NationalWatch

FIRST ON FOX: Records obtained by a conservative legal group show Fairfax County, Virginia, declined to transfer 615 illegal immigrants to ICE over the past 16 months, while turning over just 11.

Fairfax County — whose board hosts only one Republican supervisor for what is the most populous jurisdiction in the Old Dominion — formally designated itself a sanctuary jurisdiction in 2021 after passing the Public Trust and Confidentiality Policy or “Trust Policy” in shorthand.

America First Legal filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the county seeking records from the office of Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Ann Kincaid, who testified at a contentious House hearing earlier this spring on Fairfax’s reluctance to cooperate with federal law enforcement.

The data, which was obtained directly from a Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office document, showed that for the entirety of 2025, Kincaid’s office refused to transfer 448 illegal immigrants to the Department of Homeland Security for processing and instead only turned over a total of nine to ICE. During the first four months of 2026, Fairfax declined to transfer another 167 illegal immigrants, while turning over only two.

WATCH: ANGEL MOM TURNS TABLES ON SANCTUARY POLITICIANS WITH BASIC QUESTION ABOUT THEIR PRIORITIES

Since then, county policy has barred law enforcement from honoring ICE civil detainers or otherwise assisting with federal immigration enforcement.

America First Legal (AFL), which first obtained the data, placed much of the blame on Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephen Descano, who sat beside Kincaid at the recent hearing and faced sharp questioning from Republicans over his prosecutorial discretion in cases involving illegal immigrants arrested in the county.

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AFL said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital that Fairfax’s overall framework encourages recidivism by illegal immigrant offenders and has directly led to several gruesome cases, including the murder of Fredericksburg, Virginia, woman Stephanie Minter, whose alleged killer is an illegal immigrant from West Africa with a lengthy criminal record in Fairfax County.

AFL noted that Descano is under investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division over claims U.S. citizens are effectively discriminated against because of the prosecutor’s stated preferential policies, which appeared on his campaign pages and elsewhere and were highlighted by Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock, R-Calif., and others during the hearing.

The group pointed to fatal stabbings, the alleged assault of a woman on the Washington & Old Dominion Trail — a popular rail trail spanning from Washington, D.C., to Purcellville that has long been considered safe — and other crimes allegedly committed by illegal immigrants who, it said, received light sentences or had charges dropped.

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Descano has long defended his prosecutorial discretion as evidence-based and handled on a case-by-case basis.

A Descano spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement Thursday that the DOJ’s probe is politically motivated and has “distort[ed] the office’s policy.” The spokesperson also said the notice appeared to arrive intentionally just before Descano testified before McClintock.

“Our office’s policies are fair, legal, and reflect the values of Fairfax County, and we will not be distracted from our mission of keeping this community safe and holding individuals accountable when they commit crimes,” the spokesperson said.

Fox News Digital also reached out to Kincaid’s office for comment.

AFL counsel Will Scolinos rejected the county’s defense, telling Fox News Digital that tragic cases such as Minter’s murder are the product of the Trust Policy and the shielding of “hundreds of illegal aliens… from federal law enforcement.”

“This deliberate obstruction by county officials protects illegal alien lawbreakers and endangers every family in Northern Virginia,” Scolinos said. “For too many families, it is already too late. But to protect other Virginians from future crimes at the hands of illegal aliens with prior arrests, Fairfax County must reverse this reckless, anti-American governance immediately.”

In the most recent month recorded, April 2026, 32 illegal immigrants were listed as being in the sheriff’s office’s custody, with none released to ICE. All 32 were subject to an “informed detainer,” and three were listed as convicted.

AFL also noted that Santa Clara County, California — home to the San Francisco 49ers’ new stadium — informed the group that it received 529 ICE detainer requests in 2025 and honored none.

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“If each detainer represents a unique illegal alien, an average of 1.34 arrested illegal aliens were released into Santa Clara every day,” AFL said in April.

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The numbers reflect a pattern that is expected to continue drawing scrutiny from the Trump administration and groups such as AFL, which has also sought data from sanctuary jurisdictions nationwide.

Fox News Digital reached out to DHS for comment.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is facing renewed criticism from Republicans after the Trump administration suspended federal funding for the state’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU), citing years of poor criminal enforcement performance and leadership decisions that federal officials say left fraud investigations lagging.

The federal action gives Republicans a new line of attack against James as she campaigns for re-election. Republican challenger Saritha Komatireddy has made the state’s struggling Medicaid Fraud Control Unit a key issue in the race, arguing James failed to aggressively prosecute fraud. Federal watchdogs’ findings now lend new weight to those claims.

“Letitia James ran New York’s Medicaid Fraud Unit into the ground, and now we know why: a deliberate leadership choice to open fewer cases and let them drag on for years,” Komatireddy said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

“This means New York taxpayers are losing their hard-earned money to fraudsters, and patients and seniors are being hurt or neglected, and no one is holding them accountable.”

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The Republican Attorneys General Association also chimed in on the funding freeze, arguing it reflected broader differences between Republican and Democratic attorneys general in combating fraud.

“While Republican attorneys general are aggressively fighting fraud, waste, and abuse, Democrat AGs like Keith Ellison in Minnesota and Letitia James in New York knowingly aid and abet scams and fraud in their states,” RAGA Executive Director Adam Piper said in a statement. 

“Republican AGs are thrilled to roll up our sleeves and work with JD Vance, Republican AG staff alum Andrew Ferguson, Scott Brady, and the White House Task Force to save taxpayers billions of dollars and deliver maximum accountability.”

In a June 30 letter denying the unit’s annual recertification, Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) officials concluded that New York’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit had become the lowest-performing large state unit in the nation for criminal Medicaid fraud enforcement despite receiving roughly $60 million annually in federal funding and employing more than 270 staff members.

“The New York MFCU is not effectively prosecuting criminal Medicaid fraud,” the letter stated. “The Unit reported only 53 fraud convictions from 2023 to 2025. This is by far the lowest among similar-sized Units; the next lowest number of reported fraud convictions for this period was 129.

“Enough is enough.”

The report also found New York ranked last in criminal indictments, securing fewer than 10 fraud indictments in four of the past five years.

Federal officials further found that 34% of the unit’s open cases were more than three years old, while 69% of referrals from the state’s Medicaid Program Integrity Unit had remained pending for at least two years, contributing to a growing investigative backlog.

The HHS letter concluded that the unit’s poor performance stemmed in large part from “a deliberate leadership choice” to prioritize high-impact civil fraud cases over criminal prosecutions, finding that strategy had left the office ineffective at pursuing criminal Medicaid fraud despite its size and resources.

PENNSYLVANIA AG EXPLAINS WHY STATE LEADS NATION IN MEDICAID FRAUD CONVICTIONS WHILE OTHERS BATTLE MASS SCHEMES

While federal officials acknowledged the state’s fraud unit remained competitive in civil recoveries, they said those results did not outweigh the decline in criminal enforcement.

“The Unit has sacrificed its ability to effectively fight criminal fraud to obtain civil recoveries that are largely in line with its peers,” the report stated.

James blasted the funding freeze, accusing the Trump administration of targeting New York for political reasons.

“This administration’s unprecedented attack on New York is another political distraction,” James said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “During my time as attorney general, my office has recovered more than $627 million for Medicaid and was recognized by this very administration for leading the nation in anti-fraud efforts.”

James’ office noted that HHS highlighted New York as one of four states responsible for half of all civil recoveries nationwide in fiscal year 2025. The attorney general also pointed to several recent Medicaid fraud prosecutions, including multimillion-dollar fraud cases announced in recent weeks.

“The only people this decision benefits are the criminals we investigate every day,” James said. “We are considering all legal options to stop this outrageous action.”

TRUMP SAYS ANTI-FRAUD EFFORTS ARE UNCOVERING BILLIONS IN WASTE, CLAIMS SAVINGS COULD BALANCE BUDGET

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in New York said they are expanding efforts to investigate Medicaid fraud and patient abuse.

“Attorney General James’ apparent inability to explain the New York MFCU’s indefensible criminal enforcement performance is not a political distraction as she puts it,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III, who is spearheading the revival of the NDNY Health Care Fraud Task Force, said in a statement.

Sarcone noted that the New York MFCU averaged just nine criminal indictments a year between 2021 and 2025, compared with more than 100 annually during the three years preceding James’ tenure.

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“Public benefits fraud and Medicaid fraud did not abruptly stop in 2019,” Sarcone added. “Instead, under the failed leadership of AG James, criminal Medicaid fraud in New York State has been ignored.”

The suspension took effect July 1 and remains in effect through Sept. 30 unless New York completes a series of corrective actions ordered by HHS, including reducing case backlogs, increasing criminal indictments and improving coordination with federal investigators. If those deficiencies are not corrected, the Office of Inspector General warned New York it could lose its federal Medicaid Fraud Control Unit grant for fiscal year 2027.

President Donald Trump lost his Supreme Court bid to restrict birthright citizenship through executive order, but one of his own appointees may have handed Republicans a blueprint for pursuing much of the same goal through Congress.

Voting with the 6-3 majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed that Executive Order 14160, which restricts automatic citizenship to people born to U.S. citizens or permanent residents, couldn’t take effect. But in a concurring opinion, he also pointed to a different path forward. Kavanaugh argued the court should have resolved the case under federal law rather than the Constitution, laying out a potential legislative path for Congress to pursue changes to birthright citizenship.

Congress first wrote the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship language into federal law in 1940, then carried it over into the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

Because Congress adopted that language after the Supreme Court’s landmark 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which established that most people born in the United States automatically become U.S. citizens, Kavanaugh said lawmakers effectively incorporated the court’s interpretation into federal statute.

TRUMP SUFFERS MAJOR SUPREME COURT DEFEAT AS JUSTICES UPHOLD BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

Kavanaugh said Trump couldn’t use an executive order to change a law Congress had already passed, but instead suggested Congress could rewrite the law to limit birthright citizenship for children born to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily.

“Congress could — consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment—amend §1401(a) or otherwise enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country,” he wrote.

