DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin slammed Illinois Squad Democrat Delia Ramirez over her bill to abolish ICE and gut Homeland Security, saying she puts illegal immigrants ahead of Americans.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and a department spokesperson tore into Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., over legislation that would dismantle most of the Department of Homeland Security and abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The progressive “Squad” member’s Reimagining Safety Act would scrap ICE and Customs and Border Protection, create a new “Department of Community Safety,” and start building a separate civil immigration system. Mullin made clear the Trump administration will not go along.
In comments reported on the clash, Mullin drew a hard line against the push to defund and abolish core security agencies.
"Radical leftists are calling to defund the police and abolish DHS. It’s NEVER going to happen. Our 270,000 DHS patriots are keeping Americans SAFE, unlike this open-borders politician who refuses to prioritize Americans over illegal aliens,"
Ramirez fired back, framing the bill as accountability rather than a retreat from enforcement.
Under the Reimagining Safety Act, ICE would be abolished outright. So would Customs and Border Protection, the agency charged with stopping illegal crossings at the southern border.
The measure would still keep the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Coast Guard, and customs functions. Those pieces would sit inside the new Department of Community Safety while the rest of DHS as Americans know it would be torn down.
Ramirez cast the overhaul in sweeping moral terms.
"Every day, Americans wake up with a new reason to dismantle DHS, reimagine safety, and build something that honors our shared humanity."
She added that people have the power to reshape government away from what she called a “weapon” and toward “the best parts of who we are and can be.”
That language tracks a broader progressive push that has grown louder in recent months. Democrat calls to abolish ICE swelled after agents shot a Venezuelan national in Austin, Texas, and after earlier backlash over the deaths of two U.S. citizens involving federal immigration officials.
The same left flank has produced other high-profile progressive fights, including moments when Squad members collided in public view and forced their own allies to clean up the mess.
A DHS spokesperson said Ramirez should thank the officers working her home state, not attack them. The department pointed to illegal immigrants arrested in Illinois with serious prior convictions.
Among those named: Bulgarian national Rumen Georgriev, convicted of rape with a weapon; Abdukadir Haji of Somalia, convicted of sex assault and rape; and Cuban national Samuel Reyes-Silva, convicted of robbery and homicide.
The spokesperson did not mince words about the tone coming from sanctuary politicians.
"While sanctuary politicians smear ICE, law enforcement is arresting criminals and saving countless American lives."
Ramirez, the spokesperson said, “should be thanking our law enforcement for removing these dangerous criminals from her district, NOT vilifying law enforcement.”
That warning sits against a rising cost for the people doing the work. The same spokesperson tied the rhetoric to a more than 1,300% increase in assaults on officers “as they put their lives on the line.”
Questions about how rapists and violent offenders face justice without strong policing are not abstract on the activist left. A DSA delegate recently dodged that exact problem when pressed on a world without police or prisons.
Mullin’s message was simple: the 270,000 people inside DHS are protecting the country, and bills like Ramirez’s do the opposite. He labeled her an open-borders politician who will not put Americans first.
Ramirez answered by accusing the secretary and the department of “cheap lies and fearmongering” meant to save face. She said dismantling DHS is how critics “hold them accountable, stop corruption, and end their lawlessness.”
"Markwayne and DHS will keep spreading cheap lies and fearmongering in a desperate attempt to save face because dismantling DHS and building something new is part of how we hold them accountable, stop corruption, and end their lawlessness,"
The clash fits a longer pattern. Mullin has already pushed back hard when progressive Democrats claim most immigration arrests target people who pose no public safety threat, a line he rejected in a separate fight with Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
Inside the Democratic Party, the socialist-aligned wing keeps testing how far the institution will bend. A DSA-backed challenger just ousted a sitting House Democrat in Michigan, another sign the progressive insurgency is not slowing down.
Strip away the slogans and the text is blunt. Abolish ICE. Abolish CBP. Stand up a Department of Community Safety. Keep a handful of legacy agencies. Begin a separate civil immigration system.
CBP’s core job is keeping the southern border clear of illegal crossings. Removing that agency while sanctuary rhetoric rises is not a technical tweak. It is a choice about whether the border remains a real line or a suggestion.
DHS used the Illinois arrests to make the stakes concrete. The people removed from Ramirez’s state were not cited for paperwork errors. The department listed rape, sex assault, robbery, and homicide convictions.
When politicians call for abolition while agents face a reported surge in assaults, the incentive structure is plain. Officers take the risk. Communities live with the results. The members of Congress who target the agencies rarely absorb the cost.
Ramirez’s own words put “shared humanity” and “taking care of each other” at the center of the rewrite. Mullin’s reply put American safety first and rejected the premise that DHS itself is the problem to be dismantled.
Those two frames cannot both govern the border. One treats enforcement as the threat. The other treats open borders and soft-on-crime politics as the threat. The Trump DHS team has chosen its side in public, with names, numbers, and a flat refusal to abolish the agencies that still do the hard work.
Taxpayers and lawful residents should not have to guess which approach keeps their neighborhoods safer.
The White House left CNN off Air Force One for Trump’s Tennessee trip, replacing the network with Real America’s Voice after a judge restored ground access.
White House guidance circulated Friday night made the call plain: CNN would not fly on Air Force One for President Donald Trump’s Saturday trip to Knoxville, and Real America’s Voice News would take the seat instead.
The move landed just days after a federal judge temporarily restored the network’s access to White House grounds, drawing a hard line between the executive complex and the president’s travel plane.
Reporting described the switch as new media restriction in practice, with the long-reserved pool spot on the flight going to an outlet outside the traditional U.S. network video pool.
Trump was scheduled to attend the University of Tennessee versus University of Texas college football game at midday. CNN had been in line for the television pool covering that event. The White House guidance to reporters outlining the Saturday schedule simply did not list the network among the assigned outlets.
Last week, Trump banned three outlets, CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, from White House grounds. Journalists from those organizations were shut out of the executive complex until a court stepped in.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly temporarily struck down the ban in an overnight ruling early Thursday. His temporary order mentioned only White House grounds. It said nothing directly about Air Force One or the traveling press pool.
Reporters from the three outlets returned with cameras, laptops, and microphones. The networks still held back from covering Trump as part of the pool even after they regained physical access.
