom screaming, ‘They shot Nino, they shot Nino.’ I knew it was my baby because that’s what we called him, because he was so small,” she said.

Morfin said she and her husband rushed to the hospital.

“It was probably the longest ride of my life. I was scared. I didn’t know what I was going to see when I got there,” she explained.

Once there, she was made to wait.

“They told me he was dying. That if he made it through the night, that he would be a vegetable for the rest of his life because they had just shot off half of his brain,” she recounted.

ICE BUSTS HUMAN SMUGGLING RING THAT KIDNAPPED FAMILY, SEXUALLY ASSAULTED PREGNANT WOMAN

“Finally, my husband got to go in, and he came out crying, and told me not to go in. Just to remember him the way he was, and I go, ‘No, this was my baby you’re talking about. I have to see for myself.’”

Inside the room where Ruben was being kept on life support, Morfin said her son was bandaged and greatly disfigured.

“I could see my baby on that table. His body was shaking from all the machines he had on. He had bandages on his head, and his eye was hanging out,” she recalled. “I asked if I could give him one last kiss before they cut [life support]. And I walked close to my baby, and I gave him his last kiss. In his good eye, he had two teardrops.”

“All I kept trying to do in my mind was stop the bullet,” she added.

According to Morfin, the shooter had been previously deported. He was a teenager at the time of the shooting and a member of the Posole street gang. After the shooting, he fled to Mexico and was later sentenced to 45 years in a Mexican state prison.

After losing Ruben, Morfin said, “Everything changed about me, everything.”

Morfin founded Moms Against Gang Violence, a California-based advocacy group for stricter law enforcement. She has also testified before Congress on the need for stricter immigration enforcement. She explained that her advocacy on behalf of victims like Ruben is “my way of keeping him alive.”

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She praised President Donald Trump’s hard-line policy against illegal immigration, saying “it takes guts to do what he’s doing.”

“He helped me give my son a voice,” she said.

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“There’s a lot of new victims,” she went on, slamming current Democrats, saying they “only have one agenda … to bring in more Democrats.”

Nicole Kiprilov, executive director of The American Border Story, told Fox News Digital that the Morfins’ story is a “heartbreaking reminder that behind every statistic is a child whose life was stolen, and a family forced to live with that loss forever.”

“Angel Families like Angie’s have spent decades fighting to make sure their loved ones are not forgotten,” said Kiprilov. “We’re hopeful that Secretary Mullin will continue listening to these families and put the safety of American communities first.”

Lawyers for the Trump administration on Monday asked U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to reconsider his order that quashed grand jury subpoenas of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, appearing to make good on a vow from U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro to appeal the order to a higher court.

In the Justice Department’s motion for reconsideration that was submitted Monday, prosecutors argued that the court “applied an incorrect legal standard, erred with respect to certain facts, and overlooked other relevant facts.” 

They argued that a subpoena should be allowed when there is even a “reasonable possibility” that the category of materials the government seeks will produce information “relevant to the general subject of the grand jury’s investigation,” and even where a subpoena recipient “proposes a plausible theory of an ulterior motive.”

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The filing, submitted Monday, comes two days after Boasberg blocked a pair of grand jury subpoenas issued to the Federal Reserve Board, concluding that they were merely a “pretext” to pressure the Fed’s Powell into lowering interest rates or resigning from the head of the nation’s central bank. 

The Federal Reserve Board, DOJ argued Monday, has “never disputed that the subpoenas sought only materials directly related to the subjects of the grand jury’s investigation: the over budget renovations — estimated at over $1 billion, outrageous even by D.C. standards — as well as Chair Powell’s congressional testimony.” 

The request comes days after Boasberg issued a ruling blocking Pirro’s office from moving ahead with a subpoena of records and testimony related to the investigation of the central bank. He said in the newly unsealed ruling that the Justice Department offered “no evidence whatsoever” that Powell committed any crime “other than displeasing” Trump. 

BIDEN-APPOINTED FEDERAL JUDGE RULES TRUMP’S ‘THIRD COUNTRY’ DEPORTATION POLICY IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

“Did prosecutors issue those subpoenas for a proper purpose? The Court finds that they did not,” he said. “There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will.”

The ruling came after Pirro opened a criminal inquiry into Powell’s June 2025 testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in January, centered on the Fed’s years-long renovation of its headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

Powell revealed the investigation publicly in January, which he described as an attack on the Fed’s independence. 

Pirro said Friday that the Justice Department would appeal the ruling to a higher court, blasting the order as “outrageous.”

“This process has been arbitrarily undermined by an activist judge,” she said at a news conference Friday, arguing that Boasberg “put himself at the entrance door to the grand jury, slamming that door shut — irrespective of the legal process — and thus preventing the grand jury from doing the work that it does.”

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Any appeal could prolong Trump’s efforts to remove Powell from the Fed and replace him with his pick — former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh — as Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. remarked on social media Friday.

Trump also took aim at Boasberg on Truth Social on Sunday night, accusing him of suffering “from the highest level of Trump Derangement Syndrome” and someone the president claimed “has been ‘after’ my people, and me, for years.”

Boasberg used last week’s order to tick through many of Trump’s social media posts blasting Powell and unsuccessfully pressuring him to lower interest rates before suggesting that someone else should replace him to head up the Fed.

“Being perceived as the president’s adversary has become risky in recent years,” Boasberg said in the ruling. 

