Boat washes ashore near San Diego with 3 dead, 4 survivors and 9 unaccounted for
(SAN DIEGO) — Three dead bodies and four survivors in need of medical care were discovered on a panga boat that washed ashore near San Diego on Monday morning, according to the U.S. Coast Guard and the Encinitas Fire Department.
Nine people are unaccounted for, the Coast Guard said.
The boat washed onto a beach in Del Mar, about 20 miles north of San Diego. Several local agencies are helping with the search, officials said.
“This was a mass casualty incident,” Encinitas Deputy Fire Chief Jorge Sanchez said.
“We do have air resources that are sweeping lateral, north and south of the beach. … We do have lifeguards in the water on boats and jet skis, and we have several resources walking up and down the beach as well, making sure that no one is missed,” he said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Government lawyers say officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) did not have a warrant for Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest when they took him into custody last month, according to a filing submitted in the case.
Khalil’s lawyers say the admission contradicts what officers told Khalil and his lawyers at the time of his arrest and in a subsequent arrest report.
In the filing, lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security said Khalil, a green card holder and permanent legal resident, was served with a warrant once he was brought into an ICE office in New York after his arrest.
The officers “had exigent circumstances to conduct the warrantless arrest, it is the pattern and practice of DHS to fully process a respondent once in custody with an I-200 (warrant) as part of that intake processing,” government lawyers wrote.
DHS claimed its officers were not required to obtain a warrant for Khalil’s arrest, in part, because they had reasons to believe it was likely “he would escape before they could obtain a warrant.”
In the filing, DHS attorneys said agents approached Khalil inside the foyer of his Columbia-owned apartment building and claimed that, while his wife went to retrieve his identification, Khalil told them he was going to leave the scene.
“The HSI supervisory agent believed there was a flight risk and arrest was necessary,” the filing stated.
Khalil’s lawyers have pushed back on the claim that he was uncooperative with authorities.
In a sworn declaration submitted in court last month, attorney Amy Greer, who was on the phone with Khalil’s wife at the time of his arrest, said an agent at the scene told her they had an administrative warrant.
“I asked the basis of the warrant, and he said the U.S. Department of State revoked Mahmoud’s student visa,” Greer said. “When I told Agent Hernandez that Mahmoud does not have a student visa because he is a green card holder and permanent resident in the U.S., he said DHS revoked the green card, too,” she wrote in the declaration.
Khalil’s lawyers say the warrantless arrest is one of the reasons he should be released.
“That night, I was on the phone with Mahmoud, Noor, and even the arresting agent,” Greer said in a statement. “In the face of multiple agents in plain clothes who clearly intended to abduct him, and despite the fact that those agents repeatedly failed to show us a warrant, Mahmoud remained calm and complied with their orders. Today we now know why they never showed Mahmoud that warrant – they didn’t have one.
The statement went on to say: “This is clearly yet another desperate attempt by the Trump administration to justify its unlawful arrest and detention of human rights defender Mahmoud Khalil, who is now, by the government’s own tacit admission, a political prisoner of the United States.”
An immigration judge earlier this month ruled that Khalil, a leader of Columbia’s encampment protests in the spring of 2024, could be deported on grounds that he threatens foreign policy, as alleged by the Trump administration.
Rumeysa Ozturk is shown in this undated photo. Obtained by ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Boston ruled that Tufts doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk cannot be deported until she decides whether she has jurisdiction to rule if Ozturk was lawfully taken into custody.
Judge Denise Casper said Friday that Ozturk “shall not be removed from the United States until further Order of this Court.”
The government revoked Ozturk’s visa due to her pro-Palestinian activism, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who added the State Department may have revoked more than 300 student visas since the beginning of the second Trump administration.
“It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” Rubio said during a press conference in Guyana on Thursday.
Ozturk, a Turkish national, was arrested by immigration authorities as she was headed to meet her friends and break her fast during Ramadan on Tuesday.
She is listed in the ICE database as “in custody” and appears to be held at an ICE processing center in Louisiana.
Rubio plainly said Ozturk’s visa was revoked by the government.
“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus — we’re not going to give you a visa,” he said.
“If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States, and with that visa, participate in that sort of activity, we’re going to take away your visa. And once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legally in the United States. And we have a right, like every country in the world has a right, to remove you from our country. So it’s just that simple,” Rubio said.
Last year, Ozturk was the co-author of an opinion piece in the Tufts Daily newspaper, demanding the university administration “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and disclose and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.
She made no mention of Hamas in the op-ed, though a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said she “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.”
“She’s softspoken, she doesn’t want to hurt you when she’s talking,” her friend, Reyyan Bilge, an assistant teaching professor in Northeastern University’s psychology department, told ABC News. “She makes sure that she doesn’t offend anyone, let alone possibly incite violence. I’ve never heard her swearing, believe me, this is the kind of person we’re talking about.”
The secretary said it was “crazy” and “stupid” for any country to issue visas to any individual who intends to be disruptive on college campuses.
“If you invite me into your home because you say, I want to come to your house for dinner and I go to your house and I start putting mud on your couch and spray painting your kitchen, I bet you you’re going to kick me out,” he said. “Well, we’re going to do the same thing if you come into the United States as a visitor and create a ruckus for us.”
“We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country, but you’re not going to do it in our country,” he said.
The mayor of Somerville, Massachusetts, where Ozturk was approached and detained, said it appears the Tufts doctoral student was detained over the exercise of free speech.
“I am deeply concerned to see a student with legal status detained for what appears to be the exercise of free speech. Rumeysa Ozturk has a First Amendment right to free speech and a right to due process and that must be upheld, just as all immigration detainees have rights that must be respected without exception,” Mayor Katjana Ballantyne said in a statement.
“Our rights are being threatened in a variety of ways right now and Somerville will make use of the law and our voices to defend them. My administration recently filed a joint lawsuit with Chelsea against federal officials to do just that. We cannot sit by idly,” the mayor said.
(NEW YORK) — Families are gearing up for spring break travel, with 173 million Americans expected to take to the skies in March and April.
Whether you’re packing for a relaxing beach vacation or preparing to explore a new city, here’s what you need to know before heading to the airport:
U.S. airlines expect to carry 173 million passengers from March 1 to April 30 — up 4% from the same time last year, according to Airlines for America.
Airfare for March and April is up compared to last year. The average price per ticket is now $280, which is a 4% increase from the same time last year, according to Hopper.
The cheapest day of the week to fly for both domestic and international travel is Tuesday, according to Expedia. Passengers who fly on Tuesday instead of Saturday and Sunday can save about 15% on average.
The first two weekends of March are the cheapest travel weekends this spring, according to Hopper.
The busiest and most expensive time to fly in the U.S. will be the week of Wednesday, April 2, according to Expedia.
Southwest Airlines said it’s expecting to fly more than 8.2 million passengers between March 8 and March 23. Southwest predicts March 20 will be its busiest day in that time period.
The top destination in the U.S. is Orlando, Florida, followed by Las Vegas, Miami, Los Angeles and New York, according to Expedia.
