After 9/11, the U.S. enforced stricter control on immigration. This enforcement led to the birth of Homeland Security and ICE, but what is ICE exactly? We explain. Just the FAQs, USA TODAY
Immigrant advocates were bracing Thursday for a massive sweep of arrests and detentions amid reports that a roundup in at least 10 major cities could begin this weekend.
ICE officials would neither confirm nor deny a report Thursday in The New York Times, citing multiple administration officials the newspaper did not name, that the sweep would begin Sunday. President Donald Trump said last week that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement would begin a major sweep “soon.”
“No one arrested in the immigration raids should be deported without a fair day in court,” the American Immigration Council tweeted. “We are recruiting and training immigration attorneys from around the country to ensure this happens.”
UnidosUS tweeted a list of don’ts and dos for immigrants – don’t open doors, say anything to ICE agents, or sign anything, they said; do take pictures and get a lawyer.
“As the threat of ICE raids brings fear to our communities, it is important that you know your rights,” the tweet said.
Speaking outside the White House on Wednesday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services acting director Ken Cuccinelli declined to say when any raids would begin, but vowed that they were coming.
“They’re absolutely going to happen,” Cuccinelli said, adding that there are “approximately a million people in this country with removal orders. Of course that isn’t what ICE would go after in this. But that’s the pool of people who’ve been all the way through the due process chain.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday decried the upcoming raids as immoral actions taken to “terrorize children and tear families apart.”
During a press conference at the Capitol, she stressed that a deportation order is not the same as a search warrant, and urged immigrants to learn their rights before allowing ICE to enter their homes.
“If ICE agents do not have a warrant signed by a judge, a person may refuse to open the door and let them in,” she said.
The Times said the sweep would target more than 2,000 immigrants facing deportation orders who remain in the country illegally. The sources told the Times that ICE planned to keep family members together at family detention facilities whenever possible.
Trump said two weeks ago that he would delay nationwide raids for two weeks to give Congress time to develop an immigration plan. Trump’s hard line on immigration has been a recurring theme in his presidency and is expected to take center stage in his 2020 reelection bid.
ICE spokesman Matthew Bourke, in a statement emailed Thursday to USA TODAY, said ICE cannot provide details on coming raids for security reasons. ICE has consistently maintained that its focus is on people with criminal records but that anyone found to be in the U.S. illegally would face detainment.
“Ninety percent of aliens arrested by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations component in FY2018 had either a criminal conviction, pending criminal charge, were an ICE fugitive or illegally reentered the country after previously being removed,” Bourke said.
That is true, but in 2018 about 66% of people arrested by ICE had been convicted of a crime in the U.S. — a sharp drop from the final years of the Obama administration, which targeted undocumented immigrants with criminal records.
ICE officials previously have said they plan to target new arrivals in an effort to stem a surge of Central American families arriving through Mexico. That surge showed some decline in June, when total border arrests fell 29% according to numbers released by Customs and Border Protection. But the decline came after May totals — more than 140,000 arrests — that were the highest since 2006.
“This is not a ‘rule of law’ operation,” Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, tweeted Thursday. “The goal is to terrorize immigrant communities so immigrants do not seek protection in the US.”
A government report released last week found that migrants were being held in overcrowded conditions described as “a ticking time bomb.” In one room at Customs and Border Protection’s Fort Brown station near the U.S-Mexico border in Texas, 51 women were in a cell with a capacity for 40 juveniles, according to the report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office. In another cell, 71 men were in a cell designated for 41, the report said.
Trump was dismissive of the report, saying the facilities he visited were clean and well run.
“I think they do a great job with those facilities,” Trump said.
The ICE agents will target at least 2,000 immigrants whose deportations have already been ordered, a New York Times report said, citing one former and two current Department of Homeland Security officials.
Asked for comment, an ICE spokesman would not offer specific details, citing “law-enforcement sensitivities and the safety and security of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel.”
“As always, ICE prioritizes the arrest and removal of unlawfully present aliens who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security. … However, all of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and – if found removable by final order – removal from the United States,” the spokesman said.
Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told reporters Wednesday that the raids are “going to happen.” He did not elaborate.
The Times report said the raids will include “collateral” deportations, which means illegal immigrants at the scene of the raid who are not the target of the raid could be detained.
The June operation was expected to target 2,000 families in as many as 10 cities, including Chicago, Baltimore, New York, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami. Last month, President Trump announced on Twitter that he wants ICE agents to start the process of “removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the U.S.”
But Trump later delayed the sweeps, saying he would give lawmakers two weeks to work out solutions for securing the U.S.-Mexico border. The decision came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi contacted Trump, requesting that he call off the raids.
But three administration officials told the Associated Press that scrapping the operation was not just about politics.
They said ICE leaders had expressed serious concerns that officers’ safety would be in jeopardy because too many details about the raids had been made public.
After 9/11, the U.S. enforced stricter control on immigration. This enforcement led to the birth of Homeland Security and ICE, but what is ICE exactly? We explain. Just the FAQs, USA TODAY
Immigrant advocates were bracing Thursday for a massive sweep of arrests and detentions amid reports that a roundup in at least 10 major cities could begin this weekend.
