Search underway for girl swept away in ocean: Officials
(LAGUNA BEACH, Calif.) — A search is underway for a girl who was swept away in the ocean in Southern California, officials said.
The incident unfolded at about 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday near Treasure Island Beach in Laguna Beach, city officials said. The girl was with her mother and a sibling near the shoreline when they were swept into the ocean by powerful water conditions, officials said.
Bystanders ran into the water and were able to rescue the mother and one of her children, but the other child remains missing, officials said.
The Coast Guard, the Laguna Beach Marine Safety Department and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Harbor Patrol are involved in the search, officials said.
National Park Service water intake pipes that used to draw water from Lake Mead are shown going down the side of Pyramid Island, which is no longer surrounded by water, to the left of Saddle Island, which displays a white “bathtub ring” of mineral deposits left by higher water levels on the rocks on July 25, 2026, in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The water level at Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir by storage capacity, hit a record low on Thursday.
Lake Mead’s pool elevation hit the new low at 1,040.50 feet, breaking the previous record of 1,040.58 feet set in July 2022, according to data published by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on Friday.
The reservoir, formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, is located in Nevada and Arizona and supplies water to millions of U.S. residents.
Prolonged drought conditions and exceptionally low snowpack have contributed to the significant declines in water levels at several Colorado River Basin reservoirs this year.
Elevation at the nation’s second largest reservoir, Lake Powell, was measuring at 3,521.43 feet as of Thursday, according to the Bureau of Reclamation — nearing the previous record low of 3,519.92 feet set in April 2023 and the critical level needed for the reservoir to produce hydropower. A new record low at the Utah-Arizona reservoir could also be reached this month, projections show.
The Colorado River basin is a critical system for residents in the western U.S. and Mexico. The basin provides water for up to 40 million people and hydropower to the seven basin states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.
Since the beginning of the year, hydrologists have been warning about the potential for water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell to hit critical levels as a result of record-low snowpack over the winter months.
Much of the western U.S. entered the winter already grappling with drought conditions from lack of rain. But warmer-than-normal temperatures during the winter prevented snow from accumulating, which led to a lack of snowmelt flowing into watersheds once spring came.
Texas State Troopers arrive in a Dilley I.S.D. school bus before dispersing a crowd protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the South Texas Family Residential Center on January 28, 2026 in Dilley, Texas. (Joel Angel Juarez/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Joaquin Castro, along with more than 110 Democratic members of Congress, has sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin urging the shutdown of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas.
The facility, which is the only family detention center in the country, was closed during the Biden administration but was reopened last year as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown.
In the letter, which was first obtained by ABC News, they write, “There is no humane way to imprison a child and their family. It is nothing more than a trailer prison that detains families. In fact, the Dilley facility is the only place in the United States dedicated to detaining families with children who have not been charged with a crime.”
“Former and current detained families describe horrific conditions perpetuated by CoreCivic and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that are meant to strip them of their dignity and make them feel hopeless,” the letter says.
The letter outlines how parents have described “horrendous conditions at Dilley,” including allegations of food “contaminated with worms and mold,” drinking water that leaves detainees feeling sick, lights that stay on through the night and inadequate education and medical care that has led to “severe depression, hopelessness and suicidal ideation amongst their children,” according to the letter.
Medical care “is delayed, denied, and in many cases outright dismissed, even when children are suffering life threatening medical emergencies,” the letter says, describing an alleged incident in which a young boy was not taken to the hospital until after several days of “severe stomach pain,” after which he was diagnosed with appendicitis and required surgery.
Immigrant advocates, medical professionals and lawmakers have previously raised concerns about conditions at the South Texas facility.
ABC News in February interviewed a couple who said their 1-year-old daughter contracted COVID-19 and RSV during their 60-day detention. The family alleged that medical staff at Dilley dismissed their daughter’s symptoms.
Rep. Castro raised his own concerns about a 2-month old he encountered while visiting another family at the facility in February.
At the time, the top medical official at the Department of Homeland Security, which operates the nation’s migrant detention centers, disputed any suggestion that detainees are being denied proper care.
