Latest news with #KrisKobach
Fox News
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Republican AGs visit US-Mexico border wall as Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' clears expansion funding
YUMA, ARIZ. – Republican attorneys general from 11 states visited the U.S.-Mexico border wall in remote Yuma, Arizona, this week, touting a more than 90% decrease in illegal crossings since President Donald Trump began his second term. Their visit came a day before the House narrowly passed Trump's "big, beautiful bill," which in part allocates $46.5 billion to revive construction of the wall, which at its current stage covers just a quarter of the approximately 1,900-mile-long stretch separating the United States from Mexico. In Yuma, a city of just 110,000 people, local officials briefed the Republican attorneys general of Kansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Alabama, Montana, Iowa and Indiana on how an average of 1,500 people were illegally crossing the border a day during the first six months of the Biden administration. That's dropped to about four daily illegal crossings since Trump took office. In addition to the border wall itself, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach -- chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association – told Fox News Digital the administration needs other "force multipliers," especially with the task of carrying out the "largest interior removal since the Eisenhower administration." He announced an additional three GOP states entered into 287(G) agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which means local and state deputies and officers are trained to exercise federal law enforcement powers, including making immigration-related arrests, initiating removal processes, conducting investigations and tapping into ICE databases. "The thing the Trump administration needs the most right now is force multipliers," Kobach said. "Even if we doubled the number of Border Patrol agents at ICE stations, we still wouldn't have enough. This border wall, which I'm looking at, is one force multiplier at the border. The other big force multiplier is state and local law enforcement signing 287(g) agreements and then helping ICE in the interior. And that's where the red states are leading the way." South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said 540 kilograms of fentanyl and 850 kilograms of cocaine were trafficked into the Palmetto State, originating from Mexican drug cartels. One kilo alone is enough to kill half a million people. "This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. I have two teenage kids in high school. When you hear about parents losing a kid in an overdose, it really strikes at your core. And so it's not just about law enforcement, it's about national security," Wilson told Fox News Digital. "As a 29-year veteran of the Army, an Iraq war veteran. I think in terms of national security, as well as law enforcement. This right here, what happens here, President Trump's policies here have empowered local law enforcement and local and state prosecutors like myself to be able to more effectively combat the illicit activity, starting with Mexican drug cartels and gangs like Tren de Aragua." Wilson said it is important to fortify a "digital border," noting how Mexican drug cartels, Chinese nationals and other illicit criminal organizations launder the proceeds of human and drug trafficking and other crimes using platforms such as WeChat. Wilson has partnered with North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, a Democrat, and attorneys general from four other states in a bipartisan effort to target the Chinese app allegedly linked to the international fentanyl trade. The 11 Republican attorneys general in Yuma highlighted the importance of making the trip to the southern border despite their home states not directly bordering Mexico. Under the Biden administration, the Republicans argued that every state became a border state with the trafficking of fentanyl and other deadly drugs, as well as people across the border. "In the dark days of the Biden administration, this part of the border saw 1,500 illegal crossings a day. Today? Just four. That's leadership," Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said. "In Kentucky, we lost 1,400 lives last year to drugs coming over this border. That's not abstract—it's empty chairs at kitchen tables. I'm here to thank the men and women who wear the badge, who've made this border secure again." "Alabama may not be a border state, but we've seen the cost of an open border – fentanyl deaths, rising crime. The difference now? It's not the law that changed, it's the leadership," Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said. "Border encounters are down 93%, gotaways down 95%. That's the result of letting immigration enforcement do their jobs. We're no longer the last line of defense—we're partners in restoring the rule of law." "When federal officials can't do their jobs, every state becomes a border state—even Indiana," Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said. "We were the first non-border state to sue the Biden administration over its lawless immigration policies. Now, under new leadership, morale at the border has skyrocketed. I'm here not just for our law enforcement, but for the teachers overwhelmed by the fallout, for the parents and professionals caught in a broken system. Enough is enough." A stop on the tour included seeing pallets of $2 million worth of border wall supplies paid for under Trump's first term that the Biden administration prevented federal contractors from erecting – something Kobach categorized as "dereliction of duty" and "deliberate efforts to keep our border open." The Republican attorneys general also heard from the local hospital system, which incurred $26 million in unreimbursed care costs during a six-month period between December 2021 and May 2022 primarily due to treating migrants. At the peak of the crisis, approximately 350,000 illegal aliens crossed the border through the Yuma sector in a single year under the Biden administration. The surge caused $1.2 million in losses to three family farms in the region, as migrants camped out and defecated around crops. Local officials underscored the national food security risks, given that Yuma produces 2,500 semi-loads of leafy greens per day during peak season. The Marine Top Gun School brings thousands more U.S. Marines to Yuma every six months, but live-fire drills had to be shut down due to the surge in illegal crossings near ranges, local officials told the attorneys general, highlighting how military readiness was also impacted due to the Biden border crisis.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Yahoo
