Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., compared U.S. enforcement of immigration law to “terrorism” during a Saturday town hall and promised to dismantle the chief U.S. immigration enforcement agency if Democrats regained power.

“The frank terrorism that is being invoked – when we call that out and stand together, I think people will continue to not want to do that work,” Dexter told an audience at Wy’east Middle School in Oregon.

“I’m not supposed to get political, but if there’s a change in political will, then we can absolutely dismantle and abolish ICE altogether,” Dexter said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Dexter, a freshman progressive lawmaker, is one of many Democrats who have called for reforms to the agency in the wake of public unrest in Minnesota over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

When two civilians in Minneapolis were shot and killed in separate confrontations with immigration officials in January, Dexter was among the first lawmakers who promised to vote against any spending legislation for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that didn’t also include major reforms to ICE, which operates under DHS.

Although the vast majority of Democrats eventually adopted Dexter’s stance over DHS funding, the idea first began as a position held by the Congressional Progressive Caucus and was championed by members like Reps. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

PROGRESSIVE DEM JASMINE CROCKETT TARGETS TRUMP DEPORTATION FLIGHTS WITH NEW ‘TRACK ICE’ BILL

Gridlock over DHS funding has led to a partial government shutdown which began on Feb. 14, when Democrats in the Senate also refused to advance DHS funding over a set of 10 reforms to ICE.

Among those demands, Democrats want to impose new operational limits to the agency, such as an end to roaming patrols, a ban on masks, a requirement for visible identification and stiffer warrant requirements for detaining illegal aliens in public.

Those changes would represent the most direct intervention into the agency’s operation since its creation in 2003.

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Republicans have rebuffed those demands, arguing they would severely limit the administration’s immigration goals.

Dexter’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday about the nature of her comments — including whether she had made a campaign promise at a town hall or who had funded the event.

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Greenland’s rejection of President Donald Trump sending a U.S. military hospital ship has touched off a private-public healthcare debate amid ongoing diplomatic talks about Arctic security.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen on Sunday turned down Trump’s offer, and now Trump special envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, has weighed in.

“Shame on Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen!” Landry wrote in response to a Fox News report on Nielsen’s objection. “President Donald J. Trump and America care. After speaking to many Greenlanders about the day to day problems they face, one issue stood out — healthcare.”

Greenland has sought more self-governance from Denmark under the Self Government Act in 2009 to take more local authority under home rule, but Danish officials’ instant rejection of Trump’s offer is aligned with Greenland’s own rejection that came later Sunday.

CANADA AND FRANCE OPENING NEW CONSULATES IN GREENLAND’S CAPITAL AMID TRUMP PRESSURE

“President Trump’s idea of ​​sending an American hospital ship here to Greenland has been noted,” Nielsen wrote in a translated Facebook post. “But we have a public healthcare system where treatment is free for citizens.

“It is a deliberate choice.”

Greenland remains open to dialogue and cooperation with the U.S., with a caveat, according to Nielsen.

“But talk to us instead of just making more or less random outbursts on social media,” Nielsen said in his own public Facebook protestation.

TRUMP KEEPS MACRON UNDER SPOTLIGHT AS GREENLAND TALKS GRIND FORWARD FROM DAVOS

Greenland’s “free for citizens” care is not sufficient, Landry argued in his Facebook response posted to his campaign’s page.

“Many villages and small towns lack basic services that Americans often take for granted,” Landry’s post continued. “Small settlements are without permanent doctors, diagnostic tools, or specialist care – forcing residents to travel great distances for vital treatments that should be available at home.”

The healthcare issue underlies the overreaching Trump hopes to annex Greenland to secure the strategic Arctic region from Russian and Chinese designs, calling it a vital issue for “national security” for both the U.S. and the NATO alliance.

“A healthy Greenland is vital for America’s national security,” Landry’s post concluded. “America is committed to defending Greenland, and that begins by ensuring its people are defended against basic illnesses and ailments. 

“These missions matter because health is inseparable from security. America’s commitment to defending Greenland must begin with ensuring its people are healthy.”

The recent dust-up came after Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command evacuated a crew member who required urgent medical treatment from a U.S. submarine in Greenlandic waters, seven nautical miles outside of Greenland’s capital of Nuuk.

“Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there,” Trump wrote Saturday night on Truth Social. “It’s on the way!!!”

That post sparked objection from both Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Sunday.

“The Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs,” Poulsen told Danish broadcaster DR, according to Reuters. “They receive it either in Greenland, or, if they require specialized treatment, they receive it in Denmark.

VANCE: US SHOULD GET ‘SOME BENEFIT’ FROM GREENLAND IF IT’S GOING TO BE ‘ON THE HOOK’ FOR PROTECTING TERRITORY

“So it’s not as if there’s a need for a special healthcare initiative in Greenland.”

Frederiksen spun the Trump offer into a political debate on public healthcare.