ALITO WARNS SUPREME COURT MADE ‘SERIOUS MISTAKE’ THAT COULD HAVE NATIONAL SECURITY CONSEQUENCES

Kavanaugh argued that large-scale illegal immigration and modern international travel have created circumstances the Reconstruction Congress never envisioned. In his view, that gives Congress room to establish new exceptions to birthright citizenship that are comparable to the historical exceptions recognized under the citizenship clause, including children born to foreign diplomats and enemy forces occupying U.S. territory.

“Those two categories of foreign citizens—namely, those unlawfully or temporarily in the country—are relevantly similar to the four categories of persons recognized as exceptions in Wong Kim Ark,” Kavanaugh wrote.

While the majority rejected Kavanaugh’s constitutional reasoning, Republicans quickly seized on the idea that any future effort to limit birthright citizenship would have to come through Congress rather than the White House.

REPUBLICAN ACCUSES SCOTUS OF BETRAYING US, PUSHES BILL RESTRICTING BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP, PREGNANT VISITORS

Hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling came out, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said birthright citizenship has “been abused” and suggested that Congress will have to amend the Constitution.

“It’s one of those things that was intended to serve a noble and important purpose and has been thwarted and overused and abused,” Johnson told reporters. “I’m sure that the conclusion from this decision is you have to amend the Constitution to fix that.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., renewed his push for a constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship, arguing that legislation alone would not be enough.

“I introduced a constitutional amendment months ago, actually, to fix birthright citizenship,” Paul wrote on X. “After the Supreme Court decision, that amendment matters more than ever. I’m asking my colleagues to take it seriously and help me get this passed.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, echoed Paul’s calls to pass a constitutional amendment.

“The long fight for a constitutional amendment begins now,” Lee wrote on X. “We must explicitly exclude foreign nationals who break our laws, violate our borders, or exploit loopholes to make their families American.”

Trump argued that Congress could change birthright citizenship through legislation instead of a constitutional amendment.

“No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship. They will have my Complete and Total Support!”

Several Republicans quickly pointed to existing legislation, including Sen. Tom Cotton’s, R-Ark., Constitutional Citizenship Clarification Act, as well as proposals from Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rick Scott, R-Fla., aimed at cracking down on birth tourism.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department indicated it would shift tactics, announcing a crackdown on birth tourism by targeting alleged visa fraud and related criminal conduct rather than attempting to enforce Executive Order 14160.

But, Kavanaugh’s roadmap is far from a guarantee. On the constitutional question, a 5-4 majority concluded that the citizenship clause itself protects birthright citizenship, meaning any congressional effort to restrict it through ordinary legislation would likely face immediate constitutional challenges.

“Justice Thomas says in the final paragraph of his dissent that he’s not confident that the decision is going to stand the test of time, so it could well be that the court would revisit it if Congress were to take the steps that Justice Kavanaugh describes,” Notre Dame Law School professor Haley Proctor told Fox News Digital. “This is an important decision. I don’t think the court’s going to revisit it lightly, and the only sure way to get a new answer here would be to amend the Constitution.”

Kavanaugh offered a similar roadmap in a recent Trump case over tariffs. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal emergency law known as IEEPA did not give Trump the authority to impose sweeping tariffs. But Kavanaugh argued the administration had simply relied on the wrong legal authority instead of rejecting the policy outright.

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“The Court today concludes that the President checked the wrong statutory box by relying on IEEPA rather than another statute to impose these tariffs,” Kavanaugh wrote.

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Instead, Kavanaugh said Trump could rely on several existing trade laws to impose many of the same tariffs, though those laws would require additional legal steps.

Trump later called Kavanaugh his “new hero” in a Truth Social post praising the justice’s dissent in the February tariff decision.

A Senate Republican revealed that even if President Donald Trump’s flagship election integrity legislation had the votes to pass, there’s not enough time to actually have it take effect for the upcoming midterm elections.

The Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act has increasingly become a problem for congressional Republicans desperate to move onto other must-pass legislation. But Trump has consistently demanded they find a way to pass it, particularly in the Senate, by any means necessary.

But Republicans aren’t unified behind the bill, and Democrats unanimously despise it. Even if it got 60 votes, which is an unlikely scenario, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., contended it wouldn’t have an impact in time for November.

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“Unless they do the work to get to the 60 votes, they know it’s dead, and so all this is theater,” Tillis told the Raleigh, North Carolina-based News & Observer.

Tillis, who was one of four Senate Republicans to vote against attaching the legislation to an immigration enforcement funding bill last month and was called out by Trump, is familiar with pushing for voter ID laws, which is only a portion of what the proposed SAVE America Act would do. During his time as House speaker in the North Carolina legislature, he was a major proponent of enacting the state’s voter ID.

But doing so takes time and money, he argued.

‘IT’S A MESS’: GOP TURNS ON HOUSE CONSERVATIVES AS VOTER ID BLOCKADE STALLS TRUMP’S AGENDA

“And honestly, here in North Carolina, or in virtually any state, the ability, if we go back to when we implemented voter ID in North Carolina, it took a year to get everything in place with adequate funding,” Tillis said.

The current version of the SAVE America Act doesn’t directly allocate funding to states to implement voter ID or its several other provisions. That is, in part, why the legislation wouldn’t work in the budget reconciliation process, as Trump has called for and House Republicans are mulling, which requires provisions to have a direct budgetary impact and not be policy only.

Tillis pitched the scenario that if everything worked out, it would eat into early voting periods or outright snuff them.

“Let’s assume you only allow early voting in the month of October,” Tillis said. “Then do you honestly believe that we can have this thing up in 50 states? There’s no funding. There’s no specific implementation instructions.”

SUPREME COURT RULES ON MAIL-IN BALLOTS RECEIVED AFTER ELECTION DAY

“It’s become a joke, in my mind, for somebody that’s actually implemented voter ID law, how anybody can look the American voters in the eye and suggest that it could be implemented in time without just causing a huge impact on the elections, and ironically undermine the confidence of it,” he continued.

Still, it hasn’t stopped a cohort of congressional Republicans, notably Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., from demanding that the Senate take action on the bill.

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And Trump is determined to strong-arm Republicans into passing it, demanding they nuke the filibuster, attach the SAVE America Act to must-pass legislation, or fire the Senate rules referee.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to allow mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day, he renewed his call.

“In light of the tremendous loss in the Supreme Court today concerning Voter’s Rights, and the fact that ‘people’s’ votes are allowed to be counted LONG AFTER an Election is over, it is more important than ever to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Congressional Democrats are staying mum about their potential next moves after the Supreme Court dealt a blow to transgender athletes, underscoring a politically fraught issue that continues to divide the party ahead of the November midterm elections.

The court ruled Tuesday that states may bar biological males from competing on girls’ and women’s school sports teams, upholding laws in Idaho and West Virginia, and effectively preserving similar laws in the 25 other states that restrict participation based on biological sex.

The ruling — which prompted cheers among Republicans — did not interfere with the remaining states that continue to allow biological males on girls’ and women’s sports teams.

Progressive Democrats sharply criticized the decision, while the vast majority of elected officials in the party did not issue public statements. None, however, appeared to outline any legislative response.

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“I want every trans kid to know that there are people here in Congress fighting for you,” Rep. Sarah Jacobs, D-Calif., said in a video posted to social media. “We are going to stand up for all women and girls, which includes trans women and girls.”

Jacobs, a junior member of House Democratic leadership and co-chair of the Trans Equality Task Force, did not say whether Democrats would introduce legislation in response to the court’s ruling.

The Congressional Equality Caucus, a Democratic-aligned group advocating for LGBTQ rights, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., also did not outline any legislative response. The Equality Caucus, however, posted a series of posts on social media slamming the decision, including decrying the outcome as “devastating” for transgender athletes.

Fox News Digital reached out to spokespersons for Jacobs, Jeffries and the Congressional Equality Caucus for comment but did not hear back.

The relatively muted response comes as public polling has consistently found broad opposition to transgender athletes in women’s sports, including among Democrats, suggesting that some lawmakers may be out of step with their own voters.

A survey conducted by The New York Times in 2025 found that nearly eight in ten Americans opposed biological males competing in women’s sports. Roughly 70% of Democrats or those who “lean Democrat” held that view, according to the poll.

Democrats hailing from the centrist side of the party were largely quiet on the court’s ruling.

Few Democratic lawmakers facing competitive re-election challenges from Republicans commented on the court’s decision, a Fox News Digital analysis of Cook Political Report election data found.

Meanwhile, Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., who is seeking a third House term in a Republican-leaning district, issued a positive statement following the court’s ruling.

“The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a significant ruling affirming that states possess the legal authority to maintain separate sports teams based on biological sex,” Davis wrote in a written statement. “Title IX has played a vital role in expanding athletic opportunities for women and girls, and we must continue safeguarding those opportunities.”

DEMOCRATS REVOLT OVER ‘BIOLOGICAL’ WORDING IN WOMEN’S HISTORY MUSEUM BILL

Meanwhile, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., a top GOP target in November’s midterm elections and a member of the Equality Caucus, acknowledged Wednesday that the trans rights movement misses some of the “nuance” about women’s sports.

“At those town halls, what I saw was that the people who were the most upset, a lot of them had spent the last 12 years driving their girls to sports practice, and they view their best shot of their student getting a college education as an athletic scholarship,” Perez told CNN in an interview. “And so when we rush to moralize and be like, ‘This is all about love vs. hate,’ I think we miss some of the nuance.”

The Washington Democrat did not directly state whether she agreed with the court’s ruling.

In the Senate, responses to the decision were few and far between. Requests for comment from several Democratic lawmakers’ offices on whether they would seek to challenge the court’s decision, should they regain a majority in the upper chamber, went unanswered.

Notably silent on the issue was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who lauded the Supreme Court’s decision upholding birthright citizenship the same day and had posted about attending New York City’s Pride parade days before.

Some of the most vocal supporters of trans rights in the upper chamber did, however, weigh in, vowing to “keep fighting” for transgender athletes.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., one of the earliest supporters of LGBTQ rights in the Senate, who introduced the Trans Bill of Rights, charged that the court’s decision “again cleared the way for Trump and MAGA Republicans to discriminate against the trans community.”

