While the number of illegal immigrants deported by President Donald Trump since taking office in January appears to be lagging a bit behind former President Joe Biden's number of deportees in 2024, a new analysis by Just the News shows that this is not, in fact, the case.
It turns out the Biden administration counted "turnarounds"--those turned back at the border who never entered the U.S.--as removals or deportations.
These turnarounds accounted for 80% of the Biden administration's so-called removals/deportations that year.
This means that Trump's estimated 660 removals per day of illegal immigrants who were living in the U.S. interior is far beyond Biden's (less than 20% of an estimated 770 a day, or about 130 a day).
That's about five times faster that Trump is deporting migrants than Biden was, despite media attempts to portray the opposite.
This should not be surprising given that Biden was always reluctant to restrict illegal immigration in any way and did everything he could to encourage and allow it.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons talked up the administration's efforts on Tuesday in a press release.
“We’re just 100 days into this administration and thanks to President Trump and Secretary Noem, ICE is using every tool at its disposal to enforce our country’s immigration laws and protect our communities,” Lyons said.
The numbers given above are for ICE only; across all agencies, Homeland Security reported that 158,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested and more than 142,000 have been deported.
“Deportations have already exceeded 142,000—this is just the beginning. President Trump and Secretary Noem have jump-started an agency that was vilified and barred from doing its job for the last four years,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told Just the News.
"In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges, ICE, CBP, and the U.S. Coast Guard have made historic progress to carryout [sic] President Trump’s promise of arresting and deporting aliens who have invaded our country,” she continued.
An added benefit of the crackdown is that most migrants won't even try to cross the border when they know they are likely to be caught and deported.
“Additionally, illegal aliens are hearing our message to leave now or face the consequences. Thousands are using the CBP Home App to self-deport. Migrants are now even turning back before they reach our borders—migration through Panama’s Darien Gap is down 99.99%,” she explained.
Border Czar Tom Homan said that more funding is needed to make even a dent in the millions of migrants Biden let into the country, but that they are doing "great" with what they have so far.
President Donald Trump has permanently ended the National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s experimentation on beagles, closing the agency's last experimentation lab over the weekend.
NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya announced the closure during an interview with Fox News's Rachel Campos-Duffy, which you can watch here:
Watch @NIHDirector_Jay on @FoxNews with @RCamposDuffy where he discusses a new NIH initiative to expand innovative, human-based science while reducing animal use in research, including getting rid of all the beagle experiments on the NIH campus. pic.twitter.com/qfL5oepOBX
— NIH (@NIH) May 4, 2025
Bhattacharya said the move was part of a broader policy change that replaced animal experimentation with AI and other technologies that better mimic human health.
“It’s very easy, for instance, to cure Alzheimer’s in mice. But those things don’t translate to humans,” Bhattacharya said.
Bhattacharya acknowledged that people have had a hard time trusting the NIH since the COVID-19 pandemic, when the organization pushed school lockdowns and vaccines way too hard.
He didn't say it, but the Chinese facility where the virus most likely came from got funding from the NIH, which may be another reason why Americans are mistrustful of the NIH.
The NIH confirmed the policy change on social media, saying it has begun an “initiative to expand innovative, human-based science while reducing animal use in research, including getting rid of all the beagle experiments on the NIH campus.”
The watchdog group White Coat Waste said that the NIH has killed 2,100 beagles since 1986 in septic shock experiments.
“The NIH pumps pneumonia-causing bacteria into beagles’ lungs, bleeds them out, and forces dogs into septic shock,” the group's report stated. “After four days of infection, NIH kills the beagles—and stuffs their bodies into a refrigerator.”
“We applaud the President for cutting this wasteful NIH spending and will keep fighting until we defund all dog labs at home and abroad," the group said.
Other experiments on beagles that involved infesting puppies with ticks at Kansas City University became a big scandal in 2021 and turned public opinion against then-director Anthony Fauci.
DOGE has been looking for wasteful spending, and these experiments certainly don't need to be publicly funded.
If scientists want to kill beagles after torturing them, let them find someone in the private sector to fund it, if they can.
Harvard leaders, students and faculty are going bonkers over President Donald Trump's repeated threats to defund the university and now, revoke its tax-exempt status.
According to Newsweek, Harvard President Alan Garber lashed out after Trump said he would revoke the university's tax status, calling the move "illegal" as the two camps continue to be at odds over the institution's inaction on tamping down on student activism.
