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Federal judge releases four illegal immigrants convicted of murder, sex crimes from ICE Custody
Who's accountable for the results?

A federal judge in Louisiana has released four illegal immigrants with lengthy rap sheets that include convictions for murder and child sex crimes from law enforcement custody earlier this month.
On Feb. 6, Judge John deGravelles, an Obama appointee who sits on the bench for the Middle District Court of Louisiana, granted the four defendants release from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, the Department of Homeland Security said. 
"The ramifications will only be the continued rape, murder, assault, and robbery of more American victims," said Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. "Releasing these monsters is inexcusably reckless. President Trump and Secretary Noem are now enforcing the law and arresting illegal aliens who have no right to be in our country."
EXCLUSIVE: ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT RELEASED UNDER BIDEN 'CATCH-AND-RELEASE' ALLEGEDLY KILLS DRIVER IN POLICE CHASE
"We are applying the law as written," she added. "If an immigration judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period."
The four defendants include Ibrahim Ali Mohammed, an Ethiopian citizen convicted of sexual exploitation of a minor. An immigration judge issued him a final order of removal on Sept, 5, 2024. 
He was released into the United States by the Biden administration.
DHS HONORS ILLINOIS WOMAN WHOSE CORPSE WAS ALLEGEDLY ABUSED BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT FREED UNDER SANCTUARY LAWS
Luis Gaston-Sanchez, from Cuba, has convictions for homicide, assault, resisting an officer, concealing stolen property and two counts of robbery. 
An immigration judge issued a deportation order for him on Sept. 24, 2001.
Ricardo Blanco Chomat, also a Cuban citizen, has convictions for homicide, kidnapping, aggravated assault with a firearm, burglary, robbery, larceny and selling cocaine. 
A deportation order was issued for him on March 27, 2002.
Francisco Rodriguez-Romero was previously convicted of homicide and a weapons offense. He was ordered to be deported on May 30, 1995.
In Sept. 2025, DHS announced a partnership with Louisiana to expand ICE detention space at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola Prison. The facility, dubbed the "Louisiana Lockup," houses some of the criminal illegal immigrants arrested by ICE.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Middle District Court of Louisiana for comment. 

Biden admin skirted rules to deliver massive contract to nonprofit run by ex-official, IG report reveals
Accountability can't be optional.

EXCLUSIVE: A new Inspector General's report released Thursday morning accuses the former Biden administration of bypassing federal rules when issuing a more than half-a-billion dollar "sole source contract" to a nonprofit led by a former Biden official to deal with the unaccompanied minor crisis in 2021.
The Administration of Children and Families (ACF), which is under HHS and manages unaccompanied minors, awarded $529 million for a 1-year contract in March 2021 to a nonprofit called Family Endeavors, Inc. to help establish and manage a new emergency intake site in Texas (EIS) with 2,000 extra beds. However, according to the OIG's new report, Biden's ACF failed to follow federal procurement requirements that require full and open competition due to their own "insufficient planning," rather than the COVID induced emergency the Biden administration cited. 
Furthermore, the inspector general's report found that the contract price was more than double the agency's own cost estimate of $244 million, and indicated that the agency "subsequently modified" the award 15 times, extending the period until May 2022 and increasing the value to more than three times the original estimate from ACF.
DOGE SAYS TEXAS NONPROFIT WITH FORMER BIDEN TRANSITION MEMBER REAPED MILLIONS OPERATING EMPTY FACILITY
"ACF knew well in advance of March 2021 that it was projected to need more shelter beds than existing sites could provide and should have begun contract planning at that time," the report states. "ACF failed to reasonably conduct the necessary advanced planning to execute a contract for procurement of those beds and related services using full and open competition."
The report says ACF made only a limited attempt to do the necessary research for the contract, and did not even follow the findings it came up with.
"On March 5, 2021, Endeavors emailed ORR offering emergency assistance for the care of unaccompanied alien children. On March 13, 2021, Endeavors emailed ORR again with an unsolicited proposal, which included a statement of capabilities and concept of operations for an emergency shelter to serve unaccompanied alien children. Three days later, on March 16, 2021, ACF awarded a firm-fixed-price sole source contract to Endeavors to provide and operate an EIS facility in Pecos, Texas," the report states.
The contract beginning March 2021 was "by far the largest ever" for Endeavors Family, Inc., and came months after the company hired Andrew Lorenzen-Strait, who served as an adviser to the Biden-Harris transition team. The contract was also the second largest ever awarded …

No Republicans to appear on ballot in 2026 New Mexico Senate election
Trust is earned, not demanded.

