President Trump has ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to round up nearly 2,000 undocumented migrant families with deportation orders in 10 major U.S. cities starting Sunday morning, according to the Washington Post.
Why it matters: The large-scale sweep, termed "family op," is part of Trump's broad immigration plan. ICE agents only have the last-known addresses of the migrant families, and White House and ICE officials anticipate many "collateral arrests by finding foreigners living in the country illegally at or near the target locations," the Post reports.
In a New York magazine cover story published Friday, author E. Jean Carroll accused President Trump of raping her in a dressing room of New York's Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s.
Why it matters: Carroll's accusation is the 16th allegation of sexual misconduct or assault levied against the president throughout his time in public life — all of which he has denied.
Across the globe, the number of people forcibly displaced by conflict and persecution has risen to more than 70 million, almost double the number a decade ago, according to the latest annual report from the UN High Commission for Refugees.
Why it matters: The trends make clear that forced displacement has become an “entrenched norm,” as people continue to be uprooted by (mostly civil) war and for longer periods of time. Almost 16 million refugees have been in exile for 5 or more consecutive years in a given host country, and 6 million have been displaced for more than 20 years.
Felix Sater, a Russian-born real estate developer, failed to show up for his closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Friday about his work with Michael Cohen to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
The big picture: Sater, who had previously been set to testify publicly before House Intel prior to the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report, will now face a subpoena to compel his testimony, according to a committee spokesperson. Trump's efforts to build a Trump Tower in Russia — and the potential business entanglements that ensued — are of particular interest to House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported more immigrants this fiscal year than any full fiscal year of Donald Trump's presidency, but it has yet to reach Barack Obama's early deportation levels, according to new internal Department of Homeland Security figures obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: With four months left in the fiscal year, it puts Trump's deportations in perspective and shows the reality behind the anti-immigrant pledges that have come to define his presidency.
A team of lawyers interviewed nearly 60 children at a border patrol station in El Paso, Tex., finding that nearly 250 minors have been held for up to 27 days without enough food, water or sanitation, reports AP.
In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention I have never heard of this level of inhumanity. Seeing our country at this crucible moment where we have forsaken children and failed to see them as human is hopefully a wake up for this country to move toward change.”
— Holly Cooper, an attorney who represents detained youth, per AP
Former Alabama Judge Roy Moore announced Thursday that he will make another bid for the Alabama Senate seat he lost to Democrat Doug Jones in 2017 in the face of sexual misconduct allegations.
Why it matters: Moore was almost guaranteed a win as the Republican nominee in Alabama’s 2017 special election, but a wave of sexual misconduct allegations, largely involving teenage girls, derailed his candidacy. The resulting chaos handed Jones a narrow 49.9%-48.4% victory — making him the first Democrat to hold statewide office in Alabama since 2008.
The Senate voted 53-45 on Thursday to pass 22 resolutions seeking to block the Trump administration's sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia, despite the White House threatening to veto the package moments before the vote.
Why it matters: This marks yet another bipartisan rebuke of the administration's close relationship with Saudi Arabia, which has come under increasing scrutiny in the months since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of the Saudi government. In March, the Senate voted to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, a resolution that forced Trump to issue the second veto of his presidency.
Axios editor-in-chief Nicholas Johnston guest hosts for Dan and talks to Axios' Scott Rosenberg about the changing conversation around Big Tech amid growing privacy and harassment concerns. In the "Final Two," Trump's re-elect rally tech strategy and tech CEO rankings.
2020 Democratic contender Sen. Cory Booker proposed Thursday using executive action to offer clemency to thousands of nonviolent drug offenders on his first day in office, the New York Times reports.
The big picture: Booker's plan, which the Times calls the "broadest clemency initiative since the Civil War," is a fast-tracked version of his proposed Next Step Act, which is also built on addressing racial discrimination in drug-related arrests.
Joe Biden's praise for segregationist senators showed starkly his vital job in next week's opening debate: Show he's a man of these times, not a man out of time.
Why it matters: Nothing worries Biden advisers more than public reminders that he's a throwback to a bygone era younger Democrats want to erase.
Some top Democrats are already predicting that President Trump will lose the popular vote again in 2020, but might very well win the election by a single electoral vote.
What they're saying: Jim Messina, President Obama's 2012 campaign manager, predicted the race will come down to two or three states, "We could be sitting on Election Day not knowing who will win."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to Department of Treasury Inspector General Eric Thorson requesting an investigation into the Trump administration’s delay of the $20 bill redesign that was to feature abolitionist Harriet Tubman.
The big picture: The Obama administration had planned for the bill featuring Tubman on the front side and the late President Andrew Jackson on the back to be released in 2020 to commemorate the 100th anniversary since the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
Former Vice President Joe Biden refused to apologize for comments he made on race at a fundraiser, suggesting Democratic presidential rival Sen. Cory Booker should do so instead, video captured by CBS News shows.
President Trump defended House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) during a telephone interview on Fox News' "Hannity" Wednesday night.
Details: Host Sean Hannity suggested to Trump that Pelosi had lost control of the Democratic Party to progressives like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), saying she's the "speaker in name." But Trump replied, "I think Nancy Pelosi probably has control of it, I hear different things but I think she does. She knows what she's doing. We will see how it all comes out out."
House Democrats voted to repeal 2001's Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) on Wednesday, which originally gave then-President George W. Bush the power to go to war with al-Qaeda and any related organization after 9/11, and could now justify a new war with Iran, reports Vox.
The big picture: The repeal is in direct response to allegations by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Iran has ties to al-Qaeda, according to the New York Times. Bipartisan legislators are nervous that the Trump administration is closing in on war with Iran as tensions with the Gulf nation continue to escalate, says Vox.