Harvard is particularly upset with Trump and his administration for freezing a large pot of $2 billion in federal grants and funding, causing the university to file a federal lawsuit against the administration to unfreeze it.
Garber held nothing back as he told the media how he believes Trump's actions against the university are illegal and unconstitutional.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Garber said the president's revoking of Harvard's tax-exempt status is "highly illegal, unless there is some reasoning that we have not been exposed to that would justify this dramatic move."
"Tax-exempt status is granted to educational institutions to enable them to successfully carry out their mission of education, and for research universities, of research."
Garber added, "Obviously, that would be severely impaired if we were to lose our tax-exempt status. And I should add, it would be destructive to Harvard, but the message that it sends to the educational community would be a very dire one, which suggests that political disagreements could be used as a basis to pose what might be called an existential threat to so many educational institutions."
The "political disagreements" are not that at all. Trump and his administration simply want the university to tamp down on student activism related to the Hamas-Israel war, and the extreme anti-semitism witness across the campus.
Newsweek noted:
Harvard is one of several Ivy League institutions the Trump administration has threatened over campus activism and what the White House characterizes as antisemitism on the part of student protesters.
Columbia University was another institution that Trump threatened, and ultimately, the Ivy League school made several concessions to the Trump administration as it obviously knew what the right move was.
Many of Trump's supporters applauded the president for going after the school's tax-exempt status.
"Harvard Law evidently wants more (of a certain type of) bad behavior. So, they reward bad behavior. We should not tolerate those who reward bad behavior," one X user wrote.
Another X user wrote, "Eradicate the privileged, elitist universities. Fund trade schools."
It'll be absolutely fascinating to see who ultimately wins in court on this one.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A new report posted at Fox News, based on comments from DOGE employees during an interview with Jesse Watters, reveals the "most outrageous" ways those on the taxpayers' payroll wasted tax money.
President Donald Trump launched the Department of Government Efficiency when he took office, and officials there have reported cutting at least $160 billion in waste, fraud and abuse.
DOGE chief Elon Musk and his team joined Watters, and revealed that the U.S. Institute for Peace had tried to pay Mohammad Qasem Halimi $132,000 by contract.
The trouble is he is a former member of the Taliban, and was detained by the U.S. and held at Bagram Air Base for a year beginning Jan. 2, 2002. The report noted he held several positions in Afghanistan's government.
A staff member told Watters, "A small agency called the United States Institute of Peace is definitely the agency we've had the most fight at. We actually went into the agency and found they had loaded guns inside their headquarters — Institute for Peace. So by far, the least peaceful agency that we've worked with, ironically. Additionally, we found that they were spending money on things like private jets, and they even had a $130,000 contract with a former member of the Taliban. This is real. We don't encounter that in most agencies."
Also there was some $200 billion spent by the nation's schools, from COVID-19 relief funds, on things like trips to a Las Vegas hotel and the purchase of an ice cream truck.
The report said, "Granite School District in Utah spent their COVID-relief funds on $86,000 in hotel rooms for an educational conference at Caesars Palace, a ritzy Las Vegas casino, while Santa Ana Unified in California spent $393,000 to rent out a Major League Baseball stadium, according to a report by Parents Defending Education and shared by DOGE."
It was a California district that bought the ice cream truck.
Then, too, there was the $20 million "Sesame Street" in Iraq funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, a bureaucracy shut down by DOGE.
"Improper payments" by multiple agencies cost taxpayers $162 billion, the report said, with three quarters of that concentrated in three Department of Health and Human Services Medicare programs; Medicaid, the Department of the Treasury's earned income tax credit; the Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; and the Small Business Administration's Restaurant Revitalization Fund.
Hundreds of millions in spending planned for DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, social agenda points also have been cut.
Some 400 "wasteful" DEI grants through the U.S. National Science Foundation alone, now canceled, saved $223 million.
The Department of Education already had canceled more than $100 million in grants to DEI training.
Though President Donald Trump has encountered one legal challenge to his agenda after another since taking office in January, he just notched a key win in a case involving cuts to a federally funded agency he believes propagates anti-American bias.
As Fox News reports, the D.C. Circuit federal Court of Appeals granted the Trump administration's request for a stay on a lower court ruling that required reinstatement of more than 1,000 employees of Voice of America as well as the resumption of the outlet's broadcasting operations.
