Stories

Browse major news stories and see what officials have said.

Sep 20, 2026· Updated

A Trump-Backed Miami Republican Tells Him in a New Ad His Immigration Enforcement Has "Gone Too Far" — Trump Answers "I Got Her Elected. Without Me She Wouldn't Have Gotten Elected"

Six weeks before the midterms, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), who represents a 74% Hispanic Miami-area district, released a campaign ad warning President Trump that "some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far" and that the Hispanic voters who backed him in 2024 "feel betrayed." She cited a statistic that half of those detained in July had no criminal record and urged the White House to "be careful what your advisers are telling you." Trump responded dismissively on Friday, September 18, calling Salazar "a nice person" while crediting himself for her election ("Without me she wouldn't have gotten elected") and defending his enforcement posture. Salazar repeated her warning two days later in a nationally televised Sunday show interview, again urging Trump to "preserve that fortune" he built with Hispanic voters. The public break is one of the most direct challenges to Trump's immigration crackdown from a sitting Republican ahead of the midterms, and comes as other battleground-district GOP members have quietly shifted their own messaging.

“Please preserve that fortune that you have brought to the party.”
Maria Salazar (R-FL) · Sep 20, 2026

Aug 30, 2026· Updated

ICE Arrests Parents at Danbury School Bus Stops in the First Week of School — Waiting Until the Kids Were on the Bus — and Connecticut’s Governor Says Trump Promised Governors He Would Not Do This

Over three days in late August 2026, as Danbury, Connecticut schools opened for the year, ICE agents detained close to 50 people in the city — 16 on Monday, at least nine on Tuesday and 25 on Wednesday, according to the advocacy group Danbury Unites for Immigrants. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said agents were arresting parents at school bus stops and had waited until children boarded the buses, so the children would return in the afternoon to find their parents gone. On August 26, Murphy joined Gov. Ned Lamont, Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT-05), Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz and Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves at Kennedy Park to condemn the operation. Lamont said Trump had personally told a gathering of governors earlier in the year that ICE would not be sent into cities that had not asked for help. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), traveling in Ukraine, issued a written statement. DHS rejected the mayor's allegation of racial profiling, said ICE "does not target schools," and said the operation had arrested people convicted of assault, weapons offenses, sexual assault, molestation of a minor and DUI. The Danbury operation is part of a documented rise in ICE arrests in states that did not request federal enforcement.

“Very few of them, only a fraction, maybe six or seven, have any kind of criminal history. In fact, they are seizing people. Many of them have legal status in this country.”
Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) · Aug 30, 2026

The First Deportation Flight to Haiti After TPS Ends Lands in Cap-Haïtien With 161 People — Into a Country the U.S. Government Itself Bars Its Own Citizens From Flying Into

On Thursday, August 20, 2026, an ICE charter carrying 161 people left Alexandria, Louisiana and landed at Cap-Haïtien — the first deportation flight to Haiti since the Trump administration formally terminated Temporary Protected Status for roughly 350,000 Haitian nationals, a termination the Supreme Court affirmed in June. Those aboard included former TPS holders as well as people who had completed prison sentences. DHS has said it plans twice-weekly flights. The destination is itself the story: the U.S. government's own ban on commercial flights into Port-au-Prince, in force through early September because of gang violence, forced the flight to land 130 miles north in Cap-Haïtien. The United Nations has warned that Haiti — where armed groups control most of the capital and more than a million people are displaced — cannot absorb mass returns. Local officials in Cap-Haïtien said they were not ready. Democratic lawmakers who have spent two years trying to extend Haitian TPS by statute responded within hours. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who led the House effort to extend the designation, called the deportations "cruel and shameful." Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), co-chair of the Haiti Caucus, said the removals were "a humanitarian betrayal that will stain America for generations." Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), whose Cincinnati-area district has one of the country's larger recently arrived Haitian populations, said the deportations were "inhumane." Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) called the flight "utterly shameful," and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said it was "cruel" to strip the protections now. No congressional Republican was found on the record about the flight in the first 48 hours.

“Our Haitian neighbors asked only for safety from the gang violence, rampant sexual exploitation, and vicious anarchy that has totally overtaken their nation. Donald Trump saw their suffering, and asked only how he could make it worse. His act to force thousands of men, women, and children back into the same hell they barely escaped with their lives is a humanitarian betrayal that will stain America for generations.”
Yvette Clarke (D-NY) · Aug 21, 2026

ICE Starts Detaining Haitians in Springfield, Ohio and Fitting More Than a Hundred With Ankle Monitors — as Ohio's Two Republican Senators Predict a "Booming Bonanza" Without Them and the Republican Governor Says the Opposite

Three weeks after Temporary Protected Status ended for roughly 350,000 Haitians, Immigration and Customs Enforcement began targeted enforcement in Springfield, Ohio — the city of about 60,000 that became a national flashpoint in 2024 over false claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets, and that is now home to an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 Haitians. Clark County Sheriff Christopher Clark said on August 18, 2026 that ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations personnel had been in the county since the prior Tuesday conducting targeted enforcement, and that he had learned it only because he asked for a meeting. By August 19 at least 15 to 17 Haitians had been detained, several of them held at the Butler County Jail, and more than 100 others had been summoned to ICE offices — including the Westerville field office — and fitted with electronic ankle monitors, a practice reporters could not find ICE using anywhere else in the country. Mayor Rob Rue confirmed the operations and said the city neither directs nor controls them, urging residents to "treat one another with dignity and respect." DHS would say only that it "does not discuss ongoing or future operations." The same week, Ohio's two Republican senators told reporters they were not worried about Springfield's economy losing its Haitian workforce. Jon Husted said the city was "on the rise" with "a bunch of new jobs coming." Bernie Moreno, a longtime critic of TPS, predicted "a big, huge, booming bonanza" and said the jobs would go to American citizens. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine — who defended Springfield's Haitians through the 2024 controversy — took the opposite view in a New York Times op-ed, writing that deporting "hard-working individuals" threatens his state's economic momentum.

“ICE has advised city staff that its enforcement and removal operations is conducting field enforcement activity throughout the nation as part of its daily duties, including in Springfield and surrounding areas. These are federal immigration enforcement operations. The city does not direct or control ICE enforcement activity.”
Rob Rue (R-OH) · Aug 19, 2026

Temporary Protected Status Ends for 350,000 Haitians After Senate Republicans Block Extension Bill

Temporary Protected Status for more than 350,000 Haitians ended in late July 2026 after a year of litigation and a failed effort in Congress. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination in November 2025; a district judge blocked it in February 2026, and on June 25, 2026 the Supreme Court cleared the way for the administration to end the program for Haiti and Syria. The D.C. Circuit rejected the administration's request to terminate protections on July 24, holding them in place until at least July 27. In the interim, Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) sought unanimous consent on July 22 and 23 to pass S. 4814, the House-approved bill designating Haiti for TPS through the next presidential election, which had cleared the House 224-204 in April on a bipartisan discharge petition led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) objected, blocking the bill. As protections lapsed, ICE prepared targeted arrest operations and deportation flights, with planning that included Ohio communities with large Haitian populations.

“Washington has invented a new definition of "temporary": Permanent. I object to this bill which would keep 350,000 Haitians here permanently. TPS was created for emergencies. Democrats have turned it into a one-way ratchet toward permanent mass immigration. Temporary must mean temporary. And elections must have consequences.”
Eric Schmitt (R-MO) · Jul 23, 2026