BOSTON — The Trump administration apologized in court for a “mistake” in the deportation of a Massachusetts college student who was detained trying to fly home to surprise her family for Thanksgiving, but still argued the error should not affect her case.
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, 19, a Babson College freshman, was detained at Boston’s airport on Nov. 20 and flown to Honduras two days later. Her removal came despite an emergency court order on Nov. 21 directing the government to keep her in Massachusetts or elsewhere in the United States for at least 72 hours.
Lopez Belloza, whose family emigrated from Honduras to the U.S. in 2014, is currently staying with grandparents and studying remotely. She is not detained and was recently visiting an aunt in El Salvador.
Her case is the latest involving a deportation carried out despite a court order. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador despite a ruling that should have prevented it. The Trump administration initially fought efforts to bring him back to the U.S. but eventually complied after the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in. And last June, a Guatemalan man identified as O.C.G. was returned to the U.S. after a judge found his removal from Mexico likely “lacked any semblance of due process.”
At a federal court hearing Tuesday in Boston, the government argued the court lacks jurisdiction because lawyers for Lopez Belloza filed their action several hours after she arrived in Texas while en route out of the country. But the government also acknowledged it violated the judge’s order.
In court filings and in open court, government lawyers said an Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officer mistakenly believed the order no longer applied because Lopez Belloza had already left Massachusetts. The officer failed to activate a system that alerts other ICE officers that a case is subject to judicial review and that removal should be halted.
“On behalf of the government, we want to sincerely apologize,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Sauter told the judge, saying the employee understands “he made a mistake.” The violation, Sauter added, was “an inadvertent mistake by one individual, not a willful act of violating a court order.”
In a declaration filed with the court Jan. 2, the ICE officer also admitted he did not notify ICE’s enforcement office in Port Isabel, Texas, that the removal mission needed to be canceled. He said he believed the judge’s order did not apply once Lopez Belloza was no longer in the state.
The government maintains her deportation was lawful because an immigration judge ordered the removal of Lopez Belloza and her mother in 2016, and the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed their appeal in 2017. Prosecutors said she could have pursued additional appeals or sought a stay of removal.
Her lawyer, Todd Pomerleau, countered that she was deported in clear violation of the Nov. 21 order and said the government’s actions deprived her of due process. “I was hoping the government would show some leniency and bring her back,” he said. “They violated a court order.”
U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns said he appreciated the government acknowledging the error, calling it a “tragic” bureaucratic mistake. But appeared to rule out holding the government in contempt, noting the violation did not appear intentional. He also questioned whether he has jurisdiction over the case, appearing to side with the government in concluding the court order had been filed several hours after she had been sent to Texas.
“It might not be anybody’s fault, but she was the victim of it,” Stearns said, adding at one point that Lopez Belloza could explore applying for a student visa.
Pomerleau said one possible resolution would be allowing Lopez Belloza to return to finish her studies while he works to reopen the underlying removal order.
Haverford Township officials voted this week to bar the township’s police department from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the agency’s civil deportation efforts.
Township commissioners overwhelmingly approved the resolution, which says Haverford police officers and resources will not be made available for ICE’s 287(g) program. The nationwide initiative allows local police departments to perform certain federal immigration duties, should they choose to enter an agreement with the agency.
The Monday evening vote came after a weekend of anti-ICE protests in cities across the country spurred by the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by an immigration agent during an enforcement operation in Minneapolis.
“The last thing I want to see happen is that our relationship with our police department be hurt by the reckless and criminal activity of ICE,” Haverford Commissioner Larry Holmes said before the vote. “We have the power to prevent that.”
Local law enforcement agencies that enter a 287(g) agreement with ICE are offered a variety of responsibilities and trainings, such as access to federal immigration databases, the ability to question detainees about their immigration status, and authority to issue detainers and initiate removal proceedings.
The program is voluntary and partnerships are initiated by local departments themselves, though some Republican-led states are urging agencies to enter them. The Department of Homeland Security recently touted that it has more than 1,000 such partnerships nationwide, as the Trump administration continues to make a sweeping deportation effort the focus of its domestic policy.
Critics such as the American Civil Liberties Union say the program turns local departments into an “ICE force multiplier” and that the agreements, which require officers to shift from local to federal duties, are a drain on time and resources.
Haverford Township’s police department has not made any request to initiate such an agreement with ICE, according to commissioners, who called the resolution a preemptive measure. While ICE has ramped up enforcement in Philadelphia and in surrounding communities like Norristown, there have not been sizable operations in Delaware County.
Judy Trombetta, the president of the township’s board of commissioners, said the resolution was about protecting the civil liberties of those living in Haverford, as well as the township’s public safety.
In Trombetta’s view, a 287(g) agreement could mean those without legal immigration status could be deterred from reporting crimes to Haverford police or showing up to court hearings, while leaving officers confused about their own responsibilities.
And as a township, she said, it is “not our role” to act as federal immigration agents.
“It’s our job as a township to keep people safe, [to] uphold the Constitution,” Trombetta said.
Commissioners voted 7-2 to approve the resolution.
The motion still requires Haverford police to cooperate with federal immigration agencies in criminal investigations. But because many cases involving those living in the country illegally are civil offenses, much of ICE’s activities are exempt.
Commissioner Kevin McCloskey, voicing his support for the resolution, said the week after Good’s killing had been “incredibly taxing on the American people,” and in his view, it was important to adopt the resolution even if ICE wasn’t active in the community.
But for Commissioner Brian Godek, one of the lone holdout votes, that reality made the resolution nothing more than “political theater.”
