Category: National News Feed

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, several of his close relatives told The Associated Press.

David Brouillette has a history of terrifying and violent behavior, according to those relatives. They accuse him of attacking women in his life over the years, and one shared a voicemail with the AP from last winter in which he told her that he thought someone should slit her throat.

Brouillette’s troubling past further challenges how thoroughly the Department of Homeland Security has vetted recruits as it went on a hiring spree to help carry out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched the crackdown after retaking office, including 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who was shot and killed by Brouillette on Monday while in his car near his home in the coastal Maine city of Biddeford.

DHS, which hasn’t released the name of the officer who killed Durán Guerrero, has said the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”

Brouillette didn’t respond to text messages or an email seeking comment. Three relatives who said they had spoken to him since the shooting, including an ex-wife and daughter, said he told them he acted in self-defense.

When reached for comment about Brouillette’s record and his role in Monday’s shooting, ICE spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement that, “We will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers,” and that “The ICE officer in question has nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience with required training including use of force training.”

The White House referred all questions about the shooting and Brouillette to ICE.

A new career in ICE

Brouillette, 37, told his ex-wife Ashley Brouillette late last year that he had been hired by ICE. She said that because of his long history of psychiatric issues, she thought he was having a mental health episode and she didn’t believe him. She didn’t realize he’d been telling the truth until this week, when videos began circulating online of the moments surrounding the shooting.

Ashley Brouillette told the AP that she spoke to her ex-husband in a Facebook audio call, and he acknowledged that he had killed Durán Guerrero. Their 18-year-old daughter, Madison Brouillette, also told the AP that her father called her Wednesday and said that he shot and killed Durán Guerrero.

David and Ashley Brouillette were high school sweethearts who got married in 2007. She said she divorced him in 2009 because he had become physically violent with her, which began after she got pregnant with their daughter.

According to Ashley Brouillette, he once threw boiling water at her while she was holding their child — an incident her mother Avis Collins also recounted.

The abuse continued after she left him, she said.

David Brouillette doesn’t appear to have a criminal record in Maine, as a check with the Maine Department of Public Safety returned no records for him.

But hundreds of family court records obtained from the Augusta District Court clerk’s office detail years of allegations of physical and verbal abuse raised by his second ex-wife on behalf of herself and his daughters.

The ex-wife — whom the AP is not identifying because she fears retaliation — alleged that he had stalked and harassed her and physically and verbally abused his daughter, according to multiple requests for temporary protection orders. Brouillette tackled his teenage daughter and smashed spaghetti in her hair, and during another outburst, he dragged his daughter around the house as she cried, she said.

“Dave needs counseling or something for his PTSD & depression,” she wrote in an application for a temporary protective order on behalf of his teenage daughter which a judge granted in 2021.

In court filings, David Brouillette said that his second ex-wife had slandered him.

His oldest daughter, Madison Brouillette, said she also witnessed her dad’s volatility.

“I watched my dad struggle a lot with a lot of things,” she told the AP. She said she came home from school once and he told her he had been sitting on a tree stump with a gun to his head.

“If you don’t really, truly take care of yourself, there’s no way you can protect other people. And with my dad, he never wanted to get help,” she said.

An immediate relative of David Brouillette who spoke on the condition that their name not be used said he was diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder as a child — a diagnosis that Ashley Brouillette confirmed. The immediate relative described him as “extremely mentally ill” and said he attempted suicide twice at age 12 and was hospitalized multiple times.

The relative said they’ve been estranged for years, after they broke off contact because they feared he would harm them. He did not respond to their outreach this week, the relative added.

A military deployment and law enforcement aspirations

Growing up in Gardiner, a city of about 6,000 people roughly 60 miles (97 kilometers) northeast of Biddeford, where Monday’s shooting occurred, David Brouillette was enchanted by law enforcement and the military, his relatives said.

High school yearbook photos show he was a member of the school’s Naval Junior ROTC, and he wrote that he planned to go to college and become a police officer.

Brouillette was initially rejected by military recruiters because of his mental health diagnoses, but recruiters encouraged him to go off his medications for a year and reapply, which he did, his immediate relative said.

He was eventually able to enlist.

According to U.S. military records, Brouillette enlisted as a chemical equipment repairer in the Maine Army National Guard but then changed jobs to be a medical logistics specialist. He was in the Guard from November 2007 until January 2010, according to records provided by the Pentagon.

A 2009 article in the Kennebec Journal listed Brouillette as a private in the Maine Army National Guard’s 152nd Maintenance Company in Augusta.

In January 2010 he joined the regular Army as a human intelligence collector. Brouillette deployed to Afghanistan from May 2012 to February 2013 and eventually left the Army as a sergeant in December 2015.

