The Charlotte City Council is being slammed for approving $3.4 million to hire a PR company to clean up the reputation of their public transportation after a string of recent stabbings.
The city’s latest action comes after two widely-publicized <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fatal-charlotte-stabbing-highlights-the-failure-of-racial-equity-policies?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Megan+Basham&amp;category=News+and+Analysis&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Fatal+Charlotte+Stabbing+Highlights+The+Failure+Of+Racial+Equity+Policies">stabbings</a>, including one that ended fatally on Charlotte’s train system and sparked a national conversation on rising crime and lax prosecution in urban areas of the country. On Tuesday, Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Harris called out the “pro-crime Democrats in Charlotte” for spending the cash on “misleading ads” rather than choosing to “invest in REAL safety to prevent another tragedy like Iryna Zarutska&#8217;s brutal murder.”
“No amount of marketing will cause us to forget Iryna,” Harris <a href="https://x.com/RepMarkHarrisNC/status/1998455022409879676">wrote</a>.
Local radio host Nick Craig <a href="https://x.com/nicholasmcraig/status/1998354129018568908" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called</a> out local leaders on X Tuesday for using the funds “on ads telling you everything is fine” rather than “fixing safety.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Pro-crime Democrats in Charlotte are doing everything they possibly can EXCEPT FOR ACTUALLY ADDRESSING CRIME. <a href="https://t.co/azb5FlLHoQ">https://t.co/azb5FlLHoQ</a>
— Rep. Mark Harris (@RepMarkHarrisNC) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepMarkHarrisNC/status/1998450963124990235?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
Honduran illegal immigrant Oscar Gerardo Solorzano-Garcia allegedly stabbed a man using a “large fixed-blade knife” on a Charlotte train Friday, <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article313445137.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to The Charlotte Observer.
Solorzano-Garcia was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/twice-deported-illegal-immigrant-accused-in-another-charlotte-train-stabbing?author=Jennie+Taer&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Twice-Deported+Illegal+Immigrant+Accused+In+Another+Charlotte+Train+Stabbing">deported</a> on two separate occasions before the attack and had a lengthy rap sheet for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, destroying evidence, resisting arrest, using a false ID, along with convictions for robbery and illegal re-entry.
It came just four months after the unprovoked murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, 23, in Charlotte by a man with at least 14 prior arrests for offenses such as armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.
Decarlos Brown Jr. served five years for the robbery, but got off on time served, probation, or community service in most of his other cases.
He allegedly stabbed Zarutska repeatedly in the neck as she was commuting from her job at a local pizzeria.
The Trump administration responded to Charlotte’s crime surge and sanctuary policies by deploying federal immigration agents to carry out what they dubbed “Operation Charlotte&#8217;s Web,” which resulted in hundreds of arrests of illegal immigrants.

MixCollage-08-Sep-2025-02-31-PM-2293

Charlotte City Council Slammed For Shelling Out Millions On PR Following Train Stabbings

Charlotte City Council Faces Backlash For Shelling Out $3M On Train PR Following String Of Stabbings

Charlotte

A twice-deported illegal immigrant with a rap sheet allegedly brutally stabbed a man on a Charlotte, North Carolina, train.
Honduran illegal immigrant Oscar Gerardo Solorzano-Garcia is accused of stabbing a man with a “large fixed-blade knife&#8221; on a light rail train Friday, leaving him in critical condition, <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article313445137.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the Charlotte Observer.
He was first deported from the United States on March 9, 2018, before he crossed the border illegally again and was removed in 2021, <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/12/06/ice-lodges-detainer-criminal-illegal-alien-charged-attempted-murder-after-stabbing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the Department of Homeland Security.
Solorzano-Garcia snuck back in undetected for a third time on an unknown date.
He was previously arrested for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, destroying evidence, resisting arrest, using a false ID, and has convictions for robbery and illegal re-entry.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called it a &#8220;heinous&#8221; attack, saying that her agency has taken action to ensure he faces justice.
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&#8220;ICE lodged an arrest detainer to ensure Oscar Gerardo Solorzano-Garcia is not released back into North Carolina neighborhoods,&#8221; Noem said. &#8220;Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee the county will honor the detainer since they have a history of not cooperating with ICE.&#8221;
“Under President Trump, ICE is being unleashed to ensure public safety for all Americans. Make no mistake: We will not rest until every depraved criminal illegal alien is removed from our communities,&#8221; Noem said.
Both President Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy commented on the incident:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨An illegal immigrant who was previously deported is now accused of attempted murder for stabbing a man on the Charlotte Light Rail this week🚨
This is just MONTHS AFTER the horrific murder of Iryna Zarutska.<a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a> is right… ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. We need justice NOW! <a href="https://t.co/rnQBer1W3L">pic.twitter.com/rnQBer1W3L</a>
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecDuffy/status/1997463065613500595?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The latest stabbing comes just four months after the unprovoked murder of Ukrainian refugee <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-asks-supreme-court-to-hear-birthright-citizenship-case?author=Reuters&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Asks+Supreme+Court+To+Hear+Birthright+Citizenship+Case">Iryna Zarutska</a>, 23, in Charlotte.
Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly stabbed Zarutska repeatedly in the neck as she was commuting from her job at a local pizza joint.
Last month, the Trump administration deployed federal immigration agents to Charlotte, leading to hundreds of arrests of illegal immigrants in response to local sanctuary policies.

Twice-Deported Illegal Immigrant Accused In Another Charlotte Train Stabbing

Crime

Deportations

illegal immigrant

Illegal Immigration

U.S.

A mother is speaking out after learning that the alleged sex offender who preyed upon her 13-year-old daughter was an illegal immigrant set free by local authorities who chose not to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Trump administration recently brought the case to light after launching mass deportation raids in Charlotte. While exposing local authorities for setting illegal immigrants free, the Department of Homeland Security highlighted the case of Costa Rican illegal immigrant Jordan Renato Castillo-Chavez, 29, as one out of roughly 1,400 cases in Charlotte where local cops refused to honor federal immigration detainers.
&#8220;It&#8217;s hurtful that my child is a victim and they had this person and let him go,&#8221; the victim&#8217;s mother, Misha Rose, whose own father was deported from the United States after committing a crime, told WSOC.
&#8220;This is serious &#8230; we need justice, he needs to go,&#8221; she said as she fought back tears.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Jordan Renato Castillo-Chavez was released after North Carolina authorities failed to honor the ICE detainer.
Castillo-Chavez, a criminal illegal alien from Costa Rica, was arrested for indecent liberties with child, first degree sexual exploitation of a minor, attempted… <a href="https://t.co/mVl6VSw73W">pic.twitter.com/mVl6VSw73W</a>
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1991870683702247783?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Pineville police charged Castillo-Chavez in March with indecent liberties and other sex offenses after he allegedly began messaging the young victim online. But he later bonded out of custody.
&#8220;There was this message from this guy, and I was like, &#8216;Who is this?&#8217; and she was like, &#8216;Oh, that&#8217;s my friend, I just met him online.&#8217; And I looked at the messages, there were photos, there were messages that indicated he was like coming to pick her up, and I immediately just like dropped, like I fainted, like this is not happening right now,&#8221; Rose recalled.
The Department of Homeland Security said local authorities failed to honor their detainer request to hand over the illegal immigrant if he was to be released.
The Mecklenburg County sheriff&#8217;s office, however, claims that ICE made a request for advanced notice of Castillo-Chavez&#8217;s release, but never issued a formal detainer, according to WSOC. The sheriff&#8217;s office said they never notified federal immigration agents because there was no legal requirement in place.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues its deployment of Border Patrol agents to Charlotte to clean up the mess created by sanctuary policies. The feds have already made over 200 arrests since the operation began over the weekend.
&#8220;Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens hurting them, their families, or their neighbors,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said recently of the operation.
“There have been too many victims of criminal illegal aliens. President Trump and Secretary Noem will step up to protect Americans when sanctuary politicians won’t,&#8221; she said.
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Untitled design – 2025-11-21T100513.076

