Free Republic

Border Patrol officials said the first mile of the new "smart border wall" has been completed in Arizona's Tucson Sector... ...Earlier this year, CBP and the Department of Homeland Security announced 10 new contracts valued at $4.5 billion to add a "Smart Wall" along the southwest border. One of the contracts was to construct 23 miles of new secondary border wall and 66 miles of system attributes in Arizona. "The Smart Wall is a border security system that combines steel barriers, waterborne barriers, patrol roads, lights, cameras, and advanced detection technology to give Border Patrol agents the best tools in...

Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons has rejected the viral claims made by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) alleging that ICE agents pulled over her son after he went to Target. Omar alleged in an interview that her son got pulled over by ICE agents, asserting that he was allowed to leave once he produced his passport. “He did get pulled over by ICE agents and once he was able to produce his passport ID they did let him go,” she claimed. […] Lyons said Omar has not produced proof this happened. “ICE has absolutely zero record of...

Nationals of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Syria also banned, plus 12 countries already on list; US was already reportedly rejecting Palestinians’ visa requests US President Donald Trump on Tuesday expanded a travel ban by barring Palestinian Authority passport holders from entering the United States, along with banning five other nationalities. In a social media post, a White House account said that Trump, who has long campaigned to restrict immigration, was acting “to protect the security of the United States.” The policy announced Tuesday will go into effect on January 1, 2026. In June, Trump had announced that...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is ordering a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela, ramping up pressure on the country’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American country’s economy. Trump’s escalation comes after U.S. forces last week seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast, an unusual move that followed a buildup of military forces in the region. In a post on social media Tuesday night announcing the blockade, Trump alleged Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and...

A local Bondi detective who joined the cops because he “hates crime” heroically exposed himself to danger and delivered the fatal gunshots that killed a terrorist on Sunday afternoon. Detective Senior Constable Cesar “Cess” Barraza fired at the two alleged terrorists from an estimated 40 metres away, as they held their position on top of the footbridge and fired upon the crowd of innocents. His shots are believed to have killed Sajid Akram, 50, and likely also severely wounded his son, Naveed Akram, 24. A veteran of 16 years experience in the NSW Police Force, Det Snr Constable Barraza was...

President Trump on Tuesday called for a "total and complete blockade" on all sanctioned oil tankers that enter or depart Venezuela, as the administration heaps pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at sea — and leaves the door open for land strikes. "Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America," the president wrote on Truth Social. "It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil,...

Downing Street insists the $40bn Tech Prosperity Deal between the US and UK that is on hold is not permanently stalled. The BBC reported on Tuesday evening that the prime minister’s office claimed that the UK remains in “active conversations with US counterparts at all levels of government” about the wide-ranging deal for the technology industries in both countries to cooperate. The agreement, previously billed as historic, was paused after the US accused the UK of failing to lower trade barriers, including a digital services tax on US tech companies and food safety rules that limit the export of some...

There is now a modern twist to be considered in the birthright citizenship debate.Last week, our friends at The Federalist ran a couple of pieces — one by Brianna Lyman and the other by John Daniel Davidson — on the opportunity currently before the U.S. Supreme Court with respect to birthright citizenship and the legal absurdities our current practice encompasses.If you’re familiar at all with the history of this highly unusual practice, you know that it emanates from the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which reads…All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the...

@BasilTheGreat 🚨🚨 🇦🇺This is the most complete footage of the entire Islamic terrorist attack in Bondi Beach, Australia today It's absolutely awful to watch but the world needs to see how barbaric these people truly are https://x.com/BasilTheGreat/status/2000177346725458118 **** The police come and kill the terrorist shotting from the bridge

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was panned on Sunday for saying "go Bills" immediately after stating his intention to talk about the deadly shooting in Australia during a press conference. "So first, I’m going to, of course, talk about Instacart and their ripping off the consumer. And then, of course, I’m going to say a few words about the terrible shooting in Sydney, Australia. And first, of course, as I always say, no matter what — go Bills. They beat the Patriots today. It’s a big deal," Schumer said Sunday during a press conference on AI-driven price gouging. Police said Monday...

Since this country’s founding, newly arrived immigrants wanted to become Americans, and did just that, conforming to our culture and values. Why is it that now, over the past several decades, we don’t expect the same conformity from our “adopted refugees?” How is it considered racist to expect newly arrived immigrants (legal or illegal) and refugees to become “Americanized”? Early 1993, I deployed to Somalia to support Operation Restore Hope. If you saw the 2001 movie Black Hawk Down, the Mogadishu of 1993 was worse than portrayed in that movie. Somalia was never what one could call a “successful country.”...