“This decision tears trans athletes from their teams and the sports they love,” Markey, who is in a tight bid for re-election against Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., said on X. “We will keep fighting. Discrimination and hate will not win.”

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also weighed in, accusing “right-wing extremists and the MAGA movement” of being “determined to single out, target, and harm the trans community.”

“My heart is with trans kids and their loved ones,” she said on X. “I won’t stop fighting for them.”

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Trump administration is still having to deal with the “madness” of former President Joe Biden’s “open border” policies, as the Justice Department announces new kidnapping and murder charges against eight members of the foreign terrorist group Tren de Aragua (TDA).

According to Blanche, all eight of the charged TDA members “crossed our southern border illegally” and “every one of them entered under the Biden administration between December 2021 and April 2024.”

Blanche said that in one of the cases, four men murdered a father in the Dallas area area and kidnapped his 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old nephew. Five alleged TDA members were charged in connection with the incident, according to Blanche. In the Chicago area, three more alleged TDA members were charged in connection with a case in which a man was abducted, brutally beaten and ultimately shot several times.

TRUMP SAYS US MILITARY ELIMINATED ‘INFAMOUS’ TREN DE ARAGUA LEADER IN LETHAL STRIKE

“None of these men should have been in this country. The father in Texas should be alive today. His daughter and nephew should have never been kidnapped. The young victim in Chicago should be alive,” lamented Blanche. “These violent crimes and murders happened because under the Biden administration, open border policies left our borders wide open and hundreds of suspected and now convicted TDA terrorists poured through those borders into our country.”

During a Wednesday press conference announcing the charges, Ryan Raybould, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said the TDA members kidnapped the Dallas area man and the two children “in the middle of the night” on Aug. 24, 2024. Raybould said the man and children had their hands zip-tied while the gang members demanded money.

He said that “once the TDA members realized the man could not pay them any money, they pulled over by a bridge in Dallas and told the man to jump off.”

WATCH: ANGEL MOM TURNS TABLES ON SANCTUARY POLITICIANS WITH BASIC QUESTION ABOUT THEIR PRIORITIES

When he refused to jump and attempted to flee, a TDA member “gunned him down execution style” in front of the two children, said Raybould.

The five TDA members charged in connection with the Dallas-area crimes are Hector Garcia Zuniga, also known as “Murray,” Carlos Luis Zambrano Bolivar, Jhonny Jesus Serrano, Yonatan Toro Gonzalez and Ehiker Mendoza. Raybould identified Garcia Zuniga as a high-ranking TDA member who, he said, is also facing racketeering charges, including murder, kidnapping and jackpotting spanning state lines and international borders.

Local outlet NBC DFW, reporting on the case in 2024, identified the victim as 33-year-old Nilzult Arneaud Petit. The outlet said Petit and the two children were forcibly removed from an apartment complex at 12:30 a.m. The children were later found unharmed, walking along a highway service road.

All five of these individuals are foreign nationals who Raybould said have been illegally present in the U.S. “at one time or another.”

Meanwhile, Andrew Boutrous, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said the Chicago victim was abducted from a park, had his hands tied behind his back, left in an apartment for hours and ultimately was shot multiple times in the head and in the body.

Local outlet CWB Chicago identified the victim as 18-year-old Cristian Jose Rojas Barrios.

VENEZUELAN NATIONALS CHARGED IN $529K ATM JACKPOTTING SCHEME AT I-95 REST STOPS, FEDS SAY

Boutrous said the “victim’s lifeless body was left face down in the bathroom, partially in the bathtub, in an abandoned unit” at an apartment building. He said Kleiver Monasterio Briceno, Jose Pacheco Torres and “a third individual” are being charged in connection with the crimes.

“I want you to think about those facts for a moment. A man kidnapped from a park in Chicago in broad daylight, beaten, held against his will, taken to an abandoned building and shot multiple times and left in a bathtub. All in the name of Tren de Aragua,” Boutros said.

Boutros added: “And to show just how brutal and merciless this gang is — someone then went and called the victim’s mother and told her where she could find her lifeless son’s body.”

Tren de Aragua, Spanish for “Train from Aragua,” is a violent transnational criminal group that arose in Venezuela during the rule of socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro, who was removed from power in a U.S. operation ordered by President Donald Trump. As one of his first moves back in the Oval Office, Trump issued an executive order directing the State Department to designate TDA a “foreign terrorist organization.”

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According to Blanche, since Trump’s return to office, nearly 350 TDA members and associates have been charged or convicted of violent crimes, including murders, sex trafficking and kidnappings. He said that 350 TDA members have also been charged with weapons charges, drug trafficking and “widespread financial crimes,” including robbery and ATM “jackpotting.”

During the press conference, FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency has arrested 29,000 “violent gang members” since Trump was sworn in. He also said the FBI and its partners have “disrupted and dismantled” 2,700 gangs around the country, which he said is a 365% increase from the same period under the Biden administration.

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“We have seen, specifically as it relates to Tren de Aragua, a 519% increase in arrests,” said Patel.

Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Biden for comment.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., tore into his Democratic counterparts after a hearing on immigration policies erupted into a heated squabble as the mother of a murder victim killed by an illegal immigrant pleaded to Congress for reforms to sanctuary policies.

In a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Lawler reprimanded Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., for not having sympathy for American victims who were murdered by illegal immigrants — Laken Riley and Sheridan Gorman. The mother of one of those victims, Jessica Gorman, was called as a witness to share her story before the committee .

“They can save me their crocodile tears about they didn’t like my words or they didn’t like the fact that I spoke on policy as part of my introduction,” Lawler told Fox News Digital. “Grow the f—— up.”

ANGEL MOM WARNS DEMOCRATS ‘WE’RE NOT GOING TO STOP’ AFTER EMOTIONAL HOUSE HEARING ON SANCTUARY POLICIES

“To fully appreciate and understand why Jessica Gorman is here, you actually have to understand what happened to their daughter,” Lawler said.

“The reality is that they didn’t want to hear it. They didn’t want to hear what happened with Sheridan Gorman or that their policies that they support contributed to her death. That’s a fundamental fact.”

The New York Republican accused House Democrats of being more empathetic toward the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, anti-ICE agitators who were shot to death by federal agents earlier this year after they allegedly interfered with law enforcement during protests in Minnesota.

This led to chaos between the two, with Raskin shouting that Lawler didn’t belong on the Judiciary Committee and didn’t understand the Constitution.

RASKIN TELLS LAWLER TO ‘GET THE HELL OUT’ DURING CONTENTIOUS HEARING

He also asked Lawler if he felt any outrage for Good and Pretti.

“I said, ‘if you care about Alex Pretti and Renee Good, you should care as much about Sheridan Gorman,” Lawler said about his exchange with Raskin.

He continued, “The difference is I spoke out about Alex Pretti and Renee Good getting killed. They shouldn’t have died. The reason they died, however, is because sanctuary policies prohibited local law enforcement from cooperating on crowd control and traffic control.”

RASKIN TELLS LAWLER TO ‘GET THE HELL OUT’ DURING CONTENTIOUS HEARING

Lawler told Raskin he should be “ashamed” of himself for his stance on sanctuary policies.

“Their nonsense that we had to sit there and listen to, that Jessica and Tom and Madeline had to sit there to listen to. I have no tolerance for it,” Lawler told Fox News Digital about Raskin’s comments.

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Raskin has been a strong proponent of sanctuary policies, arguing that having local police enforce federal immigration law is unconstitutional and often defending against what he views as federal overreach on sanctuary policies. He has also criticized proposals to withhold federal funding from cities and states that have limited cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“Sheridan Gorman would still be alive, but for open borders, sanctuary policies and pro-criminal cashless bail policies,” Lawler said. “They support those policies. I don’t. And that’s the fundamental difference here.”

A Republican lawmaker was booted from Pennsylvania’s Democrat-controlled State House chamber over his choice of patriotic attire celebrating the U.S. founding 250 years ago this week in the commonwealth.

The dispute comes as Americans prepare to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial and as the Trump administration showcases the Great American State Fair while the Shapiro administration features America250PA concerts and fairs from Pittsburgh to Wilkes-Barre.

America’s most prominent swing state has long enjoyed closely-divided government, with Gov. Josh Shapiro controlling the executive, Democrats holding a one-seat House majority and Republicans holding a four-seat Senate majority – which has led to dustups like that involving state Rep. Eric Davanzo this week.

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Davanzo, who represents a swath of Westmoreland County between Pittsburgh and Greensburg, said he was shocked by the reaction of House Speaker Joanna McClinton, D-Southwest Philadelphia, when he came to Tuesday’s session sporting a red, white and blue suit and tie.

Davanzo told Fox News Digital he walked around the chamber greeting colleagues and eventually stopped to chat with House Minority Whip Timothy O’Neal, R-Washington.

“We were talking, I turned around when a House photographer got a picture… and the next thing I know Whip O’Neal is gone.”

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“He comes back a few minutes later and he says, ‘hey, you’re not going to like this’,” Davanzo said, going on to recount that McClinton informed minority leadership that his attire was inappropriate.

“I’m like, ‘what? You’ve got to be kidding’,” Davanzo said, before learning McClinton wanted him off the House floor.

Davanzo initially decided to stay on the floor despite Democratic leaders’ wishes until a House security guard informed him McClinton was demanding he either remove his suit jacket or leave.

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“Instead of taking my jacket off, I walked off the House Floor,” he said.

Davanzo said that while it was clear McClinton objected to his America 250-themed suit, some Democratic lawmakers came up to him afterward in the Capitol and said they did not agree with his ejection.

One Philadelphia Democrat, Rep. Jordan Davis of Gray’s Ferry, had remarked to Davanzo the suit was “a very colorful jacket the representative is wearing today. Very patriotic, I see, my friend.”

Davanzo said House leadership had previously endorsed thematic attire in the chamber.

“They were asked to dress in pride colors because they were going to do a House photo on the floor,” Davanzo told Fox News Digital, noting June is Pride Month. “That’s OK. We can we can take our photos for pride but we can’t show up as a patriot and take a photo or even we can even get on the House floor apparently,” Davanzo said.He then read from a statement from McClinton about a Pride Month and how it encourages people to be “authentic” and “love freely.”