ICE officials would neither confirm nor deny a report Thursday in The New York Times, citing multiple administration officials the newspaper did not name, that the sweep would begin Sunday. President Donald Trump said last week that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement would begin a major sweep “soon.”
“No one arrested in the immigration raids should be deported without a fair day in court,” the American Immigration Council tweeted. “We are recruiting and training immigration attorneys from around the country to ensure this happens.”
UnidosUS tweeted a list of don’ts and dos for immigrants – don’t open doors, say anything to ICE agents, or sign anything, they said; do take pictures and get a lawyer.
“As the threat of ICE raids brings fear to our communities, it is important that you know your rights,” the tweet said.
Speaking outside the White House on Wednesday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services acting director Ken Cuccinelli declined to say when any raids would begin, but vowed that they were coming.
“They’re absolutely going to happen,” Cuccinelli said, adding that there are “approximately a million people in this country with removal orders. Of course that isn’t what ICE would go after in this. But that’s the pool of people who’ve been all the way through the due process chain.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday decried the upcoming raids as immoral actions taken to “terrorize children and tear families apart.”
During a press conference at the Capitol, she stressed that a deportation order is not the same as a search warrant, and urged immigrants to learn their rights before allowing ICE to enter their homes.
“If ICE agents do not have a warrant signed by a judge, a person may refuse to open the door and let them in,” she said.
The Times said the sweep would target more than 2,000 immigrants facing deportation orders who remain in the country illegally. The sources told the Times that ICE planned to keep family members together at family detention facilities whenever possible.
Trump said two weeks ago that he would delay nationwide raids for two weeks to give Congress time to develop an immigration plan. Trump’s hard line on immigration has been a recurring theme in his presidency and is expected to take center stage in his 2020 reelection bid.
ICE spokesman Matthew Bourke, in a statement emailed Thursday to USA TODAY, said ICE cannot provide details on coming raids for security reasons. ICE has consistently maintained that its focus is on people with criminal records but that anyone found to be in the U.S. illegally would face detainment.
“Ninety percent of aliens arrested by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations component in FY2018 had either a criminal conviction, pending criminal charge, were an ICE fugitive or illegally reentered the country after previously being removed,” Bourke said.
That is true, but in 2018 about 66% of people arrested by ICE had been convicted of a crime in the U.S. — a sharp drop from the final years of the Obama administration, which targeted undocumented immigrants with criminal records.
ICE officials previously have said they plan to target new arrivals in an effort to stem a surge of Central American families arriving through Mexico. That surge showed some decline in June, when total border arrests fell 29% according to numbers released by Customs and Border Protection. But the decline came after May totals — more than 140,000 arrests — that were the highest since 2006.
“This is not a ‘rule of law’ operation,” Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, tweeted Thursday. “The goal is to terrorize immigrant communities so immigrants do not seek protection in the US.”
A government report released last week found that migrants were being held in overcrowded conditions described as “a ticking time bomb.” In one room at Customs and Border Protection’s Fort Brown station near the U.S-Mexico border in Texas, 51 women were in a cell with a capacity for 40 juveniles, according to the report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office. In another cell, 71 men were in a cell designated for 41, the report said.
Trump was dismissive of the report, saying the facilities he visited were clean and well run.
“I think they do a great job with those facilities,” Trump said.
President Trump’s threatened deportation raids are “absolutely going to happen,” says senior Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli.
“There are approximately 1 million people in this with deportation orders,” the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told reporters on the White House driveway. “Of course, that isn’t what ICE will go after in this, but that’s the pool of people that have been all the way through the process.”
The former Virginia attorney general, whose agency handles asylum cases, declined to discuss the timing of raids or additional details.
On June 22, Trump wrote on Twitter he would postpone threatened raids “for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
As the clock ran out, Trump told reporters Friday that large-scale deportation sweeps would be “starting fairly soon.”
“I don’t call them ‘raids.’ I say they came in illegally, and we’re bringing them out legally,” Trump said. “We’re removing people that have come in — all of these people over the years that have come in illegally — we are removing them and bringing them back to their country.”
President Trump’s threatened deportation raids are “absolutely going to happen,” says senior Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli.
“There are approximately 1 million people in this with deportation orders,” the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told reporters on the White House driveway. “Of course, that isn’t what ICE will go after in this, but that’s the pool of people that have been all the way through the process.”
The former Virginia attorney general, whose agency handles asylum cases, declined to discuss the timing of raids or additional details.
On June 22, Trump wrote on Twitter he would postpone threatened raids “for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
As the clock ran out, Trump told reporters Friday that large-scale deportation sweeps would be “starting fairly soon.”
“I don’t call them ‘raids.’ I say they came in illegally, and we’re bringing them out legally,” Trump said. “We’re removing people that have come in — all of these people over the years that have come in illegally — we are removing them and bringing them back to their country.”
The extravagant home of financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein reportedly contains a plethora of odd and disturbing art pieces, including a collection of prosthetic eyeballs and a painting of Epstein in a prison yard. Epstein has been arrested on charges of sex trafficking, and authorities have found a collection of pornography believed to contain images of children stored inside his New York estate.
