Senate Democrats are threatening to block legislation Thursday to fund the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies, potentially bringing the government a step closer to a partial shutdown Friday if Republicans and the White House don’t agree to restrict President Donald Trump\u2019s.<\/b>
\nPresident Donald Trump has gathered his Cabinet for a video broadcasted meeting that\u2019s expected to be another lengthy, praise-heavy affair. Since returning to office, the president has used these meetings to review his administration\u2019s accomplishments and provide Cabinet members with an opportunity to shower him with superlatives.
The meeting comes as Senate Democrats are threatening to block legislation that would fund the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies, potentially bringing the government a step closer to a partial shutdown if Republicans and the White House do not agree to new restrictions on Trump\u2019s surge of immigration enforcement.
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As the country reels from the killings of two protesters by federal agents in Minneapolis, irate Senate Democrats are demanding that officers take off their masks, identify themselves and obtain judicial warrants showing probable cause for arrests. If those are not met, Democrats say they are prepared to block the wide-ranging spending bill, denying Republicans the votes they need to pass it and triggering a shutdown at midnight on Friday.
Meanwhile, FBI raid in Georgia highlights Trump\u2019s 2020 election obsession and hints at possible future actions. A federal appeals court ruled that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem acted illegally when she chose to end legal protections that gave Venezuelans permission to live and work in the U.S. And Sen. Amy Klobuchar says she’s running for governor of Minnesota as a unifier who will take on Trump.
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Trump opened his Cabinet meeting by briefly highlighting improvements to the room, then moving on to his administration\u2019s successes.
He touched on his administration\u2019s efforts on crime before moving to Venezuela, where he thanked staff involved with the military operation to end the presidency of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.
House Republicans are proposing sweeping changes to the nation\u2019s voting laws before Americans get their say in this fall\u2019s midterm elections.
The package to be released Thursday, a long-shot Trump priority, includes requirements for photo IDs before people can vote, proof of citizenship and prohibitions on universal vote-by-mail and ranked choice voting.
\u201cThese reforms will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat,\u201d said Rep. Bryan Steil, chairman of the House Administration Committee, in a statement.
The GOP election rules legislation a long road ahead in the narrowly-split Congress, where Democrats have rejected similar ideas as disenfranchising Americans\u2019 ability to vote. According to a one-page bill summary:
1. states would have to verify citizenship when people register to vote
2. voters would have to present a photo ID at the polls
3. states would have to use \u201cauditable\u201d paper ballots, which many already do
4. mail-in ballots would have to be received by the close of polling on Election Day to be counted, with an exception for overseas military personnel.
5. mailing ballots to all voters through universal vote-by-mail systems would be prohibited.
They say such changes could lead to widespread problems for voters. For example, they say prior Republican efforts to require proof of citizenship have disenfranchised married women whose last names on their photo IDs don\u2019t exactly match their birth certificates or other proofs of citizenship.
The Brennan Center for Justice and other groups estimated in a 2023 report that 9% of U.S. citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have proof of their citizenship readily available. Almost half of Americans do not have a U.S. passport.
Majority Leader John Thune opened the Senate as Republicans and Democrats eye an emerging deal to consider immigration enforcement changes and prevent a federal shutdown.
\u201cWe\u2019re getting closer,\u201d the GOP leader said.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said immigration changes must be included in any deal to fund the government.
\u201cThis is a moment of truth,\u201d Schumer said.
Democrats want an end to roving patrols and a requirement that federal agents use body cameras and unmask themselves.
Schumer decried the \u201cthugs roaming our streets\u201d during immigration enforcement.
\u201cEnough is enough,\u201d he said.
Kevin Couch confirmed in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday that he resigned Wednesday, without providing an explanation. It\u2019s the latest sign of turmoil at the iconic performing arts venue.
The Kennedy Center\u2019s Trump-appointed president, Ric Grenell, had welcomed Couch to the role \u201cas we expand our commonsense programming.\u201d
Couch\u2019s exit comes as Trump and first lady Melania Trump are expected to walk the red carpet at the Kennedy Center on Thursday for the premiere of \u201cMelania,\u201d a documentary she produced.
