DHS gears up for supreme court appeal after judge blocks end of TPS for Haitians
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has vowed to challenge a federal judge’s ruling that blocks the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians in the US.
“Supreme Court, here we come,” said assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “This is lawless activism that we will be vindicated on.”
Judge Ana Reyes, a Joe Biden appointee, issued a halt on the expiration of the program for more than 300,000 Haitian immigrants who are living and working with authorization in the US.
“Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago, it was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program,” McLaughlin added. “Yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades. Temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from an activist judge legislating from the bench.”
Key events
US shoots down Iranian drone approaching aircraft carrier, official says
The US military has shot down an Iranian drone that “aggressively” approached the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea in an incident first reported by Reuters.
The Iranian Shahed-139 drone was flying toward the carrier “with unclear intent” and was shot down by an F-35 US fighter jet, the US military said.
“An F-35C fighter jet from Abraham Lincoln shot down the Iranian drone in self-defense and to protect the aircraft carrier and personnel on board,” said navy captain Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson at the US military’s Central Command.
No American service members were harmed during the incident and no US equipment was damaged, he added.
The incident came as diplomats sought to arrange nuclear talks between Iran and the United States, and Donald Trump warned that with US warships heading toward Iran, “bad things” would probably happen if a deal could not be reached.
The Lincoln carrier strike group is the most visible part of a US military buildup in the region following a violent crackdown against anti-government demonstrations last month, the deadliest domestic unrest in Iran since its 1979 revolution.
Trump, who stopped short of carrying out threats to intervene during the crackdown, has since demanded Tehran make nuclear concessions and sent a flotilla to its coast. He said last week Iran was “seriously talking,” while Tehran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, said arrangements for negotiations were under way.
US Central Command said that in another incident today, hours later in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces harassed a US-flagged, US-crewed merchant vessel.
“Two IRGC boats and an Iranian Mohajer drone approached M/V Stena Imperative at high speeds and threatened to board and seize the tanker,” Hawkins said.
With the key procedural vote on the funding package to end the partial government shutdown under way, GOP leaders are in a scurry to win over enough of their members on the House floor.
We’ve already had two “no” votes from Thomas Massie of Kentucky and John Rose of Tennessee.
With the full Democratic caucus currently voting against the package, speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to lose one GOP vote. So, to get the near-unanimous support that he needs from his Republican conference to proceed to a final vote, he would need one lawmaker to change their vote before the vote on the rule closes.
Tulsi Gabbard running solo 2020 election inquiry separate from FBI investigation
Hugo Lowell
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, is running her own review into the 2020 election with Donald Trump’s approval, the Guardian has learned, working separately from a justice department investigation even as she joined an FBI raid of an election center in Georgia last week.
Her presence at the raid drew criticism from Democrats and former intelligence officials, who questioned why the country’s top intelligence officer with no domestic law enforcement powers would appear at the scene of an FBI raid.
But Gabbard, whose role ordinarily focuses on overseeing the intelligence agencies, has played only a minimal role in the criminal investigation, according to three administration officials. “She’s doing her own thing,” one of the officials said.
The parallel investigations into the 2020 election underscore the extent to which it has returned as a priority to the president. And Gabbard being sent to the raid showed the interest on voting machine manipulation claims that Trump has cited as evidence the election was stolen.
The review led by the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI), authorized on the basis that it is assessing election integrity, has been focused for months on potential vulnerabilities in voting machines and the possibility of foreign interference.
As part of that effort, Gabbard has been briefing Trump and senior White House advisers every few weeks. Officials said Trump directed her to travel to Fulton county, Georgia, so she could observe the FBI executing a search warrant on Wednesday.
The raid itself was overseen by Andrew Bailey, the deputy FBI director, who was also sent by Trump to Georgia. A copy of the search warrant cited possible violations of federal laws governing the preservation of election records and the procurement of false ballots or voter registrations.
The warrant authorized agents to seize sweeping amounts of voter data from Fulton county, including all physical ballots from the 2020 election, voting machine tabulator tapes, images produced during the ballot count and voter rolls from that year.