New Mexico‘s November 2026 election ballot will feature no Republicans after the state disqualified several Republican candidates for failing to meet ballot requirements.

Republican Christopher Vanden Heuvel was disqualified by New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who ruled that the 2026 Senate candidate didn’t turn in enough qualified voter signatures to appear on the June primary ballot, wiping the Republican field. Though the state is solidly blue, the disqualification will mark the first time in the state’s modern history that a Republican won’t appear on the Senate ballot, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

Incumbent Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) will now cruise to a second term, barring an unlikely defeat in a Democratic primary.

“He’ll continue earning their support on the campaign trail while doing the job they elected him to do by lowering costs and delivering results for New Mexico,” campaign spokesman Adan Serna told the outlet in a statement. “That commitment does not change based on who else is the ballot.”

Lujan won his first Senate election in 2020 with 51.72% of the vote, compared to his Republican rival’s 45.62%.

PENTAGON ALLOWED CBP TO USE ANTI-DRONE LASER BEFORE FAA CLOSED EL PASO AIRSPACE

Two other Republicans and one Democrat were also disqualified from the ballot — Republican House candidate Carlton Pennington, Republican gubernatorial candidate Belinda Robertson, and Democratic House candidate Thomas Wakely, who was mounting a primary challenge to Rep. Gave Vasquez (D-NM).

A guide from the New Mexico secretary of state holds that to be valid, candidates must submit a nominating petition “signed by a number of voters equal to at least two percent (2%) of the total vote of the candidate’s party in the state or congressional district (based on the total votes cast for all of the party’s candidates for governor, at the last preceding primary election in which the party’s candidate for governor was nominated).”

Bad Bunny's "illegal" halftime show needs investigation: Republicans
Every delay has consequences.

House Republicans are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime performance, suggesting the content and lyrics of the Puerto Rican star's show were "illegal."
Rep. Randy Fine on Monday announced that he and other Republicans would send a letter to the FCC calling for "fines and broadcast license reviews" against the NFL, NBC and Bad Bunny.
"Had he said these lyrics -- and all of the other disgusting and pornographic filth in English on live TV, the broadcast would have been pulled down and the fines would have been enormous," Fine said on X.
Rep. Andy Ogles on Monday also sent a letter to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce seeking a formal inquiry into the NFL and NBCUniversal for their "prior knowledge, review, and approval of explicit and indecent content," during the show.
Ogles claimed that "children were forced to endure" sexual dancing and lyrics that "openly glorified" certain sexual activities.
Many of the explicit lyrics cited by Bad Bunny critics are literal translations of his songs but were not actually performed during the February 8 halftime show.
Bad Bunny did sing a portion of the song "Safarea," which describes sexual acts — though the suggestive words were bleeped during the broadcast.
Bad Bunny did not once say the "f-word" during the performance, contrary to Fine's suggestion.
Opinion/Questions
The conservative response to the Bad Bunny halftime show reminds me of the old, politically correct, evangelical wing of the Republican Party I grew up with in the 1980s-2000s. Are these types of criticisms still relevant in the 2020s? Do Gen Z voters or Latino voters care about the Bad Bunny show that much? Would an FCC investigation into Bad Bunny be a political win for them, or would it just keep an unpopular position in the limelight even longer?

Former Jack Smith deputy involved in prosecuting Trump announces run for office
Ask who never gets charged.

