Free Republic

Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson says he's received no communication about the presence of U-S Border Patrol teams in the Chicago River downtown, but says it's part of a continued pattern by the White House. Border Patrol chief Michael Banks has shared the images on social media of a brace of Customs and Border Protection boats moving past the Trump International Hotel on the Chicago River. "Do not know what they're up to," Mayor Johnson told reporters after the Chicago City Council meeting wrapped up last night. "The federal government is not communicating with me or our police department -- and...

More than 200 Border Patrol agents descended on a Chicago Home Depot parking lot early Thursday morning in a sweeping immigration enforcement action under President Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz. The operation marked one of the largest federal deployments yet in the crackdown on criminal illegal aliens shielded by Chicago’s sanctuary policies. The early morning sweep of the home improvement store parking lot was conducted like operations that have been underway in Los Angeles in recent months. The Border Patrol agents participating in the operation are volunteers from stations around the country. The agents are detailed for an undetermined amount of...

Attorney General Pam Bondi fired another Department of Justice paralegal Friday — after the environmental division employee flipped off a National Guard member on her way to work. Elizabeth Baxter works in the same building as fellow fired paralegal Sean Charles Dunn, who allegedly threw a salami Subway sandwich at a Border Protection officer. Baxter arrived for work at the DOJ’s “4CON” building in the NoMa district of Washington, DC, at 8.21 a.m. on Aug. 18, and boasted to a DOJ security guard that she had just made the obscene gesture to a guardsman at Metro Center Metro Stop and...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP/Atlanta News First) — One of the nation’s leading operators of automated license-plate reading systems announced Monday it has paused its operations with federal agencies because of confusion and concern about the purpose of their investigations. The Atlanta-based Flock Safety, whose cameras are mounted in more than 4,000 communities nationwide, put a hold last week on pilot programs with the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection and its law enforcement arm, Homeland Security Investigations, according to a statement by its founder and CEO, Garrett Langley. Flock Safety’s cameras capture billions of photos of license plates each...

LOVELAND, Colo. (KRDO) - Following a 9NEWS investigation, the city of Denver has decided to cut off Loveland's access to Flock license plate camera readers. The investigation found that Loveland police were sharing access to its Flock data with U.S. Border Patrol. According to our Denver news partners, Denver has over 100 Flock cameras around the city. They are used to solve crimes by tracking vehicles through license plate recognition. In April, Denver police blocked federal agents, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), from accessing their Flock data due to concerns it...

The Justice Department is seeking the death penalty for the transgender vegan cult member who was charged with killing a border patrol agent back in January. Teresa Youngblut was hit with a new indictment on Thursday charged with four federal counts for killing Border Patrol Agent David Maland in Coventry, Vermont. Youngblut is reportedly a member of the ‘Zizian’ cult run by leader Jack ‘Ziz LaSota – Ziz is a radical group linked to at least six murders in three separate states. Jack LaSota, the alleged leader of a vegan transgender cult tied to several crimes across the country, reportedly...

A man was arrested and charged with felony assault after throwing a Subway sandwich at a federal agent on the streets of Washington, D.C., earlier this week. Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed on Thursday that the man worked for the Department of Justice.A video recorded by a bystander showed 37-year-old Sean Charles Dunn confronting federal agents who were dispatched under President Donald Trump’s order to federalize the D.C. police department and address the capital’s violent crime. In the video, Dunn shouts at the federal agents, calling them “fascists” and yelling, “F*** you!”Dunn began to walk away with his Subway sandwich,...

Border Patrol agents were ambushed by an active shooter when they arrived at the Border Patrol annex facility in McAllen, Texas on Monday morning, law enforcement has said. No federal officers were shot in the incident; however one McAllen, Texas police officer was struck and is in stable condition. The gunman was shot and killed by officers on the scene and has been identified as Ryan Louis Mosqueda. According to Fox News' Bill Melugin, "Three federal & TX law enforcement sources tell me an active shooter with a rifle & tactical gear ambushed Border Patrol agents as they arrived at...

U.S. Border Patrol agents have uncovered and disabled a large-scale narcotics smuggling tunnel linking Tijuana to the San Diego area. The uncompleted tunnel extended more than 1,000 feet inside the U.S. and was highly sophisticated. In early April, Border Patrol agents assigned to the San Diego Sector Tunnel Team discovered the tunnel as it was actively under construction. The Tunnel Team made entry into the tunnel, which ran under a portion of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. Based on preliminary indications, the tunnel had a projected exit point near or within a nearby commercial warehouse space.

EL PASO, Texas – Border officers have intercepted yet another massive load of cash headed to Mexico. U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel inspecting cars leaving the United States over the Anzalduas International Bridge in Hidalgo County, Texas, report seizing $815,475 in bulk, unreported cash “hidden within the vehicle” earlier this week. ... The vehicle was a 2025 Honda Odyssey SUV driven by a 44-year-old male U.S. citizen. Homeland Security Investigations agents are investigating the man, the source and the destination of the cash. “Our CBP officers’ continued vigilance led to this major currency seizure. These outbound interceptions are key...

