Latest news with #Biden-led
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Senate Republican aims to treat visa overstayers like illegal entrants in response to Colorado terror attack
FIRST ON FOX — A Senate Republican wants to hold people who overstay their visas to the same standard as illegal immigrants in the wake of the tragedy in Boulder, Colo. Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., is set to introduce legislation on Tuesday that would reclassify the act of overstaying a visa as "illegal entry," effectively treating those who stay too long the same as someone that illegally enters the U.S. Flashback: Us Lawmakers, Officials Warned About Terrorist Attacks From Foreign Nationals Long Before Boulder Banks' bill comes on the heels of the weekend attack in Colorado where Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national whose visa expired in March, allegedly targeted a pro-Israel protest meant to advocate for the release of hostages still held by the terror organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In a one-pager of the bill obtained by Fox News Digital, Banks explicitly pointed to Soliman, along with the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers, as examples of people who overstayed their visas. Alleged Boulder Terrorist Overstayed Visa, Granted Work Permit By Biden Administration Read On The Fox News App Soliman, in particular, came to the U.S. two years ago under a work visa from the Biden-led Department of Homeland Security. "The Boulder terrorist and 9/11 hijackers didn't sneak in, they overstayed visas," Banks said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "That's just as serious and just as dangerous. My bill cracks down on visa overstays with criminal penalties to stop threats before they happen." The latest data from the DHS from fiscal 2023 found that over 565,000 people overstayed their visas. Boulder Terror Attack Puts Biden-era Immigration Policies In The Hot Seat: 'Must Be Fully Reversed' Along with reclassifying those that overstay their visas, his legislation would make visa overstays a misdemeanor criminal offense punishable by a maximum of six months behind bars for first-time offenders, which would crank up to a maximum of two years for subsequent offenses. It would also raise civil penalties to between $500 and $1000, with penalties doubling for each subsequent offense. Currently, visa overstay penalties start at $50. Soliman on Sunday allegedly attacked the "Run for Their Lives" group, which was engaged in a peaceful protest advocating for the release of hostages held by Hamas. He allegedly used Molotov cocktails on the group, injuring eight people whose ages ranged from 52 to 88-years-old. One of the victims was a survivor of the Holocaust. Since then, Soliman has been charged with a federal hate crime, attempted murder, assault and other charges following what the Fbi dubbed a "targeted terror attack." Combined, the charges against Soliman carry a total of 624 article source: Senate Republican aims to treat visa overstayers like illegal entrants in response to Colorado terror attack
Daily Mail
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Trump helps save stunning Yellowstone-style ranch after Biden accused owners of STEALING government land
The Trump administration has dropped charges against a South Dakota ranching family who were accused of stealin g federal land. Charles and Heather Maude were embroiled in a bitter dispute with the Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture (USDA), which claimed the couple had stolen 25 acres of grassland. They were charged last year under the Biden-headed USDA, which accused them of unlawfully using the plot to graze their cattle. The couple are fifth generation ranchers whose family had owned the plot since 1910, well beyond the Forest Service's inception. They maintained they had done nothing wrong. 'When this hit, it hit at the heart and soul of this place,' Heather said at a press conference announcing the dismissal of charges. 'When this unnecessary grievance came to our family we knew we were innocent of any wrongdoing and sought to find a resolution and that was not forthcoming from the other side.' The couple were operating Maude Hog and Cattle without issue until March 29 last year, when they received a complaint about a no hunting sign on their property. The dispute revealed that a fence was blocking access to Buffalo Gap National Grasslands which led to the couple accepting a USDA survey of their boundaries. When an alleged discrepancy was discovered, the Biden-led USDA aggressively pursued charges instead of trying to resolve it in line with their 'good neighbor' policy. The Maudes, of Caputa, were separately served grand jury indictments of alleged theft of government property on June 24, 2024. They were stunned when Forest Service Special Agent Travis Lunders showed up at their door unannounced, armed, and in full tactical gear, according to Cowboy State Daily. Due to their separate indictments, the couple were not allowed to discuss the case with each other and had to fork out for separate legal fees. The couple's troubles even made their way up to Congress' Natural Resources Committee after Senator Mike Rounds wrote a letter to former US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack. 