Over the years, the opulent Manhattan home of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier at the center of a still-unfolding sex-trafficking scandal, has transformed from an unoccupied private residence to a K-12 school, and finally to an alleged house of horrors.
The Upper East Side home, essentially gifted to Epstein by wealthy retail magnate Leslie Wexner, stands seven stories tall and is considered one of the largest townhomes in New York City. It’s estimated to be valued around $56 million. Epstein, who has flitted between his Manhattan home and residences in Paris, Palm Beach, Florida, and New Mexico, is accused of abusing a number of girls across his properties.
This photo shows the Manhattan residence of Jeffrey Epstein, Monday July 8, 2019, in New York. Prosecutors said Monday, federal agents investigating wealthy sex offender Jeffrey Epstein found “nude photographs of what appeared to be underage girls” while searching his Manhattan mansion. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
A recent indictment filed in the Southern District of New York outlined a system of recruitment, coercion and — ultimately — sexual abuse and rape that Epstein developed to lure young women and girls into his orbit. The document centers on Epstein’s alleged conduct in New York and Palm Beach.
Epstein’s home on 9 E. 71st St. is adorned with massive front doors that dwarf those of his neighbors. Inside, his penchant for strange, and often disturbing, design only becomes more obvious. During a raid conducted by the FBI and NYPD after Epstein’s arrest, authorities said they found in a locked safe a trove of pornographic material featuring apparently underage girls.
The decor chosen by Epstein is markedly different from that of Wexner, founder of The Limited and Victoria’s Secret. Wexner, upon purchasing the home in 1989 for around $13 million, filled it with millions of dollars worth of art. He adorned the walls with the works of Picasso and counters with priceless Russian antiques, according to The New York Times.
Epstein, to be sure, commissioned artwork for the home. Specifically, he had a massive, photorealistic mural of a prison yard painted, with Epstein in the center. According to R. Couri Hay and The New York Times, Epstein had the mural commissioned because “there is always a possibility that could be me again.”
Public records show that the home was officially transferred to Maple, Inc., an LLC controlled by Epstein, for no money in 2011. Ericka Kellerhals, the lawyer who handled the transfer, didn’t return multiple requests for comment from Fox News.
Other oddities of the home have come to light in the wake of Epstein’s arrest and incarceration.
According to an article in New York magazine, Epstein has a heated sidewalk, a hallway adorned with dozens of individually framed prosthetic eyeballs from England, a massive, life-like human doll hanging from a chandelier and a human-sized chessboard with scantily clad figurines modeled after his employees.
In a recent interview with NBC News, Jennifer Araoz said she was abused and raped by Epstein when she was just 15 years old.
“He had a bathtub that was kind of like opened, and there was prosthetic breasts that he could play with while he was taking a bath, I guess,” Araoz said in the interview.
She also said Epstein adorned his massage room with photos of naked women, including one that hung directly next to the table Araoz was forced to massage him on.
“He used to always say that I looked like her,” Araoz said.
Acosta says he cut the best deal he could to make sure Jeffrey Epstein went to jail; Kristin Fisher reports from the White House.
What motivated four women to allegedly assist disgraced billionaire Jeffery Epstein in his abuse of dozens of underage girls?
The answer may consist of several psychological factors – including Stockholm Syndrome—according to a prominent New York City psychiatrist.
“It’s complicated to understand whether they did it voluntarily or were controlled, a la Patty Hearst,” Alan Manevitz, MD, a Manhattan-based family psychiatrist told Fox News.
Manevitz has treated patients for Stockholm Syndrome, which occurs when hostages or victims develop a psychological bond with their captors. It refers to a 1973 bank robbery in Stockhom in which hostages were taken.
“For most of us, the fear of punishment prevents us from committing crimes, but how many of us would do it if we knew we could get away with it? Actually, not that many, but there are some who learn strategies to neutralize their moral compass and it is these people who may pose risks later in life.”
According to the new federal indictment unsealed Monday, Epstein created, “a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit” by conspiring with employees, associates, and others to run what was essentially a sex-trafficking enterprise between 2002 and 2005. It appeared that some of those associates included a group of four women who were granted immunity in a controversial plea deal made by then-prosecutor (and current Secretary of Labor) Alexander Acosta.
Nadia Marcinkova, Lesley Groff, and Sarah Kellen (L-R) were all given immunity as part of a plea deal for Jeffrey Epstein in 2008. (Getty/Linkedin)
“Epstein worked in concert with others to obtain minors not only for his own sexual gratification but also for the sexual gratification of others,” according to a line from the court order.
The women who were granted immunity include:
A former Epstein assistant, Sarah Kellen, who allegedly kept a Rolodex of young women to recruit for trysts with Epstein. She has since married NASCAR racecar driver Brian Vickers and started her own interior design firm called SLK designs. A recent article by The Daily Beast refers to public records showing that Kellen once operated SLK from a midtown Manhattan building owned by Epstein’s brother.