The nearly 3,000-foot passage was equipped with lighting, ventilation systems and tracks to move narcotics ... U.S. Border Patrol agents recently discovered and disabled a nearly 3,000-foot-long narcotics smuggling tunnel sitting beneath the US-Mexico border. Agents found the tunnel — which linked Tijuana and San Diego — in early April while it was actively under construction. The underground passageway ran under part of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and had a projected exit point near or inside a commercial warehouse space in San Diego ... Upon entering the "highly sophisticated" tunnel, authorities were met with barricades seemingly placed to...

Authorities have identified Elpidio Reyna as the suspect who allegedly threw rocks at Border Patrol vehicles in Paramount, injuring an agent. U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli and Chief Gregory Bovino emphasized their commitment to finding Reyna and continuing immigration enforcement despite protests. The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to Reyna's arrest. ... LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Calif. - Authorities have now identified the man they say threw rocks at Border Patrol vehicles Saturday in Paramount, injuring one of their agents. According to U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, the suspect has been identified as Elpidio Reyna. "He thinks he's untouchable,"...

The Department of Homeland Security has deployed elite SWAT units to quell the ongoing insurrection in Los Angeles that erupted on Friday night. After a second consecutive day of rioting and attacks on federal agents conducting immigration enforcement actions, Border Patrol Chief Michael W. Banks announced that a massive federal response was underway. “Several arrests have already been made for assault on a federal agent. ANY attack on our agents or officers will not be tolerated,” Banks announced at 2:12 p.m. local time. “You will be arrested and federally prosecuted.” Fox News border correspondent Bill Melugin reported that elite Border...

The former police chief, convicted murderer and rapist dubbed the “Devil in the Ozarks,” was nabbed less than two miles from the Arkansas prison he escaped two weeks ago, authorities said Friday. Grant Hardin, 56, has evaded capture since walking out of Calico Rock prison on May 25 — despite searchers employing bloodhounds, officers on horseback, drones, helicopters and an elite US Border Patrol team. “Escapee Grant Hardin was captured this afternoon approximately 1.5 miles west of the prison grounds by law enforcement officials,” the Izard County Sheriff’s Office wrote on Facebook. “His identity was confirmed by fingerprint analysis prior...

Since President Donald Trump took office, U.S. Border Patrol has seen an unprecedented surge in applications from men and women who want to serve at the U.S. borders. From January to April 2025, USBP received 34,650 applications, representing a 44% increase over the same four-month period in 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection says. “This historic spike in applicants is a direct reflection of the renewed national commitment to border security under the leadership of President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” it said. Under Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks, Texas’ first Border Czar,...

Can't arrest suspected illegal migrants without a warrant.

United States District Court Judge Jennifer Thurston, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California by former President Joe Biden, is blocking Border Patrol Agents across most of California from arresting suspected illegal aliens unless they have a warrant for their arrest. This week, Thurston issued a preliminary injunction that will prevent Border Patrol agents in California’s eastern district, the largest judicial district in the state, from carrying out arrests of suspected illegal aliens without a warrant and halting such arrests unless agents have a “reasonable suspicion” the suspect is an illegal alien. “Indeed, the evidence...

Does San Diego, California have a 'Hamas' problem? No, not the ignorant student protestors at universities being directed by Hamas's proxies. No, not the terrorists rolling into the area from Joe Biden's and Kamala Harris's open border. They may be seeing actual tunnels, dug by Hamas itself or its clients the Mexican cartels, coming in through Mexico. The U.S. Border Patrol has discovered more than 200 of them since 2003, according to the Department of Customs & Border Protection. The most recent one found, that there's any news on, at least, was a 2022 Tijuana-to-San Diego tunnel , complete with...

A Lebanese migrant who was caught sneaking over the border admitted he’s a member of Hezbollah, he hoped to make a bomb, and his destination was New York, The Post can reveal. Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was caught by border patrol on March 9 near El Paso, Texas. While in custody he asked what he was doing in the US, to which he replied: “I’m going to try to make a bomb,” according to a Border Patrol document exclusively obtained by The Post. In a subsequent sworn interview, Ebbadi said he had trained with Hezbollah for seven years and served...

Priscilla Villarreal, also known as "Lagordiloca," has sparked a debate about free speech and who, exactly, is a journalist.A journalist asked the police a few questions and was arrested by that same agency for publishing the answers. That this happened not in China or Russia but in the U.S. may raise some eyebrows. Yet that's the conduct a federal court greenlit last week when it ruled that law enforcement in Laredo, Texas, did not obviously violate the Constitution when officers allegedly misled a magistrate judge and arrested Priscilla Villarreal for doing basic reporting, adding another twist to a case that...