It was back in March that Trump issued an executive order designed to begin the process of restructuring and potentially dismantling the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and Voice of America.
In describing the motivations behind the move, a senior White House official explained to Fox News Digital that “Voice of America has been out of step with America for years. It serves as the Voice of Radical America and has pushed divisive propaganda for years now.”
An article on the topic published on the White House website quoted a former longtime VOA correspondent as saying, “I have monitored the agency's bureaucracy along with many of its reporters and concluded that it has essentially become a hubris-filled rogue operation often reflecting a leftist bias aligned with partisan national media. It has sought to avoid accountability for violations of journalistic standards and mismanagement.”
Trump's March order resulted in roughly 1,300 VOA employees being place on administrative leave, the termination of key contracts, and an effective halt to the entity's broadcasting activities.
That, in turn, led to the filing of the federal lawsuit through which Saturday's stay was obtained, one which reversed an April order from District Court Judge Royce Lamberth requiring VOA employees to be reinstated.
Not surprisingly, Trump officials were pleased with the outcome at the appeals court, with senior USAGM advisor Kari Lake offering her reaction to Fox News Digital.
Lake said, “We are eager to accomplish President Trump's America First agenda, which has always been to modernize and make our government efficient while cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.”
She went on, “Now that we have a favorable ruling in the appeals court, we look forward to accomplishing the plan we've always had; to bring VOA into the 21st century.”
Lake also made her opinion on the ruling known on X, characterizing it as a “BIG WIN.”
In an apparent reference to the appeals panel's emphasis on the judiciary's required level of deference to executive power in matters related to federal personnel and contracting, Lake added, “Turns out the District Court judge will not be able to manage the agency as he seemed to want to.”
Amid the issuance of the stay in the VOA case, Trump on Thursday escalated his battle against what he says is federally funded left-wing broadcast bias, signing an executive order to cease taxpayer funding for National Public Radio and PBS, as NBC News noted.
Given that proponents of NPR and PBS are already asserting that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, through which they receive public dollars, is not subject to Executive Branch authority, it seems likely that another heated legal battle in the realm of federally funded media outlets is just about to begin.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the rollback of regulations that have protected journalists and allowed government officials to anonymously leak information.
Bondi's order will give federal investigators the authority to use subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.
This comes after numerous leaks have damaged the Trump administration as leftist federal workers and officials have coordinated with leftist media outlets to spread damaging information.
The issue of leakers was so prolific during Trump's first term in the White House that Trump administration officials spent more time putting out fires than actually advancing Trump's agenda.
So far, Trump's 2nd term has seen much of the same damaging leaks, and the DOJ is now going to crack down hard on both journalists and the leakers feeding damaging information to damage President Trump and his agenda.
The Biden-era policy was put in place to protect journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations. This regulation was strongly advocated for by the mainstream media and journalist advocacy groups.
With those regulations being trashed, the Trump administration is now introducing new regulations that will preserve journalistic freedom but not so much as to allow leakers to blatantly sabotage the White House.
The new regulations will compel journalists to respond to subpoenas “when authorized at the appropriate level of the Department of Justice.”
Furthermore, the new rules will allow prosecutors to use court orders and search warrants to “compel production of information and testimony by and relating to the news media."
However, in order to preserve journalistic freedom, the new regulations explicitly stated that journalists are "presumptively entitled to advance notice of such investigative activities,” and subpoenas are to be “narrowly drawn."
The Trump administration is committed to toeing the narrow line that will preserve freedom of the press while cracking down on political actors dedicated to stopping the Trump agenda through nefarious tactics.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been at the forefront of taking down leakers by announcing criminal referrals to the Justice Department against multiple individuals who were caught leaking sensitive information.
The Trump administration is going to throw everything they have at the leakers it can catch in order to dissuade other leftists in the federal government from throwing away their careers and lives to serve a political cause.
With these new regulations, the Trump administration is hoping to catch even more leakers and make more examples and stop the bleeding before it bogs down the rest of Trump's 2nd term.
Germany's domestic intelligence agency, known as the BfV, has taken a significant step by classifying the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as "extremist." This decision marks a controversial turn in German politics and has garnered commentary both within the nation and internationally.
