Politics
Trump invokes wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target violent illegal immigrant street gangs

Hours after President Donald Trump invoked a wartime law to target terrorist organization Tren de Aragua (TdA) Saturday, a federal judge ruled the law could not be used to deport five Venezuelans and ordered the plane they were believed to be on to return to the U.S.
The Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows deportation of natives and citizens of an enemy nation without a hearing, has been invoked three times, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.
All Venezuelan citizens 14 years or older who are members of TdA, are within the U.S. and are not naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the U.S. may be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed as “alien enemies,” according to Trump’s proclamation.
Alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang have overtaken an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado, charging rent in exchange for “protection,” previous reports say. (Edward Romero)
‘WEAPONIZED MIGRATION’: US FACES DEADLY CONSEQUENCES WITH MADURO IN POWER, VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION WARNS
Hours before the proclamation was signed, a lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy Forward and the ACLU of the District of Columbia, claiming it could be used to deport any Venezuelan in the country, regardless of whether they are a member of TdA.
At a hearing Saturday afternoon, Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the D.C. Circuit granted a temporary restraining order preventing the deportation of the five Venezuelans, who had already been in federal custody for two weeks.
Two planes that may have been en route to deport illegal immigrants were ordered returned by the judge. However, it is unclear as of Saturday night if they have done so.
“Tonight, a DC trial judge supported Tren de Aragua terrorists over the safety of Americans. TdA is represented by the ACLU,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “This order disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk. The Department of Justice is undeterred in its efforts to work with the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, and all of our partners to stop this invasion and Make America Safe Again.”
The Trump administration appealed the restraining order, alleging it is improper to delay a presidential act before it is announced, affiliate FOX 32 Chicago reported.

Peruvian police transfer several members of the Tren de Aragua criminal organization in Lima Oct. 5, 2023. (Cris Bouroncle/AFP via Getty Images)
“The United States is not at war, nor has it been invaded. The president’s anticipated invocation of wartime authority — which is not needed to conduct lawful immigration enforcement operations — is the latest step in an accelerating authoritarian playbook,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, wrote in a statement.
“From improperly apprehending American citizens to violating the ability of communities to peacefully worship to now improperly trying to invoke a law that is responsible for some of our nation’s most shameful actions, this administration’s immigration agenda is as lawless as it is harmful.”
An in-person hearing on the lawsuit’s merits is scheduled for D.C. Monday.

Police officers search for evidence in apartment buildings at 12th and Dallas in Aurora, Colo., Dec. 17, 2024. (Fox News Digital)
The move fulfills a campaign promise made during an October rally, when Trump announced he would use the law to combat Tren de Aragua (TdA) members in the U.S.
Tren de Aragua (TdA), designated a foreign terrorist organization Feb. 20 by the Department of State, has thousands of members, many of whom the White House says have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are “conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States.”
Colorado officials confirmed TdA occupied entire apartment complexes in Aurora, noting a special task force had to be established to combat its activity.
TRUMP TO INVOKE WARTIME ALIEN ENEMIES ACT OF 1798 TO FAST-TRACK DEPORTATIONS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
As of Sept. 11, 2024, the Aurora Police Department linked the gang to nearly a dozen people, resulting in eight arrests.
“Two of the eight individuals who were taken into custody were involved in a July shooting at one of the specific properties in the city that have experienced issues with TdA activity,” according to a statement. “In line with these arrests, we can also now confirm that criminal activity, including TdA issues, had significantly affected those properties.”

Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, right (Fox Nation)
CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE
The White House said the gang has continued to engage in mass illegal migration to the U.S. to “further its objectives of harming United States citizens,” undermining public safety.
TdA operates in conjunction with Cártel de los Soles, the Nicolás Maduro regime-sponsored narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela, and commits brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortion and human, drug, and weapons trafficking, according to the White House.
It grew significantly while Tareck El Aissami served as governor of Aragua between 2012 and 2017. In 2017, El Aissami was appointed vice president of Venezuela.
Soon after, the Treasury Department designated El Aissami a specially designated narcotics trafficker under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, and he remains a U.S. fugitive.
In 2020, Maduro and other regime members were charged with narcoterrorism and other crimes in an alleged plot against America.
Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