The center is navigating a wave of artist cancellations in protest of Trump \u2019s new leadership, which added his name to the venue. In just the past week, composer Philip Glass called off a world premiere of a symphony about Abraham Lincoln, and Grammy-winning soprano Ren\u00e9e Fleming withdrew from two scheduled appearances.
Homan vowed to hold ICE and CBP officers accountable for their actions but didn\u2019t go into specifics of the Saturday shooting or indicate anything he thought they\u2019d done wrong during the course of the operation.
\u201cFor decades, ICE and CBP have carried out their duties with integrity, professionalism and compassion. That remains the expectation under President Trump. And we will, I will, hold our agents and officers to that standard,\u201d Homan said.
Homan also blamed \u201chateful rhetoric\u201d for ratcheting up attacks on his officers who he called \u201cAmerican patriots.\u201d
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee wants to know why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard joined an FBI search of a Georgia election office that was featured in bogus conspiracy theories over Trump\u2019s 2020 election loss.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said that if Gabbard believes a foreign intelligence service tried to swing the election she is obligated to inform his committee. Otherwise, \u201cshe is simply attempting to inject the non-partisan intelligence community into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy,\u201d Warner said at a committee hearing Thursday.
Gabbard\u2019s office did not immediately respond to questions about Wednesday\u2019s action, which involved the FBI executing a search warrant and taking away many boxes of ballots cast by voters. Trump\u2019s claims of a stolen election have been repeatedly rejected by courts and state and federal officials, who found no evidence of fraud that would have altered the outcome.
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ICE has historically relied on cooperation from local and state jails and prisons with immigrants in custody who\u2019ve committed or are accused of crimes to alert ICE so that agents can pick them up before they\u2019re released.
Many urban areas don\u2019t have such cooperation agreements, saying that keeping detainees beyond their release dates or otherwise working with ICE makes victims or witnesses to crimes more reluctant to support prosecutions. The Hennepin County Jail, which serves Minneapolis, and the Ramsey County jail, which serves St. Paul, don\u2019t honor such \u201cdetainers,\u201d but both do hand over prisoners if there is an arrest warrant signed by a judge.
ICE argues that arresting immigrants while they\u2019re still in custody is safer and better for immigrant communities by avoiding street operations that might result in detentions of other people who are in the country illegally but haven\u2019t committed any crimes.
Homan said he appreciates that Minnesota\u2019s state prisons honor ICE detainers, \u201cand we\u2019re going to expand upon that.\u201d
Trump and his Cabinet have a meeting set for 11 a.m. Eastern. Anyone planning on tuning in should be prepared for a long haul.
The most recent Cabinet meeting ran past the two-hour mark \u2014 long enough that the president was caught closing his eyes. While officials defended this as a sign of the president\u2019s active listening, he recently suggested in an interview with New York Magazine that he did so because the meeting was boring. December\u2019s still fell short of an August meeting that went more than three hours and 15 minutes.
Since returning to office, Trump has used his cabinet meetings to review his administration\u2019s accomplishments and provide Cabinet members with an opportunity to shower him with superlatives. Past meetings have also included questions from reporters.
Mayor Frey\u2019s office says he\u2019ll attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Thursday to advocate for an end to the immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis. He\u2019ll also meet with federal lawmakers as Senate Democrats threaten to hold up this year\u2019s Homeland Security budget unless the Trump administration agrees to limit ICE arrests to the targets of judicial warrants.
\u201cMinneapolis may be where we\u2019ve seen one of the largest ICE deployments in the country, but it will not be the last if we fail to act,\u201d Frey said in the statement. \u201cI\u2019m going to Washington to make the case for ending this strategy and replacing it with approaches that build trust, improve safety, and put our residents first.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m staying until the problem\u2019s gone,\u201d Homan said.
He said he\u2019s made some progress while meeting with elected officials and law enforcement leaders across the city and state, seeking common ground.
More agreements are now in place between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local jails to hand over immigrants in their custody, and he said this means fewer officers will be needed in the streets, which in turn will allow the Trump administration to draw down staff.