That limited ruling left the White House room to manage the plane. Real America’s Voice News is not part of the five-outlet U.S. network video pool that takes turns shooting and sharing video. The flight seat had long been saved for a pool member.
Decisive control over access is nothing new for this administration, which has also locked down major national-security arrangements in landmark deals abroad.
When CNN was banned from the grounds, the other four pool providers declined to participate in solidarity. The full U.S. network video pool stayed dark for a stretch.
On Friday, the pool came back into operation for a while during the day, the first time since the ban. That same day, CNN aired live pool video at noon showing Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping touring the National Archives with Melania Trump and Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan. The on-screen banner read “Trump and China’s Xi Visit National Archives.”
CNN media analyst Brian Stelter posted on X that the network had a pool assignment at the Archives event and that the White House had approved the network’s credentials. Earlier Friday, attorney Theodore Boutrous Jr., representing the news outlets, told “The Lead with Jake Tapper” that the plaintiffs believe the court ruling also covers pool access.
Political pressure on Trump has run in both directions this cycle, from House Democrats trying to keep impeachment resolutions alive to administration fights over media rules.
Boutrous did not immediately respond Friday night to an email and phone call from The Associated Press seeking comment on the Air Force One decision. CNN itself referred to its editorial coverage and did not comment directly earlier Friday.
Just the News reported that CNN said Friday it had been scheduled to accompany Trump to the college football game, and that White House guidance distributed to reporters effectively confirmed the network’s exclusion by omitting it from the assigned outlets.
The Washington Examiner added that CNN was barred from Air Force One and the White House press pool for the Tennessee trip, and that the network had been supposed to be part of the television pool covering the game.
A person familiar with the pool said, “As of now, all systems are go.”
Reuters reported the White House blocked CNN from the Air Force One trip, citing the Washington Post’s account of two people familiar with the decision. The ban sequence tracked Trump’s earlier announcement targeting CNN, MS NOW, and Politico.
Personnel and messaging shifts keep surfacing around the president’s orbit, including cases where press-team exits signal deeper rifts.
The court order restored cameras and notebooks inside the complex. It did not revise the passenger list on Air Force One. White House guidance treated the plane as a distinct decision, swapping a non-pool outlet into a seat traditionally held for the rotating network pool.
CNN had not aired live video of Trump for several days before the Archives package. Once the grounds ban lifted, the network still faced the travel cutoff for Knoxville.
Allies continue to navigate how tightly to brand themselves with the president as midterms approach, with some quietly scaling back public Trump branding even as the White House tightens its own media rules.
No absolute calendar dates beyond the relative markers, last week’s ban, the early-Thursday overnight ruling, Friday’s guidance, and Saturday’s game, appeared in the accounts. The operative facts remain the guidance itself, the limited scope of Judge Kelly’s order, and the replacement of CNN with Real America’s Voice News on the flight.
Voters who want clean lines of accountability already watch how this White House handles enforcement fights, including pressure on Senate Democrats to back new anti-fraud structures after House action.
The White House drew the boundary where the court left it open, and put a different camera on the plane.
President Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a formal state dinner featuring an all-pescatarian menu with no red meat or poultry, a striking choice for a commander-in-chief famous for his McDonald's habit.
First Lady Melania Trump's office provided the full three-course menu to Fox News Digital, and the lineup reads more like a high-end Manhattan tasting room than a Texas steakhouse: yellow squash velouté with wild mushroom fricassée for the first course, sesame-crusted sea bass with braised bok choy for the second, and a vanilla crémeux dessert made with honey harvested from a White House beehive Melania Trump unveiled on the South Lawn earlier this year.
Not a single steak, chop, or chicken breast made the cut. For a president whose go-to order is reportedly two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and a large chocolate shake, the refined spread marked a deliberate pivot toward diplomatic polish, though the White House offered no public explanation for why meat was left off the table entirely.
The first course, per the menu document, is a "refined and silky-smooth velouté made of sweet yellow squash," paired with a wild mushroom fricassée sautéed with fresh herbs and finished with crispy pancetta and scallion oil. Pancetta, cured pork belly, is the closest the evening gets to anything resembling traditional American meat fare, and it appears only as a garnish.
Course two centers on fresh sea bass coated in toasted sesame seeds, which the menu describes as creating "a fragrant nutty crust while keeping the fish tender." It arrives alongside baby bok choy and roasted eggplant, finished with a French-style sauce verte of fresh herbs. The dish bridges Western technique with ingredients that nod toward Chinese culinary tradition, bok choy and sesame are staples of Chinese cooking.
Dessert leans entirely into White House provenance. The vanilla crémeux sits atop a walnut frangipane with a sour cherry confit center, accompanied by ice cream made from honey produced by the First Lady's own South Lawn beehive. That detail is a small but deliberate touch: it ties the meal to the physical grounds of the executive mansion and gives Melania Trump a personal stamp on the evening.
The First Lady's office also released a décor memo describing the evening's visual theme. The color red dominates, urns overflowing with red blossoms, tables draped in red linen, and arrangements of dahlias and ranunculus. The memo frames the choice as "an expression of warmth and celebration" that "draws on the color red's longstanding cultural significance throughout Chinese history." Red symbolizes good fortune and joy in Chinese culture, making the palette a clear diplomatic gesture toward the visiting delegation.
Entertainment matched the evening's formal tone. American tenor Christopher Macchio, who performed at the Republican National Convention in Dallas just weeks earlier, headlined the post-dinner program. Military musicians from both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps also performed.
The Washington Examiner reported that the guest list stretched well beyond the diplomatic corps, drawing top tech executives, Supreme Court justices, Cabinet members, and Trump family members. Melania Trump attended as a formal host, and Xi's wife, Peng Liyuan, participated in a separate event during bilateral meetings at the White House earlier in the day, a senior administration official confirmed.
The breadth of the guest list signals how seriously the administration treated the visit. State dinners are always choreographed affairs, but this one carried added weight given the ongoing tensions between Washington and Beijing over trade, tariffs, and regional security. The White House has been active on multiple fronts this year, and the Xi visit represents one of the highest-profile diplomatic engagements of Trump's current term.
Just The News reported that the state dinner on Thursday, September 24, followed bilateral discussions between the two presidents earlier that day. After dinner, both leaders were expected to retire for the evening before resuming engagements Friday morning.
