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Browse major news stories and see what officials have said.

Sep 23, 2026· Updated

An ICE Officer Shoots a DoorDash Driver in North Austin, Then Agents Move Him Into Federal Custody Before His Wife Can See Him — Greg Casar Says "The Horror Has Come to Our City," and Austin's Mayor Says "Austinites Have a Right to Know What Happened"

Just before 1 p.m. on Sunday, September 20, 2026, an ICE officer shot and wounded Wilber Rafael Garcés Perez, 28, a Venezuelan DoorDash driver, during a vehicle stop and pursuit in North Austin. ICE said it had targeted his car over a license-plate check tied to a final removal order; his attorney says he entered the country legally and held a valid work permit. Garcés Perez called his wife at 12:30 p.m. to tell her he had been shot. He was hospitalized in serious but stable condition, then moved by federal agents to an undisclosed location — without being allowed to see his wife first — before landing in ICE custody pending removal. Rep. Greg Casar posted the same morning that "the horror has come to our city," and hours later sent DHS a formal letter demanding release of the unedited body-camera footage, preservation of evidence, and a briefing for Congress by September 28. Rep. Joaquin Castro said "Trump has allowed ICE to flood our streets and put our communities in harms way again and again and Governor Abbott is complicit every time." Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said "Austinites have a right to know what happened." Texas Senate candidate James Talarico said past incidents show "this agency cannot be trusted to report all the facts," and called for a full independent investigation with all footage released. DHS, without naming Garcés Perez, said he had a final removal order and entered during the Biden administration; Homeland Security Investigations, with FBI assistance, is leading the review.

“If you saw Wilbur, just like if you saw anybody that had been shot three days ago, you would say this person needs a doctor, not a deportation, or a detention center. Why was he taken from the hospital?”
Gregorio Casar (D-TX) · Sep 23, 2026

Sep 23, 2026· Updated

Florida Orders Flock's License-Plate Cameras Off Its State Highways and Two Days Later Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna Put Their Names on the Same Bill — the Surveillance Backlash Has Become the Rare Thing Both Parties Are Running On Nine Weeks Before the Midterms

In the first week of September 2026 the political backlash against Flock Safety's automated license plate readers — AI-powered cameras that photograph passing cars and let police reconstruct where a vehicle has been over time — turned into concrete government action in both parties at once. On Monday, September 1, the Florida Department of Transportation ordered local agencies to pull automated license plate readers off state roads within 30 days. Gov. Ron DeSantis, announcing the move, said the technology had gotten "out of control" and asked the legislature to keep Florida from becoming "some type of digital prison." More than 8,000 Flock cameras are documented in Florida, though the state-road order reaches only about 2 percent of them; the rest sit on local roads and private property. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had already frozen state spending on the cameras. On Wednesday, September 2, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) introduced the Flock-Off Act, H.R. 10221, which would bar federal funds from paying for license-plate-reader and facial-recognition camera systems except at the border or for toll collection. It does not ban the cameras. Its five cosponsors are Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Chip Roy (R-Texas), Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) — and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). The bill joins a crowded field: Tim Burchett's Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act, the Massie-Boebert Surveillance Accountability Act, and the PRIVACY Act from Keith Self, Eli Crane and Andrew Clyde. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) have pressed the FTC to investigate Flock's cybersecurity after credentials for at least 35 customer accounts were traded on Russian cybercrime forums. As of early September, no bill in Congress would outlaw the cameras outright. By Saturday, September 5, NPR reported that candidates in races from Florida to Ohio to Wisconsin were campaigning against the cameras, and that Pennsylvania's Democratic governor and Florida's Republican governor had landed in the same place on them. The driving grievances differ by party — Democrats point to ICE's use of Flock's national lookup tool to run searches in states that bar cooperation with the agency, Republicans to the prospect of a de facto federal registry and to documented abuse by individual officers, including a Haines City, Florida officer arrested for using the system hundreds of times to track his estranged wife's car — but the conclusion has converged. Stances below record each official's position on the license-plate-reader networks themselves.

