Trump authorizes ICE to target schools and churches
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(WASHINGTON) — Federal immigration authorities will be permitted to target schools and churches after President Donald Trump revoked a directive barring arrests in “sensitive” areas.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday it would roll back the policy to “thwart law enforcement in or near so-called sensitive areas.”
First enacted in 2011, the directive prohibited Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol officers from arresting suspected undocumented immigrants in a variety of locations.
Schools and houses of worship were deemed off-limits, as were hospitals, funerals, weddings and public demonstrations.
In a statement touting the move Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said law enforcement would use “common sense” in making arrests.
“This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murders and rapists — who have illegally come into our country,” the spokesperson said.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the statement continued. “The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
(WASHINGTON) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to go before the Senate on Wednesday in his confirmation hearing to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under President Donald Trump.
Kennedy has frequently promoted views at odds with the consensus of public health researchers and the mainstream scientific community, including falsely claiming that certain vaccines cause autism and calling for fluoride to be removed from drinking water, claiming it harms adolescent development.
The environmental attorney has vowed to crack down on dyes in the food industry and has called for restrictions on ultra-processed foods.
During a charity dinner last year in New York City, Trump pledged Kennedy would “go wild on health” and that Kennedy “wants healthy people, he wants healthy food.”
Here’s a look at where Kennedy stands on several health issues:
Questioning vaccine safety
Although Kennedy has denied he is “anti-vaccine” and has said his children have been vaccinated, he has promoted views on vaccines that experts have refuted.
During a 2023 interview on Fox News, Kennedy said he believes autism comes from vaccines, a myth born from a now-debunked paper from the U.K. in 1998 that claimed the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine caused autism.
The paper has since been discredited by health experts, retracted from the journal in which it was published, and its primary author, Andrew Wakefield, lost his medical license after the paper was discredited and an investigation found he had acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in conducting his research. More than a dozen high-quality studies have since found no evidence of a link between childhood vaccines and autism.
Kennedy has also spread what the medical community has considered to be vaccine misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, falsely claiming the COVID-19 vaccine is dangerous.
During a December 2021 Louisiana House of Representatives meeting discussing a proposal to require schoolchildren to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, Kennedy falsely called the vaccine the “deadliest vaccine ever made.”
In the same year, Kennedy petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to revoke its authorization of all COVID-19 vaccines. The FDA denied the petition three months later.
Health officials say COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective following clinical trials that involved tens of thousands of people, and have since helped save millions of lives.
Removing artificial dyes from foods
Kennedy has been vocal about his opposition to artificial dyes, calling for them to be removed from foods and beverages.
“The first thing I’d do isn’t going to cost you anything because I’m just gonna tell the cereal companies: Take all the dyes out of their food,” about actions he’d take as a member of the Trump administration, according to a social media post from the non-profit Children’s Health Defense, of which Kennedy is a founder.
Kennedy has frequently cited Froot Loops as an example of a food with potentially harmful dyes, saying the version of the Kellogg’s cereal sold abroad is healthier and has fewer ingredients compared to the U.S. version.
Kellogg’s has insisted its products are safe for consumption, saying the ingredients meet the federal standards set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Kennedy was wrong about the number of ingredients — Canadian Froot Loops have 17 ingredients compared to 16 in the U.S. However, the two cereals differ when it comes to the use of dyes.
American Froot Loops contain artificial food dyes such as Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Blue 1 while Canadian Froot Loops are colored with concentrated watermelon juice and blueberry juice.
A 2018 report from New York University and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Environmental Health and Climate Change found artificial food colors may affect children’s behavior and exacerbate symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Recently the FDA said it was moving to ban the use of Red 3 dye in food products, beverages and ingested drugs, in response to a 2022 petition from health groups and activists.
Processed foods and chronic disease
Kennedy has criticized the U.S. food industry and the proliferation of ultra-processed foods, blaming them as one reason for the rise of chronic disease in the U.S.
“Hundreds of these chemicals are now banned in Europe, but they’re ubiquitous in American processed foods,” he said during a September 2024 roundtable discussion on health led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc. “We are literally poisoning our children systematically for profit.”
A 2021 joint study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of São Paolo in Brazil found that people who consumed more calories from ultra-processed foods had lower scores on tests measuring cardiovascular health.
Kennedy has also railed against seed oils, calling them “one of the driving causes of the obesity epidemic” and has called on fast food restaurants to fry their products with animal fats instead.
Seed oils contain certain types of healthy fats that are good for the heart when used in moderation, decades of research shows.
Claims that fluoride affects children’s development
In an interview with NPR in November, Kennedy doubled down on his promise that the Trump administration will recommend that local governments remove fluoride from their water supplies.
He has claimed that fluoride in drinking water affects children’s neurological development and that other countries that have removed fluoride from their water supplies have not seen an increase in cavities. Some health professionals have expressed concerns about excessive fluoride intake and potential toxicity.