Trump planned to take Xi to the National Archives on Friday before the Chinese president departed the United States mid-afternoon. The White House did not publicly explain the significance of the Archives visit, but the symbolism is hard to miss: the building houses the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, the founding documents of a republic built on individual liberty and limited government. Walking a leader of the Chinese Communist Party through those halls sends its own message without a single word spoken.
The administration has pursued an ambitious diplomatic calendar alongside its domestic agenda. Trump recently secured permanent U.S. military rights in Greenland under a sweeping deal with Denmark, and the Xi summit adds another major foreign-policy marker to an already crowded ledger.
Personnel shifts inside the broader Trump orbit have continued as well. Staff changes on Vice President Vance's press team have drawn attention in recent weeks, a reminder that the administration's internal dynamics remain fluid even as the president manages high-stakes summitry.
What the menu leaves out may matter as much as what it includes. American state dinners have historically showcased domestic beef, lamb, or poultry as a point of national pride. The decision to go entirely pescatarian, without any public rationale from the First Lady's office or the White House, breaks with that tradition in a way that invites speculation but defies easy explanation.
Was it a dietary accommodation for the Chinese delegation? A personal preference of the First Lady? A deliberate effort to sidestep any cultural friction over meat sourcing or preparation? The White House has not said, and the menu document itself offers no justification beyond describing the dishes in lavish detail.
What is clear is that every element of the evening, the red décor, the bok choy and sesame, the honey harvested steps from the Oval Office, was chosen with care. Melania Trump's office treated the dinner as a curated diplomatic statement, not a casual meal. The Trump family's approach to high-profile events has always leaned toward spectacle and precision, and this dinner fit that pattern.
State dinners are theater. The food, the flowers, the music, the guest list, all of it is designed to project strength and hospitality in equal measure. Skipping the steak was a choice, and choices at this level are never accidental.
When you host the leader of the world's largest communist state under a ceiling of red dahlias and serve him fish instead of filet mignon, you are making a point, even if you decline to say what it is.
A Seoul appeals court reduced the prison term of ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol's wife from seven years to five after tossing a key corruption charge, but prosecutors say they will fight the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court.
The Seoul High Court on Tuesday trimmed Kim Keon Hee's sentence after concluding that prosecutors failed to prove a luxury watch she received from a businessman amounted to a bribe. The court threw out the charge tied to that watch while upholding most of the remaining convictions against her for accepting expensive gifts from people who wanted political and business favors from her husband's administration.
Kim, the wife of South Korea's ousted president, was originally convicted by the Seoul Central District Court in June for accepting the watch from businessman Seo Seong-bin. The high court's decision to strip that charge drove the two-year reduction in her sentence. Both sides now plan to take the case to South Korea's Supreme Court, the prosecution to restore the watch charge, and Kim's defense team to try to overturn the convictions that remain.
The gifts Kim was convicted of accepting read like a catalog of high-end luxury goods. Seohee Construction chairman Lee Bong-kwan allegedly gave her a Van Cleef & Arpels necklace and other jewelry worth more than 100 million won, roughly $73,500, in 2022. Prosecutors said Lee wanted Kim's help securing a government post for his son-in-law.
Pastor Choi Jae-yong provided a Dior handbag and other gifts, prosecutors said, while seeking a spot on a civilian diplomatic delegation and access to government-funded programs. Lee Bae-yong, who became the chief of the National Education Commission, allegedly gave Kim a gold turtle while lobbying for the job.
Former senior prosecutor Kim Sang-min allegedly handed over a painting by famed artist Lee Ufan valued at 140 million won, about $102,900, while angling for a nomination from Yoon's conservative party ahead of the 2024 legislative elections. The appeals court left those convictions intact.
Kim Han-soo, a member of the investigation team led by special prosecutor Min Joong-ki, made clear the prosecution has no intention of letting the watch charge disappear. He told reporters after the ruling:
"It's difficult to accept that a first lady's acceptance of a watch worth tens of millions of won from a businessman with pending business matters does not constitute a crime."
Seo Seong-bin, the businessman who gave Kim the watch, was reportedly seeking government support for his robotic dogs business. The high court ruled prosecutors had not sufficiently proved the timepiece was provided in exchange for those business favors, a finding the prosecution clearly intends to challenge before the Supreme Court.
Kim Keon Hee's legal team struck a different tone. Her lawyers said they would appeal the remaining convictions, arguing prosecutors had failed to prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt on any of the charges.
Tuesday's ruling is not Kim's only legal problem. In a separate case in April, the same Seoul High Court sentenced her to four years in prison for accepting gifts from the Unification Church and profiting from a stock price manipulation scheme. That conviction stands independently of the luxury-gift case.
Her husband's legal situation is even more severe. Yoon Suk Yeol briefly imposed martial law in December 2024 following a standoff with South Korea's liberal opposition. He was subsequently impeached and removed from office in April 2025, then arrested in July 2025. Yoon is now standing trial in multiple cases and has appealed a life sentence for rebellion.
The dueling appeals guarantee this case will grind on for months. Prosecutors want the watch charge restored and the original seven-year sentence reinstated. Kim's defense wants every remaining conviction overturned. Neither side showed any interest in accepting Tuesday's split decision as the final word.
Several questions remain unanswered. Whether Kim Keon Hee is currently behind bars or free pending appeal is unclear from court proceedings reported so far. The status of her appeal in the separate four-year Unification Church case is also unresolved. And the fates of the people who allegedly gave her gifts, whether they received the government posts, party nominations, or program access they sought, remain publicly unaddressed.
When a president's spouse turns the office into a gift-receiving counter and the courts still cannot agree on which luxury items count as bribes, the problem is not one bad ruling, it is a political culture that let the transactions happen in the first place.
Amanda Mack, a 20-year-old college volleyball player preparing for her junior season at Holy Cross, died in Tampa after a rapid decline from severe aplastic anemia, a rare bone marrow disorder diagnosed fewer than 1,000 times a year in the United States.
Mack passed away on September 16, just two months after she first told followers on Instagram that something was wrong. On July 13, she posted a simple message: "A few weeks ago I woke up not feeling well." Doctors initially suspected leukemia. The actual diagnosis, severe aplastic anemia, a condition in which bone marrow stops producing enough healthy blood cells, was one her family had never heard of.
Her mother, Tanya Mack, told FOX 13 the family was blindsided by how fast the illness progressed.
