Trump’s border czar says ICE agents to remain at airports until ‘those airports are secure’ – US politics live | US news
Trump’s ‘border czar’ says ICE will remain at US airports
Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s “border czar”, told CBS News that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will continue operating at airports, until they “feel like they’re 100%”.
This comes after Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday instructing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents as the partial shutdown – now the longest in history – enters its 45th day. The agency has said that more than 480 TSA workers have resigned altogether since the start of the shutdown.
Negotiations broke down last week, when House Republicans rejected a Senate-passed bill to fund the TSA, the US Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa). Instead, GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber used their razor-thin majority to pass a short‑term funding bill to keep the DHS running through 22 May. However, Democrats in the Senate are all but certain to reject this continuing resolution. Complicating matters further, Congress has also gone home for a scheduled two-week recess, leaving a possible deal in limbo.
“If less TSA agents come back, that means we’ll keep more ICE agents there,” Homan said on Sunday. “The president has been clear. He wants to secure those airports … ICE is there to help our brothers and sisters in TSA. We’ll be there as long as they need us, until they get back to normal operations and feel like those airports are secure.”
A reminder that since ICE received $75bn through the president’s sweeping policy bill last year, it has been largely insulated from the funding lapse hitting the rest of the DHS and has continued operating.
Key events
Tom Ambrose
The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said the global oil market is well supplied, with more boats travelling through the strait of Hormuz.
“Over time, the US is going to retake control of the straits and there will be freedom of navigation, whether it is through US escorts or a multinational escort,” Bessent told Fox News.
Iran has all but halted shipping through the strait, using the vital waterway as leverage. Its effective closure has sent oil prices rocketing to more than $100 a barrel.
Iran has said “non-hostile vessels” may transit the waterway if they coordinate with Iranian authorities. It has meant a trickle of cargo ships and tankers – most of them Iranian, but some from Thailand and China – have made it through the strait since the start of the war.
Donald Trump’s call for other countries, including France and the UK, to send warships to help unblock the strait was met with a cool response earlier this month, despite governments around the world being hit by surging energy prices.
The US has eased oil sanctions on Russia and Iran in an attempt to contain soaring energy prices but there are still fears that the economic damage from the war could be so great that it could cause a global recession.
Richard Luscombe
JD Vance, the vice-president of the United States, said this weekend that he considers aliens to be ‘demons’.
As the war in Iran continues, petrol and grocery prices soar, and chaos continues at US airports as a partial government shutdown endures, Vance appeared on the conservative Benny Show podcast, released on Saturday, to promise that he would spend time looking into what he called his “obsession” with UFOs and extraterrestrial visitors.
Johnson, who bills his show as the place for “cutting, behind-the-scenes insight into the global conflict for freedom”, wondered if Vance, who has been noticeably quiet about Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East that he is said to oppose, had yet looked at any of the files about unidentified flying objects – known these days as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) – which the president has promised to release.
“I actually haven’t,” Vance replied, mustering significantly more enthusiasm than for any previous question about the US-Israel military strikes on Iran.
“I have not been able to spend enough time on this, but I am going to. Trust me, I’m obsessed with this.”
The God-fearing vice-president’s fixation, it was further revealed, extended to the question of the existence of extraplanetary beings, and where they might fit into a wider conversation about religion.
“I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they’re demons anyway, but that’s a longer discussion,” he said.
Johnson asked him to expand.
“Well, look, I think that celestial beings who fly around, who do weird things to people. I think that the desire to describe everything celestial, everything is otherworldly, to describe it as aliens,” Vance said.
Read the full report here:
Trump’s ‘border czar’ says ICE will remain at US airports
Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s “border czar”, told CBS News that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will continue operating at airports, until they “feel like they’re 100%”.
This comes after Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday instructing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents as the partial shutdown – now the longest in history – enters its 45th day. The agency has said that more than 480 TSA workers have resigned altogether since the start of the shutdown.
Negotiations broke down last week, when House Republicans rejected a Senate-passed bill to fund the TSA, the US Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa). Instead, GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber used their razor-thin majority to pass a short‑term funding bill to keep the DHS running through 22 May. However, Democrats in the Senate are all but certain to reject this continuing resolution. Complicating matters further, Congress has also gone home for a scheduled two-week recess, leaving a possible deal in limbo.
“If less TSA agents come back, that means we’ll keep more ICE agents there,” Homan said on Sunday. “The president has been clear. He wants to secure those airports … ICE is there to help our brothers and sisters in TSA. We’ll be there as long as they need us, until they get back to normal operations and feel like those airports are secure.”
