We start with news that Democratic leaders say a proposal from the White House is \u201cincomplete and insufficient\u201d as they demand new restrictions on president Donald Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement late Monday that a White House counterproposal to the list of demands they called for over the weekend \u201cincluded neither details nor legislative text\u201d and does not address \u201cthe concerns Americans have about ICE\u2019s lawless conduct.\u201d The White House proposal was not released publicly.<\/p>\n
The Democrats\u2019 statement comes as time is running short, with another partial government shutdown threatening to begin Saturday, AP reported. Among the Democrats\u2019 demands are a requirement for judicial warrants, better identification of DHS officers, new use-of-force standards and a stop to racial profiling. They say such changes are necessary after two protesters were fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis last month.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Monday, Senate majority leader John Thune had expressed optimism about the rare negotiations between Democrats and the White House, saying there was \u201cforward progress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thune said it was a good sign that the two sides were trading papers, and \u201chopefully they can find some common ground here.\u201d But coming to an agreement on the charged issue of immigration enforcement will be difficult, especially as rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties were skeptical about finding common ground.<\/p>\n
Many Democrats who are furious about ICE\u2019s aggressive crackdown have said they won\u2019t vote for any more Homeland Security funding until enforcement is radically scaled back. \u201cDramatic changes are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before a DHS funding bill moves forward,\u201d Jeffries said earlier Monday. \u201cPeriod. Full stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other developments:<\/p>\n
Donald Trump threatened to block a new bridge connecting the US and Canada he supported in 2017 and made the bizarre false claim that increased trade between Canada and China would include a total ban on Canadians playing ice hockey.<\/p>\n
The Miami Herald reported that one partially redacted Epstein files document includes an account of a 2006 phone call in which Trump told the Palm Beach police chief that \u201ceveryone has known\u201d Jeffrey Epstein was abusing girls and Ghislaine Maxwell \u2018\u201cis evil\u201d. Trump now says he had no idea Epstein was abusing girls and wishes Maxwell well.<\/p>\n
An immigration judge rejected the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to deport Tufts University doctoral student R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, who was arrested last year as part of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activists, her lawyers said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n The US military\u2019s Southern Command, which oversees operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced<\/a> it carried out another deadly strike on Monday, killing two suspected drug smugglers in the eastern Pacific.<\/p>\n A federal judge in California issued a preliminary injunction<\/a> that blocks part of a new state law that bans federal law enforcement officers from covering their faces.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Key events<\/p>\n Show key events only<\/p>\n Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature<\/p>\n Donald Trump is in Washington today. As of now, he\u2019ll have time signing time in the Oval Office, followed by a policy meeting. However, none of these events will be open to the press. We will hear from press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who will brief reporters at 1pm ET.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll bring you the latest lines as it happens.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Jamie Raskin, a top House Democrat, accused the justice department of making \u201cpuzzling, inexplicable redactions\u201d to documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that obscured the names of abusers, while allowing the identities of the disgraced financier\u2019s victims to become public.<\/p>\n Raskin told reporters that he wanted to view the complete files to better understand how the justice department handled the redaction process.<\/p>\n Watch the video below\u2026<\/p>\n An Irish man who has been held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for five months despite having a valid work permit and no criminal record says he fears for his life and has appealed for help from Ireland\u2019s government.<\/p>\n Seamus Culleton said conditions at his detention centre in Texas were akin to \u201ctorture\u201d and that the atmosphere was volatile. \u201cI\u2019m not in fear of the other inmates. I\u2019m afraid of the staff. They\u2019re capable of anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking from the El Paso facility to Ireland\u2019s RT\u00c9 radio, Culleton implored the taoiseach, Miche\u00e1l Martin, to raise his case with Donald Trump<\/a> when he visits the White House next month for St Patrick\u2019s Day celebrations.<\/p>\n \u201cJust try to get me out of here and do all you can, please. It\u2019s an absolute torture, psychological and physical torture,\u201d Culleton said, adding he did not know how much more he could take. \u201cIt\u2019s just a horrible, horrible, horrible place.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally from County Kilkenny, Culleton, 42, runs a plastering business in the Boston area. After buying supplies at a hardware store on 9 September 2025 he was followed by ICE agents and arrested.<\/p>\n Culleton entered the US in 2009 on a visa waiver programme and overstayed the 90-day limit but after marrying a US citizen, Tiffany Smyth, and applying for lawful permanent residence, he obtained a statutory exemption that allowed him to work, according to his lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye.<\/p>\n The detention prevented him from attending the final interview in October for his green card that would have confirmed his legal status, said Okoye. \u201cIt\u2019s inexplicable that this man has been in detention.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump’s immigration chiefs to testify in Congress following protester deaths<\/p>\n The heads of the agencies carrying out president Donald Trump\u2019s mass deportation agenda will testify in Congress on Tuesday and face questions over how they are prosecuting immigration enforcement inside American cities.