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ICE May Be Forced to Release Thousands After Republicans Kill Border Bill

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Facing a $700 million budget shortfall, officials at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may be forced to release thousands of immigrants into the U.S. because Republicans, at the urging of Donald Trump, killed a massive bipartisan Senate bill that would have injected $7.6 billion into the agency.

“Faced with record numbers of illegal crossings at the Mexico border and mounting criticism from his own party,” The Washington Post reports, “Biden has deployed ICE officers more aggressively and ramped up deportation flights in recent months. White House officials say the administration has deported or returned 500,000 migrants since May, more than Trump did on an annual basis during his term.”

“The bill’s demise has led ICE officials to begin circulating an internal proposal to save money by releasing thousands of detainees and cutting detention levels from 38,000 beds to 22,000 — the opposite of the enforcement increases Republicans say they want.”

The $700 million deficit is “the largest projected shortfall the agency has faced in recent memory,” according to The Post. “Erin Heeter, a DHS spokesperson, said Congress has ‘chronically underfunded’ the department’s ‘vital missions on the southwest border.'”

READ MORE: ‘Treason’: Top Constitutional Expert Warns on Trump’s Attack on NATO

The huge shortfall ICE is facing will only become more dire as spring approaches and border crossings increase. The Senate bill would have prevented the release of the immigrants, for which ICE officials are now drafting plans.

“Within 48 hours of the release of a long-awaited immigration and foreign aid bill he had championed, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Republican conference rejected his pitch to support it, knifed the deal and left it for dead,” NBC News reported last week. “Just four Republicans voted for it. In the end, even McConnell backtracked and voted against the package that he had helped develop.”

U.S. Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL) responding to the Post’s report, wrote: “Instead of passing a bipartisan border deal, extreme MAGA Republicans pursued a sham impeachment. Now DHS is running short on funds to protect the homeland. The GOP isn’t interested in fixing the border, they want to sabotage it.”

READ MORE: ‘Freedom or Terror and Tyranny?’: Biden Takes Aim at Trump and Speaker Johnson

 

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Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False

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During one of several rants outside the courtroom Monday during his New York trial for alleged criminal business records falsification, election interference, and “hush money,” Donald Trump repeatedly complained falsely that the judge overseeing the case was appointed by “Democrat politicians.”

Trump is well-acquainted with New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.

Merchan was the judge who presided over the trial of Trump’s former Chief Financial Officer, Allan Weisselberg, who was convicted. He also presided over the fraud and money-laundering trial of former Trump 2016 campaign CEO and senior White House counselor Steve Bannon.

“We have a corrupt judge, and we have a judge who’s highly-conflicted,” Trump, nearly yelling, told reporters Monday afternoon. “And he’s keeping me from campaigning. He’s an appointed, New York judge, he’s appointed.”

READ MORE: ‘He Wasn’t Thinking About Melania’: Cohen Reveals Trump’s Fears in ‘Hush Money’ Testimony

“You know who appointed him? Democrat politicians. He’s appointed.”

Trump repeated his baseless claims Merchan is “corrupt” and “conflicted,” adding, “he ought to let us go out and campaign and get rid of this scam.”

Trump is incorrect about Judge Merchan’s background: he was not appointed by “Democrat politicians.”

In 2006, Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Merchan to his first judicial post, to the New York City Family Court. In 2009, Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau appointed Merchan as Acting Justice to the Supreme Court of New York. Pfau was appointed to her first judicial post by Republican New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

Trump also appeared to suggest appointed judges are somehow suspect – despite frequently bragging that he himself appointed three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, not to mention 234 judges in total he appointed to the federal bench.

Some legal experts believe a system where judges are appointed rather than elected serves justice better.

“The quality of justice suffers when politics invades the judicial sphere, casting doubt on the impartiality of case outcomes and eroding public confidence in our nation’s system of justice,” an article at the American Bar Association reads.

Watch Trump below or at this link.