“You’re only able to love freely because the brave men and women died for this flag,” Davanzo said.

“They died for our country. This is complete hypocrisy. You’re allowed to wear tennis shoes on the floor. You’re allow to wear top hats. You can wear camo-jackets. Everything across the board, but don’t show up with a patriotic outfit on because you’re going to be asked to leave.”

He noted that the Declaration of Independence was signed 250 years ago Saturday about 250 miles east of his district in Philadelphia and that he is also a “Bicentennial Baby,” born in 1976 and celebrating his 50th birthday this year.

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Davanzo also leads the America First Caucus in the State House, which he said focuses on efforts like onshoring manufacturing in the increasingly postindustrial Keystone State and providing for an “automatic death penalty” for illegal immigrants convicted of murdering Pennsylvanians.

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“I introduced bills that we would give $250 checks out to every family household in Pennsylvania so that we can celebrate America[250]. This is what I stand for, this is what believe in. I’m just representing my folks back home of who I am,” he said.

“This is a big celebration coming up. I want to be patriotic, why not? What is so wrong with what I have on?” said Davanzo, who wore the very same suit during his interview.

Fox News Digital reached out to McClinton for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Hannah Brennan contributed to this report.

A national security group is urging Congress to investigate a prominent environmental-law nonprofit over past partnerships and programming ties with Chinese government-linked organizations, according to a report sent to lawmakers on Tuesday by State Armor, a national security organization.

The Environmental Law Institute, or ELI, has trained more than 2,000 American judges on environmental law through its Climate Judiciary Project since 2018, according to its website. During its decades of China-related work, the organization cultivated relationships with entities the report described as Chinese government-affiliated, CCP-linked or tied to China’s military research ecosystem, according to State Armor.

“Across three decades of engagement, ELI’s work has uniformly advanced Chinese strategic and national security interests while undermining American national security by constraining domestic energy producers and industrial expansion and simultaneously pushing America toward dependence upon energy sources dominated by the PRC,” a letter addressed to congressional leadership attached to the report reads.

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State Armor, a national security organization focused on state-level policy responses to foreign threats, is raising concerns that the ties could have domestic implications.

The organization is run by Michael Lucci, a lobbyist, and keeps its donors private to shield them from being targeted by the Chinese government. Lucci said in an April 2025 Wall Street Journal profile that his group refuses funding from corporate and foreign sources to avoid perceptions of conflicting interests.

“The question is not whether judges should receive continuing education but rather whether any educational initiative funded, organized, or influenced by organizations with relationships with foreign entities, particularly a foreign adversary, could affect the perception or reality of judicial impartiality,” the congressional letter reads.

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ELI, when asked about its ties to China, told Fox News Digital that its programming in China ceased in 2024 and rejected criticism that its work advanced Chinese government interests specifically.

“For over 50 years, ELI has worked to strengthen environmental protections in dozens of countries,” an ELI spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Thursday. “Our programming in China concluded in 2024 but was no different than our typical work — sharing evidence-based best practices on environmental regulation, not advancing any government interests. The Climate Judiciary Project has not conducted any programming in China.”

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit was founded in 1969 and describes its mission as developing “innovative, just, and practical” environmental law and policy solutions across borders and sectors. ELI launched the Climate Judiciary Project in 2018, which is a judicial-education initiative focused on climate science, climate change and the ways climate science arises in the law.

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Though ELI says it has ceased its work in China, ELI has continued to advance China-related scholarship and partner with individuals linked to Chinese government ventures. Fox News Digital is not aware of any ELI programming that has taken place in China since 2024.

As recently as May, the nonprofit, through its journal, published an English-language paper written by two Chinese academics hailing from state-run universities detailing how China had made progress on environmental protection.

Then, in June, ELI hosted a Chinese legal scholar for a panel discussion with speakers from multiple other countries on global career pathways in environmental law. The scholar, who received training through an ELI fellowship in 2021, “participated in ministry-level projects on environmental legislation and policy of China,” according to her biography on ELI’s website.

She also “managed internationally funded programs” to train Chinese “judges” and “environmental law enforcement officers,” according to ELI.

ELI did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the paper by the Chinese academics or the panel featuring the Chinese legal scholar.

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ELI discloses on its website that it has “worked to improve environmental rule of law, enforcement, and compliance in China” since the “mid-1990s” in light of “the critical role that China, and its 1.4 billion people, has in global environmental protection.”

“ELI has worked to improve environmental rule of law, enforcement, and compliance in China in partnership with Chinese NGOs, universities, law firms, businesses, judges and environmental regulators,” the organization’s website reads. “ELI has held capacity-building workshops, high-level roundtables, seminars and panel discussions on Chinese policy issues, trained lawyers on environmental justice issues, and published articles and books on sustainability, environmental management, and constitutional environmental law in China.”

State Armor argued that this kind of knowledge sharing ultimately benefited the Chinese government, to the detriment of the United States. State Armor urged lawmakers to examine the scope of ELI’s cooperation with Chinese entities and review the funding, curriculum development, expert selection and governance structure of its judicial education programs.

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“Under the banner of ‘improv[ing] environmental rule of law,’ ELI’s China Program provides technical assistance, capacity building, and legal training to Chinese NGOs, judges, and environmental regulators,” the report reads.

While ELI has historically provided these services, Fox News Digital could not find evidence that ELI has provided any programming in China after 2024.

To support this assertion, State Armor cited public records showing that some of the organizations ELI worked with are tied to the Chinese Communist Party or the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

State Armor cited ELI’s own website, which states that the organization worked with the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy (PRCEE), a think tank affiliated with China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, to improve China’s environmental regulatory system.

State Armor argued that PRCEE’s affiliation with China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment and its stated policy-support role place it within China’s government environmental-policy apparatus.

In 2013, PRCEE worked on a report jointly published by the Chinese government and the United Nations Environment Programme dubbed “China’s Green Long March” — an apparent reference to the CCP’s famous 1934 “Long March” where it strategically retreated inland during the Chinese Civil War.

ELI also states on its website that its China International Business Dialogue on Environmental Governance (CIBDEG) working group provided “information and analysis to the Chinese government regarding environmental regulations in the United States and Europe as well as the concerns of multinational business.”

“The working group is designed to facilitate and encourage dialogue between multinational businesses and Chinese environmental regulatory authorities regarding best practices in environmental regulation and performance by governments and industries,” the group’s website reads.

ELI joined forces with the PRCEE, the Chinese law firm JunHe and the prestigious American law firm Latham & Watkins to launch CIBDEG in 2018. A press release from JunHe claimed that China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment was also involved in founding the working group.

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In addition to PRCEE and the CIBDEG, ELI has also worked with multiple universities that have been scrutinized by the United States government over their ties to China’s military.

ELI, for instance, “trained 265 environmental NGO workers, judges, prosecutors and attorneys from 26 provinces” at Tianjin University in 2018, only for the university to later land on the Commerce Department’s Entity List, an export-control list, over alleged trade-secret theft tied to military applications. ELI was not involved in the purported intellectual property theft.

ELI has drawn sustained scrutiny from Republican lawmakers and conservative activists over its China-related work, foreign partnerships and climate-focused judicial education programs. The critiques have been based on media reports alleging that ELI works closely with the Chinese government as well as with individuals linked to the CCP, not investigative findings produced by U.S. government bodies.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in particular has waged a prolonged campaign against ELI, alleging that the group has links to the Chinese government and that its operations materially harm the United States.

“We’re witnessing right now a systematic campaign against American energy. There is a coordinated assault by the radical left, backed and paid for by the Chinese Communist Party to seize control of our courts, to weaponize litigation against U.S. energy producers,” Cruz said during a June 2025 hearing. “The judiciary itself is being quietly captured and brainwashed as left wing nonprofits host closed door trainings that indoctrinate judges to adopt the ideological goals of the climate lawfare machine.”

“Perhaps the most insidious because it strikes at the very heart of the rule of law, judicial capture,” the senator continued. “It is being carried out by one organization with near total control over climate-related judicial training, the Environmental Law Institute, and its Climate Judiciary Project … They claim to be science driven but what they are doing is ex parte indoctrination, pressuring judges to set aside the rule of law and rule instead according to a predetermined political narrative.”

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In its letter to lawmakers, State Armor alleged that ELI promotes a policy agenda that disfavors American energy interests.

“The jurisprudential frameworks ELI promotes to American judges disproportionately favor regulatory constraints on U.S. domestic energy production, with no commensurate frameworks within China’s system,” State Armor’s report reads. “Consciously or not, this is an instance of ELI pushing for American unilateral disarmament in energy security and industrial production.”

Two Minnesota brothers are being hailed as leaders of the next generation of American patriots after their lemonade stand raised a whopping sum for a nonprofit that supports veterans.

Noah Dingels, 11, and Cole Dingels, 8, of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, first popped up their stand five years ago at a golf tournament hosted in their community by a nonprofit called Tee It Up for the Troops.

The national organization hosts tournaments nationwide to support its six-pillar mission of helping American veterans when they return from war. Those pillars include PTSD and traumatic brain injury support, suicide awareness and prevention, employment, sports and recreation, housing and family and caregiver support.

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“I really liked it, it’s cool to see the veterans and present the money at the end of the night,” Noah told Fox News Digital about the first year of the lemonade stand in an interview with his brother Cole and mother Angela.

“Honestly, it felt good,” Cole added.

In their first go-around, the boys raised $359, which motivated them to grow their operations. They have since raised $60,000 for Tee It Up for the Troops.

“It feels like a lot, and it’s fun to do it,” Noah said.

Along with lemonade, the boys have added candy bars — Snickers is preferred among tournament players, they said — and golf balls to their sales repertoire.

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They have garnered local sponsors over the years, who also chip in to support the boys in their mission.

“The lemonade stand has always been about giving back, and so the boys have done a great job of using their time and talents every year to show their patriotism and show their gratitude to our veterans,” their mother Angela said.

She described the fundraising efforts as “contagious,” and said community members, including Noah and Cole’s classmates and sports teammates often stop by the stand to offer them support.

“It’s been a really cool opportunity,” she continued. “During the event, they get to meet different veterans, thank them for their service and show their love for our country.”