The target of the criminal investigation was not immediately clear. Spokespeople for the justice department and the FBI did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the investigation or Gabbard’s role.
Read Hugo’s full report here:
Democratic lawmakers ask DHS watchdog to ‘expedite’ investigation into use of force in immigration crackdown
More than 40 Democratic members of Congress have written a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general (IG), to expedite its investigation into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents’ use of force.
This comes after two US citizens – Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good – were fatally shot my federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, and protests continue to grip the Twin Cities.
The lawmakers write that agents are using “needlessly violent force against community members who are exercising their First Amendment rights and pose no threat”.
Last year, several Democratic lawmakers urged the IG to launch an investigation into the department’s practices and use of force. In January, the IG launched a new audit along the lines of the lawmakers’ request. However, the members of Congress note, these probes usually take more than a year to complete.
“Given the urgency of this situation – with communities facing severe, and sometimes fatal, harm from ICE’s tactics on American streets every day – we request that your office conduct this review expeditiously and share any preliminary findings with Congress and the public on an expedited basis,” they wrote.
Petro arrives at White House for meeting with Trump, without fanfare
The press pool notes that Colombian president, Gustav Petro, has arrived at the White House for his meeting with Donald Trump. There was no traditional military honor guard or ceremonial protocol, reporters at the White House note.
Just a note on the vote to end the partial government shutdown, and pass a five-bill package, as well as a stopgap measure to keep the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for two weeks while Democrats negotiate guardrails on federal immigration enforcement.
Right now, there is a procedural vote in the House. This will set the parameters of the debate on the legislation. A reminder that Trump called on “no changes” when urging Republican lawmakers to pass the bills, noting that a longer shutdown was out of the question.
Later today, the whole House will vote on the legislation. Republicans can only afford one defector, after the balance shifted to 218-214 on Monday when speaker Mike Johnson swore in Christian Menefee, the newly elected Democrat from Houston.
A quick reminder that last year, just months into his second administration, Trump signed an executive order to enact sweeping restrictions and conditions on voting rights throughout the country. Again, changes that constitution prevents the executive branch from carrying out.
Most notably, Trump signed an order that directs states to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote. It’s in line with his claims that non-citizens are voting in droves, despite election officials repeatedly refuting these assertions. However, a federal judge blocked this effort last year, ruling that it was a “violation of the separation of powers”. Also part of Trump’s directive was an effort to block states accepting ballots after election day, despite the fact that many accept mail-in votes as long as they have been postmarked in time. The president has routinely derided mail-in ballots as fraudulent, despite having used the method to vote in the past.
My colleague, Andrew Gumbel, has been tracking Trump’s attack on elections and voting. Read more below:
Per my earlier post about Trump’s comments that Republicans should “nationalize” voting in certain places, it’s worth remembering that the president, and many members of his administration, have repeated the baseless claims that he won the 2020 election.
Even on Bongino’s podcast the president doubled down. “We have states so crooked, counting votes, that I won that show I didn’t win,” he said. “2020, I won that election by so much.”
Trump also teased more about the FBI’s operation in Georgia last week which saw the seizure of hundreds of boxes of 2020 ballots from Fulton County. “You’re gonna see something in Georgia … the ballots, you will see some interesting things come out,” Trump said.
DHS gears up for supreme court appeal after judge blocks end of TPS for Haitians
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has vowed to challenge a federal judge’s ruling that blocks the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians in the US.
“Supreme Court, here we come,” said assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “This is lawless activism that we will be vindicated on.”
Judge Ana Reyes, a Joe Biden appointee, issued a halt on the expiration of the program for more than 300,000 Haitian immigrants who are living and working with authorization in the US.
“Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago, it was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program,” McLaughlin added. “Yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades. Temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from an activist judge legislating from the bench.”
Trump urges Republicans to ‘nationalize’ voting in ‘15 places’
Donald Trump has continued to sow doubt in the election system. While appearing on former deputy FBI director Dan Bongino’s podcast on Monday, the president called on Republicans to “nationalize the voting,” in at least “15 places”, although he did not clarify which ones.
“The Republicans should say, ‘we want to take over’,” Trump said in the interview.