“If you haven't heard of Flock, Flock has probably heard of you. … We need the Bill of Rights now more than ever.”
Josh Hawley (R-MO) · Sep 23, 2026

The United States Designates a British Protest Group and an Italian Web-Hosting Collective as Global Terrorists — the First Sanctions Under Rubio’s "Far-Left Terrorism" Doctrine

On Wednesday, August 26, 2026, the State and Treasury Departments designated three organizations as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 13224, the first sanctions imposed under the administration's push to reorient counterterrorism policy toward what it calls violent far-left terrorism. The three are Palestine Action, a United Kingdom protest group proscribed by the British government in July 2025 after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged military aircraft; Autistici/Inventati, an Italy-based collective that provides encrypted email, web hosting and anonymity services and that the State Department describes as supplying "the digital infrastructure for Antifa cells"; and Masar Badil, a transnational pro-Palestinian movement the Treasury says operates as a front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, along with two of its leaders. The designations block the groups' US assets and bar Americans from transacting with them. The action follows Secretary of State Marco Rubio's July 2026 summit in which delegations from more than 60 countries were pressed to treat far-left political violence as terrorism, and the administration's 2026 National Counterterrorism Strategy, which names violent far-left groups as one of three top threats — a reversal of the Biden-era emphasis on far-right and white supremacist violence. Civil liberties groups and Palestine Action itself say the designation criminalizes protest and civil disobedience. House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats had already written to Rubio in July warning that the Department was politicizing counterterrorism work, hosting a conference focused exclusively on left-wing extremism while cutting the offices that assessed extremist violence of all kinds. No member of Congress had issued an on-record response to the designations themselves in the first 24 hours.

“Far-left terrorism poses a profound threat to the United States and the broader West.”
Marco Rubio (R-FL) · Aug 26, 2026

Aug 24, 2026· Updated

ICE Immigration Crackdown in Minnesota

Federal immigration enforcement operation "Metro Surge" in Minneapolis-St. Paul has sparked protests, economic boycotts, and political backlash after two fatal shootings by federal agents. The crackdown has led to hundreds of businesses closing in solidarity, state legislators nationwide proposing limits on ICE cooperation, and a growing constitutional clash between state and federal authorities. In August 2026 the operation produced a second scandal. Court filings in the Minneapolis conspiracy prosecution — reported by the Minnesota Reformer on August 13 and detailed further in documents covered by NPR on August 25 — showed that DHS ran a parallel covert surveillance campaign, codenamed in part "Operation Puppet Master," against labor unions, environmental groups, churches and community organizations that had protested the crackdown. Undercover agents attended a meeting at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and a public library gathering, photographed license plates, built dossiers on attendees including their families and jobs, and subpoenaed the financial records of unions including the Communications Workers of America and SEIU. None of the organizations was accused of criminal wrongdoing. On August 24, House Oversight Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA) sent records demands to Attorney General Todd Blanche and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. The Justice Department defended the operation in a court filing, calling undercover membership in the groups it was investigating "a standard law enforcement practice."

“Instead of investigating the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, DHS sought to criminalize U.S. citizens exercising their constitutional rights.”
Robert Garcia (D-CA) · Aug 24, 2026

Aug 20, 2026· Updated

A 4-Foot-11 Man Walking to Work in Arlington Is Tasered by ICE and Wakes Up With a Brain Bleed — Then the Ankle Monitor ICE Fitted Him With Blocks the MRI His Doctors Ordered

At about 6:30 a.m. on August 11, 2026, José Mejía Hernández, 45, was walking to work in Arlington, Virginia when two trucks pulled up and men got out and ran at him. He did not know who they were, according to his attorney, and he ran. He believes he was hit in the back with a stun device. He remembers nothing after that. He woke in a hospital with a brain hemorrhage, blackened eyes, facial lacerations and cuts requiring stitches — and two ICE officers at his bedside, who his lawyer Carlos Jurado says never left, meaning he was never given a private moment with his doctors. He was discharged within 72 hours, fitted with a GPS ankle monitor and handed immigration forms. When doctors ordered an MRI more than a week later to measure the bleeding and swelling in his brain, the metal ankle monitor made the scan impossible, and ICE refused to remove it. "Mr. Mejia Hernandez is 4'11," Jurado said. "He's 125 pounds. This man is not a Division 1 athlete." The Department of Homeland Security disputes the account. It said Mejía Hernández "attempted to flee from the scene requiring ICE to use necessary force to gain control of the situation," and called it "FALSE" that he was unconscious and woke in a hospital bed, saying officers rendered aid and asked the responsive individual if he was okay. The incident occurred a day after an ICE agent pointed a loaded gun at U.S. citizen Carolina Molina a few miles away in Falls Church — an encounter her dashcam contradicted DHS's account of — and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said he was "certainly very concerned that it's the same group of ICE agents running the corridor along Columbia Pike." Beyer called the injuries "extremely disturbing" and told constituents to "exercise extreme caution," saying ICE agents in Northern Virginia "are disappearing people, and they are all too frequently becoming out of control or violent." Arlington's elected prosecutor and county board chair both said publicly that they were investigating what they could. Arlington Commonwealth's Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti said "no one is above the law — not any individual, not law enforcement, and not federal officials." County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said ICE does not communicate with the county about its operations at all.

