Free Republic

(The Center Square) – Federal agents continue to pursue visa fraud and forced labor crimes across the U.S. perpetrated by Americans and noncitizens who exploited a border crisis and loopholes in a weak visa system, prosecutors argue. The prosecutions come as Mexican smuggling operations at the northern border continue to be thwarted, The Center Square reported. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington announced this week 61 indictments against six people in the Tri-Cities and Yakima areas for extensive visa fraud, victim tampering, aggravated identity theft, mail and wire fraud, visa fraud and other charges. Two people...

Can science fiction shape market reality? Hours after the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s emergency power tariffs, the President imposed a new 10% 15% global tariff for 150 days. But as stocks fell on Monday, financial media outlets like Bloomberg offered an alternative explanation for the decline: a social media post. While the northeast was hunkering down for a once-in-a-decade blizzard this weekend, financial research firm Citrini Research published a macro note that made waves among the highly online tech bro and finance bro crowd on X (formerly Twitter). In the lengthy read, Citrini augurs a world where...

For Ashley Garley, the past year has been “messy, challenging and heartbreaking.” Garley, a former contractor and malaria expert with the US Agency for International Development, was among the first people impacted by the Department of Government Efficiency’s massive shrinking of the federal workforce last year, led by billionaire Elon Musk, which began almost immediately after President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Garley, who lost her job after the US froze all foreign aid in late January 2025, is struggling to find a full-time job with benefits more than a year later. To contribute to the bills, she...

Federal Reserve Governor Michael S. Barr issued a stark warning on Tuesday regarding the potential trajectory of artificial intelligence, outlining a scenario where rapid technological advancement will create a “jobless boom” that leaves a significant portion of the population “essentially unemployable.”Speaking before the New York Association for Business Economics on Feb. 17, Barr discussed the profound uncertainty surrounding how generative AI will reshape the labor market. While current data suggests a gradual integration of the technology, Barr urged policymakers not to underestimate the risks. “We should be clear-eyed about how painful these changes could be for affected workers and how...

The husband of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has been barred from the department’s headquarters after at least two female staff members told officials that he had sexually assaulted them, according to people familiar with the decision and a police report obtained by The New York Times. The women said Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, had touched them inappropriately at the Labor Department’s building on Constitution Avenue. One of the incidents, during working hours on the morning of Dec. 18, was recorded on office security cameras, the people said. The video showed Dr. DeRemer giving one of the women an...

California officials who turned a blind eye to unemployment scams — potentially worth tens of billions of dollars during the pandemic — will now be put directly under the microscope of the federal government. The US Department of Labor is set to send a letter to the state’s Employment Development Department announcing a “strike team” will soon be touching down in the Golden State to root out theft and abuse, The California Post has learned. The investigation will be similar to efforts currently underway in Minnesota. “Financial issues and potential fraud in California’s unemployment insurance program will be fully examined,”...

Are jobs exploding or is the economy in free-fall? Because of radical policies forced on the Census department by the real unelected Kings of America, judges, the bureaucrats in Washington don't know. If we knew how many illegal aliens there were, we could estimate the effect of giving hundreds of billions of dollars of aid. We could tell pro-illegal states to pay for their own voluntarily assumed costs. We could even ask the courts to reassign congressional representation from illegal aliens to U.S. citizens. So the Kings simply demanded ignorance by preventing us from knowing how many illegal aliens there...

Conclusion The story of FedEx’s decline and Collierville’s transformation is a microcosm of a quiet crisis that has been unfolding across the United States for decades, though it has accelerated greatly in the past five years. What began with a change in leadership from founder Fred Smith to CEO Raj Subramaniam has culminated in a vote of no confidence from its pilots, an exodus of loyal customers, and a community in the heart of Tennessee that is now unrecognizable to its lifelong residents.

Matt Shumer warns that AI is reshaping industries like law, finance, and customer service, urging professionals to adapt quickly to stay relevant. Artificial intelligence could eliminate up to half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years, according to tech entrepreneur Matt Shumer, who says the shift is unfolding faster than most people realise. Shumer, founder and CEO of AI firm OthersideAI (HyperWrite), made the remarks in a widely shared essay titled Something Big Is Happening. In it, he compared the current AI moment to early 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted economies and daily life across...

The risk of a partial government shutdown is growing as a Friday funding deadline approaches and Democratic leaders push for rigorous Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reforms.Congress must provide funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by Friday February 13 or face a partial shutdown that could delay disaster aid and furlough workers from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are demanding concessions from Republicans in how ICE agents use masks and body cameras as well...