JP Cooney, who worked on the criminal prosecutions of President Donald Trump with former special counsel Jack Smith, has mounted a congressional bid in Virginia as a Democrat.
"I was fired by Donald Trump's Department of Justice because of my work to prosecute him. But I won't let Trump – or anyone – stop me from serving. I'm J.P. Cooney, and I'm running for Congress in Virginia's 7th District," he wrote in a Wednesday post on X.
Fox News Digital reached out to Cooney's campaign and the White House for comment on Thursday.
FIRED TRUMP PROSECUTORS LAUNCH NEW WASHINGTON FIRM THEY SAY WILL BATTLE GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION
Cooney's LinkedIn profile states, "As Principal Deputy to Special Counsel Jack Smith, Cooney was a lead prosecutor in both criminal prosecutions of President Trump for obstruction of justice and conspiracy." 
Smith praised Cooney in a statement reported by the New York Times.
JACK SMITH SAYS TRUMP ‘WILLFULLY’ BROKE THE LAW, BLASTS DOJ ‘RETRIBUTION’ IN SECOND TERM
"I’ve known J.P. for a long time and I think the world of him as a person and as a public servant," Smith noted, according to the outlet. "He’s a man of integrity who has committed his career to upholding the rule of law, and he’s the model of who our country needs in public service."
Cooney aims to run in a district that does not actually exist yet, the Times noted, explaining that Virginia's 7th Congressional District would be altered under a redistricting push by Democrats. The plan would need to surmount legal challenges and clear a ballot referendum. 
TOP 5 MOMENTS FROM JACK SMITH'S TESTIMONY ON CAPITOL HILL
"Never has there been a Congress that has been such a weak and ineffective check on a president’s abuses of power," Cooney said, according to the Times. "I lie awake every night worrying that Donald Trump does not have the best interests of our country in mind, and that’s a seismic shift in American leadership and politics."

The Trump Administration Wants to Make It Easier Than Ever to Exploit Farmworkers
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The Trump Administration Wants to Make It Easier Than Ever to Exploit Farmworkers

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February 12, 2026

The Trump Administration Wants to Make It Easier Than Ever to Exploit Farmworkers

What is being described as “reform” in Washington will only make the abuse and wage theft that plague the program even worse.

Teresa Cotsirilos

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Workers harvest asparagus at Yakama Nation Farms in Harrah, Washington, on Tuesday, April 22, 2025.
(Emree Weaver / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

This story was produced in partnership with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a nonprofit news organization.

Shortly after Gustavo started working as a sheepherder in Cokeville, Wyoming, he says his boss took his passport. Over the years that followed, he and his brother, Iván, herded up to 2,000 sheep through the state’s remote mountains. All the while, they told me in 2023, the rancher stole their wages, deprived them of food and water, and shot more than one of their dogs in front of them. “We were afraid he’d kill us,” said Iván. After the brothers managed to escape they were granted special visas reserved for victims of human trafficking.

Originally from Peru, Gustavo and Iván (whose names have been changed due to fear of retaliation) came to the United States through the H-2A program, which provides temporary work visas for seasonal, foreign-born agricultural workers. In Washington, H-2A is having a moment. The visa is one of the only immigration programs that Trump officials have embraced—Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has said expanding it is “of the utmost priority”—with lawmakers from both parties on board. And last year the administration made a number of significant changes to the program, none of which would have protected Gustavo and Iván. Some of them will make the kind of abuse the brothers faced more likely.

It’s not hard to understand H-2A’s appeal. For Trump officials, it’s a solution to a long-standing problem they made a lot worse: Farmers have been coping with a labor shortage for decades, and an estimated 40 percent of the farmworkers they’ve hired are undocumented. By the administration’s own admission, its increased immigration raids in farm country would likely worsen this labor shortage to the point of increasing food prices. For policymakers across the political spectrum, expanding the H-2A visa can look like a panacea for much of what ails our agricultural labor force—a way to supply farmers with a sufficient number of workers who they can afford to hire, and who reside in the country legally. And much easier to accomplish than comprehensive immigration reform. For farmers, H-2A is the only viable path to a legal workforce. As a …

Yale Professor Who E-mailed Epstein About a “Small Goodlooking Blonde” Student Is No Longer Teaching
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.

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Yale Professor Who E-mailed Epstein About a “Small Goodlooking Blonde” Student Is No Longer Teaching

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StudentNation

/ February 12, 2026

Yale Professor Who E-mailed Epstein About a “Small Goodlooking Blonde” Student Is No Longer Teaching

After outcry from students over e-mails showing David Gelernter’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the computer science professor is under review by the university.

Zachary Clifton

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David Gelernter, professor of computer science and a specialist in artificial intelligence at Yale University.

