Human-Trafficking Arrests Plummet Under Trump Thanks to ICE Obsession

Child trafficking arrests have hit their lowest point in five years since Homeland Security aggressively reoriented its attention toward immigration arrests.

Fewer kids have been rescued from exploitation and trafficking this past year than at any point since the pandemic, reported The New York Times Tuesday.

The number of indictments for child exploitation crimes fell by 28 percent compared to last year, according to the Times, which noted that agents that have historically participated in child exploitation investigations have resorted to working those cases in their personal time.

Fewer victims have been assisted, as well. Homeland Security agents “identified or rescued roughly 300 fewer child victims, a 17 percent drop,” according to an internal report by Homeland Security Investigations.

The data is a peek behind the curtain of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda, which has apparently prioritized political results over pressing public safety concerns: For months, Attorney General Pam Bondi has impressed that the administration’s immigration sweeps would target violent criminals and child molesters—but the numbers show that hasn’t been true.

The latest data report from ICE revealed that 40 percent of immigrants detained at the agency’s facilities have no criminal record at all. Meanwhile, actual child exploitation cases are apparently falling by the wayside.

Although President Donald Trump has heaped endless praise on the federal deportation agency, ICE agents have reportedly never been so miserable, forced to primarily detain noncriminal immigrants in order to meet their quota: 3,000 arrests per day, per Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller’s demands.

The digits come at a particularly bad time for Trump, who is in the throes of a national fixation on the most damning scandal of his political career: his cozy relationship with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The White House axed 1,353 positions from the State Department in July, gutting parts of the agency that failed to align with MAGA values. Those included offices focused on promoting democracy, ending genocide, quelling political extremism, and combating human trafficking.

The cuts reduced the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons to about 35 people—a third of its staffing levels from seven months prior, thanks in large part to State Secretary Marco Rubio’s plan and Elon Musk’s deferred resignation program. Those who were not laid off were informed that they would be reassigned and given a pay cut, Mother Jones reported at the time.

Twenty states are suing the Trump administration over cuts made to funding for housing the homeless.

A coalition of 19 attorneys general and two governors made the move Tuesday to seek a court order that would block “cuts and illegal new conditions” to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Continuum of Care program, which works with local organizations to connect unhoused people with resources and housing.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that more than half of the program’s 2026 funding for permanent housing will be cut and reallocated to temporary transitional housing with work or service requirements. The new conditions will also allow HUD to deny funding to any organizations that acknowledge transgender or nonbinary people.

This month, HUD instituted a cap on the amount of its program funds that can go to permanent housing at 30 percent. Previously, no cap existed, and 90 percent of its funds supported permanent housing.

The lawsuit argues that the conditions placed on the program are “unlawful and unconstitutional” because the funds were mandated by Congress to be distributed based on need. New York Attorney General Letitia James, the coalition’s leader, said in a press release that “communities across the country depend on Continuum of Care funds to provide housing and other resources to our most vulnerable neighbors.”

“These funds help keep tens of thousands of people from sleeping on the streets every night. I will not allow this administration to cut off these funds and put vital housing and support services at risk,” James said.

At a time when the country is in the midst of a housing crisis exacerbated by the Trump administration, these cuts will make things even worse if they are allowed to stand. Americans who end up losing their homes already have a tough time getting assistance. If this lawsuit doesn’t stop or slow the administration’s cuts, Americans without homes will get even less from the government.

Kash Patel’s days as FBI director may be numbered. 

MS NOW reported Tuesday that President Trump is considering firing the embattled director as his errors pile up. Three anonymous sources told MS NOW that Patel had drawn Trump’s ire for his presumptuous social media posts during ongoing cases, using a government jet for a date night with his 27-year-old girlfriend, and assigning a SWAT team for her security detail. 

Andrew Bailey, the FBI co–deputy director, is reportedly Trump’s top choice to replace Patel.  

The White House responded to the reports. “President Trump has assembled the most talented and impressive Administration in history and they are doing an excellent job carrying out the President’s agenda,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. “FBI Director Patel is a critical member of the President’s team and he is working tirelessly to restore integrity to the FBI.”  

This isn’t the first time Patel’s FBI has witnessed rumors of internal upheaval. Just last month, Patel reportedly angered FBI leadership when he fired at least 30 bureau agents for being hostile to conservatism or Trump. And in October, he pissed off Trump and Justice Department officials by posting that the “FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack” on Halloween, despite the fact that no charges had been filed and local police didn’t have any details. 

Back in July, deputy director and former MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino was so upset with how Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi handled the release of the Epstein files—from Bondi claiming that she had them on her desk to her then claiming the case was closed—that he skipped work, no call no show. 

It seems clear that Patel is working on borrowed time. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that one of the most underqualified FBI leads in recent memory can’t seem to avoid these screw-ups.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump is already making light of his administration wrongfully deporting immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Speaking from the newly paved Rose Garden Tuesday, Trump delivered a ghastly joke while he passed out pardons to two turkeys, Gobble and Waddle.