His immediate relative believes Brouillette’s time abroad worsened his emotional struggles: “Afghanistan destroyed him — trained him to be a killing monster, a machine. They took someone who was extremely mentally ill and turned him into a killing machine.”

Life after the Army

After his discharge, Brouillette held a hodgepodge of jobs — some in or adjacent to law enforcement — and was injured in an accident while training to become a firefighter, public records and court documents show.

Brouillette worked for the Maine Correctional Center — a medium-security prison — and for the state’s Health and Human Services Department, spending less than a year at each.

In 2019, court documents show, he was a police officer at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center near the state capital, Augusta. A Veterans Affairs department spokesperson on Thursday referred questions about Brouillette’s employment to DHS.

But by the end of 2021, he wrote in a text message included in court filings, he was broke, going to school full-time and making money delivering food for DoorDash.

Brouillette was enrolled in a firefighting program at Southern Maine Community College and was struck in the head by a steel beam while unloading a trailer at a training facility, according to a lawsuit he filed over his injury.

He sustained a concussion and post-concussive syndrome, with symptoms including impaired memory, cognitive deficits, headaches, vertigo and light sensitivity, and was unable to complete the program, according to the lawsuit, which was settled out of court.

In recent years, court filings show, he was collecting disability pay through the VA. He also drove a truck, but quit in January 2025, citing health issues.

In March 2025, Brouillette passed an exam to become a real estate sales agent. His license was active until December. In a Facebook post, Realty of Maine announced Brouillette would be working in the firm’s Bangor office.

“David lives in Maine after retiring from the United States Army,” said the post, which has since been deleted. Brouillette is no longer listed as an agent on the firm’s website. Messages seeking comment were left for Realty of Maine.

In March, the Maine agency that handles child support matters filed a lien against him, public records show. The filing suggests that Brouillette may have been in line for a permanent impairment or disability settlement.

‘I don’t think he sees himself as a killer’

In late 2025, around the time he joined ICE, his ex-wife Ashley said he left a three-minute voicemail mocking her for taking out a restraining order against him. According to the message she shared with AP, he repeatedly called her “disgusting” and suggested that she and the other women and girls in her “bloodline” should die.

“And all of you should have your f——–g throats cut,” the voicemail said. “Yeah, you should. Am I threatening that I’m gonna do that? Nope. Nope. But do I think that you should have your f——-g throats cuts? Or should have had them cut? Yep.”

She said she cut off contact with him until Wednesday, when his picture began circulating online.

Ashley Brouillette reached out to his current wife on Facebook and they spoke on the phone for several minutes. Her ex-husband spoke with her, according to cellphone screenshots of the phone exchange she shared with the AP. He acknowledged he had fatally shot Durán Guerrero.

“He was asking if I could tell them that he was a good person and not to talk about the abuse and stuff that I had endured while with him and he said that the most important thing is his character right now,” she said.

She said he told her he is now hiding in protective custody.

“I asked him why he did it,” she said. “He said it was a justified shooting. The guy was trying to run him over with a car.”

His daughter also said he told her it was justified.

“I don’t think he sees himself as a killer,” Madison Brouillette said.

“I think he thinks that he genuinely did the right thing,” she added. “All he said was that he did what he had to do. He said that he had to protect himself.”

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This story was updated to correct that that Gardiner is northeast of Biddeford.

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Brook reported from New Orleans, Sisak reported from New York and Galofaro reported from Louisville, Kentucky. Associated Press reporter Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

HOUSTON (AP) — The family of a man who was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent in Houston is holding a public vigil Thursday evening in response to what the man’s son says is an outpouring of support amid renewed criticism of enforcement tactics.

The ceremony for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who was fatally shot last Tuesday by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer while driving his construction crew to a job site in Houston, comes amid mounting scrutiny of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown. Encounters with ICE have resulted in at least 10 deaths since the start of Trump’s second term last year — two of which happened in the days after a federal agent killed Salgado Araujo.

“My family would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for the unbelievable and incredible support we have received,” Salgado Araujo’s son, Ronaldo Salgado, said in a Facebook post Thursday.

Salgado Araujo, 52, who had no criminal record, had lived in the U.S. for 35 years.

In the fallout of the shooting, three men whom Salgado Araujo was driving when he was killed have adamantly disputed the government’s official account.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said Salgado Araujo had rammed an ICE vehicle, and that a federal agent fired a weapon in self-defense. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a staunch supporter of Trump’s immigration crackdown, said Wednesday that the state’s top law enforcement unit would investigate the fatal shooting.

More than a week after the shooting, new court records show the FBI is investigating whether drugs were found in the van, according to a search warrant application signed by a federal judge on Tuesday.

FBI Special Agent David McNeilly stated in an affidavit that he observed four plastic bags of a white substance appearing to be meth inside the van. DHS has not stated that suspected drugs were the reason why ICE officers engaged in the traffic stop. The FBI referred all questions to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.