"They actually thought she had leukemia when we first went in. I had never heard about this disorder."
The disorder strikes with no warning and offers few good options. A bone marrow transplant was scheduled for August 11, but Mack was not well enough to undergo it. By August 14, she posted again on Instagram, saying she was waiting for her body to fix her immune system. Then, on September 10, she went into heart failure following surgery. Six days later, she was gone.
Mack picked up a volleyball at age six and never put it down. She trained at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, during her final year of high school, joining what was then the first year of the elite sports institution's volleyball program. Brian Nash, IMG's athletic director, remembered her as exactly the kind of person you build a program around.
"You want somebody that's got strong character, great student, somebody that's, you know, going to be kind of the founding members of that program."
From IMG, Mack went on to play at the University of Cincinnati and Eastern Kentucky University before transferring to Holy Cross in Massachusetts, where she was set to compete as a junior. Her mother described a life that revolved around the sport.
"We were constantly traveling, watching her play volleyball, doing what she loved. And she was good at it."
Tanya Mack said her daughter approached everything with determination. "Anything she did, she would always see it to the end," she said. That resolve carried into the hospital, where Amanda remained focused on getting back to campus and back on the court.
The sudden loss of a young athlete in peak physical condition is the kind of tragedy that leaves communities searching for answers. It echoes other recent cases of young athletes struck down without warning, reminders that even youth and fitness offer no guarantee against rare medical catastrophe.
The New York Post reported that Mack underwent two emergency surgeries, six rounds of chemotherapy, full body radiation, and a bone marrow transplant at Tampa General Hospital during her fight against the disease. Despite the aggressive treatment, her body could not recover.
Just weeks before her death, Mack had struck an optimistic tone on Instagram, writing that she had finished her immunosuppressive therapy "with minimal adverse reactions" and was waiting for her bone marrow to reproduce. The gap between that hopeful update and the outcome that followed underscores how quickly severe aplastic anemia can turn fatal, even when patients and doctors throw everything at it.
D1 Training Hardin Valley, a fitness program Mack had been part of, posted a tribute on Instagram after her death: "Our D1 family is heartbroken by the loss of Amanda Mack. She approached every session with a phenomenal attitude and left a lasting impact on everyone who knew her."
Unexpected deaths of young people, whether from circumstances that raise unanswered questions or from rare medical conditions that strike without cause, carry a particular weight. They force families into grief that no amount of preparation could soften.
Mack's mother told FOX 13 that Amanda had been eager to leave the hospital and return to school. She wanted to play volleyball again.
"She was really looking forward to getting out of the hospital and going back to school, and playing volleyball."
That never happened. The family has established a GoFundMe page to help cover costs, and a celebration of life was planned for October 10 at 4 p.m. at the Robert Toale & Sons Celebration of Life Center in Lakewood Ranch, Florida.
Tanya Mack said the family still does not fully understand how everything fell apart so fast. But she was clear about what she wants people to take away from her daughter's story.
"We want people just to remember how much of a beautiful soul she was inside and out."
The loss of young lives to sudden tragedy, whether through violence or rare disease, leaves families and communities grasping for meaning in events that defy it. Amanda Mack's case is a reminder that some of the cruelest turns in life come with no villain to blame and no policy to fix, just a 20-year-old who wanted to play one more season and never got the chance.
The Trump administration has sent more than 25,000 people to countries that are not their homelands since January 2025, and a federal appeals court just ruled the practice, as carried out, is illegal.
A consortium investigation led by Forbidden Stories and FRANCE 24, drawing on 26 international media outlets, mapped the scale of what the government calls "third-country removals." Using open-source flight data and information gathered by nonprofit organizations, the investigation found that at least 5,447 people of 89 nationalities were flown to foreign countries other than their own by August 31, 2026. Another roughly 20,000 were removed by land to Mexico, a country with which the United States has no official deportation agreement for third-country nationals.
In total, 28 countries across six continents had received deportees under the policy, and the administration had struck deals with seven more, bringing the number of partner nations to 35. The Department of Homeland Security framed the effort in a June 2025 statement as targeting "aliens who are so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won't take them back, including convicted murderers, child rapists and drug traffickers." But lawyers representing deportees and human rights organizations contest that description, saying many of the people removed had no criminal records at all.
Rabbiatu Kuyateh, a nurse who fled civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s, had lived in the United States for more than 30 years. In early July 2025, she went to a routine ICE appointment in Baltimore, Maryland. She did not leave. ICE detained her on the spot.
Four months later, she learned she would be sent to Ghana, a country more than 1,000 kilometers from Sierra Leone, where she was born.
Kuyateh told the consortium:
"Ghana? I'm not from Ghana; what am I going to do there? I only saw Ghana on the map; I don't know where that is."
She added: "I did not commit any crime; I always abided by the law." She said she had worked as a nurse and paid her taxes for decades. "I've known it as my home," she said of the United States.
Kuyateh was not alone on her deportation flight. A Senegalese man identified by the pseudonym Malick was on the same plane. Malick had come to the United States in 2023 after fleeing Senegal over safety fears. He held a work permit and had been granted "withholding of removal", a legal status that, historically, shielded people from deportation because an immigration judge determined their home country was too dangerous. Under the Trump administration's third-country removal policy, that protection no longer guaranteed a person would stay.
"I had started a new life in the United States. I felt safe," Malick said.
The broader removal effort under the Trump administration has drawn both praise from enforcement advocates and sharp criticism from legal groups. The third-country removal track raises a distinct question: when the government cannot send someone home because a judge found it too dangerous, does sending that person to a different foreign country solve the problem, or sidestep the law?
Guatemala was the second-largest destination after Mexico for third-country removals by flight, receiving nearly 3,000 people, 90 percent of them Mexican nationals. Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, and El Salvador each took in more than 250 deportees.
Africa has become a growing piece of the operation. Thirteen African nations signed deportation deals with Washington, and 12 of those countries had already received deportees by the end of August 2026. Ghana was the largest African recipient, taking in more than 100 people from third countries. The Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Eswatini, and Cameroon each received dozens.
Savi Arvey, director of policy for refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First, described the geographic expansion as unprecedented. During the first Trump term, she said, agreements existed with Mexico and three Central American countries. Now the reach extends far beyond.