Tensions over Good’s killing were on full display during the meeting, as both the resolution’s supporters and detractors filled the seats of Haverford’s municipal services building.
“I do not want my tax dollars or Haverford’s resources to be used to support a poorly trained, unprofessional, and cruel secret police force that is our current federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency,” said resident Deborah Derrickson Kossmann.
Brian Vance, a resident and a lawyer who opposed the resolution, said he was approaching the matter like an attorney. He questioned whether noncompliance with a federal department would open up the possibility of lawsuits, or the federal government withholding funds for the township.
“It’s legal, it’s proper, whether we agree with it or not,” Vance said of ICE’s authority.
After the vote, McCloskey, the commissioner, made a plea for unity to those divided over the issue.
That included residents who said the resolution’s supporters had gotten caught up in the “emotion” of the Minneapolis shooting.
“I just ask that you take a step back,” McCloskey said. “On some level, we should all be able to appreciate that none of us wanted to see a 37-year-old mother in a car get shot.”
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he’s been told “on good authority” that plans for executions in Iran have stopped, even as Tehran has indicated fast trials and executions ahead in its crackdown on protesters.
The president’s claims, which were made with few details, come as he’s told protesting Iranians in recent days that “help is on the way” and that his administration would “act accordingly” to respond to the Iranian government. But Trump has not offered any details about how the U.S. might respond and it wasn’t clear if his comments Wednesday indicated he would hold off on action.
“We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping — it’s stopped — it’s stopping,” Trump said at the White House while signing executive orders and legislation. “And there’s no plan for executions, or an execution, or executions — so I’ve been told that on good authority.”
The president on Tuesday consulted with his national security team about next steps after telling reporters he believed the killing in Iran was “significant.”
Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and key White House National Security Council officials began meeting last Friday to develop options for Trump, ranging from a diplomatic approach to military strikes.
The Iranian security force crackdown on the demonstrations has killed at least 2,586, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported.
On Wednesday, Iranian officials signaled that suspects detained in nationwide protests would face fast trials and executions while the Islamic Republic promised a “decisive response” if the U.S. or Israel intervene in the domestic unrest.
The threats emerged as some personnel at a key U.S. military base in Qatar were advised to evacuate by Wednesday evening following Trump’s escalated warnings of potential military action over the killing of peaceful demonstrators.
Mohammad Pakpour, commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, reiterated Iranian claims, without providing evidence, that the U.S. and Israel have instigated the protests and that they are the real killers of protesters and security forces who have died in the turmoil, according to Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency.
He added that those countries will “receive the response in the appropriate time.”
Earlier Wednesday, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, Iran’s judiciary chief, said the government must act quickly to punish more than 18,000 people who have been detained through rapid trials and executions. Mohseni-Ejei’s comments about rapid trials and executions were made in a video shared by Iranian state television online.
“If we want to do a job, we should do it now. If we want to do something, we have to do it quickly,” he said. “If it becomes late, two months, three months later, it doesn’t have the same effect. If we want to do something, we have to do that fast.”
The comments stand as a direct challenge to Trump, who warned Iran about executions in an interview with CBS aired Tuesday. “If they do such a thing, we will take very strong action,” Trump said.
“We don’t want to see what’s happening in Iran happen. And you know, if they want to have protests, that’s one thing. When they start killing thousands of people, and now you’re telling me about hanging — we’ll see how that works out for them. It’s not going to work out good.”
One Arab Gulf diplomat told the AP that major Mideast governments had been discouraging the Trump administration from launching a war with Iran, fearing “unprecedented consequences” for the region that could explode into a “full-blown war.” The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to journalists.
Satellite internet service offer
Iran’s government cut off the country from the internet and international telephone calls on Jan. 8.
Activists said Wednesday that Starlink was offering free service in Iran. The satellite internet service has been key in getting around the internet shutdown. Iran began allowing people to call out internationally on Tuesday via mobile phones, but calls from people outside the country into Iran remain blocked.
“We can confirm that the free subscription for Starlink terminals is fully functional,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, a Los Angeles-based activist who has helped get the units into Iran. “We tested it using a newly activated Starlink terminal inside Iran.”
Starlink itself did not immediately acknowledge the decision.
Security service personnel apparently were searching for Starlink dishes, as people in northern Tehran reported authorities raiding apartment buildings with satellite dishes. While satellite television dishes are illegal, many in the capital have them in homes, and officials broadly gave up on enforcing the law in recent years.
Death toll continues to rise
The Human Rights Activists News Agency said 2,417 of the dead were protesters and 147 were government-affiliated. Twelve children were killed, along with 10 civilians it said were not taking part in protests.
More than 18,400 people have been detained, the group said.
Gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult, and the AP has been unable to independently assess the toll given the communications being disrupted in the country.
WASHINGTON — A top Danish official said Wednesday that a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains with President Donald Trump after talks in Washington with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The two sides, however, agreed to create a working group to discuss ways to work through differences as Trump continues to call for a U.S. takeover of the Denmark’s Arctic territory of Greenland.
“The group, in our view, should focus on how to address the American security concerns, while at the same time respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters after joining Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, for the talks.
Trump is trying to make the case that NATO should help the U.S. acquire the world’s largest island and says anything less than it being under American control is unacceptable.
Denmark has announced plans to boost the country’s military presence in the Arctic and North Atlantic as Trump tries to justify his calls for a U.S. takeover of the vast territory by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their designs on Greenland.
Vance and Rubio met with Løkke Rasmussen and Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt for roughly an hour to discuss Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.