U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz emphasized in a recorded video statement on Thursday that all information was preliminary and not conclusive.

“We are doing everything we can to seek the truth and do the right thing,” Reitz said. “In the meantime, I encourage the public to give the FBI and DHS the opportunity to investigate.”

An attorney for Salgado Araujo’s brother, who was in the van when the agent killed Salgado Araujo and who was subsequently detained by ICE, said that the powder is a homemade electrolyte mix that the construction crew used to stay hydrated while working outside in the grueling Texas heat.

Ruby L. Powers, the attorney for Salgado Araujo’s brother, in a statement called for officials to test the substance to establish that it isn’t an illicit substance.

“But no test result, whatever it ultimately shows, will change the fact that deadly force was used against Lorenzo,” Powers said. “You cannot shoot first and ask questions later.”

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Riddle reported from Los Angeles.

U.S. aviation safety investigators announced Thursday they are taking over the probe into a Ryanair flight from Greece that left passengers scrambling minutes after takeoff, when a window dislodged and a man was partially sucked out of the plane before being pulled back inside.

The National Transportation Safety Board said that after taking a closer look at the plane’s flight path, investigators determined the incident occurred in Greek airspace, and not over the Republic of North Macedonia as they initially believed.

International aviation rules allow Greece’s Hellenic Air and Rail Safety Investigation Authority to hand the investigation over to the NTSB. The U.S. federal agency said it accepted and is now leading the probe, with Greece participating.

The incident happened on July 10 on a morning flight from the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki to Memmingen, near Munich. The flight was operated by Malta Air, a subsidiary of Ryanair, Europe’s largest budget carrier.

The 61-year-old passenger, who was not identified by name, suffered neck and shoulder injuries and friction burns, according to a Greek hospital official. It was not immediately clear Thursday if the injured passenger remained hospitalized.

The NTSB previously said it was notified that the flight turned back because of “a right engine issue and cabin decompression.”

Ryanair has not publicly addressed the engine issue disclosed by the NTSB. In response to an emailed request for comment about the engine issue on July 10, the airline reiterated its previous statement about the flight returning to Thessaloniki after a window became dislodged.

Passengers told Greek media that they heard a loud bang, oxygen masks dropped and the plane began to lose altitude.

A series of short videos recorded from inside the plane and shared by Radio Thessaloniki showed passengers wearing oxygen masks after the cabin lost pressure. Another appeared to show the blown-out window, with a man seated nearby wearing an oxygen mask. A third video, apparently filmed after the aircraft landed, showed first responders working in the aisle.

Shye Gilad, a former airline captain who teaches at Georgetown University’s business school in the U.S., said the window blowing out would have caused rapid decompression — a sudden loss of cabin pressure that can create a brief but powerful suction effect near the opening before the pressure stabilizes.

“The seat belt can help in those first few seconds. It’s a difference maker and people should keep their seat belts fastened at all times,” Gilad said, adding that events such as this one are “very rare” because “it takes a lot to breach a cabin.”

Flight records show the aircraft — a Boeing 737-800 delivered new to Ryanair in 2008 — had been climbing past 15,000 feet (4,570 meters) about six minutes after departure before immediately descending to about 6,000 feet (1,830 meters). Flight-tracking site Flightradar24 said the aircraft remained at the lower altitude for roughly 30 minutes to burn fuel before returning to Thessaloniki about an hour after takeoff.

Ryanair said in its statement that one passenger requested and received medical care after landing, and that a replacement aircraft later flew passengers to Germany.

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s media company is planning to charge for special high-speed access to Truth Social posts, including possibly his own affecting national security and financial markets.

The move announced Thursday would allow Wall Street trading firms and other institutions to get news from top Truth Social contributors in milliseconds so they could profit off subsequent moves in stocks, bonds and interest rates.

Called Truth PSI, the new service comes amid a flurry of other deals by Trump and his family company that critics say are exploiting the presidency for profit. It follows similar offers of paid access on rival platforms, though with one key difference: The most popular Truth Social poster is the president himself and, as the biggest shareholder of the public traded parent company, would directly benefit.

“He’s selling expedited, privileged access to information about what he is doing as president,” said Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law and an expert in government conflicts of interest rules. “It’s yet more brazen corruption, an improper exploitation of government power to enrich himself.”

The Trump family company declined to comment about whether the new feature is profiting off the presidency. Truth Social’s public parent, Trump Media & Technology, did not respond to emailed questions, including whether the president’s posts will be excluded from the offering.

A press release states it would allow traders to see “the highest-ranking Truth Social accounts” ahead of others. The president has the most followers — 12.9 million — followed by his oldest son, Don Jr. and, close behind, his son Eric.

The release did not say how much customers would be charged.