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s immigration campaign has been heavily scrutinized in recent weeks, after the shooting deaths in Minneapolis of two protesters at the hands of Homeland Security officers. The agencies have also faced criticism for a wave of policies that critics say trample on the rights of both immigrants facing arrest and Americans protesting the enforcement actions.<\/p>\n Todd Lyons, the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Rodney Scott, who heads Customs and Border Protection (CPB), and Joseph Edlow , who is the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), will address lawmakers on the House committee on homeland security.<\/p>\n The officials will speak at a time of falling public support for how their agencies are carrying out Trump\u2019s immigration vision but as they are flush with cash from a spending bill passed last year that has helped broaden immigration enforcement activities across the country.<\/p>\n The administration says that activists and protesters opposed to its operations are the ones ratcheting up attacks on their officers, not the other way around, and that their immigration enforcement operations are making the country safer by finding and removing people who\u2019ve committed crimes or pose a threat to the country.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a008.06 EST<\/p>\n Donald Trump has done a number of U-turns on the Epstein files since his campaign in 2024.<\/p>\n The president wants the latest batch of files to be the last, but Democrats<\/a> are pushing for three million more to be released.<\/p>\n The Guardian US reporter Richard Luscombe gives an overview of the latest findings after the Department of Justice released the files\u2026<\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.53 EST<\/p>\n Americans\u2019 hope for their future has fallen to a new low, according to new polling.<\/p>\n In 2025, only about 59% of Americans gave high ratings when asked to evaluate how good their life will be in about five years, the lowest annual measure since Gallup began asking this question almost 20 years ago, AP reported.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a warning about the depth of the gloom that has fallen over the country over the past few years. In the data, Gallup\u2019s \u2018current\u2019 and \u2018future\u2019 lines have tended to move together over time – when Americans are feeling good about the present, they tend to feel optimistic about the future. But the most recent measures show that while current life satisfaction has declined over the last decade, future optimism has dropped even more.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile current life is eroding, it\u2019s that optimism for the future that has eroded almost twice as much over the course of about that last 10 years or so,\u201d said Dan Witters, the research director of the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index.<\/p>\n Gallup assesses people who rate their current life at a 7 or higher and their anticipated future at an 8 or higher as \u201cthriving.\u201d Fewer than half of Americans, about 48%, are now in that category.<\/p>\n Share<\/a> Police departments across the US are quietly leveraging school district security cameras to assist Donald Trump\u2019s mass immigration enforcement campaign, an investigation by the 74 reveals.<\/p>\n Hundreds of thousands of audit logs spanning a month show police are searching a national database of automated license plate reader data, including from school cameras, for immigration-related investigations.<\/p>\n The audit logs originate from Texas<\/a> school districts that contract with Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company that manufactures artificial intelligence-powered license plate readers and other surveillance technology. Flock\u2019s cameras are designed to capture license plate numbers, timestamps and other identifying details, which are uploaded to a cloud server. Flock customers, including schools, can decide whether to share their information with other police agencies in the company\u2019s national network.<\/p>\n Multiple law enforcement leaders acknowledged they conducted the searches in the audit logs to help the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) enforce federal immigration laws. The Trump administration\u2019s aggressive DHS crackdown, which has grown increasingly unpopular<\/a>, has had a significant impact on schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n Educators, parents and students as young as five<\/a> have been swept up, with immigrant families being targeted during school drop-offs and pick-ups<\/a>. School parking lots are one place the cameras at the center of these searches can be found, along with other locations in the wider community, such as mounted on utility poles at intersections or along busy commercial streets.<\/p>\n The data raises questions about the degree to which campus surveillance technology intended for student safety is being repurposed to support immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Dara Kerr<\/p>\n A federal judge on Monday blocked a California law from going into effect that would ban federal immigration agents from covering their faces, but they will still be required to wear clear identification showing their agency and badge number.<\/p>\n California became the first state to ban most law enforcement officers from wearing facial coverings under a bill that was signed by Gavin Newsom, the governor, in September, following last summer\u2019s high-profile raids by ICE officers in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n The Trump administration<\/a> filed a lawsuit in November challenging the law, arguing it would threaten the safety of officers who are facing harassment, doxing, and violence. The Department of Justice claimed the law violated the constitution because California would be directly regulating the federal government. The agency argued that federal officers should be able to choose a whether to wear a face covering.<\/p>\n \u201cDenying federal agencies and officers that choice would chill federal law enforcement and deter applicants for law enforcement positions,\u201d the justice department wrote in its lawsuit.<\/p>\n Judge Christina Snyder said she issued the initial ruling because the mask ban as it was enacted did not also apply to state and local law enforcement authorities, thus it discriminated against the federal government.<\/p>\n Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, called the ruling a \u201ckey court victory\u201d in a post on social media, saying federal agents are \u201cattacked on a regular basis just for doing their jobs\u201d. She added that the justice department \u201cwill ALWAYS have the backs of our great federal law enforcement officers\u201d.