“Am happy to live in a country where there is free and equal access to health for all,” Frederiksen wrote in a translated post, sharing a Democrat attack point on Trump’s Republican Party’s struggles to reform what Trump has rebuked as a “failure” of Obamacare. “Where it’s not insurances and wealth that determine whether you get proper treatment. You have the same approach in Greenland.”

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The U.S. Navy has two hospital ships, the Mercy and the Comfort. Both were last docked in Alabama for repairs, according to Reuters.

An armed man was shot and killed Sunday morning after he entered the secure perimeter of President Trump’s private Florida residence and resort, Mar-a-Lago, and was confronted by U.S. Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy.

The man killed was identified by investigators as 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin from North Carolina, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation. Martin had been reported missing by his family a few days prior.

Trump, who on Saturday night hosted the annual Governors Dinner at the White House, was not at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the incident.

According to the Secret Service, law enforcement officers spotted a man in his early 20s with a shotgun and a fuel can by the north gate of Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Fla., around 1:30 a.m.

When a deputy from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and two Secret Service agents went to investigate, they ordered him to drop the items, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric L. Bradshaw said during a news conference Sunday morning.

“He put down the gas can, raised the shotgun to a shooting position,” Bradshaw said. “At that point in time, the deputy and the two Secret Service agents fired their weapons and neutralized the threat.”

The man was declared dead at the scene. Rafael Barros, special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Miami field office, said no law enforcement agents were harmed in the incident.

The FBI is leading the investigation.

Brett Skiles, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami field office, said the Evidence Response Team is processing the scene and collecting evidence. He asked residents in the vicinity to check their exterior cameras and contact the FBI or the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office if they spot anything that looks suspicious or out of place.

The officers involved were wearing body cameras, Bradshaw said.

Asked whether the man was known to law enforcement before the incident, Bradshaw said, “Not right now.”

The Secret Service said in a statement that it is working with the FBI and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office to learn more about the deceased man’s background, actions and motive. The agents involved in the incident, it said, will be placed on routine administrative leave during the investigation “in accordance with agency policy.”

Martin hailed from the small town of Cameron — a staunchly Republican area of central North Carolina.

Around 7 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday, a woman who appeared to be the slain man’s mother, Melissa Martin, posted a note on Facebook. “Please share so we can find my boy,” she wrote.

An hour later, she posted a missing person notice that described Martin as around 6 feet tall and driving a 2013 silver Volkswagen Tiguan. He was last heard from, the note said, at 7:51 p.m. Saturday.

Melissa Martin did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Braeden Fields, Martin’s 19-year-old cousin, told the Associated Press that Martin came from a family of Trump supporters. He was quiet, he said, and afraid of guns.

“I wouldn’t believe he would do something like this. It’s mind-blowing,” Fields said. “He wouldn’t even hurt an ant. He doesn’t even know how to use a gun.”

Martin worked at a local golf course, Fields said. He also set up a small business — artwork company Fresh Sky Illustrations, which focused on “bringing to life the hopeful feeling of being on a golf course,” its website said, “by illustrating golf course scenes and providing framed copies of handmade works in various golf course gift shops.”

The incident at Mar-a-Lago comes amid a wave of violence against political figures — one that spans the ideological spectrum.

Trump himself has been the target — most notably in July 2024, when he survived an assassination attempt during an outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pa. A few months later, a man with a rifle was arrested by Secret Service agents as he was spotted hiding amid shrubs near Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course.

In an interview Sunday with Fox News, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blamed left-wing rhetoric — “venom coming from the other side” — for inspiring political violence against Trump. He cited a newly released U.S. Senate campaign ad by Illinois Democratic Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, in which a series of people say “F— Trump,” and called for the ad to be taken down.

“We don’t know whether this person was a mastermind, unhinged or what,” he told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures,” referencing the Mar-a-Lago intruder with a gun. “But they are normalizing this violence. It’s got to stop.”

In September of last year, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot during a campus debate hosted by his Turning Point USA organization at Utah Valley University.

But Democrats have also been attacked and, in some cases, killed. In June 2025, a man posing as a police officer fatally shot Minnesota state House Democratic leader Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and wounded another Democratic lawmaker, state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, at their residence.

In April 2024, an armed man set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, forcing Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family to flee during the Jewish holiday of Passover.

On Jan. 6, 2021, a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, some threatening to kill Republican Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in an attempt to stop Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.

Trump did not comment publicly on the incident Sunday morning. After 11 a.m. Eastern time, the president posted comments on social media about the U.S. men’s hockey team’s win at the Winter Olympics.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, meanwhile, praised the Secret Service for its speedy work.

“In the middle of the night while most Americans were asleep, the United States Secret Service acted quickly and decisively to neutralize a crazy person, armed with a gun and a gas canister, who intruded President Trump’s home,” Leavitt wrote in a statement on X. “Federal law enforcement are working 24/7 to keep our country safe and protect all Americans.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a short statement that the agency is dedicating “all necessary resources” to the investigation and will continue working closely with the Secret Service as well as state and federal partners.