In the past few months, Trump has announced major decisions and musings on his platform including posts about the Iran war, tariffs and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown in U.S. cities. The Iran posts in particular are impactful because investors are worried that higher oil prices will continue to stoke inflation and possibly force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.

Stock in Trump Media & Technology has plunged more than 70% since the president took office last year, erasing $6 billion in shareholder wealth. Those losses, along with billions more of investor losses tied to new Trump family crypto businesses, have drawn scrutiny after Trump’s annual disclosure of his financial holdings shows he took in more than $1 billion in revenue last year in the same companies and offerings.

Conflict of interest laws would bar U.S. government officials from owning a company that profits off their office by selling access to their decisions through public posts, says Washington University’s Clark. But the president and vice-president, she notes, are excluded from the provision.

Despite that, all presidents since the law was passed decades ago have acted as if it applied — selling individual stocks, dumping business holdings or putting their financial assets in a blind trust so they wouldn’t know what was being bought and sold on their behalf while they wielded power — but Trump has refused.

Trump Media has been trying to lift its stock price recently by branching into various businesses, including crypto, financial services and even nuclear fusion. It recently replaced its longtime CEO, former Congressman Devin Nunes, with a seasoned media executive, Kevin McGurn.

In the release, McGurn described the Truth PSI move as part of a “strategy to monetize proprietary assets.” He added that he expected it to become a “meaningful, ongoing source of revenue.”

Trump Media said that it plans to start the service next month and that it has already signed up customers.

The stock rose 0.6% to $9.63 on Thursday. Before Trump took office last year, it closed at $40.

Bird remains found on the wreckage of a sightseeing helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River last year in New York City and killed 6 people suggest that it struck several geese, investigators said Thursday.

The National Transportation Safety Board reports released Thursday describe the evidence and witness reports that support there having been a bird strike before the helicopter plummeted into the river on April 10, 2025. The reports were not final, so don’t identify a definitive cause of the crash.

The Federal Aviation Administration has said that helicopters are especially vulnerable to bird strikes because they fly at low altitudes. Helicopter bird strikes are unusual, but they can be devastating.

The victims of last year’s accident included a Siemens business executive from Spain, his family and the pilot. Passengers Agustin Escobar, 49; his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, 39; and their three children, Victor, 4; Mercedes, 8; and Agustin, 10, all died. The pilot was Seankese Johnson, 36, a U.S. Navy veteran who received his commercial pilot’s license in 2023. The crash renewed safety concerns about the popular sightseeing flights and prompted New Jersey’s governor to ask for additional restrictions on nonessential helicopter flights.

Remains of several geese were found on the helicopter’s rotors and left horizontal stabilizer. One witness told the NTSB that just minutes before the crash a large flock of geese took flight in the area.

“The geese were big and there were many of them. When the helicopter went bang, I immediately thought it was a bird strike,” the witness told NTSB investigators.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Feather Identification Lab identified remains from different breeds of geese on the wreckage. Some of those birds average about three pounds. The remains also include female Canada Geese, which can average nearly eight pounds.

The NTSB has investigated 24 helicopter bird strike crashes in the past 25 years, including three fatal ones. Helicopter pilots are encouraged to try to avoid areas where birds are known to be present and fly slower to minimize the potential damage from an impact.

“Bird strikes continue to be a hazard in aviation and one that can be difficult to mitigate,” said aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti, who used to investigate crashes for both the NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration.

The “ miracle on the Hudson” highlighted the danger of bird strikes when a US Airways jet hit a flock of birds and lost power in both engines shortly after takeoff in 2009. Pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger was hailed as a hero after he landed the powerless plane in the Hudson River and all 155 people on board were rescued.

In last year’s crash, witnesses described seeing the helicopter’s tail and main rotor breaking away and smoke pouring from the spinning chopper before it slammed into the water.

The helicopter took off from a downtown heliport that afternoon and flew north along the Manhattan skyline before heading south toward the Statue of Liberty. Less than 18 minutes into the flight, parts of the aircraft were seen tumbling into the water.

Rescue boats circled the submerged aircraft within minutes of impact and recovered the bodies from the water. Later recovery crews hoisted the mangled Bell 206L-4 helicopter out of the river for investigators to examine.

New York Helicopter Tours shut down after the crash, and the FAA issued an emergency order to ground all the company’s flights after learning it had fired its operations director minutes after he had agreed to suspend flights during the investigation.

The FAA said at the time that it suspected the firing was retaliation for a safety decision.

The company’s director of operations, Jason Costello, agreed to voluntarily halt flights while the crash was being investigated. But 16 minutes after Costello sent an email to the FAA, the company’s chief executive officer sent a separate email to the agency saying he did not authorize the halt and that Costello was no longer an employee.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A ghost gun company has been ordered to pay more than $100 million in the death of a Kentucky teenager who had purchased the company’s pistol-building kit online.