'This action represents a direct conflict to an agreed-upon plan, wherein the landowners were working cooperatively with the USFS to resolve the issue,' he told his fellow politician, according to Western Livestock Journal (WLJ). If convicted they faced up to ten years in jail and a $250,000 fine each. But they are now working to put the ordeal behind them. 'Thanks to the leadership and the unequivocal and bold leadership of President Trump and his directive to put Americans first, we have the pleasure to announce that the criminal prosecution of the Maudes is now over,' USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said. 'They will not be driven from their home. They will not be jailed. They will not be fined. And their children will grow up with the mother and the father they love and who love them.' Charles' family has been ranching since 1907 when Thomas Maude purchased the land, according to the family's website. Charles purchased some of the land in 2002 at the age of 17 and a year later, when his grandfather died, he purchased the rest with the help of his parents.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pro-life father whose home FBI raided appeals ruling by 'activist' judge: ‘Faulty investigation'
FIRST ON FOX— Pro-life activist Mark Houck, who sued the Justice Department over his arrest and prosecution under the Biden administration, said his family has been blocked from settling their lawsuit by an "activist" federal judge. Houck filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department last year, seeking restitution for what he called "a faulty investigation" and "excessive force" after a SWAT team of around 25 people arrested him in front of his children. Now, Houck is appealing the judge's decision to the Third District Court and calling on the Trump administration to follow through on ending the weaponization of the DOJ against pro-lifers such as him once and for all. He discusses the case with his wife and 40 Days for Life founder Shawn Carney in a new video shared with Fox News Digital. "You live in fear of it happening again, not only to yourselves but to others, and you want to know that this administration, which rode this message to the White House, is willing to step in," Houck said in the video, adding, "and they're doing it for other organizations, they're doing it in the DOGE, they're doing it with all the things, they're cleaning house." Pro-life Journalist Assaulted On Street Assigns Blame To Democratic Rhetoric In an interview with Fox News Digital, 40 Days for Life President Shawn Carney said: "I just think, Democratic or Republican, we're tired of activist judges on both sides of the political aisle." Read On The Fox News App "Nobody likes it – and just, this guy's a victim," Carney said, adding that the Justice Department "needs to fix this." News of the appeal, which is slated to be filed by 40 Days for Life on behalf of Houck, was shared exclusively with Fox News Digital. The group has already filed a Notice to Appeal to the courts. At issue are the settlement negotiations that 40 Days for Life entered into with the Justice Department in early 2025, following Trump's inauguration. U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond, a Bush appointee, abruptly issued a motion to dismiss the case last month, effectively ending the negotiations that had been playing out between Houck and the Trump-led Justice Department. Federal Judges In New York And Texas Block Trump Deportations After Scotus Ruling It appears that the motion to dismiss the case had originally been filed by the Biden-led Justice Department, which charged Houck in 2021 for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE Act. In the video, Carney and Houck discussed the judge's decision as well as changes in the law enforcement community more broadly, and what they hope to be new priorities of the second Trump administration. Houck said his family is disappointed by the judge's actions and added that "it reflects poorly against the Trump administration." Speaking with Fox News Digital, Carney lamented the dismissal of their lawsuit by Diamond, whom he called an "activist" judge and accused of political bias. Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that the Trump administration would make it right. Pennsylvania Jury Acquits Pro-life Activist Mark Houck On Charges Of Obstructing Abortion Clinic Access "We are appealing the decision of the judge to continue the lawsuit against the DOJ," Carney said. "And of course, if we could get back on track with that, the idea is that then we would be able to settle with DOJ, since they want to settle." "We have a very strong appeal," he said of their yet-to-be-filed brief. "We're very confident about the appeal." The FBI and Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment. Houck, a longtime volunteer with 40 Days for Life, was arrested in 2021 for his actions outside a Planned Parenthood clinic, which prosecutors said violated the so-called Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act. He was acquitted by a Philadelphia jury, but could have faced up to eleven years in prison if convicted. Both his high-profile arrest at home, and the lengthy prison sentence he could have faced if convicted, prompted outrage from pro-life groups, including 40 Days for Life, where Houck has volunteered since 2007. Supreme Court Freezes Order To Return Man From El Salvador Prison In 2023, after Houck's acquittal, 40 Days for Life joined Houck in suing the Justice Department over the ordeal, accusing law enforcement personnel of conducting a "faulty investigation" against him, and accusing law enforcement of using "excessive force" in the FBI raid of his family home. Carney has weighed in on the topic before, saying in a post on X this year that 40 Days for Life was "targeted constantly by the Biden DOJ." "With 1,000,000 peaceful volunteers we will always fight for free speech for pro-life and pro-abortion Americans alike. God bless Trump and Vance for backing us up," said article source: Pro-life father whose home FBI raided appeals ruling by 'activist' judge: 'Faulty investigation'