One of those veterans is Harry Wisdom, a decorated U.S. Army helicopter pilot who was awarded a Silver Star for his heroism during the Vietnam War.

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But Wisdom, now 86, found another use for his prestigious award.

“He very graciously brought that [Silver Star] and gave that to the boys last year at the lemonade stand as a sign of his appreciation for their work and everything they’re doing to support veterans,” Angela said. “He wrote them an incredible letter, and so it’s just been a very special connection that we look forward to every year.”

Tee It Up for the Troops was founded in 2005 and is based in Burnsville, Minnesota.

Chris LaRocque, an Army reserve officer himself, is the group’s executive director and president.

“We’ve we’ve raised, just over $19 million in funds that have gone to directly support veterans and their families,” he told Fox News Digital. The organization has supported 400,000 military families over its 21-year lifespan.

Aside from the golf tournaments held across this country, 45 of which are on the calendar this year, Tee It Up for the Troops hosts an annual event in Florida called REUNION, which brings together veterans who forged friendships in the service.

“REUNION brings together combat veterans and battle buddies, that they’ve lost connection with, as well as some of their family members,” said LaRocque. “We go through a lot of their stories, through shared experiences. We have small group leaders and mentors there, and it’s really a powerful experience and really a unique thing.”

Of course, LaRocque had high praise for Noah and Cole.

“We’ll receive donations that are made out to Noah and Cole’s lemonade stand or Tee It Up for the Troops,” he said. “What a cool thing that these young entrepreneurs, young men that are growing, want to do something bigger than themselves.”

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“What a great message for all of us in our country, especially at the 250th anniversary of our founding,” he added.

LaRocque who has been deployed overseas three times recently and has combat experience, describes Tee It Up for the Troops’ mission as near and dear to his heart.

The reason we’re able to to celebrate the 250th is because of generations of men and women that have sacrificed for it, sometimes ultimately with their lives,” he said, adding that he believes America is still the greatest country in the world despite facing some challenges.

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“What’s so special to me is that we’ve got some, some young men that are seeing that more than many. and doing something about it,” said LaRocque of Noah and Cole.

“They’re like stepping up and going, ‘hey, here’s something we could do. I see this as like a gap. I want to help our community and veterans in our community and do something bigger than just an individual effort.’ And, I think it’s special.”

The Trump administration is set to unveil a sweeping overhaul of federal appliance efficiency rules that officials say will end “Green New Scam” appliance mandates, restore consumer choice, and block future federal crackdowns on gas stoves, fluorescent lightbulbs, HVAC systems, and other household appliances.

“In America, you should be able to choose between a drying machine that takes multiple cycles to dry your clothes and one that does it on the first try — unfortunately, past administrations thought otherwise,” Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox News Digital.

The Department of Energy is expected to propose a sweeping rewrite of federal appliance regulations that would change how energy-efficiency standards are written, creating what the Trump administration says is a permanent safeguard against future efforts to regulate household appliances. The proposal was viewed by Fox News Digital.

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“For too long, the American people paid the price for mandates that restricted consumer choice and drove up costs. President Trump promised to end this nonsense and that is exactly what we are doing. This proposed rule will preserve the American people’s ability to choose home appliances and equipment that actually work — at prices they can afford. It’s called commonsense.”

Officials said previous Obama and Biden administrations interpreted Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) standards as requiring increasingly stringent efficiency standards that made some appliances more expensive or less functional.

Biden-era changes in 2021 and 2024 that loosened the Trump administration’s 2020 rules by making the procedures non-binding and removing several provisions, including a significant energy savings threshold and other procedural requirements.

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The proposal is open for public comment for 30 days before being made an official rule. It comes as the U.S. and Europe face a major heat wave.

Paris Deputy Mayor Audrey Pulvar recently released a statement blaming the United States for the deadly heat wave over France by saying the issue is climate change – not the lack of air conditioning in Europe.

“Dear American journalists and social media ‘influencers’: for days, some of you have been criticizing and making fun of Paris because the city does not have A/C in every room. OMG, this is so rich!” she wrote on Instagram.

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Due to regulations, only 20% of households have air conditioning compared to 88% in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

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She added, “As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, you bear a significant amount of responsibility for global warming and the consequences we, in France, are experiencing. Your cities ‘90% air-conditioned’ are not unrelated to this. In Paris, we take responsibility.”

Fox News Digital’s Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.

After weeks of Iranian missile and drone attacks exposed the vulnerability of major U.S. military bases across the Gulf, the Pentagon is weighing whether decades of relying on large, permanent installations within range of Iranian weapons still makes strategic sense.

Defense officials are considering dispersing some capabilities and reassessing parts of the U.S. regional base posture, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The Gulf base network is how the U.S. responds quickly to Iran, protects shipping lanes, reassures Arab partners and keeps pressure on ISIS and al Qaeda. If the Pentagon reduces or disperses that footprint, it could make U.S. forces harder to hit — but also slower to surge in a crisis.

For decades, the tradeoff was straightforward: the closer U.S. forces were to the fight, the faster they could respond. But Operation Epic Fury reignited a long-running debate over whether concentrating aircraft, ships, command centers and thousands of troops at a handful of large Gulf bases had become an increasingly dangerous liability in an era of precision missiles and drones.

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Retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery said the military already has started relying more heavily on alternate command-and-control locations — the headquarters and communications hubs commanders use to direct military operations — and rotating forces rather than concentrating capabilities at a handful of installations close to Iran. 

“We’re not relying on them in the same way that we did before the war,” Montgomery told Fox News Digital. “I think we are going to reposition these forces.”

The Pentagon has spent decades building a network of Gulf bases designed to put aircraft, ships and troops within minutes of potential crises across the Middle East. That strategy relied on concentrating combat power at a handful of large installations that offered unmatched access to the region.

But during Operation Epic Fury, Iran launched repeated missile and drone attacks against some of the Pentagon’s most important regional installations, including Naval Support Activity Bahrain, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait.

While U.S. and partner air defenses intercepted many incoming weapons and casualties remained limited, the attacks demonstrated that virtually every major American operating hub in the Gulf now sits within range of Iranian missiles and drones.

U.S. forces in the Middle East have endured rocket and drone attacks for years, many carried out by Iranian-backed proxy groups against individual outposts in Iraq and Syria. Operation Epic Fury marked a broader test of the Pentagon’s regional basing model, with Iran directly targeting multiple major air and naval hubs that underpin U.S. military operations across the Gulf.

Naval Support Activity Bahrain alone sustained extensive damage to command facilities and communications infrastructure, The Wall Street Journal reported. Since the conflict began Feb. 28, 13 U.S. service members have been killed and 400 wounded, with most wounded returning to duty.  

Many of the fatalities resulted from a small number of attacks, including a missile strike in Kuwait and an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, Central Command spokesperson, declined to discuss battle damage assessments but told Fox News Digital the U.S. military “rightfully prioritized the protection of people over buildings, and our strategy of protecting people worked. Iran shot more than 8,000 missiles and drones and only two resulted in U.S. fatalities. We did far more damage to Iran than they did to us — by a lot.”

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What that future posture ultimately looks like remains under review. 

A senior U.S. official told Fox News Digital questions about dispersing forces and reducing reliance on a handful of large Gulf bases had been debated since well before Operation Epic Fury, which had reignited those conversations. 

“As a planning organization, we continually assess the security environment and make adjustments to best support operations and protect our troops. This has always been the case and remains so going forward,” Hawkins said in response. 

Defense officials are weighing whether to disperse military capabilities across a broader network of facilities, move some bases or functions further west and even relocate certain operations to Israel, while reducing the U.S. presence at some installations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the Journal reported. Officials also are reportedly considering moving some command structures underground, or forgoing rebuilding damaged structures. 

“We do not have any force posture changes to announce or anything to provide at this time,” a War Department official told Fox News Digital. 

A Joint Staff spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the military is tracking diplomatic developments in the region while continually monitoring and evaluating U.S. force posture.

Former counterterrorism director Joe Kent, who resigned over the Trump administration’s war with Iran, has long pushed for the U.S. to reduce its presence in the Gulf. 

“Our bases in the Middle East are strategic liabilities not strategic assets. Less bases = less targets for Iran to shoot at and that = less leverage for Iran,” he wrote on X Saturday. 

“It’s absolutely being discussed,” Retired Adm. Kevin Donegan, the former commander of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which leads U.S. naval operations across the Middle East, told Fox News Digital. “After (the Iran conflict) is over, I think in each country it’ll be independently evaluated based on our relationships with those countries.”

Montgomery said geography itself has become part of the problem. Many of the Gulf’s largest U.S. bases sit only about 90 miles from Iranian launch sites, leaving little time and space to respond to incoming drones.

“They’re just too close,” Montgomery said. “They’re…90 miles away from Iranian launch points.”

Fighter aircraft have become one of the primary tools for intercepting Iranian drones, but Montgomery said the Gulf’s proximity to Iran leaves defenders with less time and space to intercept drones after launch.

“Our way of shooting down drones, the best way is aircraft equipped with rockets,” he said. “But to do that, you got to get behind the drones. That’s hard.”

Moving some operations farther west would not put U.S. troops beyond the reach of all Iranian weapons. Iran’s longer-range missiles can reach Israel and other parts of the region, and former commanders cautioned that there may no longer be any truly safe rear area. 

But dispersing command nodes, aircraft, logistics hubs and personnel across more locations could reduce the risk that a single strike disabling a critical U.S. capability.

“Everywhere we have forces around the world, they are under the missile envelope of potential adversaries,” he said. “So, where do you go to?”

“What you can do is buy yourself a little time against the threat, but in the end, we still need to have access to basing, because our being in the Gulf is not just to revolve around Iran, we have other reasons to be there, whether that be to ensure that terrorists like ISIS and Al Qaeda, etc. don’t threaten stability,” Donegan went on. 

The bases that came under attack form the backbone of America’s military presence in the Gulf.

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The U.S. typically maintains about 40,000 troops across the Middle East, anchored by a network of major bases built up during the post-9/11 wars. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar —home to the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command and the largest U.S. military installation in the region — alone hosts about 10,000 American personnel. Other major hubs include Naval Support Activity Bahrain, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, and Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates.