"We're seeing that the US is going well beyond Mexico and Central America to countries in the Caribbean, countries throughout South America and countries across Africa and even in parts of Eastern Europe."
Arvey pointed to partnerships with nations she said the United States previously avoided, including "such a corrupt autocratic government like Equatorial Guinea." Her assessment was blunt: "It seems like the goal for the United States is the deal. The profile of the country, its human rights record doesn't matter at all."
The administration has also struck a deal with Guyana, which received its first transfer, six people from Cuba and Afghanistan, in early September 2026. ICE enforcement operations have expanded across multiple fronts during the same period, and the third-country flight program appears to be one of the fastest-growing tools in the agency's arsenal.
Several of the deportees profiled in the investigation held legal protections that were supposed to prevent exactly what happened to them. "Withholding of removal" and protection under the Convention Against Torture, the international agreement barring countries from sending people to places where they face persecution or torture, had historically kept people in the United States when their home countries were deemed unsafe.
The Trump administration found a workaround: send them somewhere else.
Arvey called this one of the most alarming elements of the policy:
"What's been extremely worrying is the targeting of people who've been granted withholding and removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture for third-country removals, in particular to various countries in Africa, but also to Mexico."
A Ghanaian woman identified by the pseudonym Soraya illustrates the concern. Soraya fled to the United States in 2024 because of her sexual orientation. An immigration judge granted her withholding of removal. She was then deported, not to Ghana, but to Cameroon.
"Withholding of removal, it's protection. I was thinking they were going to protect me rather than sending me to a third country that will not accept me. But they still brought me to Cameroon, an African country that doesn't accept LGBT."
Meredyth Yoon, a lawyer representing more than a dozen third-country nationals removed to African countries, said the pattern is clear: "In many cases, what we have seen is they are very much sending people back to countries that US immigration judges have established are dangerous for them."
Alma David, another American lawyer representing dozens of deportees sent to Africa, said most of her clients had no criminal record, a direct contradiction of DHS's stated rationale that the policy targets violent criminals whose home countries refuse to take them back.
A woman identified as Isatou, a Guinean national who migrated to the United States to flee a forced marriage, was removed to Ghana. From there, she was sent back to Guinea, her home country, the very place she had fled. She is now in hiding. "I don't go out anymore, I'm scared of coming across my family," she said. "They ruined my life."
Arvey raised a specific legal concern about several of the agreements: some deals explicitly describe the receiving country as a "transfer point," meaning the deportee may not stay there but could be sent onward, potentially back to the country they originally fled. The technical term is "chain refoulement," and it violates international law if the end result is a person landing in a place where they face persecution or torture.
"What's been so concerning in this case is that often there's a reference to just transit. It's very overt that the country understands that it will just serve as a transfer point. So it raises huge concerns about refoulement."
Michael Garcia Bocheneck, interim director of Human Rights Watch's U.S. program, framed the entire policy as a deliberate evasion:
"We think the government is using third-country removals to avoid the responsibilities that it has under international law not to return people to harm. (...) In many cases, it seems that the tacit assumption is that the third country will simply return them to their home country anyway. It's an indirect form of return to harm, and it's still a violation of international law."
Human Rights Watch has also documented conditions for more than 250 men held in a high-security prison in El Salvador after third-country removal. The organization described "inhumane prison conditions," "constant beatings," and "cases of sexual violence" inside the facility.
Carolyn Patty Blum, a clinical professor of law emerita at UC Berkeley, said the legal principle is straightforward: "No one should be forced to return to any country where they face a risk of persecution, human rights violations or torture." She added that "both the United States and the receiving countries violate that law by transferring people to places where they face serious risk of harm." Blum also criticized the diplomatic assurances embedded in some deals, calling them "inadequate" and noting the absence of "any methods of ongoing oversight" once a person leaves U.S. custody.
On September 18, 2026, a federal appeals court handed down a ruling that struck at the heart of the policy. The court found that removing individuals to third countries without giving them a meaningful opportunity to raise fears of torture or persecution is illegal. It rejected the Trump administration's argument that general human rights assurances from receiving countries were sufficient.
The court ruling on third-country deportations came out of a class-action case brought by the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and other groups. Trina Realmuto, the alliance's executive director, said the decision takes effect immediately: "The decision is effective now, which means DHS cannot continue to apply its existing third-country removal policy."
But DHS showed no sign of backing down. General Counsel James Percival responded that the policy would continue. "If you claim fear in your home country, DHS has the right to send you elsewhere," he said.
Realmuto anticipated the next move: "We anticipate the government will seek Supreme Court review and could seek a stay of the decision while they do so." The Supreme Court has already shown willingness to side with the administration on immigration enforcement in other recent cases, making the outcome far from certain for the challengers.
At the same time, the investigation noted that the government has grown less transparent about the program over time. Arvey said the administration was initially open about the flights but has since pulled back. "At the beginning of the administration, they were really overt about the fact they're carrying out these flights," she said. "But over the past year, the government has been very opaque about these third-country transfers."
The agreements fall into two categories. "Asylum Cooperative Agreements" include some provision for the deportee to request asylum in the receiving country. "Third-Country Removal Agreements" carry no such protections. The investigation did not identify which countries hold which type of deal, and the full terms remain undisclosed.
That distinction matters. Under the first type, a person removed from the United States could at least apply for protection in the country where they land. Under the second, they arrive with no legal pathway and no guarantee of safety, a gap that immigration enforcement debates have largely ignored.
U.S. law permits third-country removals only under limited circumstances and when proper protocols have been followed to guarantee a person's safety. The consortium's investigation raises the question of whether those protocols were followed in any meaningful way for the thousands already removed, or whether the deals were structured to avoid scrutiny rather than ensure compliance.
Enforcing immigration law is not optional, and no serious person argues otherwise. But a policy that sends people to countries they have never set foot in, strips protections that federal judges granted, and operates with increasing secrecy is not enforcement, it is evasion dressed up as toughness.
Florida Rep. Maria Salazar says she told President Trump to his face that he risks squandering the historic Hispanic voter gains he delivered in 2024, and she insists he listened.
Salazar, a three-term Republican who represents a South Florida district that is nearly 70 percent Hispanic, went public Sunday with details of a private phone call with the president. The conversation followed a turbulent few days: on Thursday, she released a campaign ad filmed in front of the White House claiming some of Trump's immigration enforcement efforts had "gone too far." By Friday, Trump was responding to reporters, and by Sunday, Salazar was on television framing the whole episode as friendly counsel, not a break with her party.
