Talk of the Town
(WASHINGTON) — A U.S. submarine on Tuesday sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday, the first time since WWII the U.S. has sunk an enemy combatant ship by torpedo.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(WASHINGTON) — The acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, who presided over the agency amid President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration crackdown, is planning to leave his post later this spring.
Lyons said he was leaving his role to spend more time with his family, according to his resignation letter reviewed by ABC News.
“My sons are both reaching a pivotal point in their lives and my wife and I wish to spend as much time as possible with them,” the letter reads. “This was not an easy decision, but I believe it is the right one for me and my family at this time. I am confident that ICE will continue to fulfill its vital responsibilities with integrity and professionalism.”
Lyons thanked the president for allowing him to serve.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced the move in a statement on Thursday and said Lyons’ last day would be May 31.
“Director Lyons has been a great leader of ICE and key player in helping the Trump administration remove murderers, rapists, pedophiles, terrorists, and gang members from American communities,” Mullin said in the statement. “He jumpstarted an agency that had not been allowed to do its job for four years. Thanks to his leadership, American communities are safer.”
The statement went on to say: “We wish him luck on his next opportunity in the private sector.”
As acting director, Lyons oversaw the largest expansion of ICE in U.S. history with funding through the massive tax and policy bill Trump championed last year, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
During Lyons’ tenