ICE Traps Detainees on Plane for 12 Hours Amid Massive Winter Storm

More than 100 immigrants detained by ICE were stuck in a plane on the tarmac at Portsmouth International Airport in New Hampshire for more than 12 hours Monday in the midst of a heavy blizzard.

The plane, which took off from Harlingen, Texas, Sunday night, landed in Pease, New Hampshire, at 1 a.m., but couldn’t get to its terminal due to the weather. Officials at the Portsmouth airport told local TV station WMUR that they were only given 15 minutes notice that the flight, Omni Air International 4065, was arriving.

“Had we been informed in advance of their intent to land at PSM during the blizzard, we would have strongly advised against it and encouraged them to divert to another airport not being impacted by this severe winter storm,” Portsmouth officials said in a statement.

The officials said that the airport’s operator, Port City Air, is responsible for planning “for weather-related contingencies and required facilities and accommodations.” Port City Air said that the decision was not up to them, but rather ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.

“ICE-flight decisions are made by the US Department of Homeland Security. It is our legal obligation to safely service any flights into or out of the airport. Our operations remain open throughout this storm,” the company said in a statement.

The detainees were reportedly fed while the plane was stuck, with strong winds preventing the plane from even being towed. Finally, at 2:45 p.m. Monday, the plane was towed to its terminal. Detainees were taken off of the plane and into the terminal, which was closed to the public, and were again given food. But the plane had been sitting at the airport for so long that a new flight crew had to take over.

“Detainees are being provided catered meals, continuous access to drinking water, and appropriate restroom facilities for the duration of the delay,” a DHS spokesperson told the Boston Globe. “All required prescription medications are being supplied at no cost, and medical personnel are available to provide proper medical care. ICE personnel are conducting regular welfare checks to ensure everyone’s well-being, comfort, and dignity while awaiting departure.”

Passengers were held at the terminal until 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, when the plane took off again to head to its final destination, which has not been made public. That means that the passengers’ long journey is still not over. In past ICE deportation flights, passengers have been kept in shackles.

It appears that Trump administration officials have embarked on a spree of interviews with major publications in order to talk their boss out of a military strike against Iran.

In the last 72 hours, several stories were published undermining narratives that the U.S. is ready for war, observed Ali Ahmadi, an executive fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, in a post on X Tuesday.

Indeed, several stories cited anonymous sources familiar with Trump’s plans for Iran who warned about the potential for the United States to be dragged into a protracted conflict in the Middle East.

Two sources told Axios Monday that Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine warned Trump and other top officials about the risks of launching a military campaign against Iran. The Washington Post cited people familiar with discussions who’d told them the same thing. CBS News cited multiple sources who said that Trump was warned that military strikes against Iran wouldn’t guarantee a diplomatic deal. And The Wall Street Journal reported on the prolonged misery of sailors traveling aboard the U.S.S. Gerald Ford, after the Navy’s top admiral pushed back on the ship’s deployment earlier this month.

Either the Pentagon was hoping to provide an off-ramp for Trump’s massive military build-up in the Middle East, or it was trying to establish some scraps of plausible deniability before the bombs started to drop. Or perhaps the narrative wasn’t intended for the public at all.

“To be clear, the Pentagon has its own press people who go behind the White House’s back all the time to shape media narratives. [It’s] often done to manipulate the President by having the press describe [him] as weak or indecisive,” Ahmadi wrote in another post, noting that this kind of strategy was not without precedent.

Trump has already pushed back on reporting that the U.S. isn’t ready to strike. In a lengthy Truth Social post Monday, the president claimed that “numerous stories” about Caine’s broad caution toward the Middle East situation were “100 percent incorrect.”

As President Trump makes his State of the Union address Tuesday night, he will have at least six Epstein survivors staring back at him.

Multiple congressional Democrats announced that they’d be inviting women who were abused by convicted sex offender and former Trump confidant Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein Transparency Act co-sponsor Ro Khanna is bringing survivor Haley Robson, who said she was trafficked by Epstein at the age of 16. Robson voted for Trump but has since called for him to be impeached.