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“In his second term, Trump has urged the Department of Justice to prosecute such people, and the Department’s prosecutors have listened,” he added. 

Congressional Democrats are seeking criminal charges against Kristi Noem weeks after President Donald Trump ousted her from leadership of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the top Democrats on their respective chambers’ Judiciary Committees, sent a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday accusing Noem of lying to Congress during back-to-back hearings earlier this month.

“A number of her statements appear to violate criminal statutes prohibiting perjury and knowingly making false statements to Congress,” the letter said. “After months of evading our Committees’ requests to testify in routine oversight hearings, Secretary Noem made a series of demonstrably false statements in a brazen attempt to undermine critical congressional oversight of the Department of Homeland Security.”

The top Democrats on the Senate and House Judiciary committees charged that there were four categories of statements Noem made during her testimony before the respective panels where the DHS chief could have perjured herself.

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Among those answers the lawmakers scrutinized were whether DHS follows court orders, Corey Lewandowski’s role in DHS contracts, whether immigration enforcement has detained U.S. citizens, and most notably the contracting process for a $220 million ad campaign heavily featuring Noem. 

The ad campaign, in particular, was an explosive moment during Noem’s hearing earlier this month when Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., pressed her on whether there was a competitive bid process for the contracts and the substantial cash flow. 

Noem told the panel that the contract did go through a competitive process, “and career officials at the Department chose who would do those advertising commercials.” When asked if President Donald Trump knew about the ad campaign and its eye-popping sum, Noem said he did.

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Trump contradicted that statement in an interview with Reuters, and Kennedy argued that it was “hard to believe” the president would give it the green light. 

“It’s something we have to defend. I’m on the Appropriations Committee. I mean, my research shows that you did not bid them out,” Kennedy said. 

He alleged that the group that received “most of the money” had direct ties to former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin and her husband, Benjamin Yoho, who runs the company.

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“Even if Secretary Noem was the one telling the truth about the President’s knowledge, and she may well have been, she flatly misrepresented that the contract had been subject to a competitive bid,” Durbin and Raskin wrote. 

Yoho denied using his wife to secure lucrative contracts from the government, however, writing in a letter to Senate Democrats on Friday, “This statement is factually incorrect, and I respectfully request that you have your colleague correct the official record and issue an apology.”

Making false statements to Congress is classified as a felony, and a guilty verdict carries up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.

But the Trump administration is sticking by Noem. A DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital, “Any claim that Secretary Noem committed perjury is categorically FALSE.”

Still, Democrats suggested that their effort would not end with the Trump administration, writing, “While we have low expectations that you will pursue this matter given your partisan weaponization of the Department of Justice, we note that the statute of limitations for perjury and for knowingly and willfully making false statements to Congress is five years.”

Trump announced earlier this month that Noem would no longer serve as DHS secretary and instead take on a new role as special envoy to the Shield of the Americas, a military coalition formed by the Republican president.

It comes after mounting criticism from both sides of the aisle over Noem’s handling of the department and its enforcement of Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

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Trump instead nominated Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., to take over the department. His confirmation hearing is expected this week.

Fox News Digital reached out to DHS for comment on Democrats’ letter.

President Donald Trump said Monday that White House doctors helped treat Rep. Neal Dunn after the Florida Republican was given what he described as a “terminal” diagnosis.

Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., recounted the episode during remarks at the White House, saying Dunn was continuing to work in Congress despite a “pretty grim” outlook.

“He would be dead by June,” Trump told reporters.

Johnson said he informed Trump of Dunn’s health challenges and the president suggested involving White House medical staff.

FLORIDA REPUBLICAN REP NEAL DUNN ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT FROM CONGRESS AFTER FIVE TERMS

The speaker said White House doctors arranged for Dunn to receive treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he underwent emergency surgery.

“The man has a new lease on life. He acts like he’s 30 years younger,” Johnson said.

Trump praised White House doctors as “miracle workers,” saying they moved quickly to help Dunn.

“I said, I have to call them. And I called the two doctors. They’re both great. And they immediately went over to see the congressman, and he was on the operating table like two hours later,” Trump added.

REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS’ EARLY RETIREMENT RUMORS SEND SHOCKWAVES THROUGH HOUSE GOP

Dunn, a physician and former Army surgeon who represents Florida’s 2nd Congressional District, announced in January that he would not seek re-election after five terms.

In a statement at the time, the congressman said he wanted to “pass the torch to new conservative leaders, return home to Panama City, and spend more precious time with my family and our beloved grandchildren.”

“It has been my greatest honor to fight for lower taxes, our military and veterans, the unborn, healthcare innovation, and policies that empower Americans over bureaucracy and addressing threats from Communist China, Russia and others,” he added.

REPUBLICAN LAWMAKER’S EARLY RETIREMENT RUMORS SEND SHOCKWAVES THROUGH HOUSE GOP

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As of mid-March, 60 House members, including 23 Democrats and 37 Republicans, have announced they will not seek re-election in the 2026 election cycle, according to the U.S. House of Representatives Press Gallery “Casualty List.”

Several Republicans are running for other offices, including governor and Senate, while Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, lost his primary to Steve Toth.

There’s a new push to give federal reparations to descendants of slaves among congressional Democrats, this time being led by progressive Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich.

Thanedar introduced a bill late last week that would set up a federal commission to “study and distribute land reparations” for the descendants of slaves in the U.S. The legislation has no formal backers and faces steep obstacles to advancing in the Republican-controlled House.