“Instead of pardons, some of my more enthusiastic staffers were already drafting the paperwork straight to the terrorist confinement center in El Salvador,” Trump said. “And even those birds don’t want to be there, you know what I mean.”

Unlike his many other groan-worthy jokes, this one didn’t seem to elicit the slightest laugh from the White House audience.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration deported 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador’s CECOT, which is notorious for human rights abuses, even though the vast majority of those immigrants did not have criminal records. Despite the administration’s claims that the deportees were brutal gang members and “the worst of the worst,” only 32 of the deportees had actually been convicted of crimes, most of which were minor offenses such as traffic violations. The Trump administration has continued to refer to CECOT as part of a barbaric propaganda campaign to scare immigrants.

Since that scandal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has only continued its trend of targeting immigrants who aren’t criminals. The latest disclosure from ICE revealed that 40 percent of immigrants detained at agency facilities had no criminal record at all.

Trump also cracked multiple jokes about presidential pardons, saying former President Joe Biden had “used an autopen last year for the turkey’s pardon.”

“So I have the official duty to determine, and I have determined, that last year’s turkey pardons are totally invalid,” Trump continued.

He also claimed he’d wanted to call the birds Chuck and Nancy, after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “But then I realized I wouldn’t be pardoning them, I would never pardon those two people,” Trump said.

It seems that Gobble and Waddle should count themselves lucky. They’re probably the first recipients of Trump’s presidential pardons who didn’t have to help make him rich.

Kash Patel’s FBI is joining the hunt against the so-called “Seditious Six,” signaling the administration’s commitment to taking revenge on the six Democratic members of Congress who dared tell soldiers that they didn’t have to follow illegal orders.

The FBI has requested interviews with Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, and Representatives Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan—all military and intelligence veterans—for their participation in the now-infamous video in which they reminded the military that they swore an oath to be loyal to the U.S. Constitution, not President Trump. The Trump administration saw this as treasonous, called for them to be hanged, and is weighing court-martialing Kelly.

The six members of Congress have yet to respond to the potential FBI interview.

It’s unclear when the interviews will occur or what exactly they entail. An anonymous Justice Department official told Reuters that the interviews would be to see “if there’s any wrongdoing and then go from there.” The FBI has yet to comment on the interviews, but one can assume that it won’t be very amicable given the Trump administration’s rhetoric around the situation.

“The video made by the ‘Seditious Six’ was despicable, reckless, and false,” Hegseth wrote Monday on his personal X account. “Encouraging our warriors to ignore the orders of their Commanders undermines every aspect of ‘good order and discipline.’ Their foolish screed sows doubt and confusion—which only puts our warriors in danger.”

The Department of Government Efficiency is claiming that it is still operational, despite reports that the agency has disbanded. 

In a post on X Monday night, the account called a Reuters article reporting that the agency “doesn’t exist” with eight months remaining on its charter “fake news.” 

“As usual, this is fake news from @Reuters,” the post read. “President Trump was given a mandate by the American people to modernize the federal government and reduce waste, fraud and abuse. Just last week, DOGE terminated 78 wasteful contracts and saved taxpayers $335M.  We’ll be back in a few days with our regularly scheduled Friday update. 🇺🇸”

DOGE has not posted since then, or offered any proof of the cuts. It also didn’t refute a key piece of information in the Reuters article: that DOGE is no longer a “centralized entity.” Its acting administrator, Amy Gleason, is now an official adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Department of Health and Human Services, even as she makes jokes on LinkedIn.

Many of DOGE’s functions have been taken over by the Office of Personnel Management, and many of its employees have moved to other agencies within the government. So what does the X post mean? Maybe DOGE is still a tool in the hands of Elon Musk and Russell Vought, or a scapegoat whenever the Trump administration wants to make massive cuts. 

Whatever the case, the massive damage DOGE caused to the federal bureaucracy will live on and probably continue for the rest of the Trump administration. Whether the name lives on is another story. 

A well-timed phone call from House Speaker Mike Johnson may have been the tipping point for the White House to call off releasing Donald Trump’s new health care plan.

Ahead of the decision Monday, Johnson cautioned Trump officials against including a two-year extension to Affordable Care Act subsidies as part of the president’s so-called “Healthcare Price Cuts Act,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Johnson reportedly told White House officials that Republicans just couldn’t get behind extending subsidies, after the speaker had spent more than a month railing against Democrats’ bid to save the subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year. Should those tax credits permanently lapse, an estimated 5.1 million Americans will lose their health coverage by 2034.

Johnson’s decision to throw a wrench in Trump’s rollout comes as insurance premiums are set to skyrocket starting in January, and premiums for individuals will increase by as much as double for millions of Americans.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is attacking the Scouts for not being nice enough to boys.

Hegseth plans to cut all military ties with Scouting America, formerly known as the Boy Scouts, on the grounds that they are attacking “boy-friendly spaces,” being too “genderless,” pushing “gender confusion,” and adopting diversity, equity, and inclusion, according to a draft memo to Congress reviewed by NPR.