But a few hours before the officials sat down, Trump reiterated on his social media site that the U.S. “needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security.” He added that “NATO should be leading the way for us to get it” and that otherwise Russia or China would — “AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!”
“NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES,” Trump wrote. “Anything less than that is unacceptable.”
Løkke Rasmussen told reporters that it remains “clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.”
“And we made it very, very clear that this is not in the interest of the kingdom,” he said after the meeting, citing a “fundamental disagreement” with the Trump administration but willing to keep talking.
Both Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt offered measured hope that the talks were beginning a conversation that would lead to Trump dropping his demand of acquiring the territory and create a path for tighter cooperation with the U.S.
“We have shown where our limits are and from there, I think that it will be very good to look forward,” Motzfeldt said.
Denmark bolstering presence in Arctic
In Copenhagen, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced an increase in Denmark’s “military presence and exercise activity” in the Arctic and the North Atlantic, “in close cooperation with our allies”.
Poulsen said at a news conference the stepped-up military presence was necessary in a security environment in which “no one can predict what will happen tomorrow.”
“This means that from today and in the coming time there will be an increased military presence in and around Greenland of aircraft, ships and soldiers, including from other NATO allies,” Poulsen said.
Other NATO allies were arriving in Greenland along with Danish personnel, he said. Poulsen declined to name the other countries contributing to increased Arctic presence, saying that it is up to the allies to announce their own participation.
Earlier, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on X that “some officers from the Swedish Armed Forces are arriving in Greenland today” as part of a group from several allied countries. “Together, they will prepare events within the framework of the Danish exercise Operation Arctic Endurance,” Kristersson said. Two Norwegian military personnel also will be sent to Greenland to map out further cooperation with allies, the country’s Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik told newspaper VG.
Greenlanders want the U.S. to back off
Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said Tuesday that “if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU.”
Asked about those comments, Trump replied: “I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know anything about him. But, that’s going to be a big problem for him.”
Greenland is strategically important because, as climate change causes the ice to melt, it opens up the possibility of shorter trade routes to Asia. That also could make it easier to extract and transport untapped deposits of critical minerals which are needed for computers and phones.
Trump says Greenland is also “vital” to the United States’ Golden Dome missile defense program. He also has said he wants the island to expand America’s security and has repeatedly cited what he says is the threat from Russian and Chinese ships as a reason to control it.
“The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market,” heating engineer Lars Vintner said. He said he frequently goes sailing and hunting and has never seen Russian or Chinese ships.
His friend, Hans Nørgaard, agreed, adding “what has come out of the mouth of Donald Trump about all these ships is just fantasy.”
Denmark has said the U.S, which already has a military presence, can boost its bases on Greenland. The U.S. is party to a 1951 treaty that gives it broad rights to set up military bases there with the consent of Denmark and Greenland.
For that reason, “security is just a cover,” Vintner said, suggesting Trump actually wants to own the island to make money from its untapped natural resources.
Mikaelsen, the student, said Greenlanders benefit from being part of Denmark, which provides free health care, education and payments during study, and “I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us.”
Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt, along with Denmark’s ambassador to the U.S., met Wednesday with senators from the Arctic Caucus, a bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers is also heading to Copenhagen this week to see Danish and Greenlandic officials.
Women working at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey were required to wear tight uniforms that were too small and told to “smile more,” as they endured “sexist remarks about their bodies and menstruation,” according to two lawsuits by former employees.
Both complaints describe a similar pattern: A female employee at the Bedminster club, working in a culture hostile to women, reported safety issues and was penalized for doing so.
Maria Hadley, a former banquet server who worked at the private club, owned by President Donald Trump, from February until she resigned in August, says she suffered from a retaliation campaign after she reported a manager who spiked the drink of an underage employee with vodka. And Justine Sacks, who was hired as clubhouse manager in 2023, says that she was demoted and ultimately fired in May for reporting health and safety violations, including maggots and mold in the soft-serve machine.
The lawsuits describe a hyper-sexualized work environment, in which female staffers were expected to endure sexual harassment from workers and guests.
Both Hadley and Sacks are represented by the New Jersey-based McOmber McOmber & Luber law firm. Their attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
The Bedminster club is operated by the Trump Organization, which is led by the president’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. Neither the club nor general manager David Schutzenhofer responded to requests for comment.
In this July 15, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump turns to wave to the people gathered at the clubhouse as his walks to his presidential viewing stand during the U.S. Women’s Open Golf tournament at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.
Vodka-spiked Shirley Temple
Hadley, a banquet server, says women were treated as “a prop” and “were expected to look pleasing, work without complaint, and stay quiet,” according to the lawsuit filed Monday in New Jersey Superior Court in Camden. Male managers and coworkers harassed their female peers, and called teenage guests “sexy.” When a guest inappropriately touched Hadley, a manager advised “they pay a lot of money to come here, just ignore it.”
Hadley reported in June that a bartender poured vodka into the Shirley Temple of an underage employee without the employee’s consent, saying it would give her energy.
The bartender was temporarily fired, but the club’s management launched a retaliation campaign against Hadley, the complaint says. She was denied a $1,000 bonus, isolated by her peers, and received worse hours and assignments.
Hadley resigned via email in August, the suit says, writing to the club’s human resources representative that her employment became “unbearable.” The club accepted her resignation, which the suit calls “effectively forcing her out,” and rehired the fired bartender.
That man went on to make sexual comments about 12-year-old guests with braces in September, according to a message Hadley sent to Eric Trump, the executive vice president of Trump National, which is included in the complaint.