“We’re certainly very concerned that it’s the same group of ICE agents running the corridor along Columbia Pike.”
Don Beyer (D-VA) · Aug 20, 2026

Oklahoma Becomes the Third Republican-Led State to Move Against the Country’s Largest Muslim Civil Rights Group — Stitt Orders an "Intelligence-Based Assessment" of CAIR and Asks Washington to Designate It a Terrorist Organization

On August 12, 2026, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order directing the state Departments of Public Safety and Homeland Security to conduct an "intelligence-based assessment" of whether the Muslim Brotherhood, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or people acting in their name pose a terrorist or public-safety threat in Oklahoma. If investigators find evidence of support for those organizations, the order directs state law enforcement to recommend that the federal government designate them as foreign terrorist organizations. Oklahoma is the third Republican-led state to act. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR "foreign terrorist organizations" and "transnational criminal organizations" by proclamation on November 18, 2025, a designation that also bars them from acquiring land in Texas; CAIR chapters sued, arguing the proclamation chilled protected speech. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a similar executive order on December 8, 2025. On March 4, 2026, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee temporarily enjoined the Florida order on First Amendment grounds, finding it operated as a prior restraint by threatening private parties with loss of government benefits for associating with CAIR. Florida's legislature responded in March 2026 with HB 1471, empowering the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to label organizations as domestic or foreign terrorist groups, and DeSantis used that law against CAIR-Florida in July 2026. The state actions follow a November 2025 executive order from President Trump aimed at designating certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters as foreign terrorist organizations. The U.S. State Department has never designated the Muslim Brotherhood or CAIR as terrorist organizations. Oklahoma State Senate Democratic Leader Julia Kirt condemned Stitt's order, noting it was issued without evidence and warning it raises the risk of hate crimes.

“This kind of fear mongering and scapegoating divides our communities and state, and doesn’t solve any real problems Oklahomans are facing. I’m deeply concerned this further increases the likelihood of hate crimes against our neighbors, which is already on the rise in this country.”
Julia Kirt (D-OK) · Aug 13, 2026

DOJ indicts Olympic canoeist David Hearn over Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool damage

On July 2, 2026, a District of Columbia grand jury indicted three-time U.S. Olympic canoe slalom athlete David Hearn on a single felony count of destruction of property valued at $1,000 or more, carrying a maximum of 10 years in prison. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced the charge, alleging Hearn "forcefully and violently" pulled up roughly two square feet of newly installed liner and sealant at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool during a June 19 incident. Hearn, a Maryland resident, says he was cycling past when he stopped to touch a piece of blue lining that had already partially detached, and denies causing any damage. The pool had been resurfaced in "American flag blue" as part of a multimillion-dollar Trump renovation, then suffered peeling paint and an algae bloom that President Trump blamed on vandals. Hearn's defense attorneys, and outside legal observers, characterized the felony prosecution as an overreach meant to shift blame for the pool's problems.

“Today, a grand jury has returned a felony indictment against a defendant, David Hearn, for felony destruction of property, for which he faces 10 years in prison.”
Jeanine Pirro (R-DC) · Jul 2, 2026

Jun 11, 2026· Updated

Fight Over Clean FISA Section 702 Reauthorization

A conservative revolt in the House derailed President Trump's push for a clean 18-month reauthorization of FISA Section 702, the warrantless surveillance authority set to expire April 20. After Speaker Mike Johnson pulled the procedural rule vote on April 15 when it became clear he couldn't hold his caucus, leadership tried again on April 16 — but roughly 20 Republicans joined Democrats in tanking both a 5-year and the 18-month extension. In a chaotic late-night session, the House passed a 10-day stopgap extension through April 30 via voice vote at 2 AM on April 17. Rebels demanded warrant protections for Americans' communications and attachment of the SAVE America Act. Trump called FISA 702 vital for "SUCCESS on the battlefield," while civil-liberties critics from both parties — Raskin, Davidson, Wyden, Massie, Boebert, Luna — argued the administration had dismantled oversight safeguards. The fight resumes before April 30.

“Today, we just offered a simple, clean, three-week extension of the FISA national security law. The Democrats, 199 of them, voted against a clean, three-week extension for political purposes.”
Mike Johnson (R-LA) · Jun 11, 2026