The classification grants the intelligence agency increased authority to monitor the AfD, including more intensive surveillance and interception of communications, Fox News reports.
The BfV announced its decision on Friday, citing concerns over the AfD's ethnically driven ideology, which it argues devalues parts of the German populace, alongside the party's anti-migrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric.
This classification follows an extensive 1,100-page assessment and a court ruling where the AfD lost a battle to overturn a prior attempt by the BfV to classify it as extremist.
The political context in Germany requires any political party to be officially labeled as "extremist" to legally permit its surveillance, a policy rooted in the country’s historical experience grappling with totalitarianism. The AfD now joins a list of organizations under this classification, which also includes the neo-Nazi party NDP, the Islamic State group, and the Marxist-Leninist party.
The AfD made significant electoral gains earlier this year, finishing second in Germany’s February elections with 20.8% of the vote. This was a record for the party, cementing its position with a substantial number of parliamentary seats. The elections were ultimately won by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), led by Friedrich Merz, which garnered 28.6% of the votes and formed a coalition administration with the Social Democrats (SPD).
The Social Democrats and the CDU have both determinedly ruled out forming any coalition with the AfD. The February elections were notably challenging for the SPD, led by outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz, resulting in its poorest performance since WWII, achieving only 16.4% of the vote.
The BfV’s decision has sparked a range of responses. A representative from the BfV emphasized the central issue for their assessment being the ethnically defined notions within the AfD, which they assert undermine the dignity of Germany's diverse populace. Conversely, the AfD has condemned the decision as a "blow against democracy," with the party’s leaders pledging to pursue further legal options to counter what they see as defamatory measures that threaten democratic norms.
Internationally, the decision has drawn critical responses. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio lambasted the new surveillance powers afforded to the BfV, describing the designation as an ill-disguised authoritarian measure rather than a democratic action. Rubio further argued that the AfD's stance on immigration contrasts starkly with the establishment’s policies he believes are "extreme."
Social media magnate Elon Musk also shared his concerns, expressing that moves against the AfD, a party he describes as centrist, are more aligned with eroding democratic principles. Similarly, American senator JD Vance has voiced apprehension about what he sees as an erosion of free speech in Europe, having previously met with AfD leader Alice Weidel before the elections.
Amidst the controversy, the future of the AfD remains uncertain but is vital for German politics. The party is continuing its legal efforts and maintains a robust voter base, evident from its recent electoral success. The AfD's leadership has reiterated its intention to challenge the BfV's classification, reinforcing its commitment to counter what it terms a politically driven attack.
As this political and legal saga unfolds, the discussion surrounding Germany's intelligence-gathering laws and their impact on democratic opposition parties continues to evolve.
The situation underscores the complex balance between national security interests and maintaining the democratic freedoms within Germany’s political system.
The decision to label the AfD as "extremist" reflects broader global debates about security, democratic freedom, and populist movements, ensuring this story will remain a point of interest both in Germany and internationally as ensuing developments emerge.
Democrats are having an incredibly tough time within the party in the wake of the 2024 election, in which Kamala Harris was destroyed by President Donald Trump, along with most other major down-ticket candidates.
That's why it's not surprising to see the Democratic Party splintering into various groups, and the latest high-profile Dem operative to slam the party's de facto leader, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), held nothing back.
A former top aide to ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Ashley Etienne, slammed Jeffries for not doing more to counter Trump and his policies.
She had also worked for Kamala Harris and for President Barack Obama during his 2008 campaign.
Etienne's main criticism of the current Democratic House Leader was that he's not doing and saying enough to fight back against Trump's relentless policy rollout.
"Trump is just giving us all this incredible red meat. I mean, I've never seen anything like this before. It's like the biggest gift any party has been given by the opposition, and we're just squandering it, to a degree," she said during a recent podcast.
Etienne pulled some of her punches, as she was careful to praise Jeffries for "doing well" in many other areas of his leadership duties.
Fox News noted:
She said Jeffries was "doing well" in many areas and said she had "a tremendous amount of respect" for the New York Democrat but signaled that he was missing opportunities on anti-Trump messaging.
"He gave a speech this morning. I don't have any talking points in my phone about what he said. And I'm going to be doing TV and this interview all day. That's a failure," Etienne said.
She added, "How do you get to discipline if you're not telling people what the hell you want them to say? At least emphatically, at least tonally."