Maggots and mold
Sacks joined Trump National in January 2023 and was told from the onset to expect “gender differences” in treatment, according to the suit, which was filed last month in Monmouth County Superior Court. She was instructed to hire women based on their looks, and received complaints from multiple direct reports about offensive, gender-based comments from male managers and peers.
The complaints were dismissed by Schutzenhofer, who told Sacks to “vote the mean girls off the island,” the suit says.
The club’s management slowly stripped Sacks’ authority and stopped inviting her to leadership meetings, in what the suit says was retaliation for elevating the complaints of female staffers.
People play golf next to the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster’s clubhouse in Bedminister on Friday, June 9 , 2023, in New Jersey.
Sacks was also retaliated against for reporting unsanitary conditions at the club’s kitchens, which included expired and unlabeled food, and the bistro operating without running water, the complaint says. There were flies all over the clubhouse in the fall of 2023, which even Donald Trump complained about, according to the lawsuit.
Management told Sacks that she was new to working at golf clubs and was “wrapped too tight” when she complained about the sanitation conditions, as well as employees drinking and vaping on the job. But even Eric Trump asked the club’s management team to make sanitation a “huge focus” because a few health inspectors are “eager and politically motivated to try and embarrass us,” according to a copy of an email sent by the executive vice president in January 2024.
The clubhouse’s bistro-area became more unsanitary, and by September 2024 the soft-serve machine was filled with maggots and mold, the suit says.
Sacks was placed on a 90-day performance improvement plan in December 2024 for, among other issues, being “off-putting,” the complaint says. In April, Sacks was reassigned from clubhouse manager to managing the bistro, which the lawsuit calls a clear demotion.
Schutzenhofer terminated Sacks in May, the lawsuit says, shortly after the club “failed miserably” a state health inspection.
Bucks County Sheriff Danny Ceisler terminated his office’s controversial partnership with ICE Wednesday, citing negative impacts on public safety and immigrants’ trust of law enforcement.
The partnership, known as a 287(g) agreement, which enabled 16 sheriff deputies to act as immigration enforcement, was initiated by formerSheriff Fred Harran,the Trump-aligned Republican who Ceisler defeated in November.
Ceisler said Wednesday that he signed two orders, one revoking the 287(g) partnership, and another that prohibited deputies from asking crime victims, witnesses, and court observers about their immigration status.
“Bucks County is home to over 50,000 immigrants … those immigrants are our neighbors,” said Ceisler, a Democrat who took office last week, during a news conference outside of the Bucks County Justice Center Wednesday. “They are our friends. They are taxpayers and they deserve the protection of law enforcement in this community.”
Ceisler’s decision to terminate 287(g) was expected, but his announcement comes amid a nationwide reckoning over federal immigration agents’ deployments to U.S. cities as ordered by the Trump administration. Protests againstU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcementescalated across the country, including in Philadelphia, after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minnesota last week.
Wednesday’s decision “has nothing to do with what’s going on in Minneapolis,” Ceisler said.
Other officials in the region have spoken out directly in response to the Minnesota incident. Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s comments calling ICE “fake, wannabe law enforcement” went viral.
Ceisler, on Wednesday, called Bilal’s comments “completely counterproductive, and said she was the “wrong messenger for them.”
The Bucks sheriff was adamant Wednesday that his order does not make Bucks County a so-called sanctuary jurisdiction, which have been increasinglytargeted by President Donald Trump.
The president announced Wednesday morning that on Feb. 1 he would cut off federal funding to states that have cities with sanctuary policies, which prohibit local law enforcement cooperation with ICE. Ceisler’s directive prohibits sheriff deputies from acting as immigration authorities, but does not cut off the county’s cooperation with ICE.
People and press gather at a press conference announcing the termination of Bucks County’s partnership with ICE.
“Bucks County has not, has never been, and will never be a so-called sanctuary county,” Ceisler said. “Our county has not severed all ties with ICE, nor precluded future partnership with ICE when it comes to dangerous criminals. Instead, we are returning to a level of partnership we’ve been operating under for decades.”
Bucks was the only county in the Philadelphia area that wasn’t named as a sanctuary jurisdiction by the Trump administration last year when it rolled out an initial list of state and local governments in danger of losing funding — which was later deleted. Officials from the other collar counties disputed the designation at the time.
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro downplayed concerns about Trump’s Feb. 1 funding threat during a Wednesday appearance at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg.
“We don’t pay attention to the bluster, we pay attention to what’s written in the directive,“ Shapiro told reporters. ”Pennsylvania’s not a sanctuary state. I would anticipate us not losing funding at the state level unless they wanna be punitive.”
The sheriff said that the county Department of Corrections will continue to share information with law enforcement agencies, including ICE. Federal immigration agents will also continue to have access to county jails and honor judicial warrants to hold individuals who are incarcerated for immigration enforcement.
The motivation for the sheriff’s orders Wednesday were in response to “heartbreaking feedback” from Bucks’ immigrant community that they were afraid to report crimes or engage with law enforcement, Ceisler said
“To the members of our immigrant communities, you are safe to call 911, you are safe to report crime and you are safe to come into this courthouse and testify,” Ceisler said.
Heidi Roux, an immigration advocate, said her “community is breathing a collective sigh of relief” by ending the 287(g) agreement, but noted that continuing to partner with local law enforcement is crucial to public safety.
“I believe criminal activity can be addressed while simultaneously supporting the human rights and dignity of our residents,” Roux said.