Those installations became the backbone of U.S. military operations during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and remain central to American air, naval and logistics operations across the region.

Fox News Digital reached out to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, the White House and the governments of Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel for comment.

Trump has not publicly commented on the matter. 

The Department of Justice announced murder and kidnapping charges on Wednesday against eight illegal migrants who are allegedly members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.

The charges were filed for two separate crimes. In one case, four men allegedly murdered a father in front of his teenage daughter outside Dallas, Texas, said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

In the other case, three men were accused of kidnapping a man in Chicago before beating and shooting him to death.

The defendants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border between December 2021 and April 2024, according to Blanche.

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“None of these men should have been in this country. The father in Texas should be alive today. His daughter and nephew should have never been kidnapped. The young victim in Chicago should be alive,” Blanche said, before placing blame at the feet of the Biden administration for its “open border” policies.

U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould, who leads Texas’ Northern District, said the victims outside Dallas were a man, his 13-year-old daughter and his 12-year-old nephew.

On Aug. 24, 2024, the four alleged TdA members kidnapped them all in the middle of the night and demanded money from the father, Raybould said.

“Once the TDA members realized the man could not pay them any money, they pulled over by a bridge in Dallas and told the man to jump off. When he refused to do so and attempted to flee, a TDA member gunned him down execution style in front of the two children,” Raybould said.

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Local police found the man on the side of the road, bleeding through a single gunshot wound in the head, Raybould said.

A Texas grand jury indicted the four men involved — as well as a fifth man involved in other related crimes — for murder, kidnapping and ATM jackpotting.

One of the men indicted was a high-ranking TdA official, Raybould said.

Separately, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago filed charges against three alleged TdA members who are accused of murdering a man in May.

Andrew Boutros, the top prosecutor in the Northern District of Illinois, said at the Wednesday news conference that the three defendants forced the victim into their car while he was walking in a park.

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They drove him to a Chicago apartment, Boutros said, where they tied his wrists and left him for hours. After that, the men transported him to an abandoned building, where they shot him in the head and body, Boutros said.

“I want you to think about those facts for a moment. A man kidnapped from a park in Chicago in broad daylight, beaten, held against his will, taken to an abandoned building and shot multiple times and left in a bathtub. All in the name of Tren de Aragua,” Boutros said.

Boutros added: “And to show just how brutal and merciless this gang is — someone then went and called the victim’s mother and told her where she could find her lifeless son’s body.”

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FBI Director Kash Patel, also present at the news conference, praised federal law enforcement in his remarks for increasing arrests of violent gang members under President Donald Trump’s second administration.

“We’ve arrested 29,000 violent gang members since President Trump was sworn in,” Patel said. “We have seen, specifically as it relates to Tren de Aragua, a 519% increase in arrests.”

According to the federal government, Tren de Aragua was formed around 2014 inside the Tocorón Prison in Aragua, a state in Venezuela. It has since grown into a transnational criminal organization.

U.S. authorities have tied the gang to sex trafficking, drug trafficking, kidnappings, murders and other crimes. TdA has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department since February 2025.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents discovered and seized over $3.7 million worth of cocaine in what was supposed to be a shipment of cucumbers last Wednesday.

Agents at the Pharr International Bridge near the southernmost point of Texas discovered 112 packages in a tractor-trailer after a canine inspection and a subsequent nonintrusive imaging system scan revealed anomalies in the vehicle.

CBP officials seized the load, totaling 278.88 pounds — a haul with a $3,723,654 street value, according to the agency.

HIDDEN TUNNEL DISCOVERED IN TIJUANA MAY HAVE SUPPORTED CROSS-BORDER TRAFFICKING OPERATIONS

The stopped shipment, just one of many shipments traffickers have tried to mask as other merchandise, highlights how smuggling remains a challenge for law enforcement along the U.S. border — even as illegal border crossings have plummeted to record lows.

According to Port Director Carols Rodriguez, who manages the Hidalgo Port of Entry, it’s one of the many reasons CBP must maintain high levels of scrutiny.

“This interception is a powerful reminder that our CBP officers are on duty 24/7, employing every resource to detect and deter those who attempt to exploit our borders,” Rodriguez said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION NAMES ROSARIO ‘PETE’ VASQUEZ TO SERVE AS NEXT US BORDER PATROL CHIEF

Since the end of 2024, border crossings have plummeted, going from over 144,000 encounters in December 2024 to just 10,000 in April.

Even so, CBP has reported several high-profile smuggling attempts.

In February, CBP detained a truckload of “roses” concealing over 515 pounds of cocaine. Just a little later, on April 2, CBP reported seizing 298 pounds of cocaine worth roughly $2.6 million in another commercial truck allegedly carrying carrots.

And the smuggling efforts haven’t been limited to drugs, either.

FEDS DISMANTLE ALLEGED GUN TRAFFICKING RING THAT FUNNELED DOZENS OF FIREARMS FROM GEORGIA TO CHICAGO GANGS

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Later in April, CBP announced it had prevented a car carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, 16 AK rifles, 24 rifle magazines, 16 rifle stocks, 20 pistol grips, and other weapon parts from crossing the border.

“The threat of illicit narcotics is constant, but so is our vigilance,” Rodriguez said

Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., accused the U.S. Supreme Court of betraying the nation on Tuesday and introduced a proposal to crack down on birthright citizenship.

The nation’s high court on Tuesday ruled against an executive order President Donald Trump issued last year that took aim at the notion that infants born on U.S. soil are entitled to American citizenship.

The 14th Amendment states, in part, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

VANCE CALLS SCOTUS BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP RULING A ‘MAJOR MISTAKE,’ WARNS OF MORE BIRTH TOURISM

Trump’s order declared it to be U.S. policy “that no department or agency of the United States government shall issue documents recognizing United States citizenship, or accept documents issued by State, local, or other governments or authorities purporting to recognize United States citizenship, to persons:  (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”

Ogles slammed the Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday, asserting in part of a post on X that the Supreme Court had “betrayed America.”

In a statement that his office provided to Fox News Digital on Wednesday, Ogles asserted, “Yesterday, the Supreme Court cheapened the most valuable thing on planet Earth: U.S. citizenship. Not only is birthright citizenship clearly not in the U.S. Constitution, but this broken system has allowed foreign nationals to take advantage of our country, our benefits, and our generosity. These foreigners have embedded themselves into our society and are being trained by foreign governments to corrupt our culture.”

SUPREME COURT LAMBASTED OVER ‘DESTRUCTIVE’ AND ‘OUTRAGEOUS’ BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP DECISION

He added, “I refuse to let these anchor babies colonize our country. Save our sovereignty. Anchors away!”

The congressman’s “Anchors Away Act” aims to crack down on the issue.

The proposal would amend U.S. law — which states that those born in the U.S. and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens at birth — to stipulate that for a child to be considered under U.S. jurisdiction, one of the parents must be “a citizen or national of the United States,” “an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States whose residence is in the United States” or “an alien with lawful status under the immigration laws performing active service in the armed forces (as defined in section 101 of title 10, United States Code).”

TRUMP SUFFERS MAJOR SUPREME COURT DEFEAT AS JUSTICES UPHOLD BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

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The measure would also amend U.S. law to stipulate, “Any alien seeking admission to the United States as a nonimmigrant who is pregnant and is not married to a citizen of the United States is inadmissible.” Though it also notes, “Nothing in this subparagraph may be construed to render inadmissible an alien seeking legitimate medical treatment relating to childbirth.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Wednesday rejected California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s claims that the Justice Department is politically targeting him, saying the governor’s assertions are not “grounded in fact.”

Blanche responded to comments made by Newsom, who said last month that the Justice Department is investigating him and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, under orders from President Donald Trump.

While Blanche declined to comment on any ongoing investigations, he dismissed the governor’s claims.

GAVIN NEWSOM CLAIMS TRUMP ORDERED DOJ PROBE TARGETING HIM AND HIS WIFE

“The only thing I’ll say about what he chose to do and what he chose to say is, I’m not sure his words are in any way grounded in fact,” Blanche said during a news conference.

“He’d have to address that,” Blanche added.

Newsom claimed June 15 that Trump had directed the Justice Department to investigate him and his wife in an effort to undermine a potential White House campaign.

The California governor has described the investigation as a politically motivated “fishing expedition” by Trump’s DOJ, saying he and his wife have “nothing to hide.” Newsom has also argued the inquiry is aimed at him because he is considering a presidential run, saying, “To get me, he’s coming after my wife.”

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE NEWSOM-LINKED CHARITIES REPORTEDLY CAUGHT IN DOJ’S SIGHTS

“Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean Tweets. He’s coming after me because I am considering running for President,” Newsom said. “Because he hates that I’ve consistently called him out – over and over again – for his lies and deceit. Donald Trump is simply the most corrupt President in American history.”

Blanche also rejected Newsom’s broader characterization of the situation.

“He can choose to say whatever he thinks helps him,” Blanche said. “It doesn’t make it true.”

NEWSOM UNDER FIRE AS CALIFORNIA GAS TAX HIKE SENDS PUMP PRICES EVEN HIGHER

Sources previously told Fox News the investigation has been ongoing since 2025 and is based on whistleblower complaints related to Newsom and his wife’s personal finances. The matter is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento.

Federal sources confirmed to Fox News there are investigations involving Jennifer Siebel Newsom, but Fox News has not learned of any federal investigation directly targeting Gov. Newsom himself.

The Justice Department has not publicly confirmed any investigation involving Newsom or his wife.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom is a documentary filmmaker who runs The Representation Project, a nonprofit organization that seeks to advance feminism through media production. Fox News Digital previously reported the charity has faced “pay-for-play” allegations, with critics claiming corporations with business interests in California donated to the organization in an effort to gain influence with Newsom.

“There are clearly no boundaries to what Donald Trump will do to get his way or to challenge those who get in his way. This is not presidential behavior, and the Governor and I will continue to speak truth to power because the American people deserve so much more,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom said in a previous statement to Fox News.

Following Blanche’s remarks Wednesday, the governor’s office posted a meme on social media with the caption, “Why you always lyin.”

The governor’s press office also wrote, “Trump goons know that it’s not a crime to lie to a reporter.”