Politics
White House Attacks Amazon Over Idea of Showing Tariffs’ Cost

There’s a fresh spat brewing between the White House and Amazon.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, on Tuesday accused the online retail giant of being “hostile and political,” citing a report — disputed by Amazon — from Punchbowl News saying that the company would start displaying the exact cost of tariff-related price increases alongside its products.
Displaying the import fees would have made clear to American consumers that they are shouldering the cost of President Trump’s tariff policies rather than China, as he and his top officials have often claimed would be the case.
An Amazon spokesman said the company had considered a similar idea on part of its site, Amazon Haul, which competes with Temu, a Chinese retailer. Temu primarily ships directly to consumers and has begun displaying “import charges” to reflect the end of a customs loophole that had exempted low-priced items from tariffs.
“Teams discuss ideas all the time,” the spokesman, Ty Rogers, said in a statement. He said it was never under consideration for the main Amazon site, adding: “This was never approved and is not going to happen.”
Standing beside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a briefing at the White House on Tuesday morning, Ms. Leavitt tore into the retailer. She said that she had just been on the phone with the president about the report, and she asked why Amazon hadn’t done such a thing when prices increased during the Biden administration because of inflation.
Ms. Leavitt said it was “not a surprise” coming from Amazon, as she held up a copy of a 2021 article from Reuters with the headline, “Amazon partnered with China propaganda arm.”
Mr. Trump’s aggressive tariffs on Chinese goods have touched off an escalating trade war, even as his administration has backed off its broader global levies amid what it said were negotiations with dozens of nations on new trade deals.
Ms. Leavitt’s attack on Amazon was all the more noteworthy because the company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has lately gone to great lengths to curry favor with this White House. Amazon donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund, securing seats for Mr. Bezos and his bride-to-be in the Capitol Rotunda for the inauguration.
In December, Mr. Bezos explained his Trump-ward turn while speaking at The New York Times DealBook conference. “What I’ve seen so far is he is calmer than he was the first time,” Mr. Bezos said of Mr. Trump, “more confident, more settled.”
He added, “I’m very hopeful. He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation.”
Ms. Leavitt was asked whether the White House still considered Mr. Bezos to be a Trump supporter, given the latest report.
“Look, I will not speak to the president’s relationships with Jeff Bezos,” Ms. Leavitt said, “but I will tell you that this is certainly a hostile and political action by Amazon.”
Politics
Eric Adams unfazed by ruling against his plan to combat migrant crime: ‘All part of the process’

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, one of the only major Democrats in the nation who has been willing to cooperate with the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrant crime, appears unfazed by the latest ruling against his efforts to allow ICE agents into Rikers Island detention facilities.
When asked by Fox News Digital what his response to this ruling was, Adams simply laughed and said it is “all part of the process.”
Adams, who is running for re-election as an Independent, is facing heavy criticism from Democrats across the country for cooperating with the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. In one of the latest developments, he has been sued by the Democrat-controlled New York City Council over an executive order issued by his office to allow ICE agents to access Rikers Island Prison to conduct immigration checks and interviews.
In the suit, the City Council accuses Adams of engaging in an illegal “quid pro quo” with the Trump administration and prioritizing his own political goals over the city’s “prized sanctuary laws.”
TRUMP’S BORDER CZAR TELLS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS THEY ‘CANNOT HIDE FROM ICE’ AMID MASS DEPORTATION AGENDA
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, one of the only major Democrats in the nation who has been willing to cooperate with the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrant crime, appears unfazed by the latest ruling against his efforts to allow ICE agents into Rikers Island Prison. (Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The suit called the executive order “the poisoned fruit of Mayor Adams’s deal with the Trump Administration.”
Last week, New York Judge Mary Rosado ruled to bar the city from “taking any steps toward negotiating, signing, or implementing any Memorandum of Understanding with the federal government” for the time being.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE
ICE previously had a presence at Rikers, but the agency was banned from the jail complex in 2014 under New York City’s sanctuary laws limiting cooperation with immigration enforcement.
This remained the case until this month when New York City First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro signed an executive order allowing federal immigration authorities to operate an office on Rikers Island.
DEMOCRAT CITY COUNCIL SUES MAYOR FOR ALLOWING ICE INTO MAJOR AMERICAN PRISON