Mom Speaks Out After Charlotte Authorities Release Illegal Immigrant Who Preyed Upon Her Daughter

Mom Speaks Out After Authorities In Charlotte Let Go Predator Who Preyed Upon Her Daughter

North Carolina

Sanctuary Cities

Trump and Russia are reportedly near a deal to end the conflict in Ukraine, the administration is looking to overhaul SNAP, and Charlotte’s ICE presence is clearing roads and classrooms.
It’s Thursday, November 20, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ukraine-deal-emerges-snap-system-shakeup-11-20-25-member-exclusive">video version can be seen on The Daily Wire</a>:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ukraine-deal-emerges-snap-system-shakeup-11-20-25/id1576594336?i=1000737568672" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Peace In Ukraine At Last?</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1003179" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Ukraine-Peace-Plan-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Ukraine-Peace-Plan-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Ukraine-Peace-Plan-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Ukraine-Peace-Plan-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Ukraine-Peace-Plan-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Ukraine-Peace-Plan.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The Trump administration is crafting a plan to end the war in Ukraine. According to a new report, officials are in talks to get both sides on board with a 28-point framework.
While few details of a potential deal have been made public, administration officials seem confident about it. <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2025/11/19/a-peace-deal-as-soon-as-this-week-00658623">Politico</a> quoted one official as saying, “What we are going to present is reasonable.”
The plan reportedly emerged from extensive talks between U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russia envoy Kirill Dmitriev. The two ambassadors met in Miami last month and spent three days together on what a potential deal could look like.
According to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/11/19/ukraine-peace-plan-trump-russia-witkoff">Axios</a>, Dmitriev came out of that meeting feeling like “the Russian position is really being heard.” He went on to describe the negotiations as &#8220;a much broader framework” that seeks to bring “lasting security to Europe, not just Ukraine.”
What’s not so clear is how far talks have moved forward with Ukraine, or with European officials who may be interested in any potential peace deal–especially one that may involve security guarantees the Europeans have to provide for Ukraine.
The White House seems to think that Kiev and Europe will eventually accept the deal, though, as long as “flexibility” is shown, as one White House official put it.
When? Some reports suggest a deal could be on the table as soon as the end of this week. That might sound fast, but we have seen a lot of movement lately.
According to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/18/top-army-officials-set-for-drone-focused-visit-to-ukraine-00658328" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Politico</a>, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and other senior U.S. military officials traveled to Kyiv on Wednesday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who then traveled to Turkey to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan about restarting peace talks with Russia.
Zelensky didn’t talk more of any deal in the works, though, and it’s worth noting that there have been times in the past when Zelensky hasn’t had trouble dissenting from the White House. His buy-in is necessary before a peace plan can move forward.
According to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/11/19/trump-ukraine-peace-plan-russia-donbas">Axios</a>, part of the Trump administration’s plan includes asking Ukraine to trade some land for security guarantees–including some land that Russia does not currently control. That alone could be a sticking point for Ukraine.
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">SNAP Waste, Fraud, And Abuse</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1003177" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SNAPs-Big-Reset-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SNAPs-Big-Reset-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SNAPs-Big-Reset-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SNAPs-Big-Reset-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SNAPs-Big-Reset-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SNAPs-Big-Reset.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has announced a complete overhaul of the food stamp program, promising to rein in fraud and abuse.
Rollins is changing a number of things, but most notably, her department is requiring current food stamp recipients to reapply for benefits. Currently, about 43 million people are in the SNAP program, about 12% of the population, and it costs taxpayers about $100 billion annually.
The department’s logic is that reapplying will reduce fraud and abuse, ensuring that benefits go to Americans who really need assistance.
Rollins said Americans know SNAP is “extremely corrupt” by the many anecdotal stories of fraud and waste. Videos have circulated on social media of people admitting to selling their benefits, or grabbing eye-popping grocery hauls for people who don’t seem very needy.
But, but, but: Without hard data, it’s impossible to know how much abuse is going on and where. Rollins has asked every state to share SNAP data to track down the fraud, but only 29 states, mostly Republican-led, have complied. 
“The number is closer to 186,000 deceased men and women who are receiving a check,” Rollins <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvDLcYeSKxw">said</a>, based on the data the department has compiled so far. “500,000 people getting two times the benefits, individuals getting benefits in 4, 5, 6 different states – and those are just the red states.”
Rollins has said her department is suing to get SNAP data from remaining states, such as New York and California, and suggested the fraud and abuse will be even worse there.
SNAP to illegals? Despite the dearth of data on SNAP benefits, some evidence exists that points to illegal aliens receiving SNAP benefits.
A 2024 Survey of Income and Program Participation, <a href="https://washingtonstand.com/article/major-study-finds-illegal-immigrants-collecting-taxpayerfunded-snap-benefits">analyzed</a> by The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), shows that, even though SNAP is restricted to applicants with legal status, potentially up to 4.5 million illegals are using SNAP. This is especially alarming since illegals are already permitted to use WIC, which is another welfare food program that’s a little more restrictive. 
CIS also found that 47% of all noncitizen households receive taxpayer-funded food assistance. And generally, about 60<a href="https://cis.org/Report/Welfare-Use-Immigrants-and-USBorn?utm_source=chatgpt.com">% of illegal immigrant households</a> use at least one major welfare program. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Charlotte Empties After ICE Raids</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1003175" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Queen-City-ICE-Sweeps-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Queen-City-ICE-Sweeps-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Queen-City-ICE-Sweeps-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Queen-City-ICE-Sweeps-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Queen-City-ICE-Sweeps-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Queen-City-ICE-Sweeps.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The Trump administration’s immigration sweeps in Charlotte, North Carolina, have left schools with minimal attendance and roads free of traffic.
Charlotte is a place that doesn’t seem like a traditional hotbed for illegal immigration, but immigration raids are starting to expose it as one. What we&#8217;ve seen so far is that school attendance is down. Around 30,000 students did not show up to class in Charlotte Public Schools on Monday after the sweep started over the weekend.
Immigration raids have yielded about 200 arrests and put fear into other industries around the city. Traffic is down altogether, and some construction sites have been completely abandoned.
Why Charlotte: The raids have revealed the city to be a major hotspot for illegal immigrants.
Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security, more broadly, saw Charlotte as a sanctuary after the sheriff of Mecklenburg County ended its partnership with ICE in 2018. The sheriff said that he would no longer allow ICE to come into his jails to take in illegal immigrant criminals that were set to be released, effectively adopting a sanctuary policy similar to places such as New York City and Chicago, where ICE and Border Patrol have already been active.
With Charlotte, federal officials say that there were 1,400 illegal immigrants sitting in jails in the city that local authorities were refusing to hand over to ICE. Officials trying to clean up the mess have effectively said, ‘If you&#8217;re not going to help us, we&#8217;re going to take matters into our own hands.’ And that&#8217;s what has happened.
The commander of Border Patrol, Gregory Bovino, has said that the sweeps are yielding more collateral arrests. In other words, illegal immigrants who are with the violent illegal immigrant offenders that federal officials are targeting are being arrested alongside those violent aliens. 
According to Bovino, those aliens wrapped up in collateral arrests actually have more serious criminal histories than officials have seen in other cities where raids are happening.