“The history of historical injustices against Black Americans by our federal government is nothing short of shameful,” Thanedar told Fox News Digital in a statement. “Formerly enslaved families were promised land as a means of securing freedom and self-sufficiency, but these promises were broken, and the devastating economic effects of this broken promise is still felt today.”

Thanedar’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding how the legislation would work in practice.

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Reparations refer to financial compensation for Black Americans intended to address economic harms their ancestors experienced during slavery and the Jim Crow era. Republicans oppose the idea over eligibility concerns and their belief that present-day Americans should not be responsible for harms committed generations ago.

The reparations push comes as Thanedar, a two-term lawmaker, is facing a serious challenge from the left ahead of Michigan’s August 2026 primary. State Rep. Donavan McKinney, D-Mich., is vying to unseat Thanedar in the deep-blue district with the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vt., and the progressive group, Justice Democrats — despite Thanedar’s own progressive credentials.

But Thanedar’s support for Israel has served to alienate him from the furthest-left flank of his party, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., a fellow member of his state’s delegation. He left the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), of which Tlaib is a member, after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel in 2023.

Tlaib is also supporting McKinney’s campaign.

Thanedar, an Indian American, has supported slavery reparations since before his congressional tenure.

“Every other community has — Japanese Americans got their [reparations], American Indians got their reparations,” the Michigan Democrat said in 2022 while running for Congress. “This is something that needs to be handled in a fair way.”

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Thanedar is an original cosponsor of H.R. 40, also known as the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, which aims to kickstart the reparations process for descendants of slaves. The Michigan Democrat is also a proud supporter of more expansive legislation that aims to transfer $14 trillion in estimated losses to reparations recipients.

The legislation was originally introduced by Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., in 2023, when it was similarly dead on arrival in the GOP-controlled House.

Progressive Democrats have long advocated for the passage of reparations legislation but have encountered resistance from members of the party’s moderate flank who view the idea as politically toxic.

Gov. Wes Moore, D-Md., vetoed legislation in 2025 that would have enacted a reparations commission at the state level. Moore is notably one of the only Black Democratic governors in the country and is rumored to have presidential ambitions.

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Thanedar has also introduced articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump and other Trump administration figures, despite opposition from House Democratic leadership.

The Supreme Court on Monday said it will review the Trump administration’s effort to revoke temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian migrants living in the U.S. — a significant update that comes as the president looks to deliver on his hardline immigration enforcement promises in his second White House term. 

Justices on the high court let stand, for now, a pair of lower court orders that blocked the Trump administration from immediately halting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for the Syrian and Haitian migrants. 

The Supreme Court did agree to review the consolidated cases on an expedited basis, and said Monday that it will hear oral arguments in both cases next month.

A ruling is expected by late June.

SCOTUS TO REVIEW TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

The news comes as the Trump administration has moved to end the TPS designation for migrants from roughly half a dozen countries, including some 6,000 Syrians and 350,000 Haitians living in the U.S. under the program.

The TPS program allows individuals from certain countries to live and work in the U.S. legally if they cannot work safely in their home country due to a disaster, armed conflict or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.” 

Last week, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the high court to intervene and stay a lower court order from U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes that blocked the administration’s effort to immediately revoke temporary protected status designations for Haitian migrants.

BIDEN-APPOINTED FEDERAL JUDGE RULES TRUMP’S ‘THIRD COUNTRY’ DEPORTATION POLICY IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Sauer urged the high court to take up the broader issue of whether the Trump administration can revoke TPS protections for other migrants living in the U.S. — citing the Justice Department’s appeal of a similar case centered on TPS protections for Syrian migrants that was kicked to the high court earlier this year.

“Unless the court resolves the merits of these challenges — issues that have now been ventilated in courts nationwide — this unsustainable cycle will repeat again and again, spawning more competing rulings and competing views of what to make of this court’s interim orders,” Sauer said last week. “This court should break that cycle.”

Haitians were first granted TPS status in 2010 after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and left some 1.5 million in the country homeless. 

The protections were extended several times, including under the Biden administration in 2021 after the July assassination of Jovenel Moïse, Haiti’s last democratically elected president.

The appeal comes as the Trump administration has sought to wind down most TPS designations, arguing the programs have been extended for too long under Democratic presidents.

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Trump officials have also taken aim at lower courts that have sought to block or pause their efforts to wind down TPS protections, accusing the lower court judges of exceeding their authority and unlawfully intruding on the executive branch’s authority on immigration policy.

President Donald Trump on Monday questioned California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s fitness for higher office, citing his learning disability. 

Trump was speaking with reporters in the Oval Office when he talked about requiring identification to vote in elections and the resistance from Newsom and other Democratic elected officials. 

“That’s how crazy it’s gotten with a low IQ person, you know, because Gavin Newsom has admitted…that he has learning disabilities,” Trump said. “Honestly, I’m all for people with learning disabilities. But not for my president…I think a president should not have learning disabilities.”

GAVIN NEWSOM SPOX TELLS REPORTER ‘F— OFF’ WHEN ASKED FOR RECORDS OF HIS DYSLEXIA DIAGNOSIS

“I know it’s highly controversial to say such a horrible thing,” he added. “Gavin Newsom admitted that he has learning disabilities, dyslexia. Everything about him is dumb.”

Newsom, who is widely believed to have White House ambitions, has spoken about his dyslexia, a neurologically-based learning disability that makes it difficult to read, according to the International Dyslexia Association. 