(James Leynse / Getty)

This story was produced for StudentNation, a program of the Nation Fund for Independent Journalism, which is dedicated to highlighting the best of student journalism. For more StudentNation, check out our archive or learn more about the program here. StudentNation is made possible through generous funding from The Puffin Foundation. If you’re a student and you have an article idea, please send pitches and questions to [email protected].

On an ordinary Thursday, in June 1993, on the fifth floor of Arthur K. Watson Hall at Yale, a computer science professor opened mail in his office. David Gelernter believed that what sat on his desk was a stack of letters, one of the packages probably a dissertation from a graduate student. But when he tore open the package, it began smoking. It was an explosive device from Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Upon detonation, the bomb damaged four fingers on Gelernter’s right hand along with his right eye.

Still, Gelernter survived one of the Unabomber’s attacks against influential academics leading the digital revolution. At Yale, Gelernter is best known for being the worst-ranked professor in the university’s computer science department. Nationally, he’s known for being a contrarian in academia and clashing against scientific consensus on climate change. For that role, Gelernter met with Donald Trump in 2017 and was floated as a potential science adviser during his first term.

In January, another explosion rocked Arthur K. Watson Hall: the revelation that Gelernter had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. In dozens of e-mails, between 2009 and 2015, Gelernter corresponded with the convicted sex offender, according to files released by the Department of Justice.

In 2010, Gelernter invited Epstein to New Haven, even offering the hospital’s heliport for his helicopter to land. In April 2011, Gelernter seemingly solicited money and advice from Epstein for a business venture, discussing operating budgets and development costs, including “executive salaries” for himself and two others. In another e-mail, released in late January, Gelernter recommended one of …

The Divisions Mamdani Commands Are About to Be Battle-Tested
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The Divisions Mamdani Commands Are About to Be Battle-Tested

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The Mamdani Beat

/ February 12, 2026

The Divisions Mamdani Commands Are About to Be Battle-Tested

The New York mayor draws flack from the Catholic press, holds his own for now with the NYPD, and will have to twist arms in Albany.

D.D. Guttenplan

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Friends for now: New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch at a January news conference.
(Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

According to Winston Churchill’s The Gathering Storm, French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval approached Joseph Stalin with the suggestion that that making life easier for Catholics in the Soviet Union would be a good way of ingratiating himself with the Vatican. “The Pope?” Stalin replied, “How many divisions has he got?”

The quotation came up naturally enough last Friday, when Mayor Zohran Mamdani presided over his administration’s first Interfaith Breakfast. New York Public Library President Anthony Marx, whose building played host to the gathering, concluded his welcoming remarks by referencing the Trump administration’s violent sieges on American cities: “The ICE will melt.”

Mamdani reminded the audience that, for him, interfaith dialogue was more than just a slogan: “I was raised in New York City as a Muslim kid with a Hindu mother. I celebrated Eid-al-Fitr and Eid-al-Adha with my family, with diyas in Riverside Park for Diwali.” But the murders in Minneapolis were also very much at the front of the mayor’s mind. Shifting from Deuteronomy 10, which commands us to “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,” to the more apocalyptic language of the Book of Revelation, Mamdani condemned ICE in biblical terms: “They arrive as if atop a pale horse, and they leave a path of wreckage in their wake. People ripped from their cars. Guns drawn against the unarmed. Families torn apart…. If these are not attacks upon the stranger among us, what is?”

The room responded warmly to the mayor’s reaffirmation of New York’s sanctuary city status, but anyone under the impression that Gotham was about to adopt “Kumbaya” as its official anthem need only have consulted that day’s headline on the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights’s website: “Mamdani Stiffs Catholics for Third Time.” Citing the absence of a Catholic priest at the mayor’s inauguration as well as from the breakfast program, the league pronounced the third strike against the Mamdani administraton: the mayor’s failure to attend the installation of Archbishop Ronald Hicks that same day, despite the ceremony’s taking place just “a short walk up Fifth Avenue” at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Whatever the other claims …

Abolition Is Still the Only Way Out of This
Every delay has consequences.

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Abolition Is Still the Only Way Out of This

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Society

/ February 12, 2026

Abolition Is Still the Only Way Out of This

Forget the useless so-called “reforms” to ICE and policing currently on offer. We need much more fundamental change.

