Arrests begin in New Orleans immigration enforcement operation
We’ve started to get pictures as arrests begin in the sweeping immigration enforcement operation in New Orleans, known as “Catahoula Crunch”.
Key events
While speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Donald Trump said he supports the release of video of a follow-up strike on a drug boat that killed the remaining survivors on 2 September.
“I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have, we’d certainly release, no problem,” the president said.
The incident, in which the US military struck an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean and then conducted a second strike to kill survivors, has heightened scrutiny and criticism of the administration and defense secretary Pete Hegseth in recent days.
Administration officials have defended the follow-up strike and argued it was intended to ensure the complete destruction of the boat. Lawmakers are investigating whether the attack constituted a war crime.
When asked if he supported the second strike to kill survivors during the 2 September operation, Trump said: “I support the decision to knock out the boats and whoever is piloting the boats, most of them are gone, but whoever piloted those boats, they’re guilty of trying to kill people in our country.”
As the Trump administration conducts immigration crackdowns in cities across the US as part of its mass deportation agenda, California announced the launch of an online portal for the public to report potential misconduct by federal agents in the state.
Californians can use the portal to submit videos and photos of potentially unlawful conduct to help the state’s department of justice create a record and support “possible legal actions”.
“The Trump administration is engaging in a campaign of terror and fear that has left some California communities scared to go about their daily lives,” Rob Bonta, the state’s attorney general, said in a statement. “Let me be clear: Federal agents can enforce federal laws, and no one should interfere with them doing their job. But they must also do so lawfully and in compliance with the constitution.”
Trump describes US-Russia meeting as ‘reasonably good’ despite lack of progress
One day after talks with Russia and the US ended without a Ukraine peace deal, Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the meeting between the two US envoys and Vladimir Putin was “reasonably good”.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, met with the Russian president in Moscow on Tuesday for five hours. A Kremlin aide reported after the meeting that the parties were “neither further nor closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine”.
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Russians “very strongly” want to make a deal to end the war, but that it was unclear what would happen next.
“What comes out of that meeting I can’t tell you because it does take two to tango,” Trump said.
A source told the Associated Press that Trump aides planned to meet with a top Ukrainian negotiator in Miami on Thursday for additional peace talks.
The immigration crackdown that began in New Orleans on Wednesday has sent fear through the region’s Latino community and prompted businesses to close.
More than 200 federal agents are working on the operation, an official told the Associated Press, and are seeking to make as many arrests as possible over at least two months.
The Guardian’s Lucy Campbell reports that border patrol agents made arrests in a Lowe’s hardware store parking lot in the city and a Home Depot in LaPlace, about 30 minutes outside New Orleans, among other locations.
Some businesses have told workers to stay home while others have close entirely. Taqueria Guerrero said this week that it would be closed for the foreseeable future. “The safety, dignity, and peace of mind of our staff and our community mean more to us than anything,” an online post reads. “We refuse to operate in a way that puts anyone at risk or adds to the fear that so many are already feeling.
In the Oval Office alongside Trump today are the transportation secretary Sean Duffy, as well as several GOP senators, including Marsha Blackburn, Ted Cruz and Bernie Moreno. The House Republican Conference chair, congresswoman Lisa McClain, is also in attendance.
“These rules are going to allow the automakers to make vehicles that Americans want to purchase, not vehicles that Joe Biden and [Pete] Buttigieg want them to build,” Duffy said of the rollback of the vehicle mileage rules today. “This is important for American jobs. The more cars we sell, the more jobs we have in this country.”
Trump’s now speaking in the Oval Office. As we reported earlier, he’s terminating Biden-era federal fuel standards.
“It put tremendous upward pressure on car prices, combined with the insane electric vehicle mandate,” Trump said today.
Here’s a recap of the day so far:
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Democrats on the House oversight committee this morning released never-before-seen images and video showing Jeffrey Epstein’s private island home. The 10 pictures and four videos appear to show the inside of several bedrooms, bathrooms, a spa and a massage room in the house in the US Virgin Islands. In a statement, the committee’s top Democrat, Robert Garcia, said the photos and videos collectively form a “disturbing look” into Epstein’s world and are being released to “ensure public transparency”.
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Donald Trump announced today that he is pardoning Henry Cuellar, the House Democrat who was facing federal bribery and conspiracy charges alongside his wife, Imelda. The president said Cuellar was ultimately indicted for disagreeing with Joe Biden’s border policies. In response, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said the pardon for the Texas congressman was “the right outcome”, while Cuellar thanked Trump and said the decision “clears the air” and gives his family “a clean slate”.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it had started its much-anticipated immigration enforcement operation in New Orleans today. In a statement, the department said Operation Catahoula Crunch would target “criminal illegal aliens roaming free thanks to sanctuary policies”, and we’ve already started to see pictures of the arrests.
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Meanwhile, embattled defense secretary Pete Hegseth remains under scrutiny today, after the Pentagon’s inspector general found that his use of Signal to share highly sensitive attack plans put the American military in jeopardy. CNN has the story, citing four sources familiar with the content of the classified report. According to the report, Hegseth “risked compromising sensitive military information, which could have endangered American troops and mission objectives”, when he used the messaging app in March of this year to share highly sensitive attack plans targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen.