Adriana Ross, a former model from Poland who was hired by Epstein in 2002 to work at his Florida mansion and allegedly help set up sex sessions for the billionaire. She was questioned in 2010 regarding any participation by Prince Andrew in the trafficking ring set up by Epstein.
Lesley Groff, another former assistant who allegedly coordinated travel arrangements with young girls and scheduled massage sessions for her boss.
Nadia Marcinkova, one of Epstein’s alleged “sex slaves,” who allegedly participated in his trysts with underage girls. She is now a commercial pilot certified by the FAA and is a social media influencer who goes by the name “Global Girl.”
“There can be a good captor or a bad captor and when a good one gives you a sense of hope, you try to attach yourself to that and detach yourself from the bad. You wind up on your toes to see the world through their eyes because of this attachment.”
— Alan Manevitz, MD, Manhattan-based family psychiatrist
Manevitz did not speculate as to what may have motivated these women to be complicit in Epstein’s sex trafficking ring but said that many people, if they feel trapped or forced to stay in line by a controlling figure in their lives, comply as a way to cope with a dire situation thrust upon them.
“One pathway is people who suffer from Stockholm Syndrome and are acting under the control of the controller,” he said. “There can be a good captor or a bad captor and when a good one gives you a sense of hope, you try to attach yourself to that and detach yourself from the bad. You wind up on your toes to see the world through their eyes because of this attachment.
“One almost becomes brainwashed and wanting to keep them happy.”
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell (Photo by Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Not named in the plea deal but also alleged to have been complicit in helping to operate Epstein’s ring is former girlfriend and longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, a New York City socialite.
In 2015, victim Virginia Roberts filed a legal complaint in the state of Florida in which she accused Maxwell of being Epstein’s madam, according to an article by The Guardian at the time. In the complaint, in which Roberts was originally listed as “Jane Doe #3”, it was alleged that Roberts was approached in 1999 by Maxwell when she was just 15 and was pursued to sleep with Epstein. Roberts also alleges in the suit that she was used as a “sex slave” for nearly three years.
In December of last year, the New York Post reported that a separate lawsuit was brought against Epstein in Manhattan in which the plaintiff, Sarah Ransome, claimed that both he and Maxwell coerced her into having sex while she was in her 20s.
As recently as last April, a New Jersey woman came forward in a sworn affidavit with accusations of her own against Epstein and Maxwell, according to the Miami Herald.
Maxwell, 57, is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, a disgraced publishing mogul who was accused of theft from his company’s pension funds to prevent bankruptcy. The former owner of the New York Daily News was found dead near the Canary Islands in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean just days after he was reported missing from his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine—named after his daughter.
Maxwell was born and raised in England and immigrated to America in 1991 after her father’s death, becoming a fixture in New York City’s social scene. Maxwell has been photographed over the years hobnobbing with Prince Andrew, the Clintons and Donald Trump.
The Oxford-educated Maxwell was the youngest of nine children of Robert Maxwell and his wife, Dr. Elisabeth “Betty” Maxwell (nee Meynard), a French-born researcher who authored two books on the Holocaust and was also a descendant of the Huguenot aristocracy.
During her time in college during the late 80s, Maxwell started The Kit Cat Club, a speaker and discussion club for women in her native England.
In 2012, Maxwell founded the TerraMar Project, a nonprofit group focused on protecting oceans and even gave a Ted talk on protecting the oceans.
According to a 2002 profile of Epstein in New York Magazine, she was described as someone with a “high-octane” social life that helped boost his profile among New York’s high society. Maxwell only dated Epstein for a brief period but they remained friends for years after.
“It’s a mysterious relationship that they have,” journalist David Patrick Columbia said in the New York Magazine interview. “In one way, they are soulmates, yet they are hardly companions anymore. It’s a nice conventional relationship, where they serve each other’s purposes.”
President Trump’s threatened deportation raids are “absolutely going to happen,” says senior Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli.
“There are approximately 1 million people in this with deportation orders,” the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told reporters on the White House driveway. “Of course, that isn’t what ICE will go after in this, but that’s the pool of people that have been all the way through the process.”
The former Virginia attorney general, whose agency handles asylum cases, declined to discuss the timing of raids or additional details.
On June 22, Trump wrote on Twitter he would postpone threatened raids “for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
As the clock ran out, Trump told reporters Friday that large-scale deportation sweeps would be “starting fairly soon.”
“I don’t call them ‘raids.’ I say they came in illegally, and we’re bringing them out legally,” Trump said. “We’re removing people that have come in — all of these people over the years that have come in illegally — we are removing them and bringing them back to their country.”
President Trump’s threatened deportation raids are “absolutely going to happen,” says senior Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli.
“There are approximately 1 million in this people with deportation orders,” the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told reporters on the White House driveway. “Of course, that isn’t what ICE will go after in this, but that’s the pool of people that have been all the way through the process.”
The former Virginia attorney general, whose agency handles asylum cases, declined to discuss the timing of raids or additional details.
On June 22, Trump wrote on Twitter he would postpone threatened raids “for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
As the clock ran out, Trump told reporters Friday that large-scale deportation sweeps would be “starting fairly soon.”