Homan also seemed to suggest a renewed focus on what Immigration and Customs Enforcement calls \u201ctargeted operations\u201d designed to focus their arrest efforts on apprehending immigrants who\u2019ve committed crimes.
Homan said they would conduct \u201ctargeted strategic enforcement operations\u201d where they would prioritize \u201cpublic safety threats.\u201d
He also called on local jails to alert immigration enforcement when they have someone in their custody who is an immigrant about to be released, saying that transferring people over to ICE while they\u2019re still in jail is safer for the officers and means they aren\u2019t out on the streets.
\u201cGive us access to illegal aliens, public safety threats in the safety and security of a jail,\u201d Homan said.
The Trump administration is looking at basing Trump\u2019s new international Board of Peace in the Washington building that formerly housed the U.S. Institute of Peace, according to four administration officials.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the subject has been a matter of serious discussion but stressed that a final decision has not yet been made about where the board\u2019s administrative staff will be located.
The building is the subject of litigation brought by former USIP employees and executives after the administration seized the facility last year and fired almost its entire staff. The building has since been renamed the Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace, but its name and status remains in legal limbo.
Trump unveiled the board last week in Davos, Switzerland, and it currently has 27 \u201cfounding members,\u201d whose first task is to oversee the Gaza peace plan.
\u2014 By Matthew Lee
The judge\u2019s temporary restraining order, which aims to prevent federal officers from arresting and detaining resettled refugees in Minnesota, responded to a lawsuit challenging a new Homeland Security operation to to reevaluate the refugee status of nearly 5,600 people.
The order calls for the immediate release of refugees detained in Minnesota and release within five days of those transferred to Texas.
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller\u2019s quick social media response: \u201cThe judicial sabotage of democracy is unending.\u201d
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Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz warned the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that it had violated 96 court orders in 74 cases this month.
\u201cThis list should give pause to anyone \u2014 no matter his or her political beliefs \u2014 who cares about the rule of law,\u201d he wrote. \u201cICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.\u201d
It was Schiltz who ordered ICE\u2019s acting director Todd Lyons to personally appear in his courtroom Friday after the agency failed to obey an order to release an Ecuadorian man from detention in Texas. The judge canceled the order after the agency freed the man, but warned ICE that future noncompliance may result in orders requiring the personal appearances of top government officials.
ICE didn\u2019t respond to an email seeking comment.
Trump\u2019s border czar says the administration is open to a drawdown of agents in Minneapolis but only after he sees cooperation from state officials.
Trump sent Tom Homan to Minneapolis after the shooting of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration officers.
At a Thursday news conference, Homan doubled down on the need for local jails to alert Immigration and Customs Enforcement to people in their custody who ICE can remove from the country. Homan said that means that fewer agents have to actually be out on the streets looking for people.
He acknowledged that immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota haven\u2019t been perfect but was adamant that the administration isn\u2019t surrendering.
If there\u2019s been a soundtrack to life in Minneapolis, it\u2019s the shrieking whistles and honking horns of thousands of people following immigration agents across the city. They are the ever-moving shadow of the Trump administration\u2019s Operation Metro Surge.
They are teachers, scientists and stay-at-home parents. They own small businesses and wait tables. Their network is sprawling, often anonymous and with few overall objectives beyond helping immigrants, warning of approaching agents or filming videos to show the world what is happening.
And it\u2019s clear they\u2019ll continue despite the White House striking a more conciliatory tone after the killing of Alex Pretti, including the transfer of Gregory Bovino, the senior Border Patrol official who was the public face of the immigration crackdown.
\u201cI don\u2019t think the threat that we\u2019re under will change because they change out the local puppets,\u201d said Andrew Fahlstrom, who helps run Defend the 612, a hub for volunteer networks.
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Sen. Susan Collins said Thursday that immigration officials have ceased their \u201cenhanced operations\u201d in the state after more than 100 arrests in an enforcement surge.
She made the announcement after saying she had several direct communications with Noem.