“You’ve never seen me read a speech, because I cannot read a speech,” Newsom said in Atlanta last month while promoting his memoir: “Young Man in a Hurry.” “I haven’t overcome dyslexia. I’m living with it.”

Trump also criticized Newsom for his remarks at that same Atlanta event.

“I’m not, you know, I’m not trying to impress you, I’m just trying to impress upon you, I’m like you. I’m no better than you,” Newsom told Mayor Andre Dickens at a book tour event.

NEWSOM RIPPED FOR ‘RACIST’ VIRAL CLIP TELLING BLACK MAYOR ‘I’M LIKE YOU’ BEFORE TOUTING POOR SAT SCORE

“You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy. And, you know, and I’m not trying to offend anyone, you know, ‘trying to act all there if you got 940,’” he continued. “Literally a 960 SAT guy, you’ve never seen me read a speech. Because I cannot read a speech. Maybe the wrong business to be in.”

Republicans criticized the governor for allegedly talking down to a mostly Black audience. 

“So now, on top of everything else, I call him a racist because it happened to be a black audience,” Trump said Monday. “I will tell you this, I think it was the worst interview I’ve ever seen of any human being in my life.”

At the time, Newsom’s office defended his comments in a previous statement to Fox News Digital.

“First MAGA mocked his dyslexia and now they’re calling him racist for talking about his low SAT scores. This is MAGA-manufactured outrage,” Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon said. 

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“The Governor has said this publicly for years — including with Charlie Kirk and dozens of other audiences. The same people who excused or ignored Trump’s racist ape video can go f— themselves.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to Newsom’s office. 

President Donald Trump’s former defense lawyer received swift backing from conservative legal figures online after facing pushback at a recent American Bar Association (ABA) conference for praising the Trump Department of Justice.

Attorney John Lauro, who defended Trump in special counsel Jack Smith’s 2020 election case, said the DOJ was “in a better place” under Trump, causing fellow panelists and audience members to shudder, according to a Bloomberg Law report of the event. 

Lauro told Fox News Digital in a brief phone call on Monday that the event “was a highly triggered environment.”

“I called out the ABA and other elite legal organizations for not condemning the prior administration in holding political sham trials and show trials, particularly the one directed at President Trump, where the Biden administration wanted to put him on trial in 90 days, which is shorter than it takes for a traffic ticket to get worked through in D.C.,” Lauro said.

LABOR DEPARTMENT ORDERS LAWYERS TO CUT TIES WITH ABA, SLAMS GROUP AS ‘RADICAL’ ACTIVIST FORCE

The tense panel put a spotlight on the Trump administration’s ongoing fight with the ABA as it spurred DOJ officials and lawyers to voice their disdain for the organization.

“The ABA is trash and I’m proud to never have been a member,” Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon said. “Its stunt trashing Judge [Robert] Bork did it for me.”

“As if we needed anymore proof of the absolute disgrace that is the ABA,” wrote Associate Deputy Attorney General Diego Pestana. “John Lauro, one of the best trial attorneys in the country and patriot, treated terribly for simply daring to voice a view contrary to the liberal white collar bar.”

Lauro said during the panel, held at a conference in San Diego, that he had “the unique experience of representing a political figure who was probably more abused by the criminal justice system in America than any other political figure ever.”

“Everything that has gone on in the current administration must be looked at from the eyes of a man who was victimized by the criminal justice system,” Lauro said.

Among those rallying behind Lauro was also Iowa Solicitor General Eric Wessan, who said the ABA “represents a hyperpartisan faction.”

“That’s fine! But they should play no role in law school accreditation (or judicial selection),” Wessan said.

Former DOJ official Jeff Clark, an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 2020 election case, called Lauro “a bold man of principle.”

WHO ARE THE 6 CO-CONSPIRATORS NAMED IN TRUMP’S JAN. 6 INDICTMENT? HERE’S WHAT WE KNOW

Another social media user, an anonymous Georgia-based legal commentator, said that while he disagreed with Lauro’s comments, he was “jealous” that Lauro “had the opportunity to tell a room of the type of haughty, effete defense lawyers who hang around at ABA conferences to go f— themselves. He should have taken it.”

Lauro’s remarks had elicited pushback from participants. Nancy Gertner, a Harvard University law professor and retired federal judge, responded that any issues surrounding Trump’s prosecutions did not “justify the fracture of American democracy.”

Former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner said: “I wanted to thank Mr. Lauro for admitting the emperor has no clothes. The rule of law is dead because the people in this room and the Department of Justice pissed off President Trump.”

“I can’t believe that you think that that’s normal or good that one person can dictate who the Department of Justice investigates and indicts,” lawyer and panel moderator Sandy Weinberg said.

Republicans have long argued the ABA promotes Democrat-aligned viewpoints and that its institutional presence in the legal world is a disadvantage to conservatives. The ABA’s website showcases work that includes support for “LGBTQ+” initiatives, abortion access, stricter gun control measures, and diversity, equity and inclusion.

The ABA has also taken a stance against Trump, condemning what its president described as the administration’s “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law.”

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TELLS AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION IT WILL NO LONGER COMPLY WITH RATINGS FOR JUDICIAL NOMINEES

The ABA has for decades wielded enormous power, weighing in on nominations of federal judges, engaging in litigation and helping firms across the legal industry with recruitment. One arm of the ABA also handles law school accreditation.

Under Trump, several departments and agencies, including the DOJ and Department of Labor, have told political appointees they cannot affiliate with the ABA in their official capacity.