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

Fox News Digital’s Bonny Chu and Robert Schmad contributed to this report.

Alaska’s highest court ruled that a same-name Republican challenger to Sen. Dan Sullivan can remain on the ballot, a decision an election expert says exposes glaring flaws in Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system and top-four primary.

The Alaska Supreme Court ruled Monday that Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, is eligible to appear on the Republican primary ballot alongside incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan, affirming a lower court’s decision keeping him on the ballot despite Republicans and the Division of Elections arguing that Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy is a “sham” attempt orchestrated by Democratic operatives to potentially trip up voters and siphon off votes from the incumbent.

“It very clearly is an attempt to mislead voters,” Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, told Fox News Digital. “When you look at the facts, they’ve been pretty clearly established.”

Snead pointed to Alaska’s ranked choice voting (RCV) and jungle primary as especially vulnerable to any nefarious tactics with same-name candidates because, unlike a traditional partisan primary, Alaska advances the top four finishers from a single primary election to the general election, regardless of party.

DAN SULLIVAN ACCUSES SAME-NAME CHALLENGER OF TRYING TO ‘RIG’ ALASKA SENATE RACE

Snead argued that under a conventional Republican primary, a candidate he described as a “decoy” would be unlikely to eliminate a legitimate contender before the general election.

Instead, he said, voters face a crowded top-four primary ballot in this year’s Alaska Senate race, roughly 16 candidates are running, and confusion over nearly identical names could have significant consequences.

GOP FIGHTS TO STOP MULTIPLE DAN SULLIVANS FROM APPEARING ON ALASKA BALLOT, CALLS CANDIDACY A ‘SHAM’

“You’ve really got two problems in one,” Snead said. “You don’t have any party primary. There’s no Republican nominee or Democratic nominee. You have this jungle primary where everybody runs together, and the top four candidates advance to the general election.”

Snead argued that under a traditional partisan primary, a candidate he described as a decoy would have little chance of preventing a legitimate Republican nominee from advancing to the general election. Instead, he said, Alaska’s crowded all-party primary creates more opportunities for voter confusion.

“If enough of them pick the wrong Dan Sullivan, then he makes it into the general,” Snead said. “Now you’ve got two people named Dan Sullivan on the ballot.”

Snead said the ranked-choice system can compound the problem because ballots are redistributed as candidates are eliminated.

“If you only rank one person, then your ballot is eliminated if that person is eliminated,” he said.

ALASKA’S BLOCKBUSTER SENATE RACE THROWN INTO CHAOS AS SAME-NAME CHALLENGER FIGHTS DISQUALIFICATION IN COURT

He said another possibility is that voters could mistakenly rank the wrong Dan Sullivan first and Democrat Mary Peltola second, causing those votes to transfer to Peltola if the decoy candidate is eliminated during tabulation.

“There are lots of different traps here,” Snead said. “At a minimum, I think this speaks to the fact that ranked-choice voting plus jungle primaries is especially vulnerable to these sorts of games.”

“It is definitely not an idea that is ready for prime time, no matter what the people that push ranked choice are trying to sell us on.”

The Alaska Supreme Court did stipulate that election officials could add additional identifying information to the ballot to distinguish between the two candidates, leaving those design decisions to the Division of Elections.

Dan J. Sullivan, known to his critics as “Decoy Dan,” has come under scrutiny over ties to Democratic consultant Amber Lee, who was revealed as the author of his campaign launch announcement in metadata reviewed by Fox News Digital. Lee has notably supported Peltola’s prior runs for office and expressed optimism to The Hill in January that the Alaska Democrat would unseat the incumbent Sullivan.

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According to Alaska Director of Elections Carol Beecher, Dan J. Sullivan requested to appear on the primary ballot under the name “Dan Sullivan” despite previously registering as “Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.” Beecher also noted that his campaign materials are visually similar to the incumbent Republican’s campaign and that he had no affiliation with the GOP prior to jumping into the race shortly before the filing deadline.

The fate of his candidacy could prove decisive in the state’s hotly contested Senate race in which Sen. Dan S. Sullivan is seeking a third term in the Republican-leaning state. Democrats are hoping that former Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, whom Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., helped recruit into the race, will unseat Sullivan in November.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign said, “Mr. Sullivan has been buoyed by yesterday’s decisive victory at the Alaska Supreme Court.  To the extent that the Division of Elections is still grappling with how it will properly effectuate ballot design in a manner consistent with Alaska law and past practice, he has no comment, and looks forward to running his campaign.”

Fox News Digital’s Adam Pack contributed to this report.

A top government watchdog group released a multipoint plan to protect the homeland and the integrity of U.S. citizenship after the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling affirming birthright citizenship as enshrined in federal law.

Conservatives across the country criticized Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, along with the court’s three liberal justices, arguing that the ruling opens the door to citizenship for children born to foreign nationals illegally present in the U.S. and dilutes American citizenship.

The Oversight Project shared its “Keeping Families Together Plan” with Fox News Digital, arguing the ruling did not grant legal status to the parents of so-called anchor babies, a premise central to its proposal.

“Now that the illegal alien community has achieved weapons of mass reproduction… you need to turn off that multiplying effect. And if the goal of mass deportation is quantitative, which of course it is, you need go [to] places where legal immigration spreads the most or is concentrated the most,” said Mike Howell, an attorney and president of the Oversight Project.

SUPREME COURT’S LATEST IMMIGRATION RULING WILL CAU.S.E AMERICANS TO ‘DIE AND SUFFER’ ATTORNEY WARNS

“That’s why I’ve advocated so long for worksite enforcement,” he said, noting farms and factories need enforcement rather than “playing onesies and twosies” in sanctuary cities.

An increase in deportations, particularly of the parents of potential anchor babies, is key now that unfettered naturalization is a real possibility, he added.

BIDEN JUDGE OVERRULED ON KEY TRUMP IMMIGRATION POLICY

“Go to ‘red’ places and deport.”

By deporting parents of so-called “anchor babies,” in most cases the child would be deported with the parent — and if not, that parent would have the “moral onus” of abandoning the child, Howell said.

“If you are truly committed to the idea that birthright citizenship is absurd in its application, then it should be preventative,” he added, saying part of the plan to keep foreign families together would entail throwing roadblocks up to pregnant foreigners having children in the U.S.

Positioning ICE at certain hospitals would help prevent that, he said.

Turning to combating “birth tourism” — in which organizations help foreign nationals travel to the U.S. for the purpose of giving birth to U.S.-citizen children — Howell said China is the biggest source of the practice and other economic threats.

Asked how to thread the needle with the U.S.’ economic reliance on Beijing, Howell said Tuesday’s ruling shows it is time to play “hardball.”

He criticized President Donald Trump’s blessing of thousands of Chinese students continuing to study in America, which, in Howell’s words, would “prop up our failing university system.”

“The elite regions of [China’s] upper class love access to the U.S. financial system and coming here and taking advantage of it. And so if you’re negotiating and it’s the art of the deal… take away the thing they want.”

Howell claimed one Chinese billionaire has been “shipping his sperm” to California to inseminate women, resulting in children being born with U.S. citizenship.

“What kind of serious country allows [that]?” he said. Reports from outlets, including Fortune, have described wealthy Chinese businessmen engaging in repeated surrogacy arrangements involving American women.

Howell said that despite talk of Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda, the numbers don’t match the boasts so far.

“The fact remains there isn’t a mass deportation campaign underway. And that’s why we’ve been pushing this Mass Deportation Coalition, which has so many members across the country and a policy framework for them to do it,” he said, acknowledging that Trump has had “special interests” buffeting his attempts because they don’t want their workforces deported, and setbacks like the public outcry over agent-involved shootings in Minneapolis that led to “cold feet.”

Asked about the Oversight Project’s plan and Howell’s comments, the White House said Trump remains “totally committed” to protecting the “value of natural-born citizenship.”

“[That] is why, following yesterday’s ruling, he directed Congress to take immediate action to address this. Simultaneously, the administration will double down on our efforts to keep the border secure and deport illegal aliens.”

Spokesperson Abigail Jackson added that the DOJ will prioritize birth-tourism schemes, some of which Howell laid out.

Howell’s plan also includes a veiled shot at Roberts — who, despite being a Republican’s appointee, is often the swing vote in favor of the court’s liberal minority as he was Tuesday.

The George W. Bush appointee famously roiled Republicans after deeming Obamacare constitutional by defining its no-insurance penalty as a “tax,” while writing in the same 2012 ruling that Congress could not force Americans to buy insurance.

“The question is not whether that is the most natural interpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a ‘fairly possible’ one,” Roberts wrote in NFIB v. Sebelius.

Howell said lawmakers could therefore create a mechanism through congressional reconciliation to punish birth-tourists — but define the penalty as a “tax.”

“Much like the Obamacare plan being upheld as a tax by the Supreme Court, this would survive constitutional scrutiny,” the Oversight Project’s plan read.

The plan also goes further, calling on DHS to suspend all visas for countries like China that engage in birth tourism.

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The key, Howell said, is to start ignoring the noise from the left and from critics and power through the end of the congressional term with attainable goals in mind no matter how controversial critics say they are.

“We took a hit today, a big hit, but the damage can be mitigated and the overall problem can be solved with a lot of political backbone and using the money from the Big, Beautiful Bill quickly and without fear of what the left-wing media might say about it,” he said.

“Reconciliation is a beautiful vehicle to achieve those kind of cost-cutting measures. Obamacare was a tax. The rule is a tax, so why can’t we use a tax here? I’m sure the legal pundits will have much to say about that one,” Howell remarked.

“But by any hook, nook, or cranny, we need to fight this policy,” he went on, adding the mainstream media and some moderates will be lambasting the social repercussions of the plan.

“If the administration’s going to take to the airwaves and say this is like a disgraceful ruling that undermines our sovereignty, then they need to act.”

“The suburban moms will be angry. They will say all that kind of stuff. But I want them to follow through because there’s 77 million Americans who sent Trump back to the White House after everything we went through.”

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In the interim, Rep. Andy Ogles IV, R-Tenn., and Sens. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., have unveiled constitutional amendment proposals to overturn the court’s ruling, though observers say the efforts appear politically untenable at present.