11.20.25 MW

Morning Brief: Ukraine Deal Emerges, Food Stamps Fraud, & ICE Raids Spark Exodus In Charlotte

Morning Brief: Will Ukraine See Peace, Crackdown On SNAP, And Charlotte Empties Over ICE

Donald Trump

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Media

Morning Wire

Politics

Russia

SNAP

Ukraine

Vladimir Putin

Volodymyr Zelensky

The Department of Homeland Security issued an unusually sharp and highly public rebuke of U.S. Senate candidate and former North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper after he criticized federal immigration enforcement operations in Charlotte. Cooper wrote on social media that while he supports using federal resources to deport violent offenders, he opposes “randomly sweeping up people based on what they look like,” warning that such tactics could leave dangerous criminals at large while harming families and the economy.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<a href="https://t.co/QCQ6jhr5Ls">pic.twitter.com/QCQ6jhr5Ls</a>
&mdash; Roy Cooper (@RoyCooperNC) <a href="https://twitter.com/RoyCooperNC/status/1990442383125725505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
DHS immediately fired back, using its official X account to highlight the case of Jordan Renato Castillo-Chavez, a Costa Rican national whom North Carolina authorities had previously declined to transfer to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). DHS described Castillo-Chavez as a “criminal illegal alien” with a record that includes indecent liberties with a child, first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, and solicitation of a child via computer. The agency’s message to Cooper was pointed: “North Carolina refused to hand him over to ICE.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/RoyCooperNC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RoyCooperNC</a>, meet Jordan Renato Castillo-Chavez.
Castillo-Chavez is a criminal illegal alien from Costa Rica. His criminal history includes indecent liberties with child, first degree sexual exploitation of a minor, and solicitation of a child by a computer.
North Carolina… <a href="https://t.co/7spksrfTLq">https://t.co/7spksrfTLq</a> <a href="https://t.co/FFzyhgzhTm">pic.twitter.com/FFzyhgzhTm</a>
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1990593361833566299?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Homeland Security broadened its criticism, arguing that Charlotte has become a hub for human trafficking and that “sanctuary politicians” in the state have enabled violent offenders to roam free. DHS asserted that terrorist groups and gangs exploit the region’s geography and highway networks, implicitly linking Cooper’s policies to increased vulnerability for residents.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Charlotte, North Carolina has become a hub for human trafficking. Terrorist organizations and gangs have taken advantage of the city&#39;s highway system and geographic location to exploit their victims.
Americans should be able to live without fear of these violent criminals, but… <a href="https://t.co/r4thCUUQvx">pic.twitter.com/r4thCUUQvx</a>
&mdash; Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1990859501172314168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Top DHS officials amplified the response. Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin accused Cooper of refusing to turn over more than 1,400 violent criminal non-citizens to ICE during his governorship and rejected his claim of racial profiling as “absurd and devoid of fact.” She argued that releasing such offenders inevitably leads to further victimization.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Firstly, <a href="https://twitter.com/RoyCooperNC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RoyCooperNC</a> refused to turn over 1,400 violent criminal illegal aliens to ICE. 
On his watch, when these public safety threats and predators are released back onto Charlotte’s streets they will reoffend &amp; create more victims. 
Second, illegal immigration is a crime… <a href="https://t.co/qmObq2By5X">https://t.co/qmObq2By5X</a>
&mdash; Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) <a href="https://twitter.com/TriciaOhio/status/1990580018133577751?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, overseeing the enforcement surge known as Operation Charlotte’s Web, defended the operation’s focus on repeat offenders — robbers, assailants, and impaired drivers — insisting that local and state leaders should partner with DHS rather than criticize it.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Kristi Noem discusses Operation Charlotte&#39;s Web, the latest immigration enforcement operation by DHS in Charlotte, NC:
&quot;We&#39;re going after people who committed robberies, assaults, DUI&#39;s, getting them off the streets, keeping people safe. That is exactly what the leadership in… <a href="https://t.co/hf9cS2rwy6">pic.twitter.com/hf9cS2rwy6</a>
&mdash; Julia 🇺🇸 (@Jules31415) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jules31415/status/1990804395986944143?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
DHS also announced that the sweep had already led to more than 130 arrests in its first two days, including 44 individuals with serious criminal histories. The agency framed its approach as a necessary corrective to what it characterized as years of non-cooperation from state officials.
“As governor, Cooper allowed [the] release of 3,500 inmates early to settle litigation with the NAACP,” The Center Square <a href="https://www.thecentersquare.com/north_carolina/article_cfcd1bfd-9a8c-4405-a3fa-73a515b0dd33.html">noted</a>. “He also vetoed legislation in 2019, 2022 and 2024 that would require local law enforcement to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
The DHS pushback drew support from North Carolina Republicans, who accused Cooper of <a href="https://x.com/RepMarkHarrisNC/status/1990866287996682495">misleading the public</a> about the immigration enforcement effort.

NC Gov. Roy Cooper

‘Sanctuary Politician’ Roy Cooper Gets DHS Smackdown Over Operation Charlotte’s Web

Department of Homeland Security

Illegal Immigation

Immigration

Roy Cooper

Federal immigration authorities have descended upon their next target for mass deportation raids: Charlotte, North Carolina, a city the Trump administration says has been operating as a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.
While Charlotte isn&#8217;t a well-known sanctuary like New York or Los Angeles, the Trump administration laments that its leaders have failed to hand over hundreds of illegal immigrant criminals to ICE.
The Department of Homeland Security said there&#8217;s roughly 1,400 illegal immigrant criminals sitting in Charlotte&#8217;s jails that local authorities are refusing to turn over to federal authorities.
&#8220;North Carolina sanctuary politicians are protecting the nearly 1,400 criminal illegal aliens in Charlotte’s jails by REFUSING to turn them over to ICE, ultimately releasing these monsters into North Carolina’s neighborhoods,&#8221; DHS <a href="https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1990528939551248465?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> on X Monday.
In March, ICE arrested six illegal immigrant criminals who had been released by the Mecklenburg Sheriff&#8217;s Office, which ignored federal detainers, <a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-law-enforcement-partners-arrest-24-illegal-criminal-alien-offenders-during" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the agency.
After the operation, there were still 18 other targets &#8220;at large who also had detainers that were not honored,&#8221; ICE said at the time, adding that they&#8217;ve &#8220;been unable to locate those individuals, and they remain at large and pose a potential danger to the community.&#8221;
Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden cut a partnership with ICE in 2018 that allowed federal agents to enter the jails and take illegal immigrant inmates into custody. Since then, he&#8217;s required ICE to provide warrants signed by a judge in order to take in detainees set to be released, according to the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/immigration/3365394/democratic-sheriff-garry-mcfadden-points-at-ice-over-immigration-enforcement/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Washington Examiner</a>.
McFadden defended that he&#8217;s “cooperating” with the law by not honoring detainer requests without judicial warrants, he told the news outlet.
Meanwhile, ICE accused McFadden of adopting a &#8220;selective approach&#8221; that&#8217;s putting public safety at risk.
“While the Sheriff asserts an understanding of what a detainer is and is not, the reality is that declining to cooperate with ICE undermines public safety,” ICE spokesman Lindsay Williams told the Washington Examiner.
“By refusing to notify ICE prior to the release of these individuals, the Sheriff knowingly allows potentially dangerous individuals to evade federal immigration enforcement and to be released back into the community,&#8221; Williams added.
The Trump administration deployed Border Patrol agents to Charlotte over the weekend as part of an operation dubbed &#8220;Charlotte&#8217;s Web,&#8221; which has already yielded more than 130 arrests of illegal immigrants with criminal records ranging from aggravated assault to felony larceny, according to DHS.
Protesters have responded by organizing demonstrations to push federal agents out of the city.
North Carolina Democrat Governor Josh Stein condemned the federal operation in a video statement.
“We’ve seen masked, heavily armed agents in paramilitary garb driving unmarked cars, targeting American citizens based on their skin color, racially profiling, and picking up random people in parking lots and off of our sidewalks,” Stein said.
Some locals have also cowered in the presence of the feds.
Roughly 27,000 students were absent from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools on Monday, which was nearly three times the number of absences from one week earlier, <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article312964185.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to The Charlotte Observer.
Some local businesses have also shut their doors, fearing that their customers or employees will be targets of the raids.
“I’m not going to risk my customers,” Manolo&#8217;s Bakery owner Manolo Betancur <a href="https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/manolos-bakery-charlotte-closes-border-patrol-concerns/275-86cdb1a6-1338-428a-b599-a06460bcef7d" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> WCNC of his decision to close his business. “Safety is more important than any money, any profits or any economic system.”