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Republicans on the House judiciary committee have subpoenaed former special counsel Jack Smith for a closed-door deposition on 17 December. The committee’s top Democrat, Jamie Raskin, said the decision to not let Smith appear before the committee publicly was so GOP lawmakers “can spin, distort, and cherrypick his remarks”.
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Meanwhile, Minneapolis officials are bracing for the city’s Somali community to be targeted in the coming days, after reports spread that ICE agents are due to start raids. Jamal Osman, a Somali American city council member in Minneapolis, said that Donald Trump’s xenophobic rant in the White House on Tuesday, and the expected immigration crackdown, have left his community fear-ridden. “I never thought there would be a time where I will tell my community to carry their passport around because if you look Somali you might be stopped,” he said in an interview with CNN.
Arrests begin in New Orleans immigration enforcement operation
We’ve started to get pictures as arrests begin in the sweeping immigration enforcement operation in New Orleans, known as “Catahoula Crunch”.
House judiciary committee subpoenas former special counsel Jack Smith
The House judiciary committee has subpoenaed Jack Smith for a closed-door deposition on 17 December.
“Due to your service as Special Counsel, the Committee believes that you possess information that is vital to its oversight of this matter,” Republican chair Jim Jordan wrote to the former justice department official. Smith led investigations into Donald Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and into the president’s alleged retention of classified documents.
The committee’s top Democrat, Jamie Raskin, said that decision to not let Smith address appear before the committee publicly was so Republicans “can spin, distort, and cherrypick his remarks”.
He added:
Judiciary committee Republicans want to force the special counsel into the shadows of a backroom interrogation and subject him to the tiresome and loathsome partisan tactics of leak-and-distort, when the American public is demanding transparency and a public hearing.
As New Orleans immigration enforcement begins, previous operations show limited success in arresting criminals
Lucy Campbell
Despite the Trump administration’s repeated insistence that it is pursuing “the worst of the worst” among people lacking legal status in the immigration crackdowns, most of the people detained in past operations have not had criminal histories.
In “Operation Charlotte’s Web” in Charlotte, North Carolina, fewer than 12% of those arrested were classified as criminals. In Chicago, more than 97% of immigrants detained in “Midway Blitz” had no criminal conviction.
The Guardian has also previously reported that immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in US immigration detention, according to government data. Research has also consistently shown that immigrants – including undocumented immigrants – are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.
Cuellar: ‘This pardon gives us a clean slate’
Following Donald Trump’s decision to pardon Democratic representative Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, the lawmaker has responded in a statement by thanking the president “for taking the time to look at the facts”.
Cuellar and his wife were indicted on federal bribery and conspiracy charges, and their trial was due to start next year. Earlier, Trump said that Cuellar was ultimately targeted by a “weaponized” justice department under Joe Biden for disagreeing with the former president’s border policy.
Today, the Texas congressman said the president’s decision “clears the air and lets us move forward for south Texas. This pardon gives us a clean slate. The noise is gone. The work remains. And I intend to meet it head on.”
Earlier, my colleague Jakub Krupa was covering the latest reports out of Europe. In particular, the remarks from the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, who praised Donald Trump, noting that the US president is “the only one person in the whole world who was able to break the deadlock when it comes to war in Ukraine”.
However, Rutte said that lasting peace “is not something [that can be done] in a straight line”.
He added:
You need a proposal on the table. You need to have discussions, and we have seen the meetings in Geneva, in Miami, now yesterday in Moscow. It will be a step-by-step approach.
A reminder that Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with Vladimir Putin in Russia’s capital on Tuesday. As Jakub reports, the much-hyped talks in Moscow did not bring any results as Russia disagreed with the US proposals.
Watchdog finds Hegseth risked endangering troops by sharing sensitive war plans on Signal – report
Elsewhere, the embattled secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, is likely to be on the, er, defense again today after the Pentagon’s inspector general found that he “risked compromising sensitive military information, which could have endangered American troops and mission objectives, when he used Signal in March of this year to share highly sensitive attack plans targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen”. CNN has the story, citing four sources familiar with the content of the classified report.
The investigation was launched back in April after a bipartisan request from the Senate armed services committee when the allegations emerged, after a journalist was inadvertently added to the group chat. The Atlantic published the messages shared by Hegseth in the chat, which included operational details about strikes against Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, such as launch times of F-18 fighter jets, bomb drop timings and naval Tomahawk missile launches – sent before the operation had been carried out.
It remains unclear if Hegseth declassified the information before sharing it with the other Trump officials – and the journalist – in the group chat. Two sources told CNN that “the repercussions of Hegseth’s action … are less clear since the IG concluded that the defense secretary has the authority to declassify information and Hegseth asserted he made an operational decision in the moment to share that information, though there is no documentation of such a decision”.
Sources also told CNN that Hegseth refused to sit for an interview with the inspector general and submitted his version of events in writing.
The report also states that Hegseth should not have used Signal and that senior defense department officials need better training on protocols, the sources told the outlet.
An unclassified version of the report is set to be publicly released tomorrow. The classified report was sent to Congress last night.