“I don’t call them ‘raids.’ I say they came in illegally, and we’re bringing them out legally,” Trump said. “We’re removing people that have come in — all of these people over the years that have come in illegally — we are removing them and bringing them back to their country.”
President Trump’s threatened deportation raids are “absolutely going to happen,” says senior Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli.
“There are approximately 1 million in this people with deportation orders,” the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told reporters on the White House driveway. “Of course, that isn’t what ICE will go after in this, but that’s the pool of people that have been all the way through the process.”
The former Virginia attorney general, whose agency handles asylum cases, declined to discuss the timing of raids or additional details.
On June 22, Trump wrote on Twitter he would postpone threatened raids “for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
As the clock ran out, Trump told reporters Friday that large-scale deportation sweeps would be “starting fairly soon.”
“I don’t call them ‘raids.’ I say they came in illegally, and we’re bringing them out legally,” Trump said. “We’re removing people that have come in — all of these people over the years that have come in illegally — we are removing them and bringing them back to their country.”
The photos were taken at federal detention centers in the Rio Grande Valley the week of June 10, according to an inspector general’s report. DHS via Storyful
Immigrant advocates were bracing Thursday for a massive sweep of arrests and detentions amid reports that a roundup in at least 10 major cities could begin this weekend.
ICE officials would neither confirm nor deny a report Thursday in The New York Times, citing multiple administration officials the newspaper did not name, that the sweep would begin Sunday. President Donald Trump said last week that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement would begin a major sweep “soon.”
“No one arrested in the immigration raids should be deported without a fair day in court,” the American Immigration Council tweeted. “We are recruiting and training immigration attorneys from around the country to ensure this happens.”
UnidosUS tweeted a list of don’ts and dos for immigrants – don’t open doors, say anything to ICE agents, or sign anything, they said; do take pictures and get a lawyer.
“As the threat of ICE raids brings fear to our communities, it is important that you know your rights,” the tweet said.
Speaking outside the White House on Wednesday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services acting director Ken Cuccinelli declined to say when any raids would begin, but vowed that they were coming.
“They’re absolutely going to happen,” Cuccinelli said, adding that there are “approximately a million people in this country with removal orders. Of course that isn’t what ICE would go after in this. But that’s the pool of people who’ve been all the way through the due process chain.”
The New York Times said the sweep would target more than 2,000 immigrants facing deportation orders who remain in the country illegally. The sources told the Times that ICE planned to keep family members together at family detention facilities whenever possible.
Trump said two weeks ago that he would delay nationwide raids for two weeks to give Congress time to develop an immigration plan. Trump’s hard line on immigration has been a recurring theme in his presidency and is expected to take center stage in his 2020 reelection bid.
ICE spokesman Matthew Bourke, in a statement emailed Thursday to USA TODAY, said ICE cannot provide details on coming raids for security reasons. ICE has consistently maintained that its focus is on people with criminal records but that anyone found to be in the U.S. illegally would face detainment.
“Ninety percent of aliens arrested by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations component in FY2018 had either a criminal conviction, pending criminal charge, were an ICE fugitive or illegally reentered the country after previously being removed,” Bourke said.
That is true, but in 2018 about 66% of people arrested by ICE had been convicted of a crime in the U.S. — a sharp drop from the final years of the Obama administration, which targeted undocumented immigrants with criminal records.
ICE officials previously have said they plan to target new arrivals in an effort to stem a surge of Central American families arriving through Mexico. That surge showed some decline in June, when total border arrests fell 29% according to numbers released by Customs and Border Protection. But the decline came after May totals — more than 140,000 arrests — that were the highest since 2006.
“This is not a ‘rule of law’ operation,” Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, tweeted Thursday. “The goal is to terrorize immigrant communities so immigrants do not seek protection in the US.”
A government report released last week found that migrants were being held in overcrowded conditions described as “a ticking time bomb.” In one room at Customs and Border Protection’s Fort Brown station near the U.S-Mexico border in Texas, 51 women were in a cell with a capacity for 40 juveniles, according to the report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office. In another cell, 71 men were in a cell designated for 41, the report said.
Trump was dismissive of the report, saying the facilities he visited were clean and well run.
“I think they do a great job with those facilities,” Trump said.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Britain said Thursday that three Iranian vessels had unsuccessfully tried “to impede the passage” of a British commercial vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz, but Tehran denied it. A statement issued by the British Ministry of Defense said a Royal Navy warship, the frigate HMS Montrose “was forced to position herself” between the Iranian vessels and the oil tanker, called the British Heritage.
The crew of the Montrose issued “verbal warnings to the Iranian vessels, which then turned away,” according to the British government statement, which added that London was “concerned by this action and continue to urge the Iranian authorities to de-escalate the situation in the region.”
CBS News national security correspondent David Martin said no shots were fired and the British Heritage continued on its way through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital water waterway that connects the Persian Gulf with the rest of the world via the Gulf of Oman. A third of the world’s shipped oil supply passes through the Strait every year, and Iran has threatened to halt that traffic in previous standoffs with the West.