“The organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt no longer supports the future of American boys,” Hegseth wrote in the memo.

“The Boy Scouts has been cratering itself for quite some time,” Hegseth said in a 2024 Fox interview. “This is an institution the left didn’t control. They didn’t want to improve it. They wanted to destroy it or dilute it into something that stood for nothing.”

Under the proposal, Scouts will no longer receive medical and logistical support for their massive “National Jamboree” and will no longer be allowed to visit military bases.

The proposal has not yet been sent to Congress but would bring an end to 100 years of support from the U.S. government.

“Scouting is and has always been a nonpartisan organization,” Scouting America said in a statement responding to the news. “Over more than a century, we’ve worked constructively with every U.S. presidential administration—Democratic and Republican—focusing on our common goal of building future leaders grounded in integrity, responsibility, and community service.”

Retired Army Staff Sergeant Kenny Green—who has three children who are scouts—was caught off guard by Hegseth’s proposal.

“It’s gonna be kind of harsh the way I say this.… It’s kind of like they don’t care about us more than they care about their perceived message. Scouting … it probably is not a perfect organization, but … I can’t even say how vast their benefits are, especially for military families.”

From fat-shaming troops to complaining that soldiers have been emasculated, this is par for the course for the defense secretary.

The peace plan offered by the Trump administration to end the war between Russia and Ukraine appears to contain few, if any, concessions from Russia, an administration official admitted Tuesday.

Maria Bartiromo interviewed U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker on Fox Business Tuesday morning, and pointed out that General Jack Keane, former Army vice chief of staff, told her that Russian President Vladimir Putin “hasn’t given up one concession in all of these months that [we’ve] been negotiating.”

Whitaker agreed and tried to spin what is obviously true by casting it as part of negotiations.

“There is some truth to what the general says, but let’s remember that there’s no perfect answer to this situation,” Whitaker said, adding, “Neither side is going to get what they want. We don’t know until we have a deal that’s hammered out who’s giving up what.”

Whitaker said that the Russians had a stronger position on the battlefield, and were making small gains every week, and that “unless Europe and the United States decided to take a different tack, this is where we end up, negotiating a peace deal from the reality.”

“We can all live in what-if worlds, but we have to live in the real world,” Whitaker added.

The initial plan proposed by the U.S. was heavily weighted toward Russia and even seemed to be translated from Russian, based on the syntax and vocabulary used. Even Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it “the wish list of the Russians.” U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators have since modified the plan, but that’s not likely to go over well with Putin.

Why did the Trump administration go public with Russia’s ideal solution instead of bringing Ukraine in on the process earlier? Now, while the deal may be acceptable to one side, it’s likely to fall through and prolong the fighting.

At least one Republican lawmaker was so outraged by the White House’s supposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan that he considered resigning from Congress then and there.

The Trump administration unveiled a 28-point peace plan last week that catered to some of Russia’s most outrageous demands, such as requiring Ukraine to swear off NATO membership and to hand over Crimea and the eastern Donbas region. Those two details alone have reversed long-standing U.S. policy with regard to the area.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have balked at the arrangement, but Nebraska Representative Don Bacon was reportedly “so angry” at the idea that he thought about quitting the lower chamber altogether, he told Axios Monday night.

Bacon has little to lose since he’s already on track to retire—he announced in June that he will not seek reelection in 2026, capping his 10-year career in Congress in early 2027.

That’s given the 62-year-old some extra wiggle room to lament the Trump administration’s maneuverings, damning the rushed peace process as the “Witkoff Ukrainian surrender plan” after special envoy Steve Witkoff, who played a major role in crafting the deal.

“In the end I have a commitment to our constituents to fulfill my term,” Bacon told Axios, noting that he “shared [his] anger” with House Speaker Mike Johnson but opted not to mention his resignation.

Ukraine and its European partners were excluded from the plan’s drafting process, reported The Guardian. But there is some evidence that the plan may have come directly from the Kremlin: Several sentences in the document are passive and clunky in English but make more sense when translated into Russian. That could be the influence of Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoy, who worked on the project alongside Witkoff.

Donald Trump has touted himself for months as a great peacemaker, pushing a narrative that he has—so far—solved eight foreign conflicts. Practically all of his war-solving braggadocio is “demonstrably untrue,” to the extent that several of the examples he often lists were never even at war. But despite repeated efforts, he has not made any headway on the Russia-Ukraine war.

Trump has conceded quite a bit to Russia’s dictator, to no avail. This summer, Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska, marking Putin’s first return to U.S. soil in more than a decade. But after the theatrics were over, the two world leaders still failed to reach a consensus on how to end the bloodshed, with Trump losing his cool while Putin demanded that Ukraine cede even more territory to Russia.

More than 13,300 civilians have been killed and 31,700 injured in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, according to a United Nations report from June.