The sequence matters. Salazar is a Trump-endorsed congresswoman in one of the most heavily Hispanic districts in the country. She is not a moderate squish looking for a cable-news booking. She is a daughter of Cuban political refugees who spent 35 years in Spanish-language television before entering politics, and she represents Florida's 27th Congressional District, where 69.6 percent of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. When she talks about how immigration enforcement plays with Latino voters, she is talking about the people who decide whether she keeps her seat.
On her Sunday television appearance with interviewer Margaret Brennan, Salazar did not back away from the ad. But she cast the whole effort as an act of loyalty to the Republican Party, and to Trump personally. The Daily Caller reported her detailed account of what she told the president:
"He was a gentleman, very courteous, very receptive. And I told him exactly what you just repeated: 'Sir, you have this moment in history where you can keep the pot of gold that you brought to the GOP in 2024. No other president, and you know I covered for 35 years Spanish television, no other president was able to convince the Hispanics to vote 55 points for a GOP president. Please preserve that fortune that you have brought to the party.'"
That "55 points" figure is Salazar's own characterization of Trump's 2024 performance with Hispanic voters. She did not cite a specific poll or data set, but her broader point was unmistakable: Trump did something no Republican president had done before, and she believes the current enforcement posture threatens to undo it.
Salazar went further, telling Brennan that she warned Trump about the quality of advice he is receiving.
"I think it's my duty not to attack. There are no attacks here. I'm just forewarning him and advising him as a member of Congress from the South Florida area that some of his advisers are just not presenting the whole picture."
She did not name the advisers. She did not specify which enforcement actions she considers excessive. And she did not say Trump agreed with her. What she said was more careful than that: "I certainly hope he listened to what I was saying, but he listened."
The president's own reaction to Salazar's ad, delivered to reporters on Friday, was notably restrained. He called her "a nice person" and added, "I got her elected. Without me she wouldn't have gotten elected." He disagreed with her position but, per the reporting, said he understood it.
That is not the response of a president who views Salazar as a traitor. It is the response of someone who sees a political ally making a political argument he does not share. The distinction matters, because the media incentive in a story like this is to frame it as a rupture. Salazar herself pushed back on that framing repeatedly.
Intra-party disagreements are nothing new in Washington. Democrats have their own fractures, often far more bitter and far less politely managed than what played out between Salazar and Trump last week.
During the Sunday interview, Brennan paraphrased statements Salazar had made previously, including the claim that "the same Hispanics who helped Trump get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed," that enforcement efforts had "gone too far," and that half of the 50,000 people detained in July "had no criminal record."
That detention figure, 50,000 in a single month, with half allegedly lacking criminal records, is significant if accurate. But the sourcing is thin. Brennan attributed it to Salazar's own prior statements. Neither the original data set nor the methodology behind the claim appears in the reporting. Salazar did not elaborate on where the number came from during the Sunday appearance.
For conservative voters who support aggressive immigration enforcement, the number raises an obvious question: detained for what? Federal law allows detention of anyone present in the country illegally, regardless of criminal history. The absence of a criminal record does not mean the absence of a legal violation. Salazar's framing treats the detention of non-criminal illegal immigrants as evidence of overreach, but that framing is itself a policy argument, not a settled fact.
The broader Democratic Party has struggled with its own internal contradictions on enforcement and immigration. House Democrats have broken ranks with their own leadership on procedural votes in recent months, and the party's left flank continues to pull in directions that make moderate members uncomfortable.
What makes Salazar's approach unusual is her insistence that she is acting in the party's interest, not against it. She described herself as "a proud Republican" and said her goal was to preserve the coalition Trump built.
"I belong to the Miami community. I'm the daughter of political refugees. I'm first-generation American, and I want to preserve the American values that are entrenched in the GOP and that the Hispanics share. So, remember, sir, that you are the only guy who can do this."
She also cast the stakes in explicitly partisan terms, warning that Republicans need Hispanic voters to counter what she called "the socialists on the Democratic side." That language, "socialists", is Salazar's own characterization, but it reflects a view widely held among Cuban-American and Venezuelan-American voters in South Florida who fled leftist governments. Recent Democratic primaries have shown the party's socialist wing gaining ground, a trend that makes Salazar's warning about holding Hispanic voters more pointed.
Salazar summarized the exchange simply: "And then we had a fantastic conversation."
Several key questions hang over this story. Salazar did not say when the conversation with Trump took place, only that it happened after the ad dropped Thursday. She did not identify which advisers she believes are giving Trump incomplete information. She did not specify which enforcement actions she considers excessive. And she offered no indication that Trump made any policy commitment or concession in response to her appeal.
The ad itself, which Salazar filmed in front of the White House, is available through ad-tracking platforms but was not quoted at length in the reporting. Its central claim, that enforcement has "gone too far", remains a broad assertion without specific policy targets attached to it.
Trump, for his part, gave no sign that the conversation changed his position. His Friday comments acknowledged Salazar's view without endorsing it. Both parties are dealing with internal generational and ideological pressures heading into the next election cycle, and how each side manages those tensions will shape the map.
Salazar is making a bet: that she can publicly challenge the president's enforcement posture, frame it as friendly advice, and survive politically in a district where Trump's endorsement carries weight and Hispanic voters carry elections. It is a narrow path. She is asking Trump to see her as a canary in the coal mine, not an adversary.
Whether Trump takes the advice is his call. But Salazar is right about one thing: the voters who handed Republicans their best Hispanic numbers in a generation did not do it so the party could take them for granted. Keeping a coalition together is harder than building one, and it requires people willing to say uncomfortable things to the people in charge.
Real Talk Digest reports Motown singer Rosalind Ashford has died at 83, leaving a catalog that helped define Martha and the Vandellas’ legacy.
Ashford died Tuesday of natural causes in Redford, Michigan, the publication reported. It did not provide an exact date or time of death.
As a founding member of Martha and the Vandellas, Ashford helped build the group behind “Heat Wave,” “Dancing in the Street,” “Nowhere to Run,” “Quicksand” and “My Baby Loves Me.”
She is survived by her son, Damon Holmes, along with four grandchildren and a daughter-in-law.