Martin said the British Heritage was intercepted by Iranian “fast boats,” small vessels used frequently by the Revolutionary Guard to harass commercial ships in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
The BP crude oil tanker British Heritage is seen in a file photo taken by Patrick Vereecke and provided by the MarineTraffic website.
Patrick Vereecke/MarineTraffic
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard denied the allegations, saying if it had received orders to seize any ships it would have executed them immediately.
The semi-official Fars news agency carried a statement from the Guard’s navy early Thursday saying “there were no clashes with alien boats, especially English boats.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed the British allegations as “worthless,” saying the claims were “being made to create tension,” the agency reported.
Russia, meanwhile, which has backed Iran in the standoff with the West over its nuclear program, blamed the U.S. for the incident on Thursday.
“The situation is very concerning,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said according to Russia’s state-run media. “The reasons for this are clear. This is Washington’s deliberate, premeditated course to exacerbate tensions.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists he was aware that “such an incident allegedly took place” but also of Tehran’s denial. “As before, we call on everyone to behave with restraint in the Persian Gulf in order not to exacerbate the situation,” he said.
The Strait of Hormuz
Google Maps
A senior U.S. defense official told Martin that he expected all British tankers transiting the Persian Gulf would now sail with U.K. military escort vessels.
The British Heritage is listed on the website of U.K. petrochemical giant BP as part of its fleet. The Century Class oil tanker is one of the largest crude oil tankers in BP’s fleet. BP owns and operates three vessels of the same class. They can carry up to a million barrels of oil at a time and a crew of about 25 officers, according to the BP website.
The incident was reported a day after Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, warned that Britain would face unspecified “repercussions” for the British military’s seizure last week of an Iranian supertanker that authorities in Gibraltar say was breaching European sanctions on oil shipments to Syria.
Iran breaks nuclear deal for 2nd time this month
Rouhani was quoted by Iranian state media as saying the seizure was “mean and wrong.”
Zarif, the Foreign Minister, denied the supertanker belonged to Iran, saying whoever owned the oil shipment and the vessel could pursue the case through legal avenues.
Iran had earlier summoned the British ambassador over what it called the “illegal interception” of the ship.
The incident marked the latest escalation of tensions in the Persian Gulf in the wake of President Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
It will apply to tech companies with global sales of over £674m (€750m), and which make more than £22.5m (€25m) a year in France. The government argues they pay little or no tax in France.
The tax will target tech firms that put other companies in touch with customers (like Amazon), digital advertising, and the sale of data for advertising purposes.
The law will be backdated to 1 January 2019.
What will this mean for tech companies?
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has said that about 30, mostly US-based companies, will be hit with the new tax.
Image copyright AFP/Getty Images
Image caption
Bruno Le Maire with fellow French finance leader Christine Lagarde
It’s thought it will apply to just one French company, advertising firm Criteo, as well as some Indian, British and Chinese firms.
The new tax is expected to raise £360m (€400m) for the French government in 2019, after which it could grow.
Some have argued that it could go even further, given tech companies’ huge incomes.
Jessie Denton, a Paris-based tax lawyer, said the French tax is more of a “symbol” than an effective tax measure. She said the amount it will raise for the French government is below what they’d like from the digital economy.
President Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into the tax – which could result in retaliatory tariffs.
Where do tech giants pay tax at the minute?
Global tech companies have been accused of finding ways to avoid tax. It is said they do this by paying most of their taxes in the EU countries where they have headquarters, rather than where they make their sales.
Often, they have offices in countries like Ireland or Luxembourg, where there are very low tax rates.
It can mean the firms end up paying very little tax in countries such as France or the UK, despite having lots of customers there.
But big US tech companies, including Amazon, have consistently argued they are paying all the tax they are required to under law.
What do people think of the French tax?
Following the gilets jaunes (“yellow vests”) anti-government protests, French President Emmanuel Macron said businesses must pay their fair share of tax.
Protests included a blockade at an Amazon warehouse in the southern town of Montélimar, on Black Friday last November.
Image copyright Fabrice HEBRARD/Maxppp/PA Media
But critics have warned that the new tax could undermine the government’s efforts to create a “start-up nation”.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo oversaw a former railway station being converted into the world’s largest incubator for tech companies.
Foreign visas for tech entrepreneurs have been overhauled to make it easier to work there.
Media captionThe largest incubator in the world for tech start-ups
Some economists have also suggested that the new tax could be hard to collect.
That’s because it’s meant to apply to income generated from French customers. But, that data isn’t stored anywhere centrally.
What are other countries doing?
The United Kingdom, Spain and Italy are all looking at introducing their own versions of a digital tax.
In the UK, digital companies will be taxed 2% of their revenues, from April 2020. It will apply to companies with revenues of £500m worldwide and is expected to raise about £400m a year.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
Philip Hammond and treasury secretary Liz Truss ahead of the 2018 Budget, in which the UK’s digital tax was announced
The question of taxing digital companies has been an issue in the UK for some time.
Earlier this year, the European Commission also outlined proposals for a 3% tax on the revenues of large internet companies, with global revenues above €750m (£675m) a year.
But, critics fear an EU-wide tax could breach international rules on equal treatment for companies around the world.
And EU tax reforms need the backing of all member states to become law.