Sky and Amanda Roberts, the brother and sister-in-law of Virginia Giuffre, will arrive with Representatives Jamie Raskin and Suhas Subramanyam. Giuffre had alleged that she was approached in 2000 by Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where she worked at the time as a pool attendant, and was subsequently abused for the next two years. Giuffre committed suicide last April.

Representative Robert Garcia will bring survivor Annie Farmer, while Representative Maxine Dexter invited Epstein survivor Lisa Phillips to take her place at the speech. Senator Chuck Schumer will be joined by survivor Danielle Bensky.

This comes as NPR reported that the Justice Department willfully obscured documents containing allegations against President Donald Trump in its recent files—all while claiming transparency.

The State of the Union will be at 9 p.m. EST on Tuesday.

The Department of Homeland Security went back on its decision to suspend TSA PreCheck as part of the partial government shutdown after the White House got involved.

The Washington Post reported Monday night that the idea to pause the program, which allows travelers who pay a fee and complete a background check to get through airport security faster, was hatched by Secretary Kristi Noem and her chief aide (and rumored boyfriend) Corey Lewandowski. DHS announced the suspension Saturday, but then the Trump administration told them to pull back. Otherwise, the pause would have gone into effect on Sunday at 6 a.m.

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson told the Post, “We decided to handle TSA pre-check on an airport-by-airport basis depending on workforce and resource strain instead of a blanket policy. If the government stays shutdown, we will be forced to implement these emergency measures nationwide to mitigate resource and workforce strain. This political game by the Democrats is putting strain on our TSA workers who are working without pay.”

The back-and-forth caused confusion at airports on Sunday, and is yet another example of chaotic decisions from Noem and Lewandowski at DHS. Noem’s decision to demolish historic buildings at DHS headquarters in Washington, D.C. has exposed DHS employees to asbestos, and a new tool to help federal agents identify noncitizens is full of bugs.

ICE, which is overseen by the department, has been exposed for drastically reducing the amount of training its agents are required to get, and the immigration agency may have also ignored warnings about the reckless use of force before two U.S. citizens were killed in Minnesota last month. Coast Guard officials are reportedly upset at how DHS is using their resources for deportations, and the agency has lost the support of most Americans, according to polls.

Noem’s personal conduct has also made the news, from her alleged relationship with Lewandowski to the fact that she fired and rehired a pilot over a missing blanket. She’s pulled P.R. stunts at a notorious prison in El Salvador and made up a crazy story about deporting a cannibal. It’s little wonder that Democrats, including Trump-friendly Senator John Fetterman, want her impeached.

Years before the FBI and the New York district attorney opened probes into Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring, the Drug Enforcement Administration was reportedly examining the glitterati socialite for suspicious money transfers they believed could be linked to illegal drug purchases.

Recently discovered documents from the DEA reveal that Epstein was a part of a sprawling investigation, referred to internally as “Operation Chain Reaction,” examining the wire transfers of 15 individuals.

“DEA reporting indicates the above individuals are involved in illegitimate wire transfers which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the U.S. Virgin Islands and New York City,” reads a 69-page memo dated from 2015.

The document was marked “sensitive” for law enforcement, and was a component of a request from the DEA to a drug enforcement fusion center in Virginia for more information on the investigation’s targets, the names of whom—beside Epstein—were mostly redacted.

All in all, the report depicts approximately $50 million in suspicious wire transfers between the 15 individuals. Epstein was suspected of transferring more than $5.6 million for the purpose of acquiring narcotics. The document was released by the Justice Department as part of its rollout of the Epstein files.

Just one other individual was named as a target in the memo: Mariana Idźkowska, a Polish fashion model who allegedly made $2 million in transfers, according to the DEA memo. Her name has appeared elsewhere in the Epstein files, outlining her travels through dozens of emails between herself and Epstein between 2014 and 2015. Idźkowska was 28 years old at the time, frequently called him on Skype, flew to New York on Epstein’s dime, and visited his island, according to Polish Radio.

The DEA file indicates that the drug enforcement bureau opened its investigation on December 17, 2010. At the time of its drafting, the investigation was still “judicial pending,” indicating that it was still underway five years later.

An unidentified law enforcement official told CBS News that the status could have meant agents were waiting on court approval for search warrants to proceed. Another unidentified law enforcement official told the network that it could indicate someone was arrested.