Kansas man gets 3 years for striking, throwing baby
RUSSELL COUNTY, Kan. (KSNW) — A Paradise man has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for injuring his 5-month-old daughter in what prosecutors described as a violent act of child abuse. James Z.T. Rhodes, 33, was sentenced to 41 months in the Kansas Department of Corrections following a guilty plea to felony child abuse, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach announced Wednesday. Russell County District Court Judge Levi Morris handed down the sentence. Silver Alert search intensifies in Cowley County According to court records, Rhodes admitted to throwing the infant into her crib and striking her forehead with his open hand during a July 2024 incident that left the child with life-threatening injuries. The baby was transported to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita for emergency treatment. Assistant Attorney General Nicole Southall, who prosecuted the case, said the sentence was a critical step in protecting the victim and preventing further harm. 'Our job is to protect the most vulnerable,' Southall said in a statement. 'Holding the abuser accountable before a homicide occurred is a fundamental step in our pursuit of justice for this child.' The Kansas Bureau of Investigation led the investigation. For more Kansas news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news by downloading our mobile app and signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track 3 Weather app by clicking here. To watch our shows live on our website, click here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Kansas' parole board has reversed its decision to release a man convicted of a trooper's 1978 murder
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas' parole board has reversed its decision to release a man convicted of a state Highway Patrol trooper' 1978 murder after strong criticism prompted the governor to call on the board to reconsider. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly on Tuesday applauded the Prisoner Review Board's reversal in Jimmie K. Nelms' case, and top Republican officials said they were relieved or grateful that criticism appeared to change the board's mind. The board is part of the Kansas Department of Corrections, which announced the reversal late Thursday but did not disclose the board's reasons. Nelms, now 78, formerly from Tulsa, Oklahoma, was sentenced to serve two life sentences for the aggravated kidnapping and murder of Trooper Conroy O'Brien following a traffic stop on the Kansas Turnpike about 55 miles (89 kilometers) northeast of Wichita. In Kansas, killing a law enforcement officer now can be punished by death, with life in prison without parole, the only other possible sentence in a capital case. But in 1978, Kansas had no death penalty and even though Nelms received two life sentences, he nevertheless was eligible for parole after 15 years under the more lenient criminal sentencing laws then. The Prisoner Reivew Board and its predecessors repeatedly denied his parole requests, most recently in 2021. 'It is hard to imagine why the parole board would have ever thought parole was appropriate for a cop killer serving two life sentences,' Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican, said in a statement Tuesday. Kobach and Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, also a Republican, said state lawmakers should consider overhauling the board. Its three members are veteran Department of Corrections employees appointed by the agency's top administrator, who reports to the governor. Before 2011, the governor appointed board members subject to Senate confirmation. That year, GOP Gov. Sam Brownback replaced that board with the Department of Corrections panel, seeing it as a cost-cutting move. Also, sentencing laws enacted in 1993 and afterward limited parole. 'Today, justice was reaffirmed, and we are grateful,' the Kansas State Troopers Association said in a statement. 'Tomorrow, we will begin working to make sure such a close call never happens again.' In some states, governors must sign off on an inmate's release. But under Kansas law, it had appeared unlikely that critics could override the parole board's decision. A state board's reversal of parole is uncommon but not unknown, said Wanda Bertram, a spokesperson for the Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit and research group that advocates for prisoners' rights. In Wisconsin in 2022, at Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' request, the state Parole Commission's chair reversed a decision to release a man who had been convicted of stabbing his wife. But Bruce Hedrick, executive director of Legal Services for Prisoners Inc., a Kansas nonprofit that assists inmates, called the reversal unfair. Bertram said longtime inmates often have done 'tremendous work' in changing themselves. 