Japan, Singapore and India are reportedly planning similar schemes of their own.
Any tax measures introduced by individual countries will stay in place until a global agreement is reached.
The Organisation of Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD), an international economic organisation, is hoping to come up with a solution by the end of 2019.
A Seized JPMorgan Chase ship was found with $1.3B in cocaine aboard.
A ship with more than $1 billion in cocaine aboard — that was seized in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July — is owned by financial giant JPMorgan Chase, according to a report.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Monday that its agents discovered nearly 20 tons of cocaine — or nearly 40,000 pounds — inside several shipping containers aboard the MSC Gayane while it was docked in Philadelphia’s seaport on June 17.
An estimated $1.3 billion worth of cocaine was taken from the ship — making it the largest cocaine seizure ever carried out by the CBP, the agency said.
“A seizure of a vessel this massive is complicated and unprecedented – but it is appropriate because the circumstances here are also unprecedented,” said William McSwain, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “When a vessel brings such an outrageous amount of deadly drugs into Philadelphia waters, my office and our agency partners will pursue the most severe consequences possible against all involved parties in order to protect our district – and our country.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized the MSC Gayane on July 4 in Philadelphia after authorities found nearly 20 tons of cocaine on board last month. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
On July 4, the CBP executed a warrant and seized the ship, finding the drugs. The MSC Gayane is the largest vessel ever to be seized in the agency’s 230-year history, Casey Durst, CBP’s director of field operations in Baltimore, said in a news release. The MSC Gayane is owned by JPMorgan Chase but operated by Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Co., Markets Insider reported.
The financial firm has not commented on the case, according to reports.
Federal prosecutors are working with the CBP, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Coast Guard and state and local law enforcement to investigate who played a role in an alleged conspiracy by crewmembers and others to smuggle the record load of drugs through the U.S.
The photos were taken at federal detention centers in the Rio Grande Valley the week of June 10, according to an inspector general’s report. DHS via Storyful
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will begin a vast roundup of undocumented immigrants in at least 10 major cities this weekend, the The New York Times reported Thursday.
The Times, citing two current and one former Homeland Security official it did not name, said the raids will begin Sunday and target more than 2,000 immigrants facing deportation orders who remain in the country illegally. The sources told the Times that ICE planned to keep family members together at family detention facilities whenever possible.
The report comes as no surprise: Less than a week ago President Donald Trump promised that mass deportation roundups would begin soon
“They’ll be starting fairly soon, but I don’t call them raids, we’re removing people, all of these people who have come in over the years illegally,” Trump said Friday.
Trump said two weeks ago that he would delay nationwide raids for two weeks to give Congress time to develop an immigration plan. Trump’s hard line on immigration has been a recurring theme in his presidency and is expected to take center stage in his 2020 reelection bid.
ICE spokesman Matthew Bourke, in a statement emailed Thursday to USA TODAY, would neither confirm nor deny the raid plan.
“Due to law-enforcement sensitivities and the safety and security of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, the agency will not offer specific details related to enforcement operations,” Bourke said.
ICE has consistently maintained that its focus is on people with criminal records but that anyone found to be in the U.S. illegally would face detainment.
“Ninety percent of aliens arrested by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations component in FY2018 had either a criminal conviction, pending criminal charge, were an ICE fugitive or illegally reentered the country after previously being removed,” Bourke said.
ICE officials previously have said they plan to target new arrivals in an effort to stem a surge of Central American families arriving through Mexico. That surge showed some decline in June, when total border arrests fell 29% according to numbers released by Customs and Border Protection. But the decline came after May totals — more than 140,000 arrests — that were the highest since 2006.
A government report released last week found that migrants were being held in overcrowded conditions described as “a ticking time bomb.” In one room at Customs and Border Protection’s Fort Brown station near the U.S-Mexico border in Texas, 51 women were in a cell with a capacity for 40 juveniles, according to the report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office. In another cell, 71 men were in a cell designated for 41, the report said.
Trump was dismissive of the report, saying the facilities he visited were clean and well run.
“I think they do a great job with those facilities,” Trump said.
President Trump’s threatened deportation raids are “absolutely going to happen,” says senior Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli.
“There are approximately 1 million in this people with deportation orders,” the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told reporters on the White House driveway. “Of course, that isn’t what ICE will go after in this, but that’s the pool of people that have been all the way through the process.”
The former Virginia attorney general, whose agency handles asylum cases, declined to discuss the timing of raids or additional details.
On June 22, Trump wrote on Twitter he would postpone threatened raids “for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
As the clock ran out, Trump told reporters Friday that large-scale deportation sweeps would be “starting fairly soon.”
“I don’t call them ‘raids.’ I say they came in illegally, and we’re bringing them out legally,” Trump said. “We’re removing people that have come in — all of these people over the years that have come in illegally — we are removing them and bringing them back to their country.”
President Trump’s threatened deportation raids are “absolutely going to happen,” says senior Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli.
“There are approximately 1 million in this people with deportation orders,” the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told reporters on the White House driveway. “Of course, that isn’t what ICE will go after in this, but that’s the pool of people that have been all the way through the process.”