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‘He Wasn’t Thinking About Melania’: Cohen Reveals Trump’s Fears in ‘Hush Money’ Testimony

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Former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen in damning testimony Monday told jurors about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s fears in 2016 when the “Access Hollywood” tape dropped, and what his real concerns were about the bombshell audio that nearly ended his nascent political career.

Cohen revealed that in 2015 when the then-real estate magnate announced he was running for president, Trump told him, “Be prepared. There’s going to be a lot of women coming forward,” according to Courthouse News.

Cohen told jurors that in 2016 “he caught wind of the fact that adult film star Stormy Daniels was shopping her story that she had sex with Trump a decade prior. Cohen said that he was concerned about the impact it could have on Trump’s presidential campaign, particularly after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape.”

“At this time, Mr. Trump was polling very, very low with women,” Cohen testified, adding that Trump “said to me, ‘This is a disaster.’”

READ MORE: ‘Grave Danger’: Trump’s ‘Raw Display’ of Power at Court Alarms Conservative

“‘Women will hate me. Guys, they may think it’s cool. But this is going to be a disaster for the campaign.’”

Cohen also revealed from the witness stand that he had asked Trump how his wife, Melania Trump, was taking the news about Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who Trump allegedly paid hush money to then falsified his business records to hide the transactions in an effort to influence the election, according to prosecutors.

“How long do you think I’ll be on the market for? Not long,” Trump told Cohen, according to his former attorney.

“He wasn’t thinking about Melania,” Cohen said. “This was all about the campaign.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins called that a “Remarkable moment.”

The Daily Mail adds, “Asked if Trump was angry during this frantic period of damage control that could surface the Stormy Daniels story, Cohen said ‘Yes. Because there was a negative story that could impact the campaign as a result of women.’ ”

Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

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‘On Day One’: Trump Vows to End Protections for LGBTQ Students

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Donald Trump says the day he enters the Oval Office for a second term he will end anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students implemented by the Biden administration.

Serving up a scattershot series of complaints with the hosts from the Philadelphia-based right-wing talk radio show “Kayal and Company” on Friday, Trump compared LGBTQ+ protections to a “cuckoo’s nest.”

“A lot of things don’t make sense, having to do with what they’re doing, from the border to all of the men playing in women’s sports. I mean, the world is like a cuckoo’s nest right now with what they do,” Trump declared.

One of the hosts alleged President Joe Biden has engaged in “manipulation” of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. She claimed parents now have to “pinch some pennies” to be able to afford private Christian schools for their children, to remove them from the enhancements that go into effect this summer.

“Many schools are grappling with what they’re going to do,” she said, “because as of August 1, as you know, because of Biden’s manipulation of Title IX, these kids, the school boards, have no choice, they’re meeting right now they, many of them perplexed, and they don’t know what to do, Mr. President, because they’re so upset over this that at August 1 a biological boy can change in a locker room.”

READ MORE: ‘Rejection of Trump’: 1 in 5 Indiana GOP Voters Just Cast Their Ballot for Nikki Haley

Trump replied, “It’s crazy. Crazy.”

“We’re going to end it on day one,” Trump vowed. “We’re going to change it on day one. It’s going to be changed. We’re going to end it. That’s right.”

“The whole thing is crazy. Look, it’s like men playing in women’s sports. It’s like open borders for the world to come in. Send all their prisoners. We’ll take as many as you can give us. Send all their people from mental institutions.”

“We’ll get that changed. Tell your people not to worry about it. It’ll be signed on day one. It will be terminated,” Trump promised, vowing to end the LGBTQ+ protections which include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

On his first day in office, President Biden implemented “the most far-reaching of any federal protections yet” for LGBTQ+ people, according to NPR.

In an explainer on the new expanded rules, Ms. Magazine reports “The 2024 regulations prohibit discrimination not only on the basis of sex, but also on the basis of sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

According to GLAAD, which is tracking “the Biden administration’s executive orders, legislative support, speeches and nominations that affect LGBTQ people and rights,” President Biden has made 337 “moves” in 1206 days.

Listen to a short clip below or at this link.

READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict

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