The verdict — believed to be the largest-ever against a gun dealer — was awarded by a jury Wednesday following a trial focused on whether the vendor, Husky Armory LLC, skirted federal regulations barring the sale of the gun-assembly kits to those under 21.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org. Helplines outside the U.S. can be found at www.iasp.info/suicidalthoughts.

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In a wrongful-death lawsuit, the family of Henry Willis said he was just 18 when he purchased the Glock G19 pistol “build kit” from Husky Armory’s website in 2023. He assembled the handgun in his garage — telling his father it was a transistor radio — and used it to end his life six days later.

Everytown Law, which represented the family, said the $104.2 million payout was the largest ever reached against a gun seller, surpassing the $73 million settlement awarded to the families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting by the rifle-maker Remington.

It comes a little over a year after the Supreme Court upheld regulations enacted by the Biden administration that mandated serial numbers on the homemade weapons and required buyers to complete background checks and age verification.

Attorneys for Willis said Husky Armory had flouted each of those requirements.

Their website advertised the product as having “everything you need to build your own Glock style pistol from the comfort of your home,” noting the weapon could be assembled by “nearly anyone with a brain,” according to the lawsuit.

Inquiries to Husky Armory LLC and its owner, Cody Yurk, were not immediately returned. The company, which is based in Omaha, Nebraska, was not present for the trial, according to the family and their attorneys.

At a news conference Thursday, Willis’ mother, Laura Herp, described her son as a “kind, gentle child” who had struggled with mental health issues in the months leading up to his death.

“A child in crisis should never be able to access a deadly weapon,” Herp said. “Companies like Husky Armory thrive off selling to folks who shouldn’t have access to firearms, and they didn’t care who Henry was. They didn’t even bother showing up to the trial.”

A state court in Louisville had previously issued a default judgment against the vendor for failing to respond to the lawsuit. Following a two-day trial this week, a jury awarded $4.2 million in economic damages and $100 million in punitive damages to the family.

“This historic verdict sends a powerful message to ghost-gun sellers who set up businesses to profit by circumventing critical safeguards like background checks and age verification,” said Dana Mulhauser, an attorney for Everytown Law. “Henry should be home with his family today, and Laura deserved more time and opportunity to help her son heal.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Markwayne Mullin took over as Homeland Security secretary from fired Kristi Noem, he pledged to get the department responsible for carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportations policy out of the headlines.

But just months into Mullin’s time in office, the department is squarely in the center of controversy again after three people were killed in encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the span of less than a week.

The events are the first major test for Mullin, who promised a steady hand for a department roiled by his predecessor’s conduct and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

As he navigates the uptick in violence, he is being forced into a balancing act that has him juggling pressures from a White House eager to carry out mass deportations and his former colleagues in Congress seeking answers — all while attempting to ease tensions in American cities over the deaths.

“When he took his position, Secretary Mullin said that his goal was to get the department off the front page of the news,” Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner said on the House floor Tuesday. Then, waving a newspaper, he said: “Well, you’re back on the goddamn front page now.”

Mullin’s approach is a marked change from his predecessor, Kristi Noem

Mullin, a former senator from Oklahoma, was a surprise pick to run the sprawling department after Noem was fired in the wake of two deadly shootings of American protesters at the hands of federal immigration officers in Minneapolis earlier this year.

As the secretary in charge of carrying out the administration’s mass deportations vision, Noem pushed an aggressive style of immigration enforcement where she was front and center, including most famously, a visit to a Salvadoran detention center. She was quick to speak publicly on controversial events, weighing in on both Minneapolis shootings with statements accusing the killed protesters of being agitators.

President Donald Trump, who made mass deportations a central promise of his second administration, ultimately soured on Noem over a $200 million ad campaign and her handling of the Minneapolis operation.

Mullin promised a different approach, while still pledging to deliver on the president’s priorities. His first trip as secretary was not to promote immigration enforcement but to observe hurricane recovery efforts in North Carolina. Noem frequently went out on immigration raids with her officers — Mullin has not.

Since he became secretary and in the aftermath of the Minneapolis violence, the administration has also moved away from high-profile and unpopular immigration operations in American cities to a quieter approach to enforcement that has largely shifted media attention away from the crackdown. Under Mullin, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is also retreating from a plan to use warehouses to detain migrants.

But immigration arrests continue under Mullin and often with little fanfare: ICE arrested 10,000 people over a five-day period in late June, averaging out to about to 2,000 arrests per day. And legal pathways to immigration have also faced new restrictions.

Trump, during Mullin’s tenure, has hailed the secretary as “so incredible,” and “amazing,” lauding him for giving up his Senate seat to run DHS.