'Making parole release available to people in prison only to deny it based on someone's crime of conviction — which is the one thing they no longer have any control over — is a cruel practice that dangles false hope in front of incarcerated individuals,' she said. Nelms has served most of his sentence in maximum-security prisons but was transferred to a lower-security facility in 2023, where he works in the prison laundry. The parole board's decision to release Nelms came several weeks after a March 6 hearing but wasn't public until the trooper's association publicly criticized it May 8. Kelly's call for a reversal came the next day. A week after that, on Friday, the board had another hearing for Nelms, said David Thompson, a Department of Corrections spokesperson. Officials who said Nelms should remain in prison have called his crime cold-blooded. Authorities said that as O'Brien was writing a ticket, Nelms forced him out of his patrol car at gunpoint, took the trooper's own gun and shot him twice in the head, leaving his body in a ditch. O'Brien was 26 with a pregnant wife. Nelms was 31. 'It's still deeply concerning this error even happened and the reversal likely wouldn't have occurred if not for the massive public outcry,' Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Republican, said in a statement.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Minor's lawsuits against adult sites show new state law is working as intended to protect kids: state AG
Four first-of-a-kind lawsuits in Kansas were filed Monday aiming to hold porn websites accountable for violating state law, which mandates they use adequate age-verification systems. There are no federal laws requiring porn sites to verify a user's age. The suits, filed by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and a Kansas law firm on behalf of a minor child and the child's mother, are groundbreaking. It is apparently the first time a minor is seeking a legal remedy through the provisions of state age-verification laws for pornographic sites, according to NCOSE's general counsel. Kansas is among roughly 20 other states that have enacted age-verification laws for porn sites. Louisiana became the first in 2023. Social Media Giant Hit With Scathing Ad Campaign Amid Anger Over Ai Chatbots Sexually Exploiting Kids "The Kansas law also allows for a private right of action, meaning that private individuals and organizations can bring cases against offending companies or websites," Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach told Fox News Digital. Kobach filed Kansas's first lawsuit in January against a porn site over a lack of age-verification mechanisms, a case that is ongoing. Read On The Fox News App "I think the combination of my office's first action followed by this private action shows that the law is operating as the legislature intended," Kobach said. NCOSE sued on behalf of a minor child, whose mother took numerous measures to ensure her 14-year-old child would not be exposed to pornographic websites but later learned her child was using an old laptop to access the sites. Online algorithms and content-curation processes from these sites' parent companies, or from contractors working for the sites, drove the teenager to at least two of the sites, according to the initial complaints filed with NCOSE. According to NCOSE, pornography is harmful to children because it disrupts the natural formation of children's sexual functions and maturation. Studies have also shown links between pornography and sexual violence and a litany of other health and well-being issues. Gop Lawmakers Target Online Pornography, Propose Interstate Ban On Obscene Content "The parents in this instance thought they did everything right," NCOSE General Counsel Benjamin Bull said. "It's not enough just to try to prevent children from gaining access. It's just a question of when children will gain access. "They'll find a way. It'll either be the kid next door with a kid in school, or an old, you know, thrown-away computer up in the closet some place. And, so, unless these online platforms actually install age verification, this boy's … what's happened to him and what's happened to hundreds of thousands of others is just going to continue and get worse." According to the lawsuits filed Monday on behalf of the 14-year-old, at least one of the four pornographic sites being sued, Chaturbate, ostensibly has an age-verification mechanism, but it can be easily manipulated, and that does not satisfy Kansas' law. Multi Media LLC, Chaturbate's parent company, insisted to Fox News Digital the site "is fully compliant" with Kansas law, calling the lawsuit against it "completely baseless." Porn Case In The Supreme Court This Week Is About Protecting Children, Says Republican Ag "As we explained in great detail to the plaintiff's counsel back in November, the company thoroughly investigated the claim and found the individual was never able to view any explicit content on the company's platform. The platform's ID verification age gate functioned exactly as expected, and the individual's attempts to view adult content without first proving he was an adult were entirely thwarted," a company spokesperson for Multi Media LLC told Fox News Digital. "The company takes very seriously its responsibility to ensure that the platform only publishes material created and viewed by consenting adults," the spokesperson added. "Since the law went into effect, the company has displayed an 'age gate' page to any visitor who arrives on the site from an IP address that is geolocated in Kansas and who has not previously been verified as an adult, by requiring the individual to provide a government issued photo ID." The spokesperson added that Multi Media LLC intends "to seek sanctions" against the plaintiff over its "frivolous complaint," noting that when the company was first contacted about the allegations by the plaintiff in November, Multi Media LLC explained why suing it was baseless. Click Here For The Fox News App But AG Kobach said the lawsuit brought by the mother and son, along with another unidentified "friend" of the family, shows state law is doing its job. "I think the really important point, at least from my perspective, is that laws are working, and companies are being taken to task for marketing this material in a way that minors can get it when there are now technologies out there to prevent that from happening," Kobach told Fox News Digital. The 14-year-old and his mother, with the help of NCOSE and others, are seeking statutory damages of no less than $50,000 per violation in each of their four lawsuits. They are also seeking actual damages, attorney fees and any "further relief" that the court considers article source: Minor's lawsuits against adult sites show new state law is working as intended to protect kids: state AG