The former Virginia attorney general, whose agency handles asylum cases, declined to discuss the timing of raids or additional details.
On June 22, Trump wrote on Twitter he would postpone threatened raids “for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
As the clock ran out, Trump told reporters Friday that large-scale deportation sweeps would be “starting fairly soon.”
“I don’t call them ‘raids.’ I say they came in illegally, and we’re bringing them out legally,” Trump said. “We’re removing people that have come in — all of these people over the years that have come in illegally — we are removing them and bringing them back to their country.”
United Nations General Assembly president Maria Fernanda Espinosa discusses tensions with Iran on ‘The Story.’
Five Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gunboats tried to seize a British oil tanker in the Persian Gulf Wednesday but backed off after a British warship approached, a senior U.S. defense official told Fox News.
The British warship was said to have been less than 5 miles behind the tanker but soon intercepted the Iranian boats and threatened to open fire. A manned U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was above as well, the official said, adding that Iranian forces left without opening fire.
Navy Captain Bill Urban, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), said the military was aware of the reported actions. He added, “Threats to international freedom of navigation require an international solution. The world economy depends on the free flow of commerce, and it is incumbent on all nations to protect and preserve this lynchpin of global prosperity.”
The British frigate was identified as the HMS Montrose, according to The Sun. The vessel reportedly trained its 30mm deck guns on the enemy fleet and warned them off.
The incident was the latest in a series of provocations between the Islamic Republic and the West. British forces last week seized an Iranian supertanker that officials believed was operating in violation of European Union sanctions. The British Royal Marines captured the vessel in Gibraltar after believing it was trying to provide crude oil to Syria, an ally of Iran.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned that Britain would face repercussions over the seizure.
Last month, Iran shot down a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway separating Iran from the United Arab Emirates. Oil exporters transport around 22 million barrels of oil per day through the strait.
The British frigate was identified as the HMS Montrose. The vessel reportedly trained its 30mm deck guns on the enemy fleet and warned them off. <br data-cke-eol=”1″> (UK Ministry of Defence via AP)
Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have escalated in recent weeks and could spiral downward after Iran admitted Monday it surpassed uranium enrichment levels that were set by the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015.
President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal last year but several EU nations remained involved. Those countries — Russia, China, Germany, France, Britain, and the European Union — have called on Iran to stick to its commitments under the deal.
Iran has abandoned restraint in recent months as it seeks relief from U.S. sanctions. The republic has asked the deal’s signatories to provide economic incentives in exchange for the de-escalation of its nuclear program.
Trump has indicated he will impose additional sanctions on Iran and urged those nations not to give in to its demands.
A lawyer for Mr. Epstein, Reid Weingarten, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Early Influences
Mr. Epstein’s big break came when he was teaching math at the Dalton School, a prestigious Manhattan private school, in the mid-1970s. He had tutored the son of Alan Greenberg, the chairman of the mighty investment bank Bear Stearns, and ended up joining the firm.
He left after a few years. Mr. Epstein told Securities and Exchange Commission lawyers in an insider-trading investigation that there were three reasons, according to a 2003 Vanity Fair article. He had been disciplined over lending money to a friend to buy stock, and there were irregularities with his expense account and rumors he was having an affair with a secretary. (Mr. Epstein testified that he had known nothing about any insider trading, and neither he nor anyone else at the firm was charged.)
In 1981, he struck out on his own. He founded his own advisory firm, Intercontinental Assets Group, which he ran out of his apartment on East 66th Street. In 1987, he met Mr. Hoffenberg, then the chief executive of Towers Financial Corporation.
Mr. Hoffenberg said in an interview that he had met Mr. Epstein in New York at the height of the 1980s takeover boom, when Ivan Boesky’s “Merger Mania” was a national best seller. Towers Financial was buying unpaid debt from hospitals, nursing homes and phone companies and trying to collect it — a distinctly unglamorous niche. Mr. Hoffenberg hired Mr. Epstein as a consultant for $25,000 a month, and the two men refashioned themselves as corporate raiders.
Two takeover efforts were spectacular failures. They made a run at Pan Am, and a news release issued by Towers in November 1987 listed their advisers as John Lehman, a former secretary of the Navy; John N. Mitchell, the attorney general during the Nixon administration; and Edward Nixon, former President Richard M. Nixon’s brother. But the bid collapsed after a jetliner exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, which sent Pan Am into bankruptcy.
Mr. Epstein and Mr. Hoffenberg also made a run at Emery Air Freight — an “epic failure,” according to an affidavit filed by Mr. Hoffenberg in a 2018 lawsuit against Mr. Epstein, which was brought by investors defrauded in Mr. Hoffenberg’s Ponzi scheme. The suit was dismissed.
“The First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilises a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise‐open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees,” the judgement read.
According to Mr Hikind’s lawsuit, the congresswoman – commonly known by her initials AOC – blocked him after he criticised her and her political views.
The suit alleges that Mr Hikind, “a staunch supporter of Jewish values” was blocked “purely because of his speech in support of Jewish values and Israel”. This restricted Mr Hikind’s participation in “a public forum”, it says.
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