For months, it appeared as though Mullin’s change in approach was taking hold. While advocates and civil rights activists accused the department of mistreating immigrants under his leadership, Mullin’s less confrontational approach seemed to keep the department out of the spotlight.

ICE-related deaths bring renewed spotlight to Mullin and DHS

But the events of the past week have posed a new challenge for Mullin as he walks a tightrope between his softer approach and the president’s demands.

“Trying to deal with competing policy objectives is a challenge for any Cabinet secretary, but Mullin has this worse than most,” said Tom Warrick, a former counterterrorism official at Homeland Security who’s now at the Atlantic Council.

“In the case of Homeland Security, the White House wants both to meet their immigration quotas at the same time that they keep public trust, and how you do that — even with the funding that Mullin has — is a really difficult challenge.”

ICE officers in Houston and Maine shot and killed individuals in their cars during immigration operations. In Florida, a man fleeing ICE officers was killed in a car crash.

Mullin has not spoken publicly about the deaths while the department’s public affairs office has released only brief statements following each.

Behind the scenes, Mullin, who frequently talks about how he shares his cellphone number with members of Congress and encourages them to call him directly, has talked with lawmakers and shared information, including talking with both senators from Maine.

And after the second shooting death in Maine, as criticism surged from both protesters and Mullin’s former colleagues in Congress, ICE was ordered to suspend most vehicle stops.

Trump heaps pressure on Mullin over vehicle stop order

That decision infuriated Trump’s supporters.

Conservative influencer Nick Sorter called it a “TOTAL CAPITULATION to the left,” in a post on X. Conservative activist Mike Davis accused Mullin of heeding the advice of Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who said she’d suggested the vehicle stop pause to the secretary.

A day later, Trump appeared to contradict the guidance to ICE, saying in a social media post “we must be strong, tough and smart and we CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!”

Mullin then reposted Trump’s words, adding that people in the country would be “arrested and deported wherever they are.” He later said on X that he and the president are “on the same page.”

During a briefing Thursday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said vehicle stops are continuing after field offices around the country were given “verbal guidance.”

“The president and the secretary of Homeland Security are on the same page that vehicle stops are a necessary tool that ICE agents need,” she said.

But it showed the friction between Mullin’s attempts to maintain calm and the president’s demands that illegal immigrants, which the administration has in many instances portrayed as criminals, be arrested in large numbers.

Democrats have slammed the new secretary, saying that they see little change at the department.

“Secretary Mullin, if he wants to, and if he has the backing of the White House, he has the ability to get ICE under control and make them follow the law,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat from Texas. “So either he has no interest in doing that, or the White House is not backing him up, or the agents are simply out of control.”

Republican lawmakers have come to Mullin’s defense.

“I think the Secretary has lived up to what he’s wanted to do to try to change the atmosphere over there,” said Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York, who as chair of the congressional Homeland Security Committee has requested a bipartisan briefing on ICE’s use of force policies from DHS.

“I don’t think anybody is celebrating that ICE is back in the headlines,” Garbarino said.

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Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Labor emphasized a steady grounding in labor law built on years of experience in private practice, academia and the federal government as he looked to win over senators in a confirmation hearing Thursday.

Keith Sonderling has already been on the job as acting secretary since April, when the White House announced that Lori Chavez-DeRemer would be leaving her post to take a job in the private sector. Her exit followed multiple allegations that she had abused her position’s power.

The hearing Thursday lacked much of the vitriol and drama that has been part of some confirmation hearings during Trump’s second term. Still, there were considerable policy disputes, including on the administration’s efforts to administer various Department of Education grant programs within the Department of Labor.

Sonderling was a senior advisor at the department during Trump’s first term and went on to serve as a Republican member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He also taught about the laws the department enforces as an adjunct professor at George Washington University. He returned to the department in Trump’s second term and was confirmed as deputy secretary in March of last year.

“Few people have had the opportunity to experience the department from so many perspectives,” Sonderling told lawmakers.

Sonderling faced Democratic criticism

Sonderling is expected to be confirmed, but Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., made clear she was no fan of his work.

She noted that the department this year rescinded a Biden-era rule that expanded who can get overtime pay, which the department had estimated would provide an additional 4 million lower-paid salary workers with overtime protections. A federal judge had also blocked the rule during the final months of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Murray also noted that the department was pursuing a new rule for determining whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor, which she said would let corporations classify workers as contractors so they can pay lesser wages — depriving workers of billions of dollars annually. She said the Labor Department also fired the vast majority of employees in the office that works to protect workers from discrimination by federal contractors.

“I fear any vote to confirm you is for more of the same: to strip overtime protections for our workers, to undercut our unions and to let giant corporations get away with robbery, literally,” Murray said.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla, said Sonderling was without a doubt qualified to serve as the next Labor secretary. He also said Sonderling has provided stability and steady leadership at the department since Chavez-DeRemer’s abrupt departure.