When asked about characterizations of DHS’ efforts, an agency spokesperson told Fox News Digital, “We disagree with the ruling. Congress must get to work to end birthright citizenship immediately.”

“In President Trump’s first year back in office, more than 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations. As of June 24, we have now deported over 948,000 illegal aliens and arrested over 981,000 illegal aliens,” the spokesperson said, adding that since the first day of Trump’s administration, DHS has been delivering on the promise to “Make America Safe Again” and more than 3 million have been deported.

“Our message is clear: if you come to our country illegally, we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you.”

Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff narrowly won his Senate seat in a January 2021 runoff, defeating Republican David Perdue by just over a percentage point. New Fox News polling suggests a different dynamic this time, as Ossoff holds a double-digit lead over GOP challenger Mike Collins in the 2026 Georgia Senate race.

After receiving a last-minute endorsement from President Trump in the June GOP primary runoff, Collins defeated Derek Dooley, who was backed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Trump carried the Peach State by about 2 points in 2024 after losing it by less than a point in 2020. He won the state by more than 5 points in 2016.

The Fox News survey, released Wednesday, finds Ossoff receives 56% support from Georgia registered voters compared to 43% for Collins.

The incumbent Democrat enjoys strong support from Black voters (87%), those under age 30 (68%), independents (68%), moderates (66%), and women under 45 (66%).  Among the 82% of Georgia voters who say they are motivated to vote, Ossoff leads by 11 points (55% vs. 44% Collins).

Collins’ best groups include White evangelical Christians (79%), White men without a college degree (65%), and rural voters (55%). About half of gun-owner households (53%) and veterans (50%) also favor him.

FOX NEWS POLL: MAINE SENATE RACE IS TIGHT, WITH CONCERNS ABOUT BOTH CANDIDATES

Ossoff benefits from greater party loyalty, as nearly all Democrats (96%) back him and more than 8 in 10 of his supporters say their vote is for him rather than against Collins.

For Collins, 9 in 10 Republicans back him (89%) but only 56% of his supporters say their vote is for him, while 44% say it is primarily against Ossoff.

FOX NEWS POLL: LOOKING AHEAD TO AMERICA’S 250TH ANNIVERSARY

Notably, nearly a quarter of non-MAGA Republicans say they will back the Democrat compared to just 4% of MAGA supporters.

Ossoff is mostly matching his numbers among demographics in the 2021 Georgia Senate Runoff Fox News Voter Analysis (FNVA) election survey, while Collins is underperforming Perdue.

There are similar levels of enthusiasm for both candidates. About 8 in 10 Ossoff supporters say they are certain to vote for him (81%) and are extremely or very motivated to cast a ballot (81%). Among Collins supporters, 78% are certain to back him and 84% are motivated to vote. 

Nearly 6 in 10 voters have a favorable opinion of Ossoff (58%), much higher than the 4 in 10 for Collins (44%) and Trump (42%). Trump’s favorable rating is down 5 points from 47% in the 2024 Georgia FNVA. 

Georgians are 6 points more likely to say they are extremely or very concerned that Collins is too close to Trump (53%) than that Ossoff is too liberal (47%).

Inflation dominates voter concerns, with 40% saying the issue will be most important to their Senate vote. Healthcare ranks a distant second (13%), followed by political divisions (11%), immigration (11%), and jobs and unemployment (11%). Fewer say the Iran conflict (5%), crime (5%), or abortion (3%).

Ossoff holds large advantages among voters who are most concerned about inflation (+21), healthcare (+40), and political divisions (+18), while Collins has a significant lead among those focused on immigration (+45).

“As Brooklyn Dodgers’ announcer Red Barber used to say, Ossoff is ‘sitting in the Catbird seat’” says Daron Shaw, a Republican who conducts the survey with Democrat Chris Anderson. “My hunch is the race will become much more competitive, but Collins has work to do convincing Republicans and independents that he and the president can make things more affordable for rank-and-file Georgians.”

Despite concerns about inflation, half say their finances are holding steady (51%), while 35% say they are falling behind. Only 14% feel they are getting ahead financially.

In the Georgia governor’s race, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms has a 5-point edge, with 52% support compared to 47% for Republican Rick Jackson. That is within the poll’s margin of error.

The results show some ticket splitting: 11% of Ossoff supporters cross party lines to back Jackson for governor, while 5% of Collins supporters back Lance Bottoms.

Lance Bottoms’ supporters are more certain of their vote than Jackson’s (80% vs. 75%).

Both candidates have net-positive personal favorability ratings. Lance Bottoms is viewed favorably by 52% and unfavorably by 38%, while for Jackson it is 43% favorable and 38% unfavorable. Roughly 1 in 10 voters have never heard of each candidate.

CLICK HERE FOR CROSSTABS AND TOPLINE

Conducted June 23-27, 2026 under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with a sample of 1,002 Georgia registered voters randomly selected from a statewide voter file.  Respondents spoke with live interviewers on landlines (39) and cellphones (710) or completed the survey online after receiving a text message (253).  Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of ± 3 percentage points. Sampling error for results among subgroups is higher.  In addition to sampling error, question wording and order can influence results. Sources for developing weight targets include the most recent American Community Survey, Fox News Voter Analysis, and voter file data.  Weights are generally applied to age, race, education, and area variables to ensure the demographics of respondents are representative of the registered voter population.  Results among subgroups are only shown when the sample size is at least N=100.

The race to succeed Iowa’s retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst is on track to be one of the closest Senate contests in 2026. Ernst, the first woman senator to represent the Hawkeye State, won by 6.5 points in 2020, and President Donald Trump carried it by 8 points that year and by 13 in 2024.

A new statewide Fox News survey finds Iowans now view Trump negatively by 13 points (42% favorable vs. 55% unfavorable). That’s a 19-point swing compared to his +6 rating (52-46%) in the November 2024 Iowa Fox News Voter Analysis (FNVA) election survey. 

The last time Iowa elected a Democratic senator was Tom Harkin nearly 20 years ago (2008).  As it stands, Democrat Josh Turek has an early 4-point advantage over Republican Ashley Hinson: 50% vs. 46%.  It’s an edge that’s within the poll’s margin of error.

Among voters who say they are extremely motivated to vote, Turek holds a 15-point lead, coming largely from greater enthusiasm among Democrats (67% extremely motivated) than Republicans (53%).

 FOX NEWS POLL: MAINE SENATE RACE IS TIGHT, WITH CONCERNS ABOUT BOTH CANDIDATES

Hinson’s net favorability is more positive than Trump’s, yet still negative by 7 points (42% favorable, 49% unfavorable) while Turek is much more popular with a net positive rating of 18 points (51%-33%).  Sixteen percent have no opinion of Turek while 9% say the same of Hinson.

In the head-to-head, Turek benefits from the support of women with a college degree (65%), independents (59%), urban voters (59%), and voters under age 30 (55%).

Hinson’s backing comes from White evangelical Christians (67%), men ages 45 and over (55%), veterans (52%), and men without a college degree (52%).  Her support is strongest among MAGA Republicans, who are 23 points more likely to back her than non-MAGA GOPers (95% vs. 72%).

Overall, by 8 points, more Democrats support Turek (96%) than Republicans back Hinson (88%).

 FOX NEWS POLL: LOOKING AHEAD TO AMERICA’S 250TH ANNIVERSARY

By a 10-point margin, more of Turek’s supporters (82%) than Hinson’s (72%) say they are certain to support their candidate in November. Nearly 3 in 10 Hinson supporters say they may change their mind.

More Hinson supporters say their vote is for her rather than against her opponent compared to Turek supporters (77% vote is for Hinson vs. 60% for Turek).

Trump endorsed Hinson last September and voters are divided over her ties to the president: 50% say they are extremely or very concerned she’s too close to Trump, while 48% say they’re not very or not at all concerned.

Fewer voters are worried Turek’s positions on the issues are too liberal: 37% concerned vs. 59% not concerned. 

“Iowa has turned red during the last decade, but these data suggest a reversion to swing status,” says Republican Pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll with Democrat Chris Anderson. “A trifecta of issues helps Democrats: Iowans have been hit hard by rising prices, they are notoriously skeptical about foreign engagements, and the agricultural community isn’t happy about tariffs.”

In the 2024 FNVA, 31% of Iowans said they were falling behind financially. That number is now 42% — nearly 4 times as many as those saying they are getting ahead (11%).  Nearly half say they are holding steady (46%).

Four in 10 Iowans say the most important issue to their Senate vote will be inflation (39%). Healthcare (14%), immigration/border security (13%), and political divisions (13%) lag behind, and even fewer say abortion (6%), jobs/unemployment (6%), Iran (4%), and crime (2%).

Turek has the edge on voters who say their most important issues are inflation (+15 points), healthcare (+53), and political divisions (+20).  Hinson has a whopping 88-point advantage on the issue of immigration.

Like Ernst, Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds opted not to seek a third term.

The new survey finds Democratic nominee Rob Sand with a 9-point lead over Republican challenger Zach Lahn in the race to succeed Reynolds. 

Sand benefits from some crossover support, as 11% of Hinson supporters favor him for governor compared to 7% of Turek supporters backing Lahn.

More Sand supporters say they’re certain of their choice than Lahn backers (81% to 74%).

Sand enjoys a +21 personal rating: 54% favorable, 33% unfavorable.  Lahn’s ratings are negative by 3 points, with 20% unable to rate him (38% favorable, 41% unfavorable, 20% no opinion).

CLICK HERE FOR CROSSTABS AND TOPLINE

Conducted June 23-27, 2026 under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with a sample of 1,003 Iowa registered voters randomly selected from a statewide voter file.  Respondents spoke with live interviewers on landlines (104) and cellphones (662) or completed the survey online after receiving a text message (237).  Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of ± 3 percentage points. Sampling error for results among subgroups is higher.  In addition to sampling error, question wording and order can influence results. Sources for developing weight targets include the most recent American Community Survey, Fox News Voter Analysis, and voter file data.  Weights are generally applied to age, race, education, and area variables to ensure the demographics of respondents are representative of the registered voter population.  Results among subgroups are only shown when the sample size is at least N=100.