Andrea J. Ritchie

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US federal immigration agents patrol in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on February 4, 2026.
(Charly Triballeau / AFP via Getty Images)

As the scale and scope of state violence against migrants and the neighbors and community members who protect them—including the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis and of Keith Porter and Silverio Villegas González by ICE in Los Angeles and Chicago—has rapidly escalated over the first year of the second Trump administration, so have the familiar calls for quick fixes for state violence.

Meanwhile, hopes placed in Democrats to save us by finally recognizing that the police state they have helped build is the vehicle through which authoritarianism is being consolidated are repeatedly dashed. This is true of the party’s recent, tepid proposals to put “guardrails” on ICE.

The plan calls on agents to stop wearing masks; identify themselves; don body cameras and standardized uniforms; follow existing laws that prohibit racial profiling and require a warrant for agents to enter private property; and verify whether a person is a US citizen before detaining them (thus continuing to legitimize detention of non-citizens).

All of these small fixes patently fail to present any real challenge to the systems and agencies that are waging war on our communities—though, if agreed to, they would clear the way for Democrats to vote for record funding for ICE.

The proposed “reforms” advanced in the face of mounting calls to defund and abolish ICE are simply a rogue’s gallery of the usual suspects trotted out whenever the violence of law enforcement shocks the public conscience. As discussed in detail in No More Police: A Case for Abolition, a book I cowrote with Mariame Kaba, they have been touted and tried over and over for decades, and in some cases, centuries, without changing the fundamental nature and practices of policing.

The failure of body cameras to prevent police violence while increasing the surveillance that fuels incarceration, detention, and deportation machines has been well documented. As widely reported, the agents who killed Good and Pretti were already wearing body cameras–as is the case for countless cops who have committed egregious violence on camera over the past decade. Yet policymakers continue to pour millions into the pockets of corporate cronies who sell them as solutions.

Prohibitions on racial profiling …

Why the European Left Should Support Peace in Ukraine
Is this competence or optics?

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Why the European Left Should Support Peace in Ukraine

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February 12, 2026

Why the European Left Should Support Peace in Ukraine

Endorsing a negotiated settlement does not require the left to justify Russia’s invasion or advocate legal recognition of its territorial gains.

Artin DerSimonian and Anatol Lieven

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Ukrainian firefighters extinguish a fire after a Russian bombing raid on the city of Sloviansk, Ukraine, on February 10, 2026.(Diego Herrera Carcedo / Anadolu via Getty Images)

Anegotiated end to the Ukraine War now seems possible, if the last remaining obstacles can be overcome. Of these, the most important is Russia’s demand that Ukraine leave the last remaining part of the Donbas region that it still holds. Putin apparently needs this if he is to be able to claim a qualified victory in a war that has cost Russia enormously for very limited gains. It is, however, obviously extremely hard for Ukraine to withdraw from part of its national territory, for which it has sacrificed so many lives.

The European Union and its leading members could make a valuable contribution to peace if, in return for Russia’s dropping this demand, they were to offer to suspend sanctions against Russia, resume purchases of Russian oil and gas (though without returning to prewar levels) and abandon the idea of a European “reassurance force” on Ukrainian territory—something that Russia has categorically rejected.

European leaders are now calling for the resumption of direct talks with Russia, and it is reported that former Finnish president Sauli Niinistö is being considered as an EU envoy to the Russian government. But Russian sources have told me an offer to talk is meaningless. The EU must put forward concrete proposals.

European progressive parties and groups could play a useful part in urging their governments toward making such proposals. Tragically, with rare exceptions, they are largely silent or opposed.

Feelings of shock and anger on the left at Russia’s invasion were entirely justified, as was support for the sanctions that the EU imposed on Russia and the aid the West gave to Ukraine. The goal of this strategy however should have been a compromise peace—one that indeed seemed possible (and on far better terms for Ukraine) in the first weeks of the war, but that was opposed by key Western governments.

Instead, the Biden administration and its European satellites sought the defeat and permanent weakening of Russia—or even, in some Russophobe fever dreams, its dissolution. And this goal persisted long after the complete failure of the Ukrainian offensive in 2023 made clear that it was impossible. Indeed, some leading figures, like EU foreign policy …