“He is committed to making America the best place to get a job,” Scott said.

Lawmakers raised concerns about grants and the use of AI

One issue that came up repeatedly during the confirmation hearing was Democratic lawmakers’ concerns that some Department of Education grant programs are being managed at Labor. That’s been happening as Trump works to fulfill his campaign pledge to close the Department of Education entirely.

Sonderling said Department of Education staff have been detailed to his department and that they’re making policy decisions. He said the Department of Labor is assisting them on the back end in dispersing funding. For example, he said $1.5 billion came to his department at midnight on July 1 and was disbursed within an hour or two.

“And the states love this,” Sonderling said.

Senators also expressed concern about what impact the growing use of artificial intelligence is having on the American worker.

Sonderling said the department is collecting information from companies and unions about AI usage. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will review that data and help the department steer job training money to the states more effectively.

Currently, he said there is a “gloom and doom narrative” about AI’s impact on workers that he said is driven by consultants and the tech industry.

“What we believe we’re going to see is that AI-impacted jobs can potentially make you more productive. It can make your workplaces safer, but we can’t get that information yet,” Sonderling said.

Sonderling also touted his work with Vice President JD Vance as part of a task force focused on preventing fraud. He said he’s telling states to “verify first and pay later” when it comes to unemployment insurance claims. He said the department is working with the state of Alabama on a centralized verification system.

“They have some of the lowest fraud and improper payment rates in the country because they are verifying,” Sonderling said.

President Donald Trump’s administration has worked to stop offshore wind development on the grounds that it’s a national security risk since late last year.

It halted work on major projects, and it’s buying back leases, citing national security concerns. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says a classified report from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proves offshore wind is a national security threat.

This comes against the backdrop of the Republican president’s hatred of wind turbines and desire to boost fossil fuels for “energy dominance” in the global market. National lab estimates show that turbines installed along the U.S. coasts could provide more than enough power to cover the nation’s annual electricity consumption.

Wind turbines interfere with radar, but that isn’t a new problem. The Pentagon reviews wind farm construction plans and can deem areas off limits. There are upgrades to radar to mitigate turbine impacts.

Here’s what to know about the national security implications of offshore wind development:

Turbines’ spinning blades can create false targets on radar screens

Burgum says he’s worried about autonomous drones going through a wind tower field undetected because of radar interference. And, he said, the vibration of wind towers could affect undersea sonar.

Radar systems can be adjusted to raise the threshold for what’s considered a detection but may miss actual targets consequently, according to the Department of Energy.

Kirk Lippold, a national security expert and former commander of the USS Cole, said radar operators are trained to differentiate a live track — anything from a boat or a submarine periscope to an inbound drone or missile — from clutter. If drones aren’t detected before they reach a wind farm, “we have bigger national security issues,” he said.

Trump administration says there are new risks

According to the Department of Justice, defense officials gave the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management classified information in November 2025 detailing new national security risks from offshore wind projects.

BOEM halted construction on five big East Coast projects days before Christmas. Burgum said they had to address the rapid evolution of relevant adversary technologies and vulnerabilities created by these projects near East Coast cities. This came after courts blocked Trump’s efforts to halt development through executive action.

Like the United States, Sweden is raising security concerns with offshore wind energy. Officials said Thursday they’re approving two offshore wind farms while rejecting 11 others.

Green Power Sweden CEO Nils Grunditz said he questions why Sweden is scaling back its offshore wind plans when technological solutions for radar interference are used elsewhere in the region. Denmark has been a pioneer in wind energy since building the first offshore wind farm in 1991.

The UK government said in March it bought new air defense radars to mitigate against anomalies created by offshore wind farms, touting it as new technology that secures coexistence of air defense and offshore wind. The independent climate change think tank E3G said North Sea turbines can be a defense asset, for example by including surveillance and monitoring equipment.

Judges were not convinced by the Trump administration

Developers impacted by the construction freeze and states sued. The DOJ argued national security concerns are paramount and federal courts do not second-guess military officials’ assessment of these risks.

Federal judges reviewed the classified information and allowed all five wind farms to resume construction.

At the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Senior Judge Royce Lamberth expressed concern that the stated national security reasoning may have been “pretextual,” to mask the true motives for stopping offshore wind.

In putting a major wind farm for Rhode Island and Connecticut back on track in January, Lamberth said the government did not apply the newly discovered concerns specifically to that project, Revolution Wind, Burgum publicly criticized offshore wind around the time of the stop work order for reasons unrelated to national security, and BOEM waited to act until December on information it received in November.

The Pentagon is also holding up the development of onshore wind farms, and the administration has used emergency orders to keep fossil fuel plants online. On Thursday, attorneys general from 18 states and Washington moved to intervene in a lawsuit to try to advance the onshore wind farms.