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Here’s Why The Feds Are Targeting Charlotte With Immigration Raids

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents descended upon Charlotte, North Carolina, over the weekend, arresting more than 130 illegal immigrants with criminal records ranging from aggravated assault to felony larceny, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The arrests were part of the Trump administration&#8217;s &#8220;<a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/11/15/dhs-launches-operation-charlottes-web-target-criminal-illegal-aliens-terrorizing">Charlotte&#8217;s Web</a>&#8221; operation, which began on Saturday and aims to find and detain illegal immigrants who have found sanctuary in the Democrat-run city. The Department of Homeland Security told The Daily Wire, &#8220;Border Patrol arrested over 130 illegal aliens who have all broken the immigration laws of our country.&#8221;
&#8220;Criminal records of those arrested include known gang membership, aggravated assault, possession of a dangerous weapon, felony larceny, simple assault, hit and run, possession of stolen goods, shoplifting, DUI, DWI, and illegal re-entry after prior deportation, a felony,&#8221; a DHS spokesman said. &#8220;We will not stop enforcing the laws of our nation until every criminal illegal alien is arrested and removed from our country.&#8221;
Across North Carolina, authorities have ignored nearly 1,400 immigration detainers and released violent illegal immigrants back onto the streets, according to the DHS.
Border Patrol Commander Gregory K. Bovino posted photos of suspected illegal immigrants who have been taken &#8220;off the streets&#8221; of Charlotte over the weekend.
&#8220;Who&#8217;s at the same grocery store as you? This illegal alien from Honduras with a criminal history,&#8221; Bovino wrote in one post. &#8220;He has arrests for aggravated assault, assault with a dangerous weapon &amp; DUI. He has also been removed from the U.S. twice, so now that he&#8217;s here AGAIN, he committed a felony by re-entering the U.S.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Who&#8217;s at the same grocery store as you? This illegal alien from Honduras with a criminal history. He has arrests for aggravated assault, assault with a dangerous weapon &amp; DUI. He has also been removed from the U.S. twice, so now that he&#8217;s here AGAIN, he committed a felony by… <a href="https://t.co/Kx8BI4NJFi">pic.twitter.com/Kx8BI4NJFi</a>
— Commander Op At Large CA Gregory K. Bovino (@CMDROpAtLargeCA) <a href="https://twitter.com/CMDROpAtLargeCA/status/1990073456403046786?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;This illegal alien from Mexico has 3 DUI/DWI convictions. We arrested him, taking him off the streets of Charlotte so he can&#8217;t continue to ignore our laws and drive intoxicated on the same roads you and your loved ones are on,&#8221; Bovino added in another post.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This illegal alien from Mexico has 3 DUI/DWI convictions. We arrested him, taking him off the streets of Charlotte so he can&#8217;t continue to ignore our laws and drive intoxicated on the same roads you and your loved ones are on.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DHS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DHS</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CBP?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CBP</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/USBP?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#USBP</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CHARLOTTESWEB?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CHARLOTTESWEB</a> <a href="https://t.co/4dv9HbbTVm">pic.twitter.com/4dv9HbbTVm</a>
— Commander Op At Large CA Gregory K. Bovino (@CMDROpAtLargeCA) <a href="https://twitter.com/CMDROpAtLargeCA/status/1990091580632424581?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
DHS said that one law enforcement officer was injured during an operation over the weekend, when a U.S. citizen &#8220;weaponized his vehicle, driving a large van at law enforcement while they were conducting an operation.&#8221; The driver allegedly fled the scene, prompting a high-speed chase. The suspect, who has previous arrests for resisting law enforcement, public disturbance, and intoxication, was eventually taken into custody.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER INJURED DURING ENFORCEMENT OPERATION.
This afternoon in Charlotte near University City, a United States citizen weaponized his vehicle, driving a large van at law enforcement while they were conducting an operation. He immediately fled the scene, starting… <a href="https://t.co/Iu2fm1p6Lh">pic.twitter.com/Iu2fm1p6Lh</a>
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1990249095911350330?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
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As Border Patrol began arresting suspected illegal immigrants in Charlotte, residents took to the streets to protest, demanding that the federal agents leave the city. Hundreds of protesters gathered on Saturday, carrying signs that read &#8220;Immigrants Make Charlotte Great,&#8221; &#8220;Kidnapping Immigrants Won&#8217;t Make America Great,&#8221; and &#8220;Charlotte Demands ICE and Border Patrol Out Of Our City!&#8221;
North Carolina Democratic Governor Josh Stein blasted the federal operation in a video statement.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve seen masked, heavily armed agents in paramilitary garb driving unmarked cars, targeting American citizens based on their skin color, racially profiling, and picking up random people in parking lots and off of our sidewalks,&#8221; Stein said.
<div id="attachment_1001499" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1001499" class="wp-image-1001499 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2246351107-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2246351107-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2246351107-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2246351107-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2246351107.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Grant Baldwin/Getty Images</div>
Charlotte is the latest big city targeted by President Donald Trump, who is surging federal law enforcement and immigration agents to cities across the country to address illegal immigration and violent crime. Charlotte gained national attention earlier this year when Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was brutally stabbed to death while riding the city&#8217;s light rail train. Decarlos Brown Jr., an American citizen, was charged with Zarutska&#8217;s murder after he had previously been arrested 14 times.
Federal agents have also arrested hundreds of suspected illegal immigrants and violent criminals in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Memphis, and Portland.

Border Patrol

‘Operation Charlotte’s Web’ Nets 130+ ‘Criminal Illegal Alien’ Arrests In First Weekend

Trump Administration

The Trump administration has set its sights on Charlotte for its next round of immigration sweeps, The Daily Wire has learned.
Federal law enforcement sources said some Border Patrol agents already in Chicago for the Department of Homeland Security’s “Operation Midway Blitz” raids may be heading to Charlotte, North Carolina, as early as this week.
Border Patrol chief for California’s El Centro sector, Gregory Bovino, will also head to Charlotte, sources said. He will later go on to New Orleans, according to <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/border-coverage/border-patrol-gregory-bovino-charlotte-new-orleans/">NewsNation</a>.
Last month, Bovino <a href="https://x.com/CMDROpAtLargeCA/status/1978287901411533094">posted on X</a>, “We’ll put Charlotte on the list!!!” in response to a request that the feds deploy there.
On Wednesday, Bovino wrote, “Crime way down in Chicago thanks to President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership. This is Homeland Security in action.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Crime way down in Chicago thanks to President Trump and Secretary Noem&#8217;s leadership. This is Homeland Security in action. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/midwayblitz?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#midwayblitz</a> <a href="https://t.co/T8Awye13fx">https://t.co/T8Awye13fx</a>
— Commander Op At Large CA Gregory K. Bovino (@CMDROpAtLargeCA) <a href="https://twitter.com/CMDROpAtLargeCA/status/1988581623005323631?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 12, 2025</a></blockquote>
DHS didn’t confirm or deny the plans in a statement shared with The Daily Wire.
“Every day, DHS enforces the laws of the nation across the country. We do not discuss future or potential operations,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
The Trump administration deployed more than 200 border agents to the Windy City last month to help speed up their nationwide mass deportation effort, according to CBS News.
And sanctuary leaders were quick to condemn the deployment.
“The people of Chicago have deserved better than having CBP and Greg Bovino in this city,” Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said during a press conference on Wednesday.
“We’ll have to continue to protect our neighbors and our friends and our families, and I will work very hard to continue to do that to keep people safe,” he added.
Tensions have remained high in Chicago, with anti-ICE agitators trying to block agents from making arrests and cartels placing hefty bounties on the heads of the feds.