Fox News
17-05-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Minor's lawsuits against adult sites show new state law is working as intended to protect kids: state AG
Four first-of-a-kind lawsuits in Kansas were filed Monday aiming to hold porn websites accountable for violating state law, which mandates they use adequate age-verification systems. There are no federal laws requiring porn sites to verify a user's age. The suits, filed by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and a Kansas law firm on behalf of a minor child and the child's mother, are groundbreaking. It is apparently the first time a minor is seeking a legal remedy through the provisions of state age-verification laws for pornographic sites, according to NCOSE's general counsel. Kansas is among roughly 20 other states that have enacted age-verification laws for porn sites. Louisiana became the first in 2023. "The Kansas law also allows for a private right of action, meaning that private individuals and organizations can bring cases against offending companies or websites," Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach told Fox News Digital. Kobach filed Kansas's first lawsuit in January against a porn site over a lack of age-verification mechanisms, a case that is ongoing. "I think the combination of my office's first action followed by this private action shows that the law is operating as the legislature intended," Kobach said. NCOSE sued on behalf of a minor child, whose mother took numerous measures to ensure her 14-year-old child would not be exposed to pornographic websites but later learned her child was using an old laptop to access the sites. Online algorithms and content-curation processes from these sites' parent companies, or from contractors working for the sites, drove the teenager to at least two of the sites, according to the initial complaints filed with NCOSE. According to NCOSE, pornography is harmful to children because it disrupts the natural formation of children's sexual functions and maturation. Studies have also shown links between pornography and sexual violence and a litany of other health and well-being issues. "The parents in this instance thought they did everything right," NCOSE General Counsel Benjamin Bull said. "It's not enough just to try to prevent children from gaining access. It's just a question of when children will gain access. "They'll find a way. It'll either be the kid next door with a kid in school, or an old, you know, thrown-away computer up in the closet some place. And, so, unless these online platforms actually install age verification, this boy's … what's happened to him and what's happened to hundreds of thousands of others is just going to continue and get worse." According to the lawsuits filed Monday on behalf of the 14-year-old, at least one of the four pornographic sites being sued, Chaturbate, ostensibly has an age-verification mechanism, but it can be easily manipulated, and that does not satisfy Kansas' law. Multi Media LLC, Chaturbate's parent company, insisted to Fox News Digital the site "is fully compliant" with Kansas law, calling the lawsuit against it "completely baseless." "As we explained in great detail to the plaintiff's counsel back in November, the company thoroughly investigated the claim and found the individual was never able to view any explicit content on the company's platform. The platform's ID verification age gate functioned exactly as expected, and the individual's attempts to view adult content without first proving he was an adult were entirely thwarted," a company spokesperson for Multi Media LLC told Fox News Digital. "The company takes very seriously its responsibility to ensure that the platform only publishes material created and viewed by consenting adults," the spokesperson added. "Since the law went into effect, the company has displayed an 'age gate' page to any visitor who arrives on the site from an IP address that is geolocated in Kansas and who has not previously been verified as an adult, by requiring the individual to provide a government issued photo ID." The spokesperson added that Multi Media LLC intends "to seek sanctions" against the plaintiff over its "frivolous complaint," noting that when the company was first contacted about the allegations by the plaintiff in November, Multi Media LLC explained why suing it was baseless. But AG Kobach said the lawsuit brought by the mother and son, along with another unidentified "friend" of the family, shows state law is doing its job. "I think the really important point, at least from my perspective, is that laws are working, and companies are being taken to task for marketing this material in a way that minors can get it when there are now technologies out there to prevent that from happening," Kobach told Fox News Digital. The 14-year-old and his mother, with the help of NCOSE and others, are seeking statutory damages of no less than $50,000 per violation in each of their four lawsuits. They are also seeking actual damages, attorney fees and any "further relief" that the court considers fair.