Fox News
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Pro-life father whose home FBI raided appeals ruling by 'activist' judge: ‘Faulty investigation'
FIRST ON FOX— Pro-life activist Mark Houck, who sued the Justice Department over his arrest and prosecution under the Biden administration, said his family has been blocked from settling their lawsuit by an "activist" federal judge. Houck filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department last year, seeking restitution for what he called "a faulty investigation" and "excessive force" after a SWAT team of around 25 people arrested him in front of his children. Now, Houck is appealing the judge's decision to the Third District Court and calling on the Trump administration to follow through on ending the weaponization of the DOJ against pro-lifers such as him once and for all. He discusses the case with his wife and 40 Days for Life founder Shawn Carney in a new video shared with Fox News Digital. "You live in fear of it happening again, not only to yourselves but to others, and you want to know that this administration, which rode this message to the White House, is willing to step in," Houck said in the video, adding, "and they're doing it for other organizations, they're doing it in the DOGE, they're doing it with all the things, they're cleaning house." In an interview with Fox News Digital, 40 Days for Life President Shawn Carney said: "I just think, Democratic or Republican, we're tired of activist judges on both sides of the political aisle." "Nobody likes it – and just, this guy's a victim," Carney said, adding that the Justice Department "needs to fix this." News of the appeal, which is slated to be filed by 40 Days for Life on behalf of Houck, was shared exclusively with Fox News Digital. The group has already filed a Notice to Appeal to the courts. At issue are the settlement negotiations that 40 Days for Life entered into with the Justice Department in early 2025, following Trump's inauguration. U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond, a Bush appointee, abruptly issued a motion to dismiss the case last month, effectively ending the negotiations that had been playing out between Houck and the Trump-led Justice Department. It appears that the motion to dismiss the case had originally been filed by the Biden-led Justice Department, which charged Houck in 2021 for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE Act. In the video, Carney and Houck discussed the judge's decision as well as changes in the law enforcement community more broadly, and what they hope to be new priorities of the second Trump administration. Houck said his family is disappointed by the judge's actions and added that "it reflects poorly against the Trump administration." Speaking with Fox News Digital, Carney lamented the dismissal of their lawsuit by Diamond, whom he called an "activist" judge and accused of political bias. Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that the Trump administration would make it right. "We are appealing the decision of the judge to continue the lawsuit against the DOJ," Carney said. "And of course, if we could get back on track with that, the idea is that then we would be able to settle with DOJ, since they want to settle." "We have a very strong appeal," he said of their yet-to-be-filed brief. "We're very confident about the appeal." The FBI and Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment. Houck, a longtime volunteer with 40 Days for Life, was arrested in 2021 for his actions outside a Planned Parenthood clinic, which prosecutors said violated the so-called Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act. He was acquitted by a Philadelphia jury, but could have faced up to eleven years in prison if convicted. Both his high-profile arrest at home, and the lengthy prison sentence he could have faced if convicted, prompted outrage from pro-life groups, including 40 Days for Life, where Houck has volunteered since 2007. In 2023, after Houck's acquittal, 40 Days for Life joined Houck in suing the Justice Department over the ordeal, accusing law enforcement personnel of conducting a "faulty investigation" against him, and accusing law enforcement of using "excessive force" in the FBI raid of his family home. Carney has weighed in on the topic before, saying in a post on X this year that 40 Days for Life was "targeted constantly by the Biden DOJ." "With 1,000,000 peaceful volunteers we will always fight for free speech for pro-life and pro-abortion Americans alike. God bless Trump and Vance for backing us up," said Carney.
