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ICE Just Arrested 1,400 People. Here’s How Many Had Criminal Charges.

ICE carried out a massive sweep in Massachusetts, including the greater Boston area.

People hold up signs at a protest against ICE in Worcester, Massachusetts
Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

Surprise, surprise: Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s biggest operation to date was also a huge failure.

Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin reported on X Monday that ICE completed a massive month-long operation in Massachusetts in response to the state’s sanctuary policies.

Of the 1,461 arrests made as part of Operation Patriot, only 790 individuals—or roughly 54 percent—had criminal convictions or charges. Meanwhile, 277 detainees, or about 19 percent, had received final orders of removal or deportation, though it’s unclear whether there was overlap between those two groups. This disastrous sweep comes as the Trump administration sets a new quota of 3,000 ICE arrests per day, and continues to stray from its commitment to target criminals for deportation.

Fox reported that many of these arrests were so-called “collaterals,” a strange euphemism for people whose only crime was being with an ICE target at the time of arrest. Fox said that ICE had repeatedly warned sanctuary city officials that a failure to enforce immigration policies would result in collateral arrests. According to ICE’s own numbers, the agency made a minimum 394 wrongful arrests as part of Operation Patriot.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote in a post on X Monday that this latest ICE sweep was even worse than April’s Operation Tidal Wave in Florida, which previously held the record for ICE’s largest operation with a whopping 1,120 arrests.

“Wow. Just 54% of all the people arrested during this operation had a criminal record at all. That’s an even lower percent than the big Florida operation in April, where 63% had criminal history,” Reichlin-Melnick wrote. “ICE is expanding its dragnet even more to go after people with no criminal history.”

ICE told FOX that Operation Patriot was significantly more difficult due to a lack of cooperation from local officials, and claimed that they’d encountered “almost daily interference” from activists.

But Massachusetts officials say that ICE had failed to communicate with them. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey expressed outrage Monday after an 18-year-old student at Milford High School was arrested by ICE, just days before graduation.

“Yet again, local officials and law enforcement have been left in the dark with no heads up and no answers to their questions,” she said.

Trump Finally Addresses Boulder, Colorado, Attack—Nearly 24 Hours Late

Eight people were injured in an attack on a protest in Boulder, Colorado, over the weekend.

Police cars are parked near the scene of an attack in Boulder, Colorado
Kyle Mazza/Anadolu/Getty Images

A day late and a dollar short, Donald Trump has finally responded to the violent attack in Boulder, Colorado.

Eight people were injured Sunday when a 45-year-old man allegedly attacked a peaceful protest remembering Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. The suspect, who has been identified as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, first fired on the crowd with a homemade flamethrower and then threw Molotov cocktails.

Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office, said that Soliman shouted, “Free Palestine!” A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security wrote on X that Soliman “is illegally in our country.”

About 19 hours after the fact, Trump shared his official reaction.

“Yesterday’s horrific attack in Boulder, Colorado, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED in the United States of America,” Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social. “He came in through Biden’s ridiculous Open Border Policy, which has hurt our Country so badly. He must go out under ‘TRUMP’ Policy. Acts of Terrorism will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law. This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland. My heart goes out to the victims of this terrible tragedy, and the Great People of Boulder, Colorado!”

According to the DHS, Soliman, an Egyptian national, entered the country on a B2 tourist visa in August 2022. He filed for asylum the next month, and his visa expired in 2023. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said that the agency was treating the case as an “act of ideologically motivated violence.”

But the DHS’s interpretation of Soliman’s time in the U.S. stretches the facts a bit (to put it mildly). Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, pointed out that it’s not clear whether Soliman was here illegally, given his asylum application.

“It’s not even fully accurate to say he was in the country illegally—despite the visa overstay,” Reichlin-Melnick wrote. “Because he filed for asylum before his status expired, by law he was not accruing ‘unlawful presence’ while waiting for an answer.”

About two dozen hostages are believed to be alive in Gaza. The Israeli government and Hamas are currently considering a U.S.-led proposal for a ceasefire. Both sides intend to propose amendments to the agreement.

Since the October 7 attack, Israel has killed at least 54,400 Palestinians in its relentless assault on Gaza. The majority of the victims have been civilians. Israel has also choked off almost all aid into the region.

Supreme Court Finally Does Something Good on Guns—for Now

The Supreme Court has declined to hear two high-profile challenges on gun laws.

Supreme Court building
Win McNamee/Getty Images

On Monday, the Supreme refused to hear two significant cases challenging Maryland’s state-wide ban on semiautomatic rifles and other assault-style weapons like AR-15s. The court’s rejection of the cases, a somewhat surprising move for the conservative majority, means that the gun control law will stay in place—for now. The court also refused to hear a challenge to Rhode Island’s restrictions on high-capacity magazines.

Four Supreme Court justices are needed to hear a case.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito wrote a dissenting opinion on the Maryland case, arguing that it wasn’t consistent with the Supreme Court’s conservative 2022 ruling that the right to bear arms extends outside the home, which loosened gun restrictions and caused states like Maryland and Rhode Island to enact bans like the ones being challenged in court.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the other conservative justice, wrote his own dissenting statement, calling the Maryland ban an “outlier” and positing ominously that “this court should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon.”