Heidi Roux, executive director at Immigrant Rights Action, speaks at a press conference about the termination of Bucks County’s partnership with ICE.
The 287(g) affiliation stirred up controversy when then-Sheriff Harran announced the department’s alliance with ICE in April of last year. The agency had 455 agreements with police authorities in 38 states across the country.
Since then the number has exploded, to 1,318 in 40 states, with 11 additional agreements pending as of Monday, according to ICE.
ICE says the program helps protect American communities, a force-multiplier that adds strength to an agency workforce that numbers about 20,000 nationwide. Opponents, however, insist that turning local officers into immigration agents breaks community trust with the police and puts municipal taxpayers at risk of paying big legal settlements.
In Pennsylvania, the number of participating agencies has grown from 39 in September to 52 today.
The growth in Pennsylvania and across the nation has been driven by Trump, who has pumped incentive money into the program as he pursues plans to arrest and deport millions of immigrants.
On Trump’s first day in office in January, he directed the Department of Homeland Security to authorize local police to “perform the functions of immigration officers” to “the maximum extent permitted by law.”
No one had yet been detained under that program, but opponents saw Ceisler’s election as the last chance to stop the Sheriff’s Department’s alliance with ICE, and the Democrat said he would act quickly to end the alliance.
The former sheriff said his only goal was to make the community safer, that the department would not conduct random immigration checks or broad enforcement but “those who commit crimes must face the consequences regardless of immigration status.”
The Democratic-led Bucks County Board of Commissioners warned county employees that they could be personally liable for helping ICE, passing a resolution that said the alliance was “not an appropriate use of Bucks County taxpayer resources.” Democratic Commissioners Diane Ellis-Marseglia and Bob Harvie were at Wednesday’s news conference but did not speak.
In October, however, Bucks County Court Judge Jeffrey Traugerruled that Harran’s cooperation with ICE was “clearly lawful under Pennsylvania jurisprudence,” and both “reasonable and necessary” in fulfilling his lawful duty to keep the citizens of Bucks County safe.
Ceisler said that terminating the agreement is the first step to regaining trust of the county’s immigrant communities. Next, he said, comes getting out into the communities.
“It’s about letting people know that they are safe,” he said.
Melanie Smith pulled grueling hours alongside FBI agents and other prosecutors as she prepped dozens of witnesses to prove that a Virginia sheriff had accepted $75,000 in bribes from wealthy business owners and undercover agents. Just over a year ago, the jury returned a guilty verdict against former Culpeper County sheriff Scott Jenkins in an astounding 90 minutes.
V. Grady O’Malley built one of the most complicated cases of his 47-year Justice Department career to prove that a New York businessman who owned a chain of nursing homes had failed to pay more than $38 million in employment taxes, then laundered the money by bouncing it from account to account. The defendant, Joseph Schwartz, pleaded guilty.
Just months after the defendants were sentenced, President Donald Trump pardoned them as he wielded his executive power to grant clemency to a host of convicts — many of them politically connected — outside of the traditional pardon-application process.
Jenkins was pardoned the day before he was set to begin his prison sentence, his entire punishment erased and the restitution he owed taxpayers wiped out.
“The president has the authority to grant a pardon, but when you have a strong case, and it is a good case, and you are holding elected officials accountable for wrongdoing, it is frustrating,” Smith said in an interview. “You put a lot of time and energy into these cases. It was a righteous case. The fact that the pardon happened before he went to prison, it undermines one of the purposes of the criminal justice system.”
White-collar and public corruption cases are among the most resource-intensive for the Justice Department to pursue. Prosecutors, FBI agents, and other specialists often work for years to build such cases, following money trails and interviewing scores of witnesses before they even file an indictment.
More than half a dozen experienced prosecutors interviewed for this story, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, said Trump’s clemency acts have eroded faith among current and former Justice Department employees that the cases they devote years to prosecuting will lead to accountability.
Calculating the amount of government resources poured into prosecuting a single case is next to impossible. But the cost can often run to millions of dollars when factoring in salaries and travel expenses, prosecutors said. On top of that, witnesses might require transportation to court and accommodation for the duration of the trial, paid for by taxpayers, the prosecutors noted.
Some complex cases can take years to investigate before charges are filed, with prosecutors interviewing dozens of witnesses before grand juries to build their cases. Years typically pass before those cases reach a trial date.
And once the trial arrives, prosecutors can spend upward of 80 hours a week preparing witnesses and getting exhibits ready. A long trial can involve more than 1,000 exhibits that need to be prepped and reviewed.
“To bring a case to trial is just an incredible effort and use of department resources,” said John Keller, the former acting head of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section. “There’s an intensity of experience and effort and emotion that doesn’t come at any other stage of the case. It’s the pinnacle of the practice.”
During Trump’s two terms, multiple defendants whose cases Keller has tried and supervised have received pardons. He said the pardons sting, but prosecutors are focused on their cases and trials, and do not allow a potential presidential act of clemency to influence how they approach a case.
“There’s a feeling that, if a jury or judge has reached a verdict after hearing all the evidence, it’s even more of a slap in the face to have clemency handed down,” he said.
During the first year of his second term, Trump has pardoned some of the most high-profile public corruption and white-collar defendants prosecuted during President Joe Biden’s administration, as well as some prosecuted during his own first term and some under earlier administrations.
Among them: former Republican congressman George Santos of New York, Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, former Tennessee state senator Brian Kelsey, and Trevor Milton, the former executive chairman of electric trucking company Nikola. One of the defining acts of Trump’s return to office has been his sweeping pardons of more than 1,500 people convicted in connection with the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including those who assaulted police officers.