However, high-quality studies show fluoride prevents cavities and repairs damage to teeth caused by bacteria in the mouth. Fluoride also replaces minerals lost from teeth due to acid breakdown, according to the CDC.
ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Second lady Usha Vance will be part of a delegation traveling to Greenland this week, after President Donald Trump’s repeated statements that the U.S. should own and control the semiautonomous Danish territory.
Vance’s office announced the trip on Sunday, describing it as one dedicated to learning about Greenlandic culture with stops at historical sties and its national dogsled race.
But White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright will be joining her, the National Security Council confirmed to ABC News.
“The U.S. has a vested security interest in the Arctic region and it should not be a surprise the National Security Advisor and Secretary of Energy are visiting a U.S. Space Base to get first-hand briefings from our service members on the ground,” National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede, in a statement to Greenland’s Sermitsiaq newspaper, called the upcoming visit part of a “very aggressive American pressure against the Greenlandic community” and called for the international community to step in to rebuke it.
Trump reintroduced his first-term suggestion for U.S. ownership of Greenland, the world’s largest island and a semiautonomous territory within Denmark, during the presidential transition. It again prompted Greenland officials to emphasize the island territory is not for sale.
His son, Donald Trump Jr., visited Greenland in early January, weeks before the inauguration. Trump Jr. said it was a personal visit and that he was not meeting with officials, though the president still celebrated it and alluded to a “deal” that he said “must happen.”
At one point, he notably declined to rule out military force to acquire Greenland.
Trump officials have pointed to Greenland as a key interest for national security as China and Russia ramp up activity in the Arctic. Greenland is also rich in valuable minerals, including rare earth minerals — the accession of which has become part of Trump’s foreign policy agenda.
In his joint address to Congress earlier this month, Trump said his administration needed it for “international world security.”
“And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” Trump said.
Trump’s interest in Greenland comes as he’s pushed similar land grabs of Canada and the Panama Canal. Amid a trade war with Canada, Trump has called for America’s northern ally to become the 51st state, though his nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Canada has noted that it’s a sovereign state.
Ahead of her visit to Greenland on Thursday, second lady Vance released a video saying she was going to “celebrate the long history of mutual respect and cooperation between our nations and to express hope that our relationship will only grow stronger in the coming years.”
The National Security Council said Waltz and Wright “also look forward to experiencing Greenland’s famous hospitality and are confident that this visit presents an opportunity to build on partnerships that respects Greenland’s self-determination and advances economic cooperation.
“This is a visit to learn about Greenland, its culture, history, and people and to attend a dogsled race the United States is proud to sponsor, plain and simple,” the National Security Council said in its statement.
But Greenland’s prime minister, in a Facebook post, said Vance’s trip “cannot be seen only as a private visit.”
Egede added, “It should also be said in a bold way that our integrity and democracy must be respected, without any external disturbance.”
ABC News’ Hannah Demissie and Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden issued pardons to several close family members Monday in the final minutes of his presidency.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden wrote in a statement. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”
“That is why I am exercising my power under the Constitution to pardon James B. Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John T. Owens, and Francis W. Biden,” he continued. “The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”
The five preemptive pardons were issued to James Biden, Joe’s younger brother; Sara Jones Biden, James’ wife; Valerie Biden Owens, Joe’s younger sister; John T. Owens’, Valerie’s husband; and Francis W. Biden, Joe’s younger brother.
While he was sitting in the Capitol Rotunda attending the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, Biden announced the preemptive pardons for his siblings and in-laws.
“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finance,” Biden said.
“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said.
This comes after Biden issued a controversial pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, in early December over tax evasion and federal gun charges. Biden had repeatedly said he did not plan to pardon Hunter.
James Biden, 75, has especially come under fire from Republicans.
Congressional Republicans have pressed the incoming Justice Department to bring charges against James Biden for allegedly lying to Congress as part of its impeachment inquiry into the outgoing president and his family.
James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, wrote to incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday seeking to hold James Biden accountable for “having misled Congress regarding Joe Biden’s participation in his family’s influence peddling and deserving of prosecution under federal law.
Comer and his Republican colleagues had already issued a criminal referral for James Biden to the Justice Department. Comer reacted to the preemptive pardons of Biden’s family, saying they serve as “a confession of their corruption.”
The pardon warrant, signed Jan. 19, excuses James Biden and the other family members of “ANY NONVIOLENT OFFENSES against the United States which they may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through the date of this pardon.”
These were the second preemptive pardons issued by the outgoing president on Monday, not an unusual act for departing leaders. He also issued pardons to potential targets of the incoming Trump administration, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and lawmakers who served on the House Jan. 6 committee.
“Our nation relies on dedicated, selfless public servants every day. They are the lifeblood of our democracy,” Biden said in a statement. “Yet alarmingly, public servants have been subjected to ongoing threats and intimidation for faithfully discharging their duties.”
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