Meghan Greenfield, a partner at Jenner & Block LLP in Washington, said the administration is making a national security argument in so many different contexts, “it has caused increased skepticism by the courts.”

A retired Navy officer is suspicious of the administration’s motives

In buying back offshore wind leases, the Interior Department cited national security concerns with the projects, including those off California. The Interior Department said Thursday there were serious national security risks that demanded immediate attention, and it won’t let “reckless projects create higher utility costs, a weakened energy system and unnecessary harm to the environment.” Several states are suing.

Retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn knows the waters off California’s shore well. He commanded the fleet responsible for naval operations across the eastern and northern Pacific Ocean. He said there’s no “showstopping national security issue” that would invalidate years of analysis of the lease areas.

McGinn said he thinks the administration is maximizing the risks and costs of offshore wind while minimizing the benefits to justify pursuing more fossil fuels and “it doesn’t pass commonsense tests.” Offshore wind produces electricity cleanly. Oil, coal and natural gas emit carbon pollution when burned.

McGinn, who served as an assistant secretary of the Navy, said that radar interference is a problem recognized early on and adequately addressed and that thousands of turbines are operating across Europe and Asia.

“National security and offshore wind are compatible, if it is done right, in the right locations,” he said.

Economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth disagrees. A distinguished fellow at the Energy Policy Research Foundation, Furchtgott-Roth said the defense issues have been known for decades, the military’s views should be taken very seriously, the nation shouldn’t be dependent on Chinese-made turbines, and gas, coal and nuclear provide affordable, reliable power. The administration is acting prudently, she said.

Members of Congress were briefed

Democratic U.S. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island said he participated in a classified briefing months ago and didn’t find the reasoning compelling. Reed, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is trying to include a measure in the defense bill that sets military policy to force a 180-day deadline for a military office known as the siting clearinghouse to evaluate wind projects and explain its conclusion.

“They have to be able to produce a thoughtful and thorough analysis which justifies their decision,” Reed said Wednesday. “That’s the way to go.”

Even with that step, Reed said, this administration finds many ways to stop things it doesn’t like and he expects the campaign against wind energy to continue.

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President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration sought to ease concerns over expanding private airport screening at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, saying the existing program is “pro-worker” and won’t be a threat to the future of TSA’s workforce.

David Cummins, a former senior vice president at government contractor Serco, would take over an agency with roughly 60,000 employees responsible for security operations at more than 440 airports nationwide. He would inherit a TSA that has faced persistent staffing and morale challenges, particularly after this year’s record-long partial government shutdown left TSA employees working for weeks without pay. The funding lapse prompted thousands of officers to call out of work and about 1,100 to quit altogether, leading to long lines at some U.S. airports.

In his opening statement, Cummins pledged to prioritize front line TSA officers, saying his first task, if confirmed, would be to visit airports and reassure employees that he would “do everything in my power to protect and support them in the future.”

“The challenges ahead are significant,” Cummins told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “But the opportunities to transform the TSA on the eve of its 25th anniversary are even greater.”

The agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to bring passenger screening under a single federal agency. But a program established a few years later also allows airports to use private contractors for screening operations under TSA oversight.

Democratic lawmakers and the union representing TSA officers have raised concerns that expanding the program, called the Screening Partnership Program, amounts to privatizing a core government security function and could undermine TSA employees.

Cummins rejected that characterization and defended the Trump administration’s plans to expand the program, saying it is not anti-worker and arguing that airports under the screening program were able to continue paying their employees during past government shutdowns.

“Some will suggest that the SPP is all about privatization and that it is anti-worker,” Cummins said. “I hold that it is in fact pro-worker to pay your employees, as the SPP airports did during the last shutdowns.”

Cummins said existing TSA employees would have the “right of first refusal” to take screening jobs at airports that join the program and said, “in our experience, all of them take the jobs and they stay there.”

He also said he supports legislation, including the bipartisan Keep America Flying Act, that would guarantee TSA employees receive pay during future funding lapses. He said there is “too much at stake” to leave the agency vulnerable to political brinkmanship.

Pressed by Democratic lawmakers about Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s threats to pull Customs and Border Protection officers from some airports in so-called sanctuary cities, Cummins said he had not been briefed on any “near-term plans” to do so but acknowledged the impact politics can have on aviation security.

“What I would say is that we are in a very sort of politicized environment. We all need to recognize that aviation security is impaired oftentimes by politics,” Cummins said, adding that he would be candid with Congress if any such directive threatened TSA operations.

Cummins previously worked at Serco, which partners with federal, state and local agencies. A LinkedIn profile that has since been removed said he helped develop transportation technologies and was co-awarded a “dozen patents in transportation systems.” The profile also said he led operations planning for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.