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will prioritise discussions on negotiations with Iran when he meets with US president Donald Trump<\/a> in Washington this week.<\/p>\n \u201cOn this trip we will discuss a range of issues: Gaza, the region, but of course first and foremost the negotiations with Iran. I will present to the president our views regarding the principles for the negotiations,\u201d Netanyahu said before heading to the United States, where he will meet Trump on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Their meeting comes days after Iran and the United States held talks in Oman last week, after which Trump said another round of negotiations would follow, AFP reports.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump answers a question from a reporter at the end of a news conference with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. Photograph: Alex Brandon\/APShare<\/a>Trump threatens to block bridge he previously endorsed as ‘vital economic link’<\/p>\n Donald Trump last night threatened to block a bridge connecting the US and Canada and made a bizarre false claim that increased trade between Canada and China would include a ban on Canadians playing ice hockey.<\/p>\n Trump began his latest diatribe against the US\u2019s second-largest trading partner by claiming that \u201ceveryone knows, the Country of Canada has treated the United States very unfairly for decades\u201d.<\/p>\n The president also threatened to block the scheduled opening of the $4.6bn Gordie Howe International Bridge, connecting Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan, built by a binational partnership that won approval during the Obama administration but began construction in 2018, when Trump was president.<\/p>\n \u201cI will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve,\u201d Trump wrote on Monday.<\/p>\n Trump himself had publicly endorsed the bridge project in 2017, before construction began, in public comments and a joint statement issued by him and the then prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.<\/p>\n \u201cNo two countries share deeper or broader relations than Canada and the United States,\u201d the joint statement<\/a> issued on 13 February 2017 read.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven our shared focus on infrastructure investments, we will encourage opportunities for companies in both countries to create jobs through those investments. In particular, we look forward to the expeditious completion of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which will serve as a vital economic link between our two countries,\u201d Trump and Trudeau said after their first meeting that day.<\/p>\n Read our full report here:<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a006.04 EST<\/p>\n Democrats say White House offer on ICE is ‘insufficient’ as Homeland Security funding set to expire<\/p>\n Hello and welcome to the US politics<\/a> live blog. I\u2019m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.<\/p>\n We start with news that Democratic leaders say a proposal from the White House is \u201cincomplete and insufficient\u201d as they demand new restrictions on president Donald Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement late Monday that a White House counterproposal to the list of demands they called for over the weekend \u201cincluded neither details nor legislative text\u201d and does not address \u201cthe concerns Americans have about ICE\u2019s lawless conduct.\u201d The White House proposal was not released publicly.<\/p>\n The Democrats\u2019 statement comes as time is running short, with another partial government shutdown threatening to begin Saturday, AP reported. Among the Democrats\u2019 demands are a requirement for judicial warrants, better identification of DHS officers, new use-of-force standards and a stop to racial profiling. They say such changes are necessary after two protesters were fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis last month.<\/p>\n Earlier on Monday, Senate majority leader John Thune had expressed optimism about the rare negotiations between Democrats and the White House, saying there was \u201cforward progress.\u201d<\/p>\n Thune said it was a good sign that the two sides were trading papers, and \u201chopefully they can find some common ground here.\u201d But coming to an agreement on the charged issue of immigration enforcement will be difficult, especially as rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties were skeptical about finding common ground.<\/p>\n Many Democrats who are furious about ICE\u2019s aggressive crackdown have said they won\u2019t vote for any more Homeland Security funding until enforcement is radically scaled back. \u201cDramatic changes are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before a DHS funding bill moves forward,\u201d Jeffries said earlier Monday. \u201cPeriod. Full stop.\u201d<\/p>\n In other developments:<\/p>\n Donald Trump threatened to block a new bridge connecting the US and Canada he supported in 2017 and made the bizarre false claim that increased trade between Canada and China would include a total ban on Canadians playing ice hockey.<\/p>\n The Miami Herald reported that one partially redacted Epstein files document includes an account of a 2006 phone call in which Trump told the Palm Beach police chief that \u201ceveryone has known\u201d Jeffrey Epstein was abusing girls and Ghislaine Maxwell \u2018\u201cis evil\u201d. Trump now says he had no idea Epstein was abusing girls and wishes Maxwell well.<\/p>\n An immigration judge rejected the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to deport Tufts University doctoral student R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, who was arrested last year as part of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activists, her lawyers said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n The US military\u2019s Southern Command, which oversees operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced<\/a> it carried out another deadly strike on Monday, killing two suspected drug smugglers in the eastern Pacific.<\/p>\n A federal judge in California issued a preliminary injunction<\/a> that blocks part of a new state law that bans federal law enforcement officers from covering their faces.<\/p>\n![\"'Puzzling,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770730269_635_6000.jpg\")
‘Puzzling, inexplicable redactions’: Jamie Raskin questions DoJ after viewing Epstein files \u2013\u00a0videoShare<\/a>![\"Rory](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Rory_Carroll.png\")
Rory Carroll<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1280.jpg\")
The Epstein files: Trump wants to move on \u2013\u00a0videoShare<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Mark-Keierleber.jpg\")
Mark Keierleber<\/p>\n