The constitution confers authority over elections to states, and Trump didn’t elaborate on what legal mechanism he thinks nationalizing elections would be possible.
In the interview, Trump repeated baseless claims that undocumented immigrants being “brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally”.
George Chidi
Georgia’s Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi this morning, inquiring into the presence of Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, at the scene last week of an FBI seizure of Fulton County election records from 2020.
The letter from Senator Raphael Warnock and representatives Lucy McBath and Nikema Williams asks “whether the Trump administration is investigating a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus, which would legally require immediate Congressional briefing.” The group requested a briefing from the Department of Justice “concerning this activity and its related investigation by February 13, 2026.”
Williams serves on the House oversight and investigations subcommittee. McBath is the ranking Democratic member on the House subcommittee on crime and federal government surveillance. Both represent part of Fulton County.
The letter comes after the FBI executed a criminal search warrant at the county’s election offices on 28 January to seize almost 700 boxes of 2020 election documentation.
Top Trump adviser slams federal judge’s ruling that blocks end of TPS for Haitians
The president has yet to respond to a federal judge’s ruling on Monday to block the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 300,000 Haitians in the US, that was set to expire today. However, one of his top advisers, Stephen Miller, has weighed in. “An unelected judge has just ruled that elections, laws and borders don’t exist,” he said of Ana Reyes, the DC federal judge who was appointed by Joe Biden.
A reminder, TPS is a type of status that allows nationals fleeing designated countries for various humanitarian reasons — such as war or natural disaster — to attain temporary authorization live and and work in the country without risk of deportation. In that period a TPS beneficiary is able to apply for a visa or permanent residency if eligible.
The Trump administration has long deemed these immigrants as “illegal”, but they are – by definition — living in the country legally and have documented proof with federal immigration services that they are present in the US.
As we noted, Donald Trump is in Washington today, per his official schedule. He’ll meet with Gustav Petro at 11am ET, but as of now this isn’t open to the press.
We’ll make sure to bring you the latest lines if that does open up. The president will also have time to executive orders and legislation this afternoon, so we’ll check back to see if he invites reporters for the Oval Office for that too.
Trump says seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard
President Donald Trump said yesterday that his administration would seek $1 billion in damages from Harvard University after a New York Times report said the college had won some concessions in ongoing settlement negotiations with the government.
Trump administration officials have accused Harvard and other colleges of promoting so-called “woke” ideology while failing to sufficiently protect Jewish students during pro-Palestinian protests, filing legal complaints and demanding exorbitant payouts.
Critics have called it a pressure campaign by the administration on liberal universities.
“We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from stripping temporary protected status from up to 350,000 Haitians, a status that allows them to legally live and work in the United States amid the turmoil in their homeland.
Judge Ana Reyes issued a temporary stay that prevents Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, from implementing her decision to remove the status known as TPS, which was scheduled to expire on Tuesday.
Reyes notes that Noem, in announcing her decision to revoke TPS for Haitians, referred to those seeking refuge in the US as “killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies”.
She then notes that the plaintiffs who asked her to block the order, five Haitian TPS holders, “are not, it emerges, ‘killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies’”.
“They are instead: Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer’s disease; Rudolph Civil, a software engineer at a national bank; Marlene Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology department; Marica Merline Laguerre, a college economics major; and Vilbrun Dorsainvil, a full-time registered nurse”, the judge added.
Victoria Bekiempis
The release of about 3m Jeffrey Epstein investigative files has failed to quell outrage over justice department officials’ handling of these disclosures, with advocates claiming potentially millions of documents are still being withheld.
Donald Trump’s Department of Justice was required to disclose all investigative files by 19 December under The Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA). While the justice department did release some documents on that date, last week’s disclosure came nearly six weeks after this deadline.
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, who served as Trump’s criminal defense lawyer, told reporters last week that this disclosure marked “the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act”.
“After submitting the final report to Congress as required under the act and publishing the written justifications for redactions in the Federal Register, the department’s obligations under the act will be completed,” Blanche said.
He also said that while the justice department had found “more than 6m pages being identified as potentially responsive” that was because “we erred on the side of over-collection of materials from various sources to best ensure maximum transparency”.