A reminder that since ICE received $75bn through the president’s sweeping policy bill last year, it has been largely insulated from the funding lapse hitting the rest of the DHS and has continued operating.
The White House has updated its daily schedule, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt will now brief reporters at 1pm ET.
We’ll bring you the latest lines as that gets under way.
US gas prices soon to hit $4 per gallon
The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US is about to hit $4, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).
This is up 33% from a month ago, when the average price was $2.98 per gallon. The hike is the highest national average since 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The spike in the price at the pump is the most tangible hit Americans have felt since the US‑Israel war on Iran began almost five weeks ago. With the strait of Hormuz effectively closed, oil prices have surged – and that shock is now reaching consumers.
A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest out of the Middle East, including the president’s most recent comments on Truth Social threatening to “obliterate” Iran’s strategically crucial Kharg Island if a deal is not reached shortly.
This comes after Iran rejected a 15-point ceasefire proposal, that included reopening the strait of Hormuz and curbs on Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Instead, Iran offered alternatives, namely demanding that Israel stop attacking Iranian allies in the region, something Israel is unlikely to agree to.
Tehran also reportedly wants reparations for war damage and the removal of American bases from the Middle East.
Follow along here:
Donald Trump is in Washington today, but does not have any public events on his official schedule.
He’ll spend most of the day in private meetings, and at 10.15am ET the president will take part in the White House internship class photo. These will all be closed to the press, but if anything opens up we’ll bring you the latest.
Meanwhile, Trump has said that birthright citizenship is “about the babies of slaves” and not “rich people from China”.
“We are the only Country in the World that dignifies this subject with even discussion. Look at the dates of this long ago legislation – THE EXACT END OF THE CIVIL WAR!”, he wrote.
The Truth Social post in full reads:
Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America. It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!
We are the only Country in the World that dignifies this subject with even discussion. Look at the dates of this long ago legislation – THE EXACT END OF THE CIVIL WAR!
The World is getting rich selling citizenships to our Country, while at the same time laughing at how STUPID our U.S. Court System has become (TARIFFS!). “Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!”
President Donald Trump has issued another warning to Iran to open the strait of Hormuz or risk US attacks on its oil wells and power plants.
“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
Writing on Truth Social, he added:
This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year “Reign of Terror.”
Tom Perkins
Donald Trump is dispatching a so-called “God squad” of top officials to revoke protections for endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico, purportedly to protect national security by expanding oil and gas industry operations.
If successful, the administration may kill off dozens of protected species – from Rice’s whales and whooping cranes to sea turtles.
The rarely used “God squad” provision in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) allows a president to convene a committee of agency heads empowered to effectively veto protections for species on the brink of extinction. The committee essentially weighs whether the benefits from a proposed project outweigh the continued existence of protected wildlife.
The Trump administration is attempting to justify the ESA exemption for “reasons of national security”, marking the first time a security claim has been made. However, oil and gas companies have not asked for the exemption, raising questions about why it is being requested, said Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center For Biological Diversity, which has sued to stop the committee from convening.
The move is presumably aimed at bringing down gas prices that are soaring amid the US-Israel war on Iran, opponents say. Trump wants to make it appear as if the administration is taking action over the growing crisis, but the claim that there is a national security threat is “nonsense” for a multitude of reasons, Hartl said.
Jason Wilson
The newly appointed College Republicans of America political director Kai Schwemmer has made racist, antisemitic, homophobic and sexist statements while espousing extremist rightwing views on abortion, a Guardian review of livestream recordings can reveal.
Schwemmer said he would accept a world in which slavery was legal if abortion was criminalised, describes himself as “very much an anti universal suffrage guy” and accepts a supporter’s description of him as “our Mormon Nick Fuentes” – referring to the white nationalist influencer whose platform he streamed on for years.
The comments were made after Schwemmer’s return from a two-year Mormon mission to Argentina, a period he recently claimed had seen him undergo a “process of growth” that led him to abandon previous racist beliefs. Schwemmer had previously expressed extremist and bigoted views.
The streams, many of which are not publicly available but remain accessible behind a paywall on Schwemmer’s Gumroad page, also contain previously unreported material from his earlier broadcasts. In one, he walks a user through a sequence of antisemitic leading questions on the Omegle platform before directing her to Fuentes’s streaming site. In others, he claims gay men are “weaponizing” gyms “to give you Aids” and celebrates a DNA test he says proved “I’m 0% Jewish”.