Trump has defended his use of the pardons, saying the people to whom he granted clemency had been pursued by what he considers a corrupt and overzealous Justice Department under Biden. But the attorneys interviewed said they investigated each case scrupulously and apolitically to ensure a fair prosecution.
“It’s personally upsetting because of how much time I invested in this case — the time traveling, the late nights looking through documents and prepping for witness interviews,” said Jacob Steiner, a former Justice Department employee who prosecuted the Santos case. “Beyond and more important than the personal aspect, it’s really disheartening that someone who lied to the public and stole a lot of money just gets to walk free and not have to pay back his victims.”
Reality television star Todd Chrisley speaks as his daughter Savannah Chrisley looks on during a news conference on May 30, 2025, in Nashville. Todd Chrisley and his wife, Julie, were pardoned in May after being convicted in 2022 of bank fraud and tax evasion.
In Atlanta, prosecutors and federal agents spent years investigating reality stars Todd and Julie Chrisley. The couple were found guilty of bank fraud and tax evasion in 2022 after a nearly three-week jury trial. The Justice Department then defended the conviction during appeals. But after a public campaign from the Chrisleys’ daughter, who spoke at the Republican National Convention and socialized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, the president granted the reality stars a pardon in May.
In New York, prosecutors and federal agents spent roughly two years investigating the online black market Silk Road before indicting its creator, Ross Ulbricht, on charges related to the sale of drugs and other illegal goods on the platform. It took another two years before the case went to trial in 2015, resulting in convictions on seven counts and a sentence of life in prison. Trump pardoned Ulbricht on his first full day in office.
“I couldn’t believe it was a complete and total pardon,” said one law enforcement official who worked on the Silk Road case.
Santos, the Chrisleys, Ulbricht, and others who received pardons from Trump have said they deserved forgiveness because they were prosecuted at the hands of a corrupt Justice Department or were innocent and wrongly convicted.
Every recent president has exercised the pardon power to benefit his allies, but legal experts say that Trump’s use of clemency has bucked every norm of a largely undefined process. Typically, Justice Department employees vet tens of thousands of applications, only recommending to the president people who have completed their sentences and showed contrition. Trump, however, has pardoned criminals without any such vetting, people familiar with the process said, sometimes granting clemency to convicts who have not started their sentences or admitted wrongdoing. Trump and his allies have pointed to Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter as an example of how Trump’s predecessors politicized the pardon.
O’Malley, who retired in 2023 and described himself as a supporter of the president, said he was flummoxed over Trump’s pardoning of Schwartz, the nursing home magnate. He said that sifting through the more than 100 accounts Schwartz set up to evade taxes had required a lot of effort, and that the prosecutors and agents assigned to the case did “yeoman’s work.”
The Washington Post reported that Schwartz paid two lobbyists, right-wing provocateurs Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, $960,000 to help secure a pardon from Trump. (Schwartz must still complete a sentence on state charges in an Arkansas prison.)
“I think the president was misled as to the reasons why [Schwartz] should be pardoned,” O’Malley said. “I can’t see anyone accepting an application and alleging that he somehow deserves to be pardoned unconditionally and completely in this case. Something had to be said to the president. Whether he was paying attention to it or not, I don’t know.”
O’Malley continued: “I was stunned and angered. The $5 million in restitution was vacated. It was a strong case. I do not indict cases on a wing and a prayer.”
In December — less than a month after Trump pardoned Schwartz — the Internal Revenue Service decided to present O’Malley with an award for his work on the Schwartz case. O’Malley said he declined to attend.
Raquel Pacheco began recording on her phone Monday as she opened her front door to the pair of police officers standing outside.
They told her they had questions about a Facebook comment she had written.
“Is that your account?” one officer asked. The other held out his phone, showing a message Pacheco had written days earlier about the mayor of Miami Beach, where she lives.
Pacheco had left the comment about a post from Mayor Steven Meiner, calling his city a “safe haven for everyone.” Meiner, who is Jewish, contrasted Miami Beachwith “places like New York City,” where he accused officials of discriminating against Jews and “promoting boycotts” of Jewish and Israeli-owned businesses.
In a series of replies, Pacheco called him racist and criticized his actions toward a number of communities, including Palestinians and LGBTQ people. She said she felt his words of welcome were superficial.
At her door, the officers told Pacheco they were looking for the commenter because that person’s words could “probably incite somebody to do something bad,” her video shows. Pacheco refused to answer their questions without an attorney present, and the officers left within minutes.
Heart racing, Pacheco shut her door and texted her recording of the exchange to three friends who practice law. She struggled to comprehend why the officers were sent to question her – a private citizen who once ran for elected office, knew the mayor and other local officials, and had deep faith in American values. Where the officers saw a comment that could incite violence, Pacheco saw an expression of her right to free speech, she said.
“If we can’t hold this line, we are screwed,” Pacheco, 51, told The Washington Post.
The Miami Beach Police Department on Tuesday evening told The Post that detectives had “conducted a brief, consensual encounter” to make sure there was no safety threat to the mayor or the community. They assessed the social media posting, the department said, to be cautious, citing “recent national concerns regarding antisemitism.”
Meiner said in a statement Tuesday evening that the situation was “a police matter,” adding that he was “a strong supporter of the State of Israel” and its “right to defend its citizens.”
“Others might have a different view and that is their right,” Meiner wrote. “In this situation, our police department believed that inflammatory language that is false and without any factual basis was justification for follow-up to assess the level of threat and to protect the safety of all involved.”