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Border Agents Head To Charlotte After Illegal Immigration Sweep In Chicago

Border Agents Heading To Charlotte Following Chicago Deployment

Chicago

illegal immigrants

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) demanded Wednesday that North Carolina Democratic Governor Josh Stein deploy the National Guard to Charlotte after a spate of high-profile murders in the city. 
Harris, alongside Republican Reps. Pat Harrigan and Chuck Edwards, asked Stein in a <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/11.05.25_Letter-to-Gov.-Stein-re-National-Guard.pdf">letter</a> obtained by The Daily Wire to grant the request of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police to send in the National Guard to Charlotte. 
“Until our judicial system ensures criminals are held accountable, there is a compelling case to deter violence through a visible, stabilizing presence such as the National Guard,” the lawmakers wrote. “While calling upon the National Guard is not a long-term solution to Charlotte’s law enforcement staffing challenges, it is an emergency measure designed to stabilize a crisis situation and protect innocent lives.”
The letter said that Charlotte had a streak of 8 murders in 7 days, and the city’s downtown area had seen a 200% increase in its murder rate from this time last year. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police said assaults involving knives and guns increased from 86 in 2024 to 111 in 2025, while strong-arm robberies have increased from 26 to 32 in the same time. 
“Governor Stein is deaf to the desperate pleas of Charlotte&#8217;s police and residents,” Harris said. “He refuses reinforcements to crush the violent crime surge—exposing him and his party as pro-crime Democrats who coddle criminals while ignoring victims. That&#8217;s why my colleagues and I are fighting for millions of North Carolinians, demanding we reclaim the Queen City. Governor Stein: Stop stalling—send in the Guard now.&#8221;
The lawmakers also discussed the case of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gop-reps-move-to-oust-judge-who-freed-14-time-offender-before-brutal-train-murder?author=Virginia+Kruta&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=GOP+Reps+Move+To+Oust+Judge+Who+Freed+14-Time+Offender+Before+Brutal+Train+Murder">Decarlos Brown Jr.</a>, who was charged with the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, after he had previously been arrested 14 times. They also referenced the recent release of a 15-year-old who has been arrested over 100 times over the last two years and is still walking freely on the streets. 
“The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police continues to stand by our request for federal assistance,” said  Daniel Redford, the president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police. “What is most concerning is that city leaders, many of whom have served multiple terms, have failed to foresee these police shortages and build the ranks of CMPD at a time when attrition was manageable. The officers of CMPD are now tasked with the burden of their failures and they grow more and more exhausted as each day passes.”
Other cities, like Washington, D.C., and Memphis, have seen decreases in crime after the deployment of National Guard troops.

Kamala Harris Campaigns In North Carolina

Pressure Mounts For Dem Governor To Call In National Guard After Spate Of High-Profile Murders