The Guardian emailed detailed requests for comment to Schwemmer and the College Republicans of America.
José Olivares
Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, renewed his calls for new leadership of the Democratic party, saying the party has “failed this moment”.
“As a whole, our party has failed this moment,” Booker said on Sunday. “I’ve called for a generational renewal, because this left-right divide is killing our country and our adversaries know it.” He also said that “purity tests” within the party have led to more division in the US.
During an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Booker also said the Democratic party has “too small of a coalition”, especially as the party seeks to confront “new challenges”, including Trump administration policies and the expansion of artificial intelligence and technology.
Booker’s comments come amid growing divisions within the party, as frustration with Democratic senator Chuck Schumer grows. Some Democrats, specifically on the more progressive wing of the party, have discussed replacing Schumer, the minority leader, as midterm elections approach. Progressive senators reportedly see Schumer as an impediment to change for the party, due to his centrist politics, and as an obstacle to standing up to Donald Trump.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that some senators, including Chris Murphy from Connecticut, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota have been having conversations with colleagues, expressing frustration with Schumer and discussing strategies to remove him from his leadership position.
Trump says he has ‘no problem’ with Russian oil tanker bringing relief to Cuba despite blockade
President Donald Trump on Sunday night said he has “no problem” with a Russian oil tanker off the coast of Cuba delivering relief to the island, which has been brought to its knees by a US oil blockade.
“We have a tanker out there. We don’t mind having somebody get a boatload because they need … they have to survive,” Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington.
When asked if a New York Times report that the tanker would be allowed to reach Cuba was true, Trump said: “I told them, if a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem whether it’s Russia or not.”
On Monday, Russia’s transport ministry said the oil tanker Anatoly Kolodkin arrived at the Cuban port of Matanzas carrying “humanitarian supplies” of about 730,000 barrels of oil, AP reported.
The vessel is sanctioned by the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom following the war in Ukraine.
Airport travel chaos continues amid longest ever shutdown in US history
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Airports continue to warn passengers to arrive several hours early due to unpredictable Transportation Security Administration (TSA) wait times, as the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) became the longest shutdown in US history.
Congress and Donald Trump have made various attempts to direct government money toward the DHS, or directly to the DHS-funded TSA, but each have ended without success as an impasse over changes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations remains deadlocked.
With 9.4% of the total federal workforce, numbering 193,867 employees, the DHS is the fourth-largest agency in the US government. The agency said that more than 480 TSA workers have left altogether since the start of the shutdown.
White House border czar Tom Homan said it depends on how many TSA employees would be returning to work after they start receiving their pay.
“ICE is there to help our brothers and sisters in TSA. We’ll be there as long as they need us, until they get back to normal operations and feel like those airports are secure,” he told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’.
Speaking on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’, Homan said it also depends on how many TSA agents “have actually quit and have no plan on coming back to work.” Nearly 500 TSA officers have left the agency since the shutdown started, according to DHS.
He added that he hopeed TSA officers will be paid today or by Tuesday . “It’s good news because these TSA officers are struggling,” Homan said. “They can’t feed their families or pay their rent.”
Trump signed a memo late on Friday ordering DHS to restore pay to TSA employees, who have missed two paychecks, but it is unclear where that money will come from and if he can legally direct the agency to pay the employees.
The presidential memorandum directed the DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, to send funds “that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations” to pay TSA employees with the pay and benefits “that would have accrued” if no shutdown had happened.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
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A generational divide over the Iran war has emerged between older attendees and their political heirs at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas, as the group’s leaders pleaded for unity ahead of a challenging midterm election year for Republicans. More here.
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Iran has warned the US that it is prepared to confront any ground assault, accusing Washington of secretly planning a land attack while publicly seeking talks, as the war that has killed thousands of people and caused the biggest ever disruption to global energy supplies entered its second month. More here.
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US lawmakers have responded to reports that the Pentagon is preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran as thousands of US troops assemble in the Middle East and the conflict showed signs of entering a more dangerous phase. More here.
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The abortion rate is holding steady in the US despite total and partial bans in some states – largely because of travel across state lines and a significant increase in telehealth appointments, a new report says. More here.
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Pope Leo has said God ignores the prayers of leaders who wage war and have “hands full of blood”, in an apparent rebuke to the Trump administration. The pontiff made the comments on Sunday as thousands of US troops arrived in the Middle East.
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More than 8 million people protested against the Trump administration at more than 3,300 No Kings events across the US and in more than a dozen countries on Saturday, according to organizers.
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