The now-public tussle over Pacheco’s Facebook comment, which was first reported by the Miami Herald, is another salvo in a battle between activists across the country and authorities whom they accuse of stifling speech about divisive political topics, all against the backdrop of political violence that has rocked the country. In recent years, people have faced suspensions, firings and other punishments for social media posts about the Israel-Gaza war, the assassination attempts against President Donald Trump and the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Pacheco, who has lived in Miami Beach since 2004 and has run for local elected office three times as a Democrat, said she voted for Meiner in 2023. But she started speaking out against the mayor when he began addressing issues such as crime and homelessness by taking a page from “the Trump playbook,” using measures that she saw as laden with cruelty, Pacheco said. Her criticism often took the form of Facebook posts and comments, alongside advocacy work in the community.
Miami Beach voters elected Meiner to his office, which is nonpartisan, a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed. Since then, the city has experienced a deepening rift among residents, including between Meiner and his constituents.
In March, the mayor tried to end the lease of a local cinema after it screened “No Other Land,” a movie made by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers that shows Israelis bulldozing a town in the West Bank. Meiner described the documentary at the time as a “false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people.” He backpedaled his efforts against the theater after a fraught, nine-hour city commission meeting.
Pacheco referenced the incident in the comment that led police to her doorstep.
On Jan. 6, Meiner’s official Facebook account published the post about Miami Beach being a welcoming place. It featured a photo of the mayor with the following text: “Miami Beach is a safe haven for everyone. We will always stand firm against any discrimination.”
Pacheco replied: “‘We will stand firm against any discrimination’ – unless you’re Palestinian, or Muslim or you think those people have a right to live.” She added: “Careful your racism is showing.”
The next day, the mayor’s post was shared on a community Facebook page, where Pacheco again responded.
“The guy who consistently calls for the death of all Palestinians, tried to shut down a theater for showing a movie that hurt his feelings, and REFUSES to stand up for the LGBTQ community in any way (even leaves the room when they vote on related matters) wants you to know that you’re all welcome here,” she wrote, alongside three clown emojis.
It was this comment that police showed her when she opened her door Monday, Pacheco said.
“This is freedom of speech, this is America, right? I’m a veteran,” she told the officers, according to her recording of the two-minute conversation.
“And I agree with you 100 percent,” one officer responded. “We’re just trying to see if it’s you, because if we’re not talking to the right person, we want to go see who the right person is.”
Pacheco, who said she served in Connecticut’s Army National Guard from 1993 to 1999, said the officers told her she was not going to jail and that they were “just here to have a conversation.” Later in the video, anofficer tells Pacheco: “I would think to refrain from posting things like that, because that can get something incited.”
After the brief exchange, Pacheco sat in disbelief.
“There were cops at my door because of something I said,” Pacheco told The Post on Tuesday. “It felt like such a foreign, alien feeling.”
In the day since the officers’ visit, she has retained an attorney and made public records requests about the situation. Should it escalate, she said she was “prepared to sue.” While she described herself as progressive, she said she is “conservative when it comes to the Constitution,” a document she had come to revere since moving to the United Statesfrom Portugal in the 1980s. She said she strongly sees Monday’s interaction at her home as a violation of the rights guaranteed by it.
“I’m not one to stand down,” Pacheco said. “I don’t do well with bullies.”
And the next time she sees a social media post from her mayor, or other elected officials for that matter, Pacheco said she knows what she will do: open the comment section, type her thoughts and hit send.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that starting Feb. 1 he will deny federal funding to any states that are home to local governments resisting his administration’s immigration policies, expanding on previous threats to cut off resources to the so-called sanctuary cities themselves.
Such an action could have far-reaching impacts across the U.S., potentially even in places that aren’t particularly friendly to noncitizens.
Two previous efforts by Trump to cut off some funding for sanctuary jurisdictions were shut down by courts.
Trump unveiled the concept this time late in a speech Tuesday at the Detroit Economic Club, without offering specifics.
“Starting Feb. 1, we’re not making any payments to sanctuary cities or states having sanctuary cities, because they do everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens and it breeds fraud and crime and all of the other problems that come,” he said. “So we’re not making any payment to anybody that supports sanctuary cities.”
Back in Washington, Trump was asked by reporters what kind of funding would be affected on Feb. 1: “You’ll see,” he said. “It’ll be significant.”
There is no strict definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities, but the terms generally describe limited cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Courts have rejected the idea before
In an executive orders last year, the president directed federal officials to withhold money from sanctuary jurisdictions that seek to shield people in the country illegally from deportation.
A California-based federal judge struck it down despite government lawyers saying it was too early to stop the plan when no action had been taken and no specific conditions had been laid out.
In Trump’s first term in office, in 2017, courts struck down his effort to cut funding to the cities.
Some of the details are tricky
The Justice Department last year published a list of three dozen states, cities and counties that it considers to be sanctuary jurisdictions.
The list is overwhelmingly made up of places where the governments are controlled by Democrats, including the states of California, Connecticut and New York, cities such as Boston and New York and counties including Baltimore County, Maryland, and Cook County, Illinois.
That list replaced an earlier, longer one that was met with pushback from officials who said it wasn’t clear why their jurisdictions were on it.
The administration has been threatening funding in specific places
The federal government has moved to halt funding for a variety of programs in recent weeks and is already facing legal challenges.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has warned states that have refused to provide data on recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program money that they’ll be docked administrative funds. A court fight over the request for information was already underway before the threat came. Money hasn’t been stopped yet.