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The DOJ, meanwhile, moved to terminate more than $3 million in federal grants to ABA programs, though a judge ruled the move was unconstitutional. Attorney General Pam Bondi told the ABA last year that the DOJ would not give advanced notice to the organization about judicial nominees, a reversal of a decades-long practice of allowing the organization to rate the nominees before they advance in the Senate.

Fox News Digital reached out to the ABA for comment.

Plans to shutter the Trump Kennedy Center were made official through a board of trustees vote on Monday afternoon, setting up a two-year renovation process that some Democratic lawmakers believe should have required more congressional input.

The board unanimously approved the changes, according to a source familiar with the vote.

The source also said the board had set July 6 as the official closure date, installed Matt Floca, the center’s vice president of facilities operations, as the new president of the Trump Kennedy Center and ended its exclusive affiliation with the Washington Opera.

The overhaul will include fixes to the building’s heating, ventilating, air-conditioning systems and elevators, among other structural renovations, according to plans for the project submitted to Congress.

BOARD VOTES KENNEDY CENTER TO BE RENAMED ‘TRUMP-KENNEDY CENTER,’ LEAVITT SAYS

Allocations for the project, set aside in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, are set to cost $257 million.

Last year, Trump installed a hand-picked set of board members, leading Democratic critics to condemn the center’s management and its renovation as direct control from the White House.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., an ex officio member of the board, blasted Monday’s vote, arguing the renovations were made unilaterally.

“Unfortunately, recent actions by the president and certain board members have treated the center like a personal vanity project, including firing career management staff, removing trustees and sidelining ex officio members who are meant to provide congressional oversight,” Warner said on Monday.

GRAMMY WINNER ACCUSED OF CAVING TO ‘WOKE MOB’ AFTER KENNEDY CENTER CANCELLATION

Ex officio members provide lawmakers input on the management of the Kennedy Center.

Ric Grenell, the now-former Kennedy Center president, pushed back on characterizations from Democrats, stating that lawmakers have had multiple opportunities to speak into the process.

EXCLUSIVE: TRUMP-LED KENNEDY CENTER NEARLY DOUBLES FUNDRAISING FROM BIDEN ERA, SMASHING RECORD WITH $23M HAUL

“We gave all that information to Congress. It was in the Big Beautiful Bill. We didn’t just come up with the $257 million number. We actually gave them specifics as to what needed to be fixed,” Grenell said.

“My reaction is — last summer we gave you this information, you could have joined any number of the tours we were giving to members of Congress.”

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump framed the renovations as key restorations.

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“Subject to board approval, I have determined that the fastest way to bring The Trump Kennedy Center to the highest level of success, beauty, and grandeur, is to cease entertainment operations for an approximately two-year period of time,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in February.

Trump promised the center would return with a “grand reopening” after the renovations are complete.

You’ll hear volumes from congressional Republicans about the importance of passing the SAVE America Act in the coming days. The bill requires proof of citizenship to vote.

“We need to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat in America,” said Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio.

“The SAVE America Act is an important bill,” said Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., on Fox News. “So we’ve got to figure out how to get it passed.”

TRUMP-BACKED VOTER ID BILL FACES GOP RESISTANCE AS TILLIS VOWS TO STOP IT

And that is the conundrum facing Senate Republicans — figuring out how to get it passed.

The SAVE America Act is the touchstone of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda. In fact, the president warned he wouldn’t sign any other bill into law — except perhaps a DHS funding measure — until Congress aligns with his demands.

Republicans agree on the importance of the SAVE America Act, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. is promising everything but passage.

“I will be bringing the SAVE America Act to the floor, and we will be having a full and robust debate,” said Thune.

That’s because Republicans can’t break a Democratic filibuster.

“This is one of the worst things we’ve seen in America in a very long time,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

SCHUMER SWINGS AT HEGSETH OVER KING CRAB MEALS FOR THE TROOPS, BUT BIDEN-ERA RECEIPTS SHOW SIMILAR TAB

“The real reason this president wants this bill to pass is to reduce the number of people voting in the November election,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. 

It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. Republicans only have 53 votes in the Senate. So some Republicans advocate parliamentary ballistics to obliterate the filibuster.

“I would nuke the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan. 

Cold War rhetoric permeates this entire debate. In fact, conservatives implored Thune to launch a pre-emptive first strike to terminate the filibuster before Democrats again win control of the Senate — be it this fall or a decade from now.

“It’s really about the only way I can see preventing them from nuking the filibuster once they gain the majority in the Senate,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.

Other Republicans want to force Democrats to filibuster the old-fashioned way — until they’re exhausted. 

“They should have to go hold the floor like it used to be in the old days. They can go and talk as much as they want. But sooner or later they’re going to run out of time,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

If everyone finally fades after days or weeks of debate, then the Senate doesn’t need a test vote to break a filibuster — needing 60 yeas. That means they can pass the bill with a simple majority: 51.

Lots of Republican senators are now invoking the 1930s Frank Capra classic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” That’s where Jimmy Stewart plays an idealistic senator who filibusters until he collapses in the Senate chamber.

“They should have to go out there, hours on end, like a Jimmy Stewart moment,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo.

But most Republicans reject the Jimmy Stewart approach. They’re not so much worried about unlimited debate during a talking filibuster, but the unlimited amendment process.