Defying doomcasters who predicted that AI plus tariffs mean disaster for American workers, the January employment news blew past expectations, with 130,000 new jobs. Revised 2025 data show that the nation added only 81,000 jobs all last year, as the economy struggled to escape the Biden-era doldrums — so 2026’s solid start suggests President Donald Trump’s pro-growth policies are finally kicking in. Plus, the net gains come despite a decline of 42,000 government jobs, including 34,000 from the federal workforce: A shrinking public sector and growing private sector is exactly the right path for America. Yes, the nation needs a...

Brewing giant Heineken has announced plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs as part of a cost-cutting drive to compensate for a slump in beer sales. The company, which also brews Amstel and Birra Moretti, unveiled the proposal amid weaker beer demand and what it described as 'challenging market conditions'. Heineken said it plans to reduce its workforce by between 5,000 and 6,000 positions over the next two years, affecting up to 7 percent of its 87,000 global employees. 'We really do this to strengthen our operations and to be able to invest in growth,' finance chief Harold van den...

A New Report Says AI Layoffs Are Backfiring and Half of Companies Will Start Rehiring, Organizations are starting to come to terms with the limits of AI. Businesses and workers are actively adopting artificial intelligence tools to automate various workplace tasks and boost their productivity in the process, surveys indicate. Still, managers should probably think twice about using the tech to replace employees anytime soon. Many companies that have swapped people for chatbots will be reversing course and hiring cut staffers back before long, according to top consultancy Gartner. Recent studies have captured the significantly increased pace with which workplaces...

Hiring increased sharply at the outset of 2026, the year's first jobs report said, blowing past economists' expectations and besting sluggish performance from the previous year. The U.S. added 130,000 jobs in January, according to the report, which marked a sharp increase from 50,000 jobs added in the previous month.

About a quarter of “CBS Evening News” staffers eligible for buyouts have chosen the option ahead of impending layoffs under editor in chief Bari Weiss, The Post has learned. Eleven staffers opted for buyouts, which were only offered to non-unionized employees, a source with knowledge of the matter said Tuesday. They include at least six producers out of the show’s total of roughly 20, according to another source, who added: “Seems like people are jumping ship.” “It’s a lot of people,” a CBS insider said. The “Evening News” has over 40 non-unionized staffers, a source said. A CBS News rep...

The Washington Post Publisher and Chief Executive Will Lewis announced Saturday evening he would depart after just two years at the paper, a tenure marked by controversy and crisis.Lewis called his time "two years of transformation" in his resignation note, but it was defined by turbulence rather than a clear path, and it ended with brutal job cuts. The paper's chief financial officer, Jeff D'Onofrio, will serve as acting CEO. More than a third of the newsroom was laid off Wednesday after Lewis' promises of radical innovations failed to staunch several years of annual losses in the tens of millions...

"Amazon fired 16,000 employees last week. At first glance, the terminations appeared standard. Online retail demand fluctuates with the seasons, and orders always decrease following the holidays. Factor in a few extra weeks of busyness due to post-Christmas returns, and late January makes sense as a time for layoffs. The gift-giving rush is over, so warehouses no longer need as many people. That is not a defense of a multi-trillion-dollar company pulling the plug on $15-per-hour workers, but if you’re a shrewd capitalist, the justification checks out. But there’s more to the story. It turns out the 16,000 fired Amazonians,...

Struggling paper expected to announce sweeping job cuts

According to a report at the Texas Scorecard, Texas’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, is going after the fraudsters abusing the H-1B visa system: Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced a wide-sweeping investigation into alleged abuse of the federal H-1B visa program by Texas businesses, issuing civil investigative demands to three North Texas companies suspected of operating sham enterprises to fraudulently sponsor foreign workers. [snip] Standing outside a single-family home listed as the office address for one of the companies highlighted in recent reporting, Paxton credited BlazeTV and Texas Scorecard personality Sara Gonzales with prompting the investigation. [snip] A portion of...

The Trump administration has quietly decided to allow employers to import 65,000 extra H-2B visa migrants for jobs that would otherwise pay decent wages to ordinary American who vote in the midterm elections. The visa giveaway is part of President Trump’s zig-zagging between the two sides of his coalition — the voters he needs on election day, and the business donors who provide the funds for political campaigns. Meanwhile, the national media is ignoring the visa giveaway to business because it is focused on the left-wing street groups who are trying to block the deportation of criminal and wage-cutting illegal...