Jeffries deployed his spokespeople to counter Etienne's criticism. Jeffries spokesperson Christiana Stephenson responded to Fox News.
"Donald Trump’s approval ratings are plummeting, and he’s bringing House Republicans down with him. Extreme MAGA Republicans have been forced to delay their plans to advance Trump’s centerpiece legislative priority due to intense backlash against their scheme to enact the largest cuts in history to Medicaid and food assistance.
She added, "Let’s keep the main thing, the main thing."
Only time will tell how many more Dems admit they feel the same way as Etienne.
Despite growing national security concerns, toward the end of former President Joe Biden's term in office, he added Romania to a list of countries eligible for U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP).
According to Breitbart, in a move announced Friday, President Donald Trump, the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just reversed that poorly thought-out, Biden-era decision.
Reports indicated that the removal of Romania from the list was finalized "after a review of the Eastern European country’s admittance was concluded."
The program is quite the privilege for foreign nationals from countries on the VWP list, as it allows them to travel to the United States without a visa and stay for up to 90 days, visa-free.
The country's VWP status certainly didn't last long, as Biden had only added Romania to the list in January. The DHS announced that it had planned to remove the country in March.
Breitbart noted:
Countries eligible for the VWP must meet particular criteria, including having a visa overstay rate that is less than three percent. Romania, in 2024, had an overstay rate of 2.61 percent, but in 2023, its overstay rate was nearly 9 percent, nearly 13 percent in 2022, and more than 17 percent in 2021.
A senior White House official explained the decision to Breitbart.
"The Administration notes with increasing concern the recent developments across Europe of democratic backsliding,” the official reportedly said. "Efforts to suppress the will of the people draw into question the strength of our shared values."
The White House official added, "“Healthy democracies do not fear opposing perspectives. Concerted efforts to delegitimize certain political perspectives draw a striking resemblance to the American experience that President Trump faced, including lawfare and censorship."
The United States is revoking Romania’s inclusion in the U.S. visa waiver program less than four months after an announcement that it would be added. pic.twitter.com/h8n8Oplmp5
— TVP World (@TVPWorld_com) May 3, 2025
Many users across social media weighed in on the development, with some backing it and some criticizing the decision.
"Good. They should do the same for Germany, France and U.K as they also are descending into fascism. In fact all of EU is on the wrong track," one X user wrote.
Another X user wrote, "Not Russia, Romania. Got it."
Country music legend Dolly Parton was married to her husband for 60 years, so it's not surprising that she opened up about how hard it is to be without him after his death earlier this year.
According to Fox News, Parton recently reflected on her life with Carl Dean on "Today," and became emotional when she opened up about the difficulties she's experienced in the wake of his passing.
Parton, now 79, held nothing back as she reminisced on her life with Dean, whom she met at 18 and fell in love with quickly.
The Nashville legend admitted that she's "fine" but has to learn how to adjust to new habits and routines now that Dean is gone. He died in March of this year, shocking the country music world.
Parton admitted that she -- understandably -- gets emotional when people bring up Dean's death, but manages to work through it and remember what they had.
"Oh, you know what, I get very emotional when people bring it up," Parton shared as she teared up. "But we were together 60 years. I’ve loved him since I was 18 years old."
She also revealed that she misses him dearly and praised him for being a wonderful husband and partner, especially throughout what one could only imagine to be an extremely hectic -- and successful -- music career.
"It’s a big adjustment just trying to change patterns and habits," Parton continued. "I’ll do fine, and I’m very involved in my work and that’s been the best thing that could happen to me."
She added, "But I’ll always miss him, of course, and always love him. He was a great partner to me."
Fox News noted:
The 10-time Grammy winner went on to express her gratitude for the love and support that she had received in the wake of Dean's death.
"I’m so thankful. I’ve gotten so many cards, letters, flowers, from all over the world," Parton said. "I had no idea Carl Dean was so famous," she joked of her spouse.
Carl Dean might have been married to one of the most recognizable and popular people in the world, but chose to stay far out of the public spotlight.
"My career being separate from my marriage is perfectly natural for us," she said during a 1977 interview. "We like it that way. It’s too right and too natural and too comfortable and too secure for it to ever be anything else."
Dean rarely gave interviews to the press, but when he did, he always spoke highly of his talented wife.
The two met at a laundromat in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1964, and married two years later. The rest was history.