“The talking filibuster, I think will be a goat rodeo. I mean, it could take two or three weeks. The Democrats will tee up all kinds of problematic votes,” predicted a skeptical Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. “I haven’t had anybody describe to me the project plan. Here are the number of days. This is how we counter people. We’ve got all of our political flanks covered. And this is how we succeed at the end.”

But there won’t be an unlimited amendment process. While Thune will allow the debate to go on for a while (Fox is told perhaps a week or more, perhaps around the clock), he will maintain “ball control.” Thune won’t immediately tee up a test vote to end debate, needing 60 yeas. But Thune will immediately block all amendments from both sides.

Like everything on Capitol Hill, it’s about the math. And while there will be a lot of talking about the SAVE Act and the talking filibuster, there’s not enough support on the GOP side of the aisle to unspool the Senate’s filibuster rules and precedents. 

“Many of us don’t believe that we should undo the filibuster because it holds the rights of the majority. And one day we’ll be back in the minority,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. “It’s a real splitter here.”

Capito added that there was a “will” to deal with the SAVE America Act. But the parliamentary machinations it would take to blow up the filibuster to pass the bill do not exist.

“There’s not enough numbers to get it done,” observed Capito.

Trump and other conservatives are starting to dial up pressure on Thune.

THUNE GUARANTEES VOTER ID BILL TO HIT THE SENATE DESPITE SCHUMER, DEM OPPOSITION: ‘WE WILL HAVE A VOTE’

“I think he’s a wonderful person. I do,” the president said of the South Dakota Republican on Fox News Radio. “But it’s not that he doesn’t want to do it. He doesn’t think he can do it. And that’s bad.”

Despite criticism directed at Thune, some Republicans are defending him.

“It’s not John Thune that’s killing it. It’s members of the Republican Party that are not convinced that a talking filibuster can be used to pass this,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo. “It will be an infliction of tremendous delays on other matters before the U.S. Senate without the positive results of passage of the SAVE Act.”

It’s significant that the president has not called out Thune over his reluctance to end the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act. However, Trump routinely demanded that former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., do just that during his first term. The president often lambasted McConnell’s stewardship of the Senate, despite the Kentucky Republican establishing a new precedent to inhibit filibusters of Supreme Court nominees. McConnell’s maneuver on the filibuster assured the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

But so far, no sharp criticism of Thune.

Still, some Republicans believe Senate magic could salvage the SAVE America Act.

“I’ve seen John Thune pull rabbits out of his hat before,” said Lummis. “And I’m hoping there’s a rabbit in his hat on this one.” 

The Senate takes a test vote just to start debate on the bill Tuesday afternoon. That needs a simple majority. It’s possible that Vice President JD Vance may need to break a tie to launch debate on the bill.

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But the Senate doesn’t have the votes to blow up the precedents like McConnell did with the Supreme Court in order to pass the SAVE America Act, nor are there the votes to execute a full-blown “talking filibuster,” bypassing the need for 60 yeas. 

Consider the firestorm that could rain down on Senate Republicans from their base if the GOP fails to pass the SAVE America Act. Trump has held his tongue so far, but it’s possible there could be recriminations from him, too.

FIRST ON FOX: A House GOP lawmaker is unveiling new legislation aimed at easing airport chaos that’s hitting travelers across the country during the ongoing partial government shutdown.

Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y., introduced a bill on Monday to ensure Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers are paid during shutdowns by creating a Transportation Security Trust Fund to help operations and personnel wherever needed.

It would be funded by the Aviation Passenger Security Fee, also called the 9/11 passenger security fee in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It’s a small cost collected by airlines — $5.60 for a one-way trip and up to $11.20 for a round-trip — for flights that originate in the U.S. and is meant to go toward passenger security.

Langworthy’s proposal comes days after TSA agents missed their first full paychecks of the shutdown, which has now gone on roughly a month with no end in sight.

‘YOU CAN CRY ABOUT IT’: TEMPERS FLARE IN SENATE AS DHS SHUTDOWN DEBATE ERUPTS, STALEMATE DIGS DEEPER

While they are entitled to back pay when the shutdown is over, the lack of a consistent paycheck and uncertainty over its duration has forced scores of TSA agents to call out sick and look for other ways to earn income to pay bills and feed their families.

Travelers in places like Louisiana and Texas have been asked to arrive hours early for flights to accommodate longer wait times for security.

Delays have also been exacerbated by bad weather in parts of the country, including up and down the East Coast.

HOMELAND SECURITY REACTIVATES MAJOR GLOBAL ENTRY PROGRAM FOR TRAVELERS AMID SHUTDOWN

“This is now the third time in just six months that TSA agents have been forced to work without receiving a paycheck,” Langworthy told Fox News Digital. “Morale and recruitment are taking a profound hit, and we’ve already lost more than 300 agents, putting the agency’s mission at grave risk.”

He said his bill “will help ensure that our hardworking agents get paid, and that we retain the vigilant, professional workforce necessary to protect the traveling public.”

“Doing nothing is a national security crisis waiting to happen,” Langworthy warned.

Democrats walked away from bipartisan funding negotiations earlier this year after Congress passed federal budgets for all aspects of the federal government except for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Democratic leaders are protesting the Trump administration’s handling of illegal immigration and withholding support from any spending bill that funds Trump’s crackdown, turning down multiple compromise offers for guardrails from the White House.

DHS oversees a wide variety of federal agencies, including the TSA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. Secret Service, and others.

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., announced Monday that Democrats would try to force a vote on funding all of DHS except for immigration-related agencies — likely a nonstarter for Republicans.