China Exposes Trump’s Lies About Floundering Tariff Talks

Donald Trump appears to be no closer to a permanent trade deal with China.

Donald Trump wears a Make America Great Again hat
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Chinese officials tore into Donald Trump on Monday, accusing him of sabotaging his own trade negotiations.

Trump claimed Friday that China had “totally violated” the terms of the 90-day tariff pause that the two countries hammered out in Geneva at the start of last month. In a lengthy Truth Social post, Trump insisted he had taken a soft-handed approach to negotiations in the weeks since, but now he was done being “MR. NICE GUY!”

Trump’s comments came just hours after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was one of the principal U.S. negotiators in Switzerland, admitted on Fox News that trade talks between Beijing and Washington had “stalled.”

China hit back Monday, stating Trump’s claims that the Asian powerhouse had been withholding rare earths were “groundless.” In reality, officials said, the U.S. had “seriously damaged” the agreement by imposing restrictions on Chinese-made microchips and student visas for Chinese nationals.

“The United States had unilaterally provoked new economic and trade tensions,” a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement. “Instead of reflecting on itself, it has made bogus accusations and unreasonably denounced China for violating the agreement.”

“If the U.S. insists on its own way and continues to damage China’s interests, China will continue to take resolute and forceful measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” the spokesperson said, without providing details of what those measures might be.

The Trump administration agreed in May to temporarily lower tariffs on Chinese goods to 30 percent from 145 percent. China agreed to reciprocate by lowering tariffs on American products to 10 percent from 125 percent.

But it’s unclear what the future of tariffs between the two nations will be. In addition to the clearly struggling trade talks, two separate courts have deemed Trump’s sweeping global tariff plan illegal. The Trump administration plans to appeal at least one of those rulings.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last week that the administration would work to “aggressively revoke” visas for those with alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party as well as for any Chinese national studying in “critical fields” in the U.S. Rubio said his department would also “enhance scrutiny” of all visa applications from China, including Hong Kong.

John Fetterman Trashed by Hometown Paper in Scathing Critique

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board held nothing back in its condemnation of the Pennsylvania senator.

Pennsyvania Senator John Fetterman rests his chin on his hands.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board lambasted Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, stating that it’s time for him to either “serve Pennsylvanians, or step away.”

The board, which endorsed Fetterman for Senate in 2022, wrote in a scathing column on Sunday that the senator had “checked out” of the Senate in the midst of a crucial political battle with the Trump administration.

He has missed more votes than nearly every other senator in the past two years. He regularly skips committee hearings, cancels meetings, avoids the daily caucus lunches with colleagues, and rarely goes on the Senate floor,” they wrote.

“To be sure, mental health is a serious issue and not something to ignore. If Fetterman is still struggling, then he should seek immediate help,” the board continued. “Instead, Fetterman complained people have ‘weaponized’ his mental health battles against him. Being an elected official comes with public scrutiny. If Fetterman can’t handle the attention or perform his job, then in the best interest of the country and the nearly 13 million residents of Pennsylvania he represents, he should step aside.”

Fetterman told The New York Times last month that he found the Senate hearings boring and “performative” and only returned to them recently because he felt “shamed” into doing so. “I would go visit my dad instead of a throwaway vote,” he said.

The Inquirer struck back.

“Spending time with family is laudable, but if that is his priority, then Fetterman should get a job closer to one of the eight properties he owns in his hometown of Braddock, Pa,” they wrote, also noting that Fetterman only has to work in the Senate for an average of 165 days per year, well below the rest of the country.

“Many of Fetterman’s constituents would like to work half a year so they, too, could spend time with their families. Safe to say, many would do it for less than Fetterman’s salary of $174,000, which is more than double the nation’s median household income.”

They also had time for Fetterman’s lavish, politically questionable travel habits.

“Fetterman has flown to Israel twice in the past year, including a recent all-expense-paid junket to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been accused of war crimes and corruption. He and his wife flew first class and stayed in five-star hotels as part of a fact-finding mission that cost $36,000 and was paid for by a New York-based nonprofit,” the board wrote.

It’s been a swift, hard fall from grace for Fetterman. The Inquirer’s editorial column comes after the New York magazine report that detailed his public and private outbursts, bringing the question of his fitness to serve to the forefront of the news cycle. The Times article, which the embattled senator also did an interview for, then highlighted how much he hates doing the job he was elected to do.

It seems obvious to everyone around him that Fetterman is not mentally stable enough to perform his duties as a U.S. senator, and it’s also clear that he doesn’t care for them much in the first place. Even if Senate hearings are boring (and I bet they are), it’s the least he could be doing. He’s a senator. If sitting in a congressional hearing in his basketball shorts is too much for him, then the Inquirer is correct. He should have some “shame” and let Pennsylvanians have a leader who cares.