Dem Governor Pushed To Call In National Guard Amid High-Profile Murders

Josh Stein

National Guard

Violent Crime

By all accounts — including his own — 36-year-old roofer Joe Gonzales was an evil human being who deserved to die. In 1992, in the state of Texas, Gonzales murdered a 50-year-old building contractor who supposedly owed him $200. Gonzales robbed the man and attempted to make his death look like a suicide. But it wasn&#8217;t a very convincing defense, because people who kill themselves normally don&#8217;t rob themselves after they do it. At trial, Gonzales told the jury, “I am a man who has no regard for the law. I am a man who has no regard for humanity.&#8221;
Within just twelve minutes, in November of 1995, the jury <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/19/us/on-death-row-10-months-man-is-executed.html">convicted</a> Gonzales and recommended the death penalty.
If you had to guess how long it took Joe Gonzales to actually be put to death, what would you say? What&#8217;s the approximate timeframe for how long you think Joe Gonzales sat on death row, before he was finally executed?
Maybe you&#8217;re thinking this is a trick question, and that the answer is: He was never actually executed, he&#8217;s still on death row, appealing the jury&#8217;s decision, to this day. That&#8217;s normally how death penalty cases go. We all know that. But in this case, surprisingly enough, Joe Gonzales was indeed put to death. And he was put to death very quickly, relatively speaking. Just ten months after the jury recommended the death penalty, in September of 1996, Joe Gonzales was executed by lethal injection. It was the fastest execution in U.S. history since Gary Gilmore was executed in Utah in 1977 by firing squad, just three months after he was convicted of two murders.
The reason both of these men were executed so quickly is that, unlike most death penalty defendants, they weren&#8217;t interested in dragging the process out. They didn&#8217;t have any interest in appealing their sentences. So they allowed the government to proceed with the executions, without undue delay. And the government obliged. Left to their own devices, without any frivolous appeals, states like Texas and Utah were able to dispense justice in a reasonable timeframe.
This is not ancient history. We&#8217;re not talking about executions in colonial New England, or anything like that. In modern America, it&#8217;s entirely possible to put violent criminals to death, promptly. One of the key steps we need to take, as these cases demonstrate, is to get rid of the idea that death penalty defendants are entitled to an automatic appeal. These appeals can take decades to resolve. They&#8217;re almost always unnecessary.
But ever since the 1970s, because of a Supreme Court decision, these appeals have been mandatory (unless the defendant waives them). As a result of this decision by the Supreme Court, the average time that inmates spend on death row has ballooned.
<div id="attachment_989217" style="width: 799px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-989217" class="wp-image-989217 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Chart-Death-Row-789x576.jpg" alt="Source: Death Penalty Information Center" width="789" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Chart-Death-Row-789x576.jpg 789w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Chart-Death-Row-300x219.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Chart-Death-Row-768x560.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Chart-Death-Row-1360x994.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Chart-Death-Row.jpg 1362w" sizes=" (max-width: 789px) 100vw, 789px" />Source: Death Penalty Information Center</div>
In the 1980s, as you can see here, the average time spent on death row was around 74 months. Now it&#8217;s over 260.
So it didn&#8217;t take long, after the Supreme Court&#8217;s decision in 1976, for everything to slow down. They introduced mandatory appeals, and now inmates are spending three times as long on death row.
<div id="attachment_989223" style="width: 779px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-989223" class="wp-image-989223 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Death-Penalty-age-769x576.jpg" alt="Source: Death Penalty Information Center" width="769" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Death-Penalty-age-769x576.jpg 769w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Death-Penalty-age-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Death-Penalty-age-768x575.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Death-Penalty-age.jpg 1370w" sizes=" (max-width: 769px) 100vw, 769px" />Source: Death Penalty Information Center</div>
Along the same lines, as you&#8217;d expect, there&#8217;s also been a dramatic change in the average age of a defendant who&#8217;s executed on death row. In 1975, the average age was 36. In 1980, the average age was 24.
By 2005, the average age was up to 44. Now it&#8217;s over 50. In fact, more than 570 prisoners on death row are over the age of 60, as of 2019. Back in 1996, that number was just 39.
Some elderly prisoners — like Vernon Madison in Alabama — are spending so much time on death row that they&#8217;re developing dementia and having strokes, which makes them ineligible for the death penalty because they&#8217;re supposedly &#8220;incompetent to be executed.&#8221; Yes, that&#8217;s an actual category of inmate. You might argue that competence is kind of irrelevant for the death penalty. You don’t need to be competent. You don’t need to do anything but die. But this is the system we have now. Even if you were competent to stand trial, it&#8217;s possible for you to lose your mind on death row. And then you go back to general population, as a confused vegetable, while the victim&#8217;s family wonders when they&#8217;re going to get the justice they were promised. This is supposedly the &#8220;humane&#8221; solution, according to the Supreme Court. We need an absurd amount of appeals and bureaucratic wrangling, lasting years and years, before we can actually execute anyone.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1677-have-you-forgotten-about-iryna-zarutska-they-want-you-to-here-s-why"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-976065 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Keep in mind, the Supreme Court made this decision in an era before advanced DNA evidence, modern ballistics techniques, or widespread video surveillance. The general sentiment, at the time, was that innocent people might be convicted and sent to death row. So therefore, because evidence wasn&#8217;t robust, we supposedly needed mandatory appeals, to make sure that innocent people weren&#8217;t executed.
But that&#8217;s not the case any more.
Most death penalty cases are similar to the murder of Iryna Zarutska.
It’s an important case, even amid all of the other things happening in the country. And we cannot forget what happened to her.
That’s why I want to give a brief update on the case and tell you what’s going on with it now. The answer, as we’ll see, is that nothing is going on. There is no update. No movement at all. And that’s the point.
Now, of course, there is no doubt whatsoever as to who is responsible for Iryna&#8217;s death. The killer in this case has more than a dozen prior arrests. He committed the crime on camera, as we all remember. In a just society, the man responsible — Decarlos Brown Jr. — would be given a speedy trial, under our Constitution, and then put to death.
That&#8217;s true even if you buy his defense, which is that he was &#8220;mentally ill&#8221; in some way. But really, the defense is nonsense. This is a surveillance photo from the light rail, a second or so after he stabbed and mortally wounded Iryna. It&#8217;s the photo you&#8217;ve probably seen many times before.
<div id="attachment_989213" style="width: 585px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-989213" class="size-large wp-image-989213" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Char2-575x576.jpg" alt="Screenshot: Surveillance video, Charlotte Area Transit System" width="575" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Char2-575x576.jpg 575w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Char2-300x300.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Char2-150x150.jpg 150w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Char2-768x769.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Char2.jpg 1070w" sizes=" (max-width: 575px) 100vw, 575px" />Screenshot: Surveillance video, Charlotte Area Transit System</div>
It&#8217;s obvious that Decarlos Brown went out of his way to target a defenseless woman who wasn&#8217;t even looking at him. He sat in wait for his victim. After he killed her, he said something along the lines of, &#8220;I got that white girl.&#8221; And then, as this surveillance footage from the train station, which was just released, demonstrates, he changed his clothing.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Watch: Video shows Iryna Zarutska’s accused killer being arrested at Charlotte light rail station" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GcCtpUL9hrs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Credit: WBTV News/Charlotte/YouTube.com
This is the footage of the arrest of Decarlos Brown. The officers swarm him pretty quickly. But as you can see, he&#8217;s not wearing the red clothing anymore. He&#8217;s carrying his sweatshirt. So it looks a lot like he understood that he had just killed someone, and wanted to avoid detection.
Whether he &#8220;heard voices&#8221; or not, or whether he has &#8220;impulse control issues&#8221; or not, it doesn&#8217;t matter. Someone who decides to murder an innocent woman, for any reason, forfeits his right to live. And that&#8217;s clearly what happened here.
But because our death penalty system is a bureaucratic morass, Decarlos Brown will not be executed anytime soon.
This is the latest reporting from a <a href="https://www.wbtv.com/2025/10/15/hearing-determine-if-north-carolina-will-pursue-death-penalty-alleged-light-rail-killer-delayed/">local news station</a> in North Carolina. Here’s what’s happening with his case right now.
<blockquote>The man accused of killing a Ukrainian woman on a Charlotte light rail almost two months ago was scheduled to have a crucial court hearing on Thursday. Decarlos Brown Jr., the man accused of killing 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska back in late August, was scheduled to have a Rule 24 court hearing on Thursday, Oct. 16. A Rule 24 hearing is for the state to determine whether or not they would pursue the death penalty. Court documents said that the hearing has now been pushed back until April 2026. The decision to delay the hearing came from Brown and his attorney, Daniel Roberts. However, the reason for the delay was redacted, according to court documents.</blockquote>
So there&#8217;s going to be a &#8220;hearing&#8221; to &#8220;determine whether or not&#8221; the state will &#8220;pursue the death penalty&#8221; — as if there&#8217;s any doubt that they should. Decarlos Brown should&#8217;ve been put down somewhere after his 10th conviction. And he certainly should be executed now. But this hearing won&#8217;t take place until April of next year.
Of course, the best part of all is that you don&#8217;t even get to know why the hearing was delayed. You get no information whatsoever. All you can be sure of, at this point, is that the trial isn&#8217;t going to take place for a very long time — if it occurs at all. Even in a case where the defendant&#8217;s guilt is obvious to everyone in the entire country, we&#8217;re told to put up with endless delays, for no reason.
These delays are downstream from that Supreme Court decision in the 1970s. And that Supreme Court decision was downstream of the belief — which is false — that innocent defendants are sent to death row all the time. That wasn&#8217;t true in the 1970s. And it&#8217;s certainly not true anymore. We don&#8217;t need a neurotic number of hearings and appeals to determine the fate of animals like Decarlos Brown. The evidence is overwhelming. And it&#8217;s overwhelming in every other death row case, as well.
So why haven&#8217;t any states attempted to bypass this Supreme Court decision, with lawsuits or new legislation? Why haven&#8217;t we seen legal challenges to this absurd framework that essentially renders the death penalty moot? Why don&#8217;t states say, actually, we don&#8217;t need mandatory appeals anymore, or endless hearings. We can just hold a trial, present the overwhelming evidence, and then get on with the execution. There&#8217;s certainly no constitutional basis for making the death penalty effectively impossible to enforce. On the contrary, the Founders approved of the death penalty — explicitly, in many cases. So why don&#8217;t we see any legal challenges on this point?
The only explanation that makes sense is that — in the case of Decarlos Brown, and every other case like his — the people in charge of the state government want us to forget what happened. They want the outrage to subside, which it usually does. And then they can get away with giving as lenient a sentence as possible. That&#8217;s what the mayor of Charlotte clearly wants. Remember, she put out a statement saying we should feel sympathy for people like Decarlos Brown, and attacked anyone who shared the footage of Iryna&#8217;s murder. She doesn&#8217;t want Decarlos Brown to be executed. If she can arrange it, she wants him out on the streets, as soon as possible, so he can terrorize more innocent women.
And it&#8217;s not crazy to think the mayor of Charlotte might accomplish that goal. Just a week ago, we covered the case of a convicted child killer who managed to get out of prison in less than a decade. Fortunately, in the case of Decarlos Brown, there are federal charges as well — and those charges are also death-eligible. But that prosecution — and any potential conviction — could be undone by a future Democrat administration. And at this point, particularly if Decarlos Brown isn&#8217;t executed, that outcome seems like a distinct possibility. But it shouldn&#8217;t be possible. The right to a speedy trial doesn&#8217;t just apply for the benefit of the defendant. It also applies for the benefit of society at large. We have a constitutional right to see violent criminals punished, swiftly, to the fullest extent of the law.
Every once in a while, over the past month or so, I&#8217;ve come across a post on X with that picture of Iryna, along with a message like &#8220;We haven&#8217;t forgotten you,&#8221; or something along those lines. I hope that&#8217;s true. But as months turn into years, inevitably, people will become distracted. There will be more violence and chaos and tragedy — Democrats will make sure of that. And it will be easy, despite our best efforts, to forget what happened to Iryna. That&#8217;s what they want us to do. That was the whole point of the Supreme Court&#8217;s decision in the 1970s, and all the state laws that followed. Now&#8217;s the time for those laws to change. And it&#8217;s time for Iryna Zarutska&#8217;s killer to receive a fair trial, and then a speedy execution in a matter of weeks, if not days — which is, admittedly, a far more dignified death than he deserves. But under our Constitution and our common law tradition on the death penalty, which has been ignored since the 1970s, it&#8217;s the fate that Decarlos Brown should receive.
* * *
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Have You Forgotten About Iryna Zarutska? They Want You To. Here’s Why. 