The U.S. Department of Health and Social Services said last week that it was halting money from five Democratic-led states for daycare subsidies and other aid to low-income families with children over unspecified suspicions about fraud. A court put that on hold
The administration has tried to use additional financial pressure against Minnesota, a state where it has also sent a wave of federal officers in an immigration crackdown. The Agriculture Department has said it’s freezing funding in the state — but without laying out many details.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also told Minnesota last week that it intends to withhold $515 million every three months from 14 Medicaid programs that were deemed “high risk” after rejecting a corrective action plan it demanded because of fraud allegations. The amount is equivalent to one-fourth of the federal money for those programs. State officials said Tuesday that they’re appealing.
HARRISBURG — State Treasurer Stacy Garrity has been the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s endorsed candidate for governor since September, but few candidates have stepped up to run alongside her for lieutenant governor.
Only two candidates have officially thrown their hats in the ring for Republican lieutenant governor, as Garrity faces the uphill battle of running against a popular incumbent in Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro. And despite amassing unusually early support from the state party, recruiting someone to run as her No. 2 has proven challenging, as some potential candidates have declined to run.
Garrity said Monday at the Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon she’s in talks with “a lot of people,” and she’s confident she’ll find a running mate “perfect for the ticket.”
But time is of the essence, as she has less than a month until the state GOP meets for its winter meeting, where the party is expected to endorse a lieutenant governor candidate. Whomever she picks is likely to get the nod.
“In many respects, it’s up to Stacy Garrity,” said GOP strategist Charlie Gerow. “The lieutenant governor candidate has to not only be a good political fit, but has to be a good personal fit for her. Otherwise, the ticket falls apart before you get to Election Day.”
So far, the only two GOP candidates to formally announce their campaigns for lieutenant governor are State Sen. Cris Dush (R., Jefferson), who is one of the most conservative members of the Senate GOP caucus, and Bucks County businessman and political newcomer Brian Thomas. Dush said he’d likely pursue the GOP primary nomination even if he isn’t endorsed by the state party, while Thomas announced his candidacy last week in a press release and said he is now reaching out to party leaders seeking their support.
And more far-right Republicans have publicly floated a run, teeing up a potential battle among some of the state’s most conservative members to run alongside Garrity on the November ballot.
In Pennsylvania, candidates for lieutenant governor face their own primary races separate from the candidates for governor. After the primary, the winners are joined onto one ticket and run together in the general election.
Former State Rep. Rick Saccone, who previously ran for lieutenant governor and was on U.S. Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot but did not face criminal charges, has publicly stated his interest in the role. Saccone said he would not enter the race if the state party backed another candidate.
And State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a far-right Republican who lost to Shapiro in 2022 and last week ruled out a second run for the GOP nomination, later claimed on a local radio station that Garrity would need him as her running mate if she wants to win.
Few more moderate options have emerged.
Montgomery County Commissioner Tom DiBello, a Republican from Shapiro’s home county, said in an interview that he had been approached about pursuing the role. DiBello said he received a positive reception when he traveled the state contemplating a run, but he implied Monday that he’d moved on. On Tuesday night DiBello lost his bid to be the next chair of the county party to his former running mate, Liz Ferry.
“I had a lot of support out there as far as potentially running for lieutenant governor, but I’m right now very dedicated to Montgomery County,” DiBello added.
A number of other officials are rumored to have withdrawn themselves from consideration or are still in talks with Garrity’s campaign, several Republican insiders said.
This time around, the sense among Pennsylvania state party members is that Garrity should be given leeway to choose her running mate and party faithful will endorse her choice.
Many hadn’t even heard who might be in the running. But several Republicans who spoke to The Inquirer said they think Garrity needs to pick someone who will appeal to Democrats and independents who voted for Shapiro four years ago.
“We’re a purple state, and my sense is a more moderate candidate that appeals to a bigger swath of the electorate would be, if I were selecting, would be a preference here,” said Jason Richey, the chair of the Allegheny County GOP.
Or, as Val Biancaniello, a Republican state committeewoman from Delaware County, put it, a candidate needs “statewide appeal.”
State Treasurer Stacy Garrity greets supporters following a campaign rally in Bucks County on Sept. 25, 2025. The GOP gubernatorial candidate visited the Newtown Sports & Events Center, in one of Pennsylvania’s top swing counties.
DiBello argued that Garrity’s running mate needs corporate and government experience, though he refused to name anyone else being considered behind the scenes. Garrity said she believed that DiBello was no longer “in the mix” for the job, but she did not expand further.
“I’m not putting my finger on the scale,” DiBello said before joking: “I’ve heard this Montgomery County commissioner would be awesome. I’ll put my finger on that scale.”
Garrity largely declined to comment on the candidates whose names have been circulating for her running mate, except for Mastriano.
“I didn’t even know he wasn’t running for governor until last week,” Garrity told reporters, noting her friendship with Mastriano. “We’re in discussion with a number of people, and I know that we will have the absolute best partner as lieutenant governor when the time is right.”
In his campaign launch Thursday, Shapiro tied Garrity to the extremes of her party, asking voters to choose between “getting stuff done” and “chaos.” A far-right running mate will make that message easier for Democrats as they work to secure the governor’s mansion for another four years.
Despite this, Mastriano was bullish Friday morning speaking on WEEO News Talk 103.7 FM in central Pennsylvania.
“That’s a possibility,” Mastriano said about a potential lieutenant governor run. “To be honest, that probably [is] the only way to generate some excitement for the Garrity ticket, and we know Garrity being on top of the ticket, that’s probably the only way the party would win if I did that.”