\u201cThere are currently no ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations here,\u201d Collins said in a statement. \u201cI have been urging Secretary Noem and others in the Administration to get ICE to reconsider its approach to immigration enforcement in the state.\u201d
Collins said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol officials \u201cwill continue their normal operations that have been ongoing here for many years.\u201d
Jeff Landry, Trump\u2019s envoy to Greenland, says in a New York Times op-ed that the framework of an agreement on Arctic security that Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte agreed upon last week builds on existing defense agreements between the U.S. and Denmark.
\u201cIt would expand America\u2019s operational freedom, support new bases and infrastructure, facilitate deployment of advanced missile-defense systems like the Golden Dome and crowd out hostile Chinese and Russian influence,\u201d Landry writes.
U.S., Danish and Greenland officials held their first technical talks on Wednesday aimed at securing an Arctic security deal.
The talks follow Trump\u2019s repeated calls for the U.S. to take over Greenland for security reasons.
As a continuation of Trump\u2019s pitch to Americans on affordability and the economy under his administration, the U.S. Treasury and White House are celebrating the upcoming launch of a program they view as a key milestone: Trump Accounts.
A provision of Trump\u2019s tax legislation, Trump Accounts are meant to give $1,000 to every newborn, so long as their parents open an account. That money is then invested in the stock market by private firms, and the child can access the money when they turn 18.
A U.S. Treasury event brought together an assortment of politicians and celebrities \u2014 from Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz to rapper Nicki Minaj and NBC\u2019s \u201cShark Tank\u201d judge Kevin O\u2019Leary \u2014 to discuss the program and its potential impact on the economy. Backers of Trump Accounts have said they\u2019re a way to help children from low-income households build wealth.
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Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar blamed Trump for threats to her safety on Wednesday, one day after she was accosted and squirted with liquid at an event in Minneapolis by a man who posted online in support of the Republican president.
\u201cEvery time the president of the United States has chosen to use hateful rhetoric to talk about me and the community that I represent, my death threats skyrocket,\u201d Omar said during a press conference. Asked if she’s nervous about appearing in public, she said, \u201cFear and intimidation doesn\u2019t work on me.\u201d
Tuesday’s attack came during a perilous political moment in Minneapolis, where two people have been fatally shot by federal agents during the White House\u2019s aggressive immigration crackdown. Omar, a refugee from Somalia, has long been a fixture of Trump\u2019s anti-immigrant rhetoric.
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Thursday she is running for governor of Minnesota, promising to take on President Donald Trump while unifying a state that has endured a series of challenges even before the federal government\u2019s immigration crackdown.
Klobuchar\u2019s decision gives Democrats a high-profile candidate and proven statewide winner as their party tries to hold onto the office occupied by Gov. Tim Walz. The 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, Walz abandoned his campaign for a third term earlier this month amid criticism over the mismanagement of taxpayer funding for child care programs.
Klobuchar cited Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, federal officers killing two Minnesotans who protested, the assassination of a state legislative leader and a school shooting that killed multiple children \u2014 all within the last year. She avoided direct mention of ongoing fraud investigations into the child care programs that Trump has made a political cudgel.
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A federal appeals court ruled late Wednesday that the Trump administration acted illegally when it ended legal protections that gave hundreds of thousands of people from Venezuela permission to live and work in the United States.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that found Noem exceeded her authority when she ended temporary protected status for Venezuelans. The decision, however, will not have any immediate practical effect after the U.S. Supreme Court in October allowed Noem\u2019s decision to take effect pending a final decision by the justices.
The 9th Circuit panel also upheld the lower court\u2019s finding that Noem exceeded her authority when she decided to end TPS early for hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti. A federal judge in Washington is expected to rule any day now on a request to pause the termination of TPS for Haiti while a separate lawsuit challenging it proceeds. The country\u2019s TPS designation is scheduled to end on February 3.
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Senate Democrats are threatening to block legislation that would fund the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies, potentially bringing the government a step closer to a partial shutdown if Republicans and the White House do not agree to new restrictions on Trump\u2019s surge of immigration enforcement.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Democrats won\u2019t provide needed votes until U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is \u201creined in and overhauled.\u201d
\u201cThe American people support law enforcement, they support border security, they do not support ICE terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens,\u201d Schumer said.
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