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
BLM trims environmental review before $20M sale of oil and gas leases
This article was first published by Inside Climate News, and is reprinted with permission. Marianne LavelleInside Climate News After stripping consideration of environmental justice issues and climate costs from its final analysis of the project, President Donald Trump's administration opened one of its first sales of oil and gas leases on federal land. The offering by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management on Thursday, Feb. 20, was a relatively small one — seven parcels covering 1,317 acres in southeastern New Mexico, in the oil- and gas-rich Permian Basin. But the administration used the sale to showcase its new pro-development approach to energy production, free of the constraints that bound President Joe Biden's administration. Ultimately, BLM garnered $20.7 million from the sale, with 25 bidders competing for the tracts. Ironically, environmental justice and climate considerations did not hold back the Biden administration when it came to the New Mexico sale. Like the Trump administration, it concluded that there would be no significant environmental impact to leasing the land. The Biden-led BLM had announced last November that it planned for the sale to go through. But the Trump administration has now made clear that it does not intend to map out the racial and ethnic makeup of lease locations in order to assess whether a sale might have disproportionate impacts on minority populations. As for the costs of increased greenhouse gas emissions, BLM said it was under no legal obligation to perform such an analysis — an assertion that lawyers for environmentalists familiar with the project dispute. The Trump administration said the 'social cost of greenhouse gas' calculations that the Biden administration incorporated throughout federal decision-making provided an unbalanced picture. These failed to consider the 'benefits' of greenhouse gases, BLM officials wrote. 'Costs attributed to [greenhouse gases] are often so variable and uncertain that they are unhelpful for BLM's analysis,' the environmental assessment of the New Mexico project said. 'The full social benefits of carbon-based energy production have not been monetized, and quantifying only the costs of GHG emissions, but not the benefits, would yield information that is both potentially inaccurate and not useful.' Environmentalists blasted the administration for the revisions, which they said were highly unusual, since the document already had been revised by the Biden administration in response to public notice and comment last year. They said courts repeatedly have required BLM to quantify the GHG emissions impacts of leasing, and the social cost of greenhouse gas estimates that the Biden administration used were a well-supported tool for doing so. 'The Trump administration appears desperate to ignore reality, but wishful thinking can't erase climate change,' said Ben Tettlebaum, director and senior staff attorney with The Wilderness Society, a conservation nonprofit. 'Nor can the administration ignore its obligation to properly analyze the devastating effects of greenhouse gas emissions stemming from its oil and gas leasing decisions, as it has attempted to do for this sale.' 'Prioritize efficiency' The New Mexico lease sale environmental assessment arrived the morning after the White House Council on Environmental Quality launched an overhaul of the entire process of such assessments, which are conducted under one of the foundational U.S. environmental laws, the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. NEPA doesn't restrict federal agency actions, but requires detailed environmental study of any major federal actions. Because those studies involve public notice and comment, communities see the process as their main vehicle for weighing in on federal permitting, oil, gas and mineral sales and the like. But industries have often criticized the process for slowing down decision-making. On Wednesday, CEQ moved to rescind all regulations that had been put in place to implement NEPA since the presidency of Jimmy Carter nearly 50 years ago. In their place, the Council posted guidance on the Department of Energy website that said federal agencies should expedite permitting, 'prioritize efficiency and certainty over any other policy objectives,' and should not include any environmental justice considerations in their NEPA determinations. Trump has not yet appointed someone to lead CEQ; the guidance was signed by the current chief of staff, Katherine Scarlett, a former staffer to Senate Republicans who focused on NEPA issues. The rescission of the regulations will have to go through a public notice and comment period before it is finalized. In the interim final rule that rescinded the regulations, CEQ said the changes were necessary because of a decision made earlier this month by a federal judge in North Dakota, who threw out Biden's NEPA regulations. U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor, an appointee from Trump's first term, issued a sweeping ruling in favor of 20 Republican-led states, saying that CEQ never had authority to write implementing regulations for NEPA at all. 