Criminal Justice

Death Penalty

Iryna Zarutska

Matt Walsh

Murder

Opinion

Yesterday, I covered at <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-savage-crime-the-media-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about">great length</a> the horrific killing of Iryna Zarutska, the 23 year-old Ukrainian refugee who was savagely stabbed to death on a train in Charlotte by DeCarlos Brown, an evil, psychotic criminal barbarian with a lengthy rap sheet. To review: Iryna was on her way home from a shift at the pizza place where she worked. She boarded the light rail car and sat down in front of Brown without a single word exchanged between them. A few minutes into the ride, Brown pulled out a knife, stood up, and began butchering Iryna to death without warning. He then proceeded to walk around the train, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Nobody attempted to intervene at any point.
We now know Brown had been arrested 14 times before this awful crime was committed. The criminal justice system — which has no interest in dispensing justice to criminals — had 14 chances to get this creature off the street. They could have permanently removed him from society after the third arrest, or the fourth, or the seventh, or the tenth, but instead they gave him 14 chances. Even after he committed armed robbery, and assault, and more than a dozen other crimes. The system simply churned him back out, waited for him to get arrested again, and then churned him out again, like some kind of demonic merry-go-round.
This is a huge national story. A young woman lost her life in one of the most heinous ways imaginable. It is everything that George Floyd was purported to be, but never actually was. Floyd’s death didn’t matter that much. He was a violent career criminal who contributed nothing of value to society and then overdosed. Iryna, on the other hand, is an actual innocent victim of brutal interracial violence. Her death is a major scandal. It is the direct result of deep and widespread systemic failures and corruption. She should have the murals and the streets named after her. The judges and city officials who let her killer loose on the street should all get the Derek Chauvin treatment.
Instead, up until yesterday, Iryna’s case, far from being treated like a national scandal, was completely ignored by the national media. None of the major national outlets had said a word about it. CNN and MSNBC hadn’t spent even 30 seconds of airtime reporting on it. The New York Times and the Washington Post hadn&#8217;t dedicated 5 sentences of coverage to it. It was a total media blackout, made all the more infuriating by how utterly, disgustingly predictable it was.
But these days the media don’t lead the conversation, as much as they wish they could. The conversation happens without them, until they are forced to chime in for fear of being reduced to permanent irrelevance. So, over the 24 hours since our episode aired, finally some of the major corporate outlets decided to acknowledge this case, as we had left them no choice. And their spin is exactly what you would expect. To the media, the story isn&#8217;t the murder itself, but the fact that conservatives are talking about the murder. It isn’t that a black criminal butchered an innocent white woman, but that we have noticed it.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1654-the-matt-walsh-show?elementPosition=0&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
There are now headlines like this one from Politico: “Ukrainian refugee killed in North Carolina gets dragged into political messaging war. President Donald Trump and MAGA allies are using the killing of Iryna Zarutska to attack Democrats.” Yes, you see, Democrats are really the victims here. A young woman bled to death in public but the real concern is that Democrats are being attacked by conservative pundits on social media.
Axios had a similar spin. Headline: “Stabbing video fuels MAGA&#8217;s crime message.” They’re right, of course. The stabbing video does fuel our crime message. That’s because our crime message is that crime is bad. And people who commit crimes should go to prison, and not be permitted to stab women to death on the train. In the same way you could say that a video of a house fire fuels our firefighting message, which is that it’s bad for houses to burn down, and we should put out the fires rather than allowing them to engulf entire neighborhoods. Our messages tend to be pretty simple in that way.
But there is one part of this absurd <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/11/12/trump-media-maga-influencers-election">Axios piece</a> that warrants special mention:
<blockquote>“MAGA influencers are drawing repeated attention to violent attacks to elevate the issue of urban crime — and accuse mainstream media of under-covering shocking cases. <a href="https://www.wbtv.com/2025/09/05/light-rail-stabbing-graphic-video-shows-moments-before-after-woman-killed-charlotte/">Shocking video</a> of the fatal Aug. 22 <a href="https://www.charlottenc.gov/cmpd/News-Information/Newsroom/Homicide-Investigation-in-the-Central-Division-08.22.25">knife attack</a> on 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a light-rail car in Charlotte, North Carolina, dominated weekend conversation on Trump-friendly social media… The rising number of surveillance cameras in public spaces, including on Charlotte&#8217;s light rail, has become a big accelerant in these cases. The video is easily shared or leaked, and can instantly pollinate across social media — a visual counterpoint to statistics showing crime decreases.”</blockquote>
That’s correct. As I&#8217;ve covered extensively in the past, crime stats can be manipulated in many ways. You can show “decreases&#8221; in violent crime simply by now reporting the crime, or not charging the criminals. If a city decides to pretend that vast categories of crime are no longer crimes, then “crime,” statistically, will go down. It is not hard to make a city safer on the stat sheet.
Making it safer on the light rail car, however, is a different matter. A city can be safe on a sheet of paper, but not safe on the street, or the sidewalk, or at the gas station, or on public transportation, and so on.
The videos break through the false narratives and the juked crime stats by showing us what’s actually happening. It is one thing to hear that a city has X number of murders. It&#8217;s another thing to see what that means, to see how these murders are happening, and where they&#8217;re happening, and who they&#8217;re happening to, and who they’re being committed by. That’s why all of the security cameras and police body cameras are becoming a major problem for the Left. Don’t be surprised when there’s a major push to get rid of the cameras in the name of “privacy.” As we’ve talked about many times, we&#8217;ve already seen the beginnings of this process with police body cams. The left-wing race hustlers demanded the body cams, and then the body cams proceeded to annihilate all of their narratives about police brutality, and now they’re not so hot on body cams anymore. A similar thing will happen — and is already beginning to happen — with security cameras.
Here’s a story out of Canada:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Hamilton is forcing a home owner to remove his security cameras which are on his house &amp; property. 
Only the Government is allowed to watch you citizen. <a href="https://t.co/3mErbvJXc8">pic.twitter.com/3mErbvJXc8</a>
— Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 (@ryangerritsen) <a href="https://twitter.com/ryangerritsen/status/1964322252205224411?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @ryangerritsen/X
So, he has ten cameras because of a rash of attempted break-ins. The cameras have been used not only to protect himself against burglary and other crimes, but to help solve and prevent other crimes in the neighborhood. Now his local city school marm bureaucratic tyrants are telling him to take the cameras down because of &#8220;privacy&#8221; concerns. But we all know the real concern. It’s that the cameras are not only documenting crime, but documenting who is actually committing most of the crime. And that is the thing we aren&#8217;t supposed to notice. The noticing is the problem.
That’s certainly what CNN is worried about:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
CNNs reaction segment tonight about the horrific murder of Iryna Zarutska tonight was to express sympathy for the suspect and harshly criticized social media pundits.
Van Jones decided to weigh in, criticizing <a href="https://twitter.com/charliekirk11?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@charliekirk11</a> due to alleged racial hate mongering.
He claimed that… <a href="https://t.co/6i2LPK6sTF">pic.twitter.com/6i2LPK6sTF</a>
— Media Lies (@MediasLies) <a href="https://twitter.com/MediasLies/status/1965241746008207612?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @MediasLies/X
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
A black man murdered a Ukrainian refugee &amp; proclaimed he “got that white girl.”
CNN: “The open racism on sites like X today, it&#8217;s eye-popping.”<a href="https://t.co/l1y57QwlN4">pic.twitter.com/l1y57QwlN4</a>
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) <a href="https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1965158814849835080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: Breaking911/X
So the narrative we hear from the media is as predictable as it is revolting. They are infinitely more outraged at the alleged “racially charged language” of conservative pundits than they are at the actual butchery of an innocent woman by a 14 time career felon on public transportation. They are not angry that this woman was killed. They couldn’t care less. They wouldn&#8217;t even be talking about it, if they had their way. Instead they’re outraged by the “racism” of conservatives who have noticed that the murder happens.
Then we hear from Van Jones that we can’t say for sure whether that black criminal killed Iryna because she was white. So just to review: the media can say for sure that it’s racist to say mean things about a black guy who killed a white woman, but they can&#8217;t say for sure that it’s racist for a black guy to actually kill a white woman. The murder isn’t racist. The commentary is. That&#8217;s what these despicable snakes are actually claiming.
Keep in mind, this is coming from the same people who declared from the first moment that the George Floyd footage went viral that it was a racist hate crime. There was nothing in the video — not a single thing — that indicated any kind of racial motivation whatsoever. And yet when a black suspect ODs while being detained by a white cop, it&#8217;s a racist killing. When a black criminal slaughters a white woman on the train, it’s a mental health episode. This is what these soulless goblins expect us to believe.
Hey, Van, here&#8217;s what we know. Statistically, a white person is 30 times more likely to be killed by a black person than the other way around. In 2019, there were about 560 thousand violent interracial incidents between blacks and whites. 470 thousand of them were black on white. That&#8217;s 85%. 240 black people were killed by whites. 560 white people were killed by blacks. And this is all in spite of the fact that white people make up 60% of the population. Blacks are 13%. Just by raw numbers — not even per capita, but raw numbers — there are more black interracial killers than white. There are 171 million more white people in the country, and yet there are more black interracial killers. That kind of disparity should be impossible. And yet it&#8217;s real, and it&#8217;s happening.
Per capita, the situation is even more dire. Black people — young black males in particular — are an order of magnitude more violent and more likely to commit crimes than any other group in the country. Black men are 5 or 6% of the population but they commit the majority of murders in this country. That makes black males in America more dangerous than perhaps any other demographic in the entire world, let alone the country. And we know all of this despite the efforts by the FBI and every other institution to hide and bury racial crime statistics. Imagine how much worse it really is. Imagine how grisly it would look if they let us see the whole picture, instead of just pieces of it.
But we can see enough to know, without any doubt whatsoever, that the violent crime epidemic is driven by one demographic to an overwhelmingly disproportionate degree. And all of this has happened while you, Van, and your propagandist cohorts, have spent years claiming that the reality is exactly the opposite of this. You paint a picture of a country where black people walk around in fear of white violence. Where black people are constantly tired and exhausted by the brutality inflicted upon them by the villainous whites.
But those of us who you condemn as “racists” — we are the ones who are tired. We are tired of not being able to walk down the street in our own cities. We are tired of losing good, productive citizens at the hands of violent degenerates who contribute nothing to society. We are tired of the total lack of accountability and responsibility. We are tired of a system that prioritizes the “restoration” and “rehabilitation&#8221; of violent psychopaths over the protection of innocent, law abiding people. And we are tired of pretending that all of this isn’t happening. We aren&#8217;t going to pretend anymore.