“These allegations of illegal aliens being denied proper medical care in ICE custody are FALSE,” DHS Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sean Conley told ABC News in a statement. “It is both policy and longstanding practice for aliens to receive timely and appropriate medical care from the moment they enter ICE custody. This includes medical, dental, women’s health, mental health services, any needed follow up medical appointments, as well as 24-hour emergency care.”
“This is better, more responsive health care than many aliens have ever received in their entire lives,” Conley’s statement said.
“These representatives remain quiet about the humanitarian crisis that was manufactured by the Biden Administration’s open border policies over the last four years and the scores of children exploited, trafficked and missing,” a DHS spokesperson said. “Do they plan to mention the psychiatric impact on the tens of thousands of children who were smuggled across the border — many by human and sex traffickers?”
“We’ve jumpstarted our efforts to rescue children who were victims of sex and labor trafficking by working with our state and local law enforcement partners to locate these children. President Trump and DHS are laser-focused on protecting children and will continue to work with federal, state, and local law enforcement to reunite children with their families,” the spokesperson said.
The Democrats’ letter also claims that children are held at the Dilley facility beyond the general 20-day limit established under the Flores Settlement Agreement, a legal settlement from the 1990s that outlines appropriate protections and conditions for detaining minors.
“Families at Dilley report being held well beyond that limit with no clear timeline or explanation,” the letter says. “In February and March 2026, the government has stated that children’s average time in custody at Dilley was approximately 57 days, and the median time in custody was approximately 44 days, with 92 children being detained for 61-90 days, and 80 children detained for more than 91 days.”
A DHS spokesperson, responding to a February ABC News report about the extended custody times, said, “For years, the Flores consent decree has been a tool of the left to promote an open borders agenda. It is long overdue for a single district in California to stop managing the Executive Branch’s immigration functions. The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our immigration system.”
“No child should be in a place like the Dilley Trailer Prison,” Castro said in a statement. “Under Trump, ICE is ripping children away from their families, school, and lives. They should be treated like kids — not criminals. I am grateful that over 100 of my colleagues in Congress are joining the fight to shut down the Dilley Trailer Prison.”
In addition to shuttering Dilley, the letter demands that DHS terminates the contract it has with CoreCivic, the private prison contractor that operates the Dilley facility. The letter alleges that “CoreCivic is prioritizing profits over humane treatment of its detainees.”
“No child and family should be imprisoned for seeking safety by legitimately following United States immigration laws,” the letter says. “The United States has the tools, the resources, and the legal framework to process these families without detention.”
U.S. President Donald Trump takes a question from reporters during an event in the Oval Office on Aug. 10, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The same legal team that successfully challenged President Donald Trump’s first bid to end birthright citizenship is asking a federal judge to clarify that the Supreme Court’s ruling also blocks a second executive order attempting to target specific children who Trump says are exempt from becoming Americans at birth.
Trump’s second birthright order — signed last week as a response to the high court’s June ruling — attempts to deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to an “alien enemy,” or a “foreign government employee,” or a parent who “engaged in a commercial transaction” to obtain citizenship or who are born in a territory where citizenship is not conferred by statute.
Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union, representing a class of potentially affected immigrant families, filed a motion in federal district court in New Hampshire on Tuesday seeking a declaratory order that the new order effectively defies the Supreme Court.
“Nothing requires this Court to countenance the continued assault on this foundational constitutional principle or issue an endless string of EO-specific injunctions,” the attorneys wrote. “The court should make clear that [Trump] may not take away class members’ birthright under the auspices of these or any other executive actions.”
The Supreme Court did confirm four categories of children born on U.S. soil who would not automatically become citizens: the children of ambassadors, those born on foreign public ships, those born to enemies occupying American territory and members of Indian tribes. But its 6-3 decision left little room for additional exemptions.
Court precedent “indicated that the four exceptions were a closed set,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion, “meaning that there can be no additional exceptions recognized based on subsequent circumstances or developments. And the decision has consistently been read that way.”
Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion explained that the key determinant of citizenship was “fixed by the place of nativity, irrespective of parentage.”
The administration argues that the categories specified in Trump’s second executive order are acceptable exemptions from birthright citizenship under the legal interpretation presented by Roberts.
The president’s executive order is set to take effect on Sept. 6.
The ACLU argued in its motion to the court that none of those specified exemptions appear in the Constitution or federal citizenship law and seeks to block the order.