The Rikers Island jail complex stands with the Manhattan skyline in the background on June 20, 2014 in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
The order states that the safety of New Yorkers has been jeopardized by violent transnational gangs like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua – gangs designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration – and there is a critical need for federal law enforcement to share “real-time” intelligence with the city’s corrections department and police.
The order allows federal law enforcement agencies to share intelligence with the corrections department and the NYPD about criminal gang activity among individuals both inside and outside of custody.
It does not give ICE permission to carry out civil immigration enforcement and arrest people simply for being undocumented.
The order was issued the week after federal charges against Adams were dismissed. He had been accused of using his position as mayor to receive luxury travel and illegal campaign contributions from Turkish foreign nationals.
Adams insisted the case was politically motivated and was pursued in retaliation for his criticism of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
Politics
Edison told the government that Calderon was an ‘executive.’ Now it claims she wasn’t.

Southern California Edison has repeatedly insisted that its former government affairs manager, state Assemblywoman Lisa Calderon (D-Whittier), was never an executive with the company.
But that’s not what Edison told the federal government.
Calderon is sponsoring legislation favored by Edison that would slash the credits that many homeowners receive for generating electricity with rooftop solar panels.
Edison has objected to The Times’ identifying Calderon as a former executive for the utility, claiming on its website that the news organization is “choosing sensationalism over facts.”
But in its official reports to the Federal Election Commission, the political action committee for Edison International — the utility’s parent company — listed Calderon’s occupation as an executive in more than a dozen filings made before she left the company in 2020 to run for office.
An example of the reports that Edison International’s political action committee filed with the Federal Election Commission.
All the filings were signed by the PAC’s treasurer saying that “to the best of my knowledge and belief” the information “is true, correct and complete.”
Asked to explain the contradiction, Edison spokeswoman Kathleen Dunleavy said that the company was referring in its filings with the commission to a broad class of individuals that met requirements for executive as defined by the commission, but not by Edison itself.
Edison uses the term to “designate someone in a high position of authority,” she said, such as “an employee director, vice president or similar title.” Because Edison didn’t consider Calderon an executive, she said, others shouldn’t either.
Calderon told The Times earlier that she was a senior advisor of government affairs at Edison International. In other biographies, she is described as government affairs director. On Monday, she said her official title was government affairs manager.
For years, she managed the parent company’s political action committee.
In a statement, Calderon said she had not filled out the political action committee’s reports. Instead they were prepared and filed by the company’s law firm, she said.
“Due to her professional responsibilities, she was categorized as an executive for FEC filing purposes,” her office said. “That does not mean that she was an executive at Edison.”

For years, Lisa Calderon managed Edison International’s Political Action Committee
(EIPAC — 2019 Annual Report)
Calderon’s AB 942 would sharply reduce the financial credits that the owners of rooftop panels receive when they send unused power to the grid.
The bill applies to those who installed the panels before April 15, 2023. It would limit the current program’s benefits to 10 years — half of the 20-year period that the state had told the rooftop owners they would receive. The bill also would cancel the solar contracts if the homes were sold. It wouldn’t apply to customers served by municipal electric utilities.
Edison and the state’s other big for-profit utilities have long fought to reduce the energy credits aimed at getting Californians to invest in rooftop solar panels. The popularity of the systems has cut into electricity sales.
Calderon, Edison and other supporters of the bill point to an analysis by the California Public Utility Commission’s Public Advocates Office that found the energy credits given to the rooftop owners were increasing the electric bills of those who don’t have solar panels.
The bill’s first hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
Edison has been under scrutiny since Jan. 7, when videos captured the devastating Eaton wildfire igniting under one of its transmission towers. The wildfire killed 18 people and destroyed thousands of homes, businesses and other structures in Altadena.
Edison says it is cooperating with investigators working to determine the cause of the inferno.
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