MixCollage-09-Sep-2025-02-15-PM-155

The Media Is Outraged That You’re Outraged By The Murder Of An Innocent White Woman

The Media Is Outraged That You're Outraged By The Murder Of An Innocent White Woman

Blacks

Legacy Media

Van Jones

Whites

The brutal murder of a Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte highlights the deadly consequences of &#8220;soft-on-crime&#8221; policies in Democrat-run cities. The Supreme Court gives the green light for Trump&#8217;s ICE raids in Los Angeles as the U.S. and its allies coordinate on a global immigration crackdown. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fires back at Democrats who are demanding his resignation, vowing to continue his &#8220;Make America Healthy Again&#8221; agenda.
It’s Tuesday, September 9, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
Morning Wire is available on video! You can watch today’s episode here:
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If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2>Charlotte Murder Highlights Failures of ‘Soft-on-Crime’ Policies</h2>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-969907" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
Topline: The brutal, unprovoked murder of a Ukrainian refugee on a light rail train has left the city of Charlotte in shock and anger, putting a national spotlight on the deadly consequences of Democrat-led &#8220;soft-on-crime&#8221; policies. 
Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, was stabbed to death last month by DeCarlos Brown Jr., a homeless man with a lengthy and violent criminal record. The horrific attack took place in what was once a safe, trendy part of the city, but residents say rising crime and a growing homeless population have made them feel unsafe. Charlotte saw a 25% increase in its homicide rate last year, and robberies in the city center are up 54%. 
The city&#8217;s Democratic mayor, Li Vyles, responded to the murder by calling for empathy for the perpetrator&#8217;s mental health issues, and did not mention the victim in her initial statement. Brown was on the streets despite at least 14 previous arrests for crimes, including armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. A judge gave him pre-trial release on his most recent arrest in January, and police had referred him &#8220;to resources&#8221; rather than jail after three other encounters in 2024. The policies that kept Brown out of jail were recommended by a &#8220;Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice,&#8221; which was created by North Carolina&#8217;s now-Governor, Democrat Josh Stein, in 2020. 
<h2>Supreme Court Upholds Trump’s ICE Raids in Los Angeles</h2>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-969905" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH2-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH2-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH2-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH2-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH2-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.9.25-Tue-SH2.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
Topline: The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a major victory on Monday, ruling that federal immigration officials can continue their sweeping raids in the Los Angeles area and can consider factors like ethnicity and accent when detaining suspected illegal immigrants. 
The Court’s ruling overturns a lower court judge’s decision that had blocked the raids. Writing for the liberal minority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a dramatic dissent, claiming the court was subjecting people to the &#8220;indignities&#8221; of being handcuffed &#8220;simply because of their looks, their accents.&#8221; 
Border Czar Tom Homan pushed back on that characterization, stating that ICE is focused on public safety. &#8220;Seventy percent of everybody ICE is arresting is a criminal,&#8221; Homan said. The raids have yielded significant results, with over 1,600 arrests in D.C. alone, many of whom are suspected gang members and other violent offenders. 
The ruling comes as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem meets with the &#8220;Five Eyes&#8221; intelligence alliance in London to coordinate a global crackdown on human smuggling. The U.K.&#8217;s new Home Secretary has signaled a tougher stance on immigration that is more aligned with the Trump administration&#8217;s policies. 
<h2>RFK Fires Back as Democrats Demand His Resignation</h2>
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Topline: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pushing back against a coordinated campaign by Democrats demanding his resignation, vowing to continue his &#8220;Make America Healthy Again&#8221; (MAHA) agenda and restore integrity to public health. 
At least a dozen Democratic senators, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have signed a letter calling Kennedy’s agenda &#8220;dangerous&#8221; and &#8220;anti-science.&#8221; Former Republican Chris Christie also attacked Kennedy, calling him a &#8220;joke&#8221; and a &#8220;human middle finger to everybody who opposed&#8221; Trump. 
Blue state governors are also pushing back against Kennedy&#8217;s reforms. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order to override new FDA guidance on COVID shots, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed legislation to ensure access to the abortion pill mifepristone, regardless of future FDA safety assessments. 
Kennedy, who enjoys broad public support for his agenda, has fiercely defended his actions. He has accused major medical organizations of being compromised by their Big Pharma sponsors and has vowed to bring in &#8220;new blood&#8221; and people &#8220;who are committed to public health, and integrity, and gold-standard science.&#8221; His department has already reformed baby formula standards, required drug price transparency, and stopped federal funding for gender surgeries for minors, among other changes.

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