The City of Detroit offered condolences to Ashford’s family, friends and listeners. Its tribute said her voice “helped shape the sound of Motown” and would remain part of the city’s legacy.
Ashford began her musical career in 1957, when she formed the Del-Phis with Annette Beard and Gloria Williams. Martha Reeves joined several years later, and the group changed its name to the Vels.
Berry Gordy then signed the quartet to Motown Records and renamed the group the Vandellas. The singers also provided backing vocals for Marvin Gaye.
Ashford left Martha and the Vandellas in 1969. Still, her connection to the group endured through the recordings that carried her voice to later generations.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Martha and the Vandellas in 1995 during a ceremony in New York.
In February 2004, Ashford and Beard performed together at a Detroit event honoring Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops. Ashford also attended Motown Family Night in New York City in May 2013.
Ashford and Reeves had reportedly reconciled recently, though the timing and details were not disclosed. Reeves marked Ashford’s death with an Instagram tribute and a collection of older and recent photographs.
Reeves wrote:
“I am deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Rosalind Ashford. Rosalind played an important part in the early days of Martha and the Vandellas. Her voice will forever be with us through our great recordings together, and she will be missed, but never forgotten. Our Motown Family has just gotten a little smaller. My heart is heavy.”
Detroit delivered its own farewell: “We send our condolences to her family, friends and all who loved her music. Her voice and legacy will forever be part of Detroit.”
Fame often centers on the face at the microphone, but enduring music also depends on the voices beside it. Rosalind Ashford earned her place in that history.
A Sikh truck driver survived a brutal beating and stabbing at a Wyoming rest area, and the man charged with attempted first-degree murder now sits on $1 million bail, while an Illinois congressman rushes to blame the attack on the Trump administration.
The driver, identified only by his surname Singh for security reasons, was beaten and stabbed 17 times Sunday at the Bitter Creek rest area in Wyoming. Andrew Kris Bzdak, the suspected assailant, fled the scene but was arrested by Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers the same day, The Guardian reported.
Bzdak faces a charge of attempted first-degree murder. As of Friday, he remained held at the Sweetwater County Detention Center on $1 million bail, according to the facility's inmate roster.
Jeff Sheaman, a public information officer for the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office, said the motive for the attack remains unknown.
That did not stop Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, from drawing a direct line between the stabbing and a since-deleted social media post by DHS officials, a connection unsupported by any evidence in the case.
Singh described the attack in stark terms. He told NPR:
"I thought that now my final time had come."
An unnamed family at the rest area tried to pursue the attacker and brought Singh towels as blood seeped from his wounds. Singh praised the family for their help. His lawyer could not be immediately reached for comment.
The details that remain unknown are significant. Authorities have not disclosed what led to the confrontation, whether the two men had any prior contact, or whether the attack was motivated by bias of any kind. Singh himself said he had no explanation.
"I don't know why this happened."
Violent attacks on truck drivers at highway rest stops, while not everyday occurrences, are a real hazard of the profession. The sheer number of wounds, 17 stab injuries on top of a beating, places this assault among the most severe in recent memory, comparable to other high-profile stabbing cases that have drawn national attention.
On Thursday, Krishnamoorthi posted on X linking the attack to a since-deleted DHS social media post that had drawn criticism weeks earlier. DHS officials had shared what was described as a movie poster-style image depicting a man with a bandana facing off against a Transformer from the popular toy and movie franchise. The image carried the text "Self deport or Find Out" and "Get off our roads, you don't know how to drive Mr Singh."
DHS officials said the post was a pointed reference to an Indian-descent truck driver who had been accused of making an illegal turn before crashing an 18-wheeler into a minivan, killing its occupants. The post was later deleted.
Krishnamoorthi's post framed the stabbing as part of a broader pattern. He wrote:
"This comes amid rising hatred targeting Sikh and South Asian Americans, with even the Trump Department of Homeland Security recently posting a racist caricature of a Sikh truck driver. Those spreading this hate, including officials in our own federal government, need to stop. Those who turn it into violence must be held accountable. And all of us need to stand together against both."
The congressman's statement treats the connection between the DHS post and the Wyoming stabbing as established. It is not. Sweetwater County authorities have said the motive is unknown. No investigator, prosecutor, or law enforcement official quoted in any reporting on this case has linked Bzdak's actions to the DHS post or to any anti-Sikh sentiment.
DHS pushed back sharply. In response to NPR's request for comment about the Wyoming attack, the department stated: "Any attempt to blame DHS for an unrelated attack is RECKLESS and FALSE."
The Guardian noted that "several prominent south Asian civic and political figures have drawn a link" between the attack and the DHS post. But the article names only Krishnamoorthi. No other figures are quoted or identified. That is a thin foundation for the sweeping narrative that the stabbing was caused, or even influenced, by a deleted government social media image.
The DHS post was tasteless. Reasonable people can disagree about whether it crossed a line. But leaping from a deleted meme to a criminal stabbing with no established motive requires evidence, not inference. Krishnamoorthi offered none. He offered a political frame, one that conveniently targets the Trump administration, and applied it to a crime that investigators have not yet explained.
This is a familiar pattern. A violent crime occurs. Before police finish their work, elected officials assign blame to their political opponents. The victim becomes a prop. The facts become secondary to the narrative. And if the motive turns out to be something else entirely, road rage, mental illness, a personal dispute, the politicians who jumped to conclusions rarely issue corrections. Cases involving brutal acts of violence deserve thorough investigation, not premature political framing.
Singh deserves justice. He was beaten and stabbed 17 times. He survived what he believed were his final moments. The man charged with attacking him faces attempted first-degree murder and sits behind bars on a million-dollar bail. That is the system working.
What Singh does not need is a congressman in Illinois using his wounds to score points against a federal agency before investigators have even determined why the attack happened. The victim himself said it plainly: he does not know why it happened. Neither does Krishnamoorthi. The difference is that Singh admitted it.
Families who stop at rest areas to help a stranger, chasing an attacker, pressing towels against wounds, represent the best of this country. Politicians who exploit a man's suffering before the facts are in represent something far less admirable. Accountability starts with honesty, and violent attacks deserve serious treatment, not partisan shortcuts.
Let the investigators do their job. Then hold the right people accountable, starting with the man who allegedly held the weapon, not the agency that deleted a social media post.