The standoff has seen new significance as more and more TSA agents are forced to choose between working without pay and finding second jobs to make ends meet. Concerns have also been exacerbated by the U.S. and Israel’s operation in Iran, which has raised the national security threat level within the country.

FIRST ON FOX: An Afghan national let into the country during the Biden administration has been arrested by the Department of Homeland Security following a conviction for indecent exposure to a minor.

Basir Ahmad Safi, who is in his 30s, was, was arrested by DHS on March 11, according to the agency. Before his conviction for indecent exposure to a minor, Safi was charged with lewd or lascivious exhibition, soliciting a child via computer, unlawful use of a two-way communications device and child abuse.

He was admitted to the country in 2021 under former President Joe Biden’s “Operation Allies Welcome,” according to the agency. Two years later, in September 2023, Safi was arrested in Florida by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office on those charges.

In an emailed statement to Fox News Digital, DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis slammed the Biden administration for having allowed “this unvetted Afghan pedophile” in the U.S.

ANGEL MOM WHOSE 13-YEAR-OLD SON WAS EXECUTED BY ILLEGAL GANG MEMBER URGES INCOMING DHS CHIEF TO ACT

“He should NEVER have been allowed into our country or given the opportunity to prey on innocent children,” wrote Bis.

DHS said that Safi was arrested as part of a joint investigation by Homeland Security Investigations Jacksonville and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. By the time of his arrest, Safi’s status had been revoked, and he was unlawfully residing in the U.S., DHS said. Safi is being held in ICE custody pending removal.

This comes after Rahmanullah Lakanwal, another Afghan national allowed into the country under Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome, shot two U.S. National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C. One of the service members, Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, of the West Virginia National Guard, died from her injuries. The other, Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was critically wounded but survived.

GOP LAWMAKERS WOULD STRIP CITIZENSHIP FROM TERRORISTS AFTER ATTACKS TIED TO NATURALIZED CITIZENS

According to DHS, the Biden-era Operation Allies Welcome relied on “unvetted referrals” to allow nearly 190,000 Afghan nationals into the country. The agency said those admitted into the U.S. included terrorists, sexual predators, pedophiles, domestic abusers and kidnappers

DHS said that “understanding this massive threat to American national security,” President Donald Trump halted Biden’s Afghan refugee resettlement program almost immediately after returning to the Oval Office. Months later, Trump suspended the entry of all Afghan nationals into the U.S.

ICE BUSTS HUMAN SMUGGLING RING THAT KIDNAPPED FAMILY, SEXUALLY ASSAULTED PREGNANT WOMAN

Bis said that “under President Trump’s leadership, DHS has been focused on identifying, arresting, and removing public safety threats like Basir Ahmad Safi from our country.”

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A spokesperson for former President Biden did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.

Americans’ opinions regarding Israel have dramatically soured in recent years, fueled by a surge in negative views among Democrats and independents, according to a new national poll.

The results of the survey, by NBC News, come amid sharp political debates among Democrats over support for Israel two and a half years after the start of the war between Israelis and Hamas in Gaza.

Just 32% of Americans view Israel positively, with 39% seeing the Jewish state in a negative light, according to the poll, which was conducted Feb. 27-March 2. That’s a sea change from three years ago, when Americans held a positive view of Israel by a 47%-34% margin.

Much of that decline in positive views is due to Democrats and independents, according to the survey.

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Democrats were divided in 2023, with 34% viewing Israel positively and 35% negatively. Now, the poll indicates just 13% of Democrats hold a positive view of Israel, with 57% seeing it in a negative light.

And independents went from 40%-22% positive-negative to 21%-48%.

But according to the NBC News poll, Republican views of Israel have only declined slightly, from 63%-12% positive-negative in 2023 to 54%-18% now.

JOHN FETTERMAN SLAMS ANTI-ISRAEL ‘ROT’ IN DEMOCRATIC PARTY, REJECTS AOC CLAIMS OF GAZA ‘GENOCIDE’

The survey, which was conducted as the U.S. and Israel began their strikes on Iran, also indicates Americans are now split on whether they are more sympathetic to Israel or the Palestinians.

Americans, who by a 45%-13% margin were more sympathetic to Israel in 2013, are now divided, with 40% more sympathetic to Israel and 39% more sympathetic to the Palestinians.

There’s been a massive switch among Democrats, from more sympathetic to Israel 34%-18% margin in 2013 to more sympathetic to Palestinians by a 67%-17% margin now.

SHARP PARTISAN DIVIDE EMERGES OVER IRAN STRIKE, TRUMP’S STRATEGY: POLLS

Independents went from more sympathetic to Israel by a 37%-10% margin 13 years ago to more sympathetic to Palestinians by a 37%-27% margin now.

But Republicans, according to the poll, stayed much more sympathetic to Israel, from a 67%-8% margin in 2013 to a 69%-13% margin now.

The poll also spotlights a generational divide, with a greater deterioration of positive views and sympathies for Israel among younger Americans.

Roughly 1,200 people were killed during the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel, with 251 captured.

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Israel’s ensuing military campaign in Gaza over the past two and a half years has resulted in more than 72,000 people being killed, according to health officials in the Palestinian territory.

While most Republicans remain supportive of Israel, the war in Gaza has sparked sharp debates among Democrats which are currently playing out in the party’s 2026 primaries.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer and will begin treatment immediately, President Donald Trump said Monday.