'Censorship' BLM's handling of the New Mexico lease sale makes clear that new NEPA policy is already being implemented. Both the Biden and Trump administrations concluded that the lease sale, which would result in a 0.02 percent increase in the number of wells over the 45,579 existing active wells, would not have a significant effect on the human environment that could not be mitigated by appropriate protection measures. No residences were located within the parcels that were up for sale, and only one parcel had a residence within 1.25 miles of its boundary. But the Biden administration, unlike the Trump administration, had included a detailed demographic analysis of the area, showing that the total minority population in the surrounding Census tracts studied reached as high as 93 percent, significantly above than the U.S. average of 41.1 percent. BLM did not comment in the Feb. 20 document on why it was eliminating the environmental justice analysis. 'It's more like censorship than it is an actual well-reasoned decision,' said Rose Rushing, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center. 'There's no explanation of why those communities are no longer included, and these are the communities that have already borne the brunt of this oil and gas development and all kinds of fossil fuel extraction over the last 100 years. It's so wrong and unfair to just completely and arbitrarily strip it out.' A BLM spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment on the changes made to the environmental assessment. BLM did go into some detail in the document on why it had eliminated a calculation of the social cost of greenhouse gases. It cited the reasoning in Trump's executive order Unleashing American Energy, signed on Inauguration Day, which described the social cost of greenhouse gases metric as 'marked by logical deficiencies, a poor basis in empirical science, politicization, and the absence of a foundation in legislation.' In fact, federal agencies have been required by law since the 1970s to conduct cost-benefit analyses on regulatory decisions that have large economic impacts. Economists developed the social cost of carbon over the past two decades to take into account that regulators were not weighing the costs of decision-making today against the high costs of climate change. The metric has been hotly debated, especially how to account for costs far in the future. The Biden administration, after originally adopting the Obama administration's benchmark of $51 per metric ton of carbon, ultimately arrived at a figure of $190 per ton. BLM's analysis of the New Mexico lease sale, under Biden, estimated the social cost of the greenhouse gases that would be emitted over the lifetime of the leases to be between $235 million and $678 million. But now the BLM has said not only would it not include the social cost of carbon emissions from its analysis, it argued that it was not necessary to do any cost-benefit analysis at all, since it did not consider the lease sale the kind of rulemaking that would require it under the law. The courts will likely be asked to decide that issue. Although environmentalists said it was too early to tell if the New Mexico lease sale in particular would face a legal challenge, they said they would fight any effort to reduce public participation or scale back the environmental analysis included in the NEPA process. 'The Biden administration's decisions weren't perfect, and we often disagreed with those and litigated over them,' Rushing said. 'But the new Trump-era decisions that we're seeing — the complete removal of entire environmental justice analyses or climate change analyses — that's something new that's substantially worse. We can't allow the federal government to make decisions on that basis.' Nicholas Kusnetz contributed to this report. Marianne Lavelle is the Washington, D.C. bureau chief for Inside Climate News. She has covered the environment, science, law, and business in Washington, D.C. for more than two decades. She can be reached at Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here.