State Armor launched a six-figure advertising blitz urging Congress to investigate the Environmental Law Institute, a nonprofit that has trained thousands of American judges on climate science, over alleged decades-long ties to Chinese Communist Party-linked organizations.
The campaign, which rolled out Wednesday in Washington with television ads, mobile billboards circling Capitol Hill and the institute's M Street headquarters, and targeted digital spots, follows a letter State Armor CEO Michael Lucci sent Tuesday morning to five Republican committee chairmen asking them to examine the Environmental Law Institute's funding, its relationships with Chinese entities, its information-sharing activities, and its judicial education programs.
Lucci addressed the letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Mike Lee of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan and Rep. Brett Guthrie of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. It marks the second such request in four months; State Armor first wrote to the same chairmen in June.
The Environmental Law Institute, known inside legal circles as ELI, created its Climate Judiciary Project in 2018. The project has since trained more than 2,000 American judges on environmental law, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported. ELI itself says on its website that it has provided training and resources to more than 3,000 judges in 28 countries since 1990 and describes its mission as helping "people improve the implementation of environmental and natural resource law globally."
State Armor's 39-page report, released in July, alleges the institute worked with Chinese government agencies, universities, judges, and legal groups for decades while advancing policies inside the United States that restrict domestic energy production. Fox News reported that ELI's programming in China concluded only in 2024 and that the relationships stretched back to the mid-1990s, encompassing Chinese NGOs, universities, judges, and environmental regulators.
Breitbart reported that the alleged institutional relationships included Wuhan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China's Supreme People's Court, and China's Ministry of Ecology. The breadth of those connections, spanning courts, academia, and government regulators, is what State Armor says warrants congressional scrutiny.
Lucci, in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation, did not hold back about the group's position:
"ELI has allowed itself to be a middleman for Chinese influence here in America, and has carried out work that effectively advances the CCP's [Chinese Communist Party] geopolitical goals."
He added that Congress should "take a serious look at ELI's actions and relationships with Communist China to determine if legal action should be taken." His letter to the five chairmen described the institute as what "may represent one of the most sophisticated and least scrutinized potential avenues of Chinese influence operating within American legal and policy institutions."
The September letter adds a new dimension that the June letter did not include: a claim that ELI is working against American data center development at the same time China is racing to dominate artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Lucci wrote that the institute "has positioned itself as a leading voice against the rapid development of data centers and the energy infrastructure necessary to power them" and "is working to impede American development in a strategically critical industry while China races ahead."
To support the claim, the letter points to two items on ELI's own website. The first is a July 2025 public webinar on data center water use that ELI co-hosted with the Network for the Digital Economy and Environment, featuring panelists from Virginia Tech, the consulting firm WestWater Research, and the nonprofit Protect Our Aquifer. The second is a comment published this month in ELI's journal, the Environmental Law Reporter, titled "A Call for a National Data Center Moratorium and Policy Framework."
That journal comment was written by Bob Sussman, a former deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton. The Environmental Law Reporter states on its articles page that it welcomes outside submissions and that its goal is to educate the profession and foster debate, a framing that could complicate any effort to treat the Sussman piece as an institutional ELI position rather than a guest contribution.
State Armor, for its part, posted on X on September 15 that "China stands to gain when lawmakers become skittish about building modern data centers needed to keep us ahead in the AI race," tagging Attorney General Todd Blanche's account and adding: "China wants us to slow down. Lawmakers should keep that in mind when considering policies that could do just that."
Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff and acting associate attorney general at the Justice Department, weighed in through a statement provided by State Armor. He pointed to what he described as a conflict involving a firm that sits on ELI's board while also briefing groups he called "CCP-adjacent" and defending energy companies in climate lawsuits:
"That a firm can sit on ELI's board and brief CCP-adjacent groups while defending energy companies in dozens of climate suits is exactly the kind of conflict that should outrage clients and federal officials alike."
Mizelle did not name the firm. State Armor's letter and report do not identify it in the material provided through the Daily Caller's reporting, leaving one of the sharper allegations without a public target.
State Armor's letter also frames the judicial training question in terms of perception. The group wrote in its congressional letter that "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."
Several of the Republican lawmakers who received the letter have separately voiced alarm. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote in a Facebook post in July that judges trained by or working with Communist China "have no place in our judicial system." Cotton added, in remarks reported by Breitbart: "If these allegations are true, they will be held accountable."
Rep. Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, told The Daily Signal in early July that American judges "should closely vet the programs they participate in and never take part in training sponsored by CCP-linked United Front groups." The United Front Work Department is a Chinese government body that coordinates influence operations abroad, a fact that gives Moolenaar's warning a specific institutional edge.
Whether any of the five chairmen will act on State Armor's request remains unclear. None has publicly responded to either the June or September letters as of the Daily Caller's reporting.
The Environmental Law Institute did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation's request for comment. On its website, the institute says suggestions that the Climate Judiciary Project's activities are improper are "without merit." ELI describes its curriculum as drawing on the National Climate Assessment, the National Academies, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The institute's website also states: "We educate thousands of environmental professionals each year in the United States, with the conviction that more skilled environmental professionals result in better environmental outcomes." Separately, ELI says it is "training judges around the world on critical topics in domestic and international environmental law and informing communities dependent on the Gulf of Mexico on how to influence the restoration and recovery process."
Those descriptions paint a picture of a mainstream legal education outfit. But the gap between that self-portrait and the allegations in State Armor's 39-page report, which claims ELI maintained working relationships with Chinese courts, universities, and government ministries through 2024, is wide enough that congressional committees could reasonably decide it warrants a closer look.
The timing of State Armor's campaign is not accidental. On October 5, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County as the first argument of its new term. That case will decide whether local governments can pursue energy companies for climate damages under state law, a question that could reshape the broader climate litigation strategy in which ELI-trained judges may play a role.
If the court opens the door to state-level climate suits, the judges presiding over those cases will matter more than ever. And if those judges received their climate education from an organization with unresolved questions about foreign entanglements, the legitimacy of their rulings could face challenges that go well beyond the merits of any individual case.
Americans have a right to expect that the judges deciding their cases answer to the Constitution, not to the priorities of a foreign adversary. Congress now has the letter, the report, and the questions. What it lacks is an excuse not to ask them.