Trump said Wiles has an “excellent” prognosis and plans to continue working at the White House while undergoing treatment.

“Her Strength and her Commitment to continue doing the job she loves, and does so well, while undergoing treatment, tells you everything you need to know about her. Susie, as one of my closest and most important advisors, is tough and deeply committed to serving the American People,” the president wrote on his Truth Social account.

“She will soon be better than ever! Melania and I are with her in every way, and we look forward to working with Susie on the many big and wonderful things that are happening for the benefit of our Country!”

This is a breaking news story; check back for updates.

Libertarian-minded Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is leaving the door wide open to a possible 2028 White House run.

“We’ll decide after 2026,” Paul said in an interview that posted this weekend.

Paul ran for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, but dropped out after a distant fifth-place finish in Iowa’s Republican caucuses. He won re-election later that year in the Senate, and was re-elected again in 2022.

The senator, who for years has been a leading voice inside the GOP for fiscal conservatism, civil liberties, and a non-interventionist foreign policy for America, has lamented the declining number of Republicans embracing such an agenda in a party dominated by President Donald Trump. And he’s pledged to try and bring such an agenda back.

EARLY MOVES IN 2028 WHITE HOUSE RACE ALREADY UNDERWAY 

“The most important thing to me isn’t necessarily me or what my role is, but that there is someone who’s advocating that international trade is good and makes us rich. That big is not bad,” Paul said in an interview on “Sunday Night with Chuck Todd.“

Paul argued that “the populists also want to break up big business. They want to break up Google because they’re liberal or Meta because it’s liberal. I’m not one of those people, but that is sort of the Trump-Vance populist wing.”

VANCE AMPLIFIES HIS 2026 MESSAGE WHILE LANDING KEY 2028 BACKING

Pointing to Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, who is perceived as the GOP front-runner in the race to succeed the term-limited Trump, Paul emphasized that “there needs to be a free-market wing of the Republican Party. And I want to be part of trying to ensure that still exists.”

Paul, who is a vocal GOP critic of Trump’s unprecedented use of tariffs and who voted last year against the president’s massive domestic policy measure because it added to the national debt, has been leaving the door open to a potential 2028 run in interviews since last summer.

“I think in the Republican Party, though, there needs to be someone representing that international trade is good for America, that we get richer and more prosperous in the world we trade,” he told Kentucky’s Courier Journal newspaper last July. He added that it was “too early to tell” if he would run again for the White House.

SUCCEEDING TRUMP IN 2028: SIX REPUBLICANS TO KEEP YOUR EYES ON

In a September interview with Spectrum News, he said, “We’ll see over time what happens,” regarding another presidential bid.

And Paul, in a December interview on ABC’s “This Week,” said he didn’t see Vance as the hypothetical heir to Trump and the 2028 GOP front-runner.

While any decision from Paul regarding a 2028 White House run won’t come until after this year’s midterm elections, the senator did generate some buzz last year by making stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, three crucial early voting states in the Republican Party’s presidential nominating calendar.

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“He’s keeping options open and looking at the landscape,” a strategist in the senator’s political orbit who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, told Fox News Digital.

Rhode Island Democrats have introduced a bill that would bar police departments from hiring ICE agents brought on during President Donald Trump’s second term, escalating the state’s pushback against federal immigration enforcement.

Immigration enforcement agents, including those within ICE, have come under fire in recent months from Democratic lawmakers and governors opposed to the tactics involved in Trump’s mass deportation agenda, which the president has said are necessary due to the open-border effects of the Biden era.

In Rhode Island, companion bills in the House and Senate dubbed the ICE OUT Act would amend the Law Enforcement Officers’ Due Process Accountability and Transparency Act to add a section denoting the new restriction.

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“A law enforcement agency… shall not employ any individual who was hired as a sworn officer of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency on or after January 20, 2025,” the bill reads.

The policy would take effect in October 2026 and would not affect any officers already hired out of ICE’s ranks.

The bill’s top sponsor in the House, Democratic state Rep. Karen Alzate of Pawtucket, said during a recent hearing that the policy would help bolster public-police relationships in Rhode Island, according to the Providence Journal.

ANTI-ICE LAW SET TO TAKE EFFECT IN MAINE AS GOVERNOR FACES INCREASED CRITICISM FOR ALLOWING IT AMID SENATE RUN

An official with the Rhode Island Women’s Bar Association, which supports the bill, also told the paper that the alleged “relaxed hiring standards” of Trump-era DHS would not suffice in the Ocean State.

Meanwhile, Rhode Island police officials warned in recent state legislative testimony on a broader group of Democrat-led police reform bills, which include the ICE OUT Act, that officer recruitment will take a hit, according to the Fall River Reporter.

Another such bill from state Rep. Joshua Giraldo, D-Central Falls, would ban ICE from being within 200 feet of a polling place. During session, Giraldo said that when conjecture about stationing federal immigration enforcement near polls arises, “particularly in the current climate; immigrant communities hear a message that is aimed at intimidation.”

DHS officers on duty are already banned from the city proper in the state capital under a January executive order from Providence Mayor Brett Smiley that makes parking lots, schools, parks and government buildings restricted areas.

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“[Providence] has the responsibility to manage such property in a manner that ensures public trust, access and delivery of essential city services for all residents,” the mayor’s order read in part.

Fox News Digital reached out to Gov. Dan McKee for indication as to whether he will sign the ICE OUT Act if it reaches his desk, and to DHS for comment.