A senior counterterrorism official has told the ABC Naveed and Sajid Akram underwent military-style training in the southern Philippines last month. The Philippines has been a hotspot for Islamist militants since the early 1990s, when terrorist training camps previously on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border were re-established in southern Mindanao. The father and son returned to Australia late last month, just weeks before the Bondi Beach massacre. Father-son gunmen Sajid and Naveed Akram travelled to the Philippines to receive "military-style training" in the month before they killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, security sources have confirmed. The revelation...

The EU looks set to scrap a landmark 2035 ban on new petrol and diesel cars on Tuesday, as part of a package of reforms aimed at supporting Europe's embattled auto industry. Carmakers and their backers have lobbied hard for Brussels to relax the ban over the past year – in the face of fierce competition from China and a slower-than-expected shift to electric vehicles (EVs). Set in 2023, the ban was a cornerstone of the EU's environmental Green Deal, which has come under increased pressure from businesses and right-wing politicians as the EU seeks to bolster its industry.

Any day now, a US Navy strike force, led by the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, will join an armada of war ships already positioned off the coast of Venezuela. Described in the naval media as “the most capable, adaptable, and lethal combat platform in the world,” the USS Gerald R. Ford bristles with state-of-the-art attack aircraft on its massive deck: Super Hornet fighters, Growler electronic warfare jets, and Seahawk helicopters among them. And the battleship carries some 5,000 seamen and Marines, adding to the phalanx of 10,000 military personnel already deployed on bases in Puerto Rico and on...

The commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), whose area of operations includes the Caribbean waters where the strikes against the alleged drug boats have been conducted, retired Friday as scrutiny surrounding the attacks mounts. Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey, who became the head of Southern Command in November 2024, announced suddenly in October that he would retire from the military as operations heated up in the region that the administration claims is part of President Donald Trump’s crusade against the influx of drugs into the U.S. The Trump administration designated drug cartel groups like Tren de Aragua, Sinaloa and others as...

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) is complaining that if President Donald Trump deports Haitian migrants whose Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will soon end, jobs will go “unfilled.” Last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that TPS will end for tens of thousands of Haitian migrants come February 2026 — leaving them with no legal status to remain in the U.S. […] DeWine, in an interview with local Ohio media, complained that DHS’s potentially deporting Haitian migrants — particularly from Springfield, Ohio, where the Haitian population has exploded — will open American jobs. …

“Civilian heroes” Boris Gurman and Sofia Gurman have been identified as the 11th and 12th victims in the Bondi Beach terror massacre after footage emerged of them running towards danger and wrestling away a rifle from terrorist Sajid Akram. Boris, 69, and Sofia, 61, Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants who died beside one another as likely the very first of Akram’s victims, remembered by their family for their “bravery and selflessness”. The pair were seen in dashcam footage earlier on Tuesday, where Boris wrestled a longarm gun from the hands of Akram in a violent struggle on the Bondi Beach footbridge. Akram...

OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she’s keeping in mind that there’s more than one way to get Alberta oil to the Pacific Coast. Smith said in a year-end interview with National Post that, while her “first preference” would be to build a new West Coast pipeline through northern British Columbia, she’s willing to look across the border if progress stalls. One possible route to the Pacific Ocean could be through the northwestern U.S. states of Montana, Idaho and either Washington or Oregon. “Anytime you can get to the West Coast, it opens up markets to get to Asia,”...

United States Southern Command on Monday announced that Joint Task Force Southern Spear took out three narcotrafficking vessels in the Eastern Pacific. A total of eight “narco-terrorists” were killed in the strikes. “Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking,” US SOUTHCOM said. Video from the strikes shows massive explosions on each boat, turning them into burning piles of rubble. WATCH: VIDEOS AT LINK.................... US Strikes More Venezuelan Drug Boats US Southern Command said in a statement on X, On Dec. 15, at the direction of @SecWar Pete...

As the appalling story of Sunday’s anti-Jewish mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach continue to unfold, and 16 people are now dead, there have been few glimmers of light in the darkness. The men identified as the shooters are a father and son, Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed Akram, 24. The father was shot and killed by police last night, and the son was overpowered and taken into custody. The New South Wales police commissioner says little is yet known about the pair, but Sajid Akram was a licensed gun owner, with six guns in his possession. Old social media...