“The number of responsive pages is significantly smaller than the total number of pages initially collected,” Blanche added. “That’s why I mentioned a moment ago we’re releasing more than 3m pages today and not the 6m pages that we collected.”
The missed deadline and up to 3m files that remain unreleased have prompted criticism and calls for further disclosure to answer how Epstein sexually abused girls with impunity for decades and landed a sweetheart plea deal about 20 years ago that allowed him to avoid federal prosecution.
“The government continues to avoid accountability and has argued that they are not responsible for Epstein’s abuse of hundreds of victims,” said Jennifer Plotkin of Merson Law, which represents more than 30 victims, said. “The release of the files proves the government failed the victims over and over again.”
US judge to hear request for ‘immediate takedown’ of Epstein files
A federal judge said he would hear a request to block access to investigative files linked to Epstein on Wednesday, after lawyers flagged unredacted names of victims.
The Justice Department released more than three million files last week related to the investigation into the disgraced financier, including his links to high-profile figures.
The department was left scrambling after names of alleged victims, who were supposed to be anonymized, were left unredacted, AFP reported.
In a letter to judges overseeing the case, lawyers representing the victims listed documents in the latest cache they said revealed victims’ names and some personal details.
Clintons agree to testify in House Epstein investigation
Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed on Monday to testify in a House investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, days before the chamber was expected to vote to hold them in contempt of Congress.
The concession follows a tense back-and-forth between the Clintons and the Republican James Comer, chair of the House oversight committee, who on Monday said that he would insist both Clintons sit for a sworn deposition before the committee in order to fulfill the panel’s subpoenas.
“They negotiated in good faith. You did not,” Angel Ureña, a spokesman for the Clintons, replied to Comer, in a post on social media. “They told you under oath what they know, but you don’t care. But the former president and former secretary of state will be there. They look forward to setting a precedent that applies to everyone.”
The House was headed towards potential votes this week on criminal contempt of Congress charges against the Clintons. If passed, the charges threatened the Clintons with substantial fines and even incarceration if they were convicted.
“The Clintons do not get to dictate the terms of lawful subpoenas,” Comer said.
See the full report here:
Trump set to welcome Colombian president to White House for talks
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
President Donald Trump is set to welcome Colombian president Gustavo Petro to the White House on Tuesday for talks just weeks after threatening military action against the South American country and accusing the leader of pumping cocaine into the United States.
US administration officials say the meeting will focus on regional security cooperation and counternarcotics efforts, AP reported.
And Trump on Monday suggested that Petro – who has continued to criticize Trump and the US operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro – is more willing to work with his administration to stem the flow of illegal drugs from Colombia.
“Somehow after the Venezuelan raid, he became very nice,” Trump told reporters. “He changed his attitude very much.”
However, in recent days, Petro has continued to criticize the US president, calling Trump an “accomplice to genocide” in the Gaza Strip, while asserting that the capture of Maduro was a kidnapping.
And ahead of his departure for Washington, Petro called on Colombians to take to the streets of Bogotá during the White House meeting.
In other developments:
Grammys host Trevor Noah has been threatened with legal action by Donald Trump for a joke during Sunday’s awards ceremony about the president’s connection to the disgraced late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A US disaster response firm submitted a plan to White House officials that would guarantee 300% profits and a seven-year monopoly over a new trucking and logistics plan for Donald Trump’s board of peace in Gaza, according to a November proposal obtained by the Guardian.
The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said that all federal agents in Minneapolis will immediately begin wearing body cameras and that the program will be expanded nationwide “as funding is available”.
Iran’s top diplomat has said the government is ready for negotiations with the US as the two countries reportedly prepared to send top envoys to Istanbul for high-stakes talks on the Iranian nuclear programme later this week.
Donald Trump has been accused of “corruption, plain and simple” after it was revealed that a member of the Emirati royal family was behind a $500m investment into the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company.
Immediately after a US border patrol agent shot two people in Oregon last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the targets were “vicious” gang members connected to a prior shooting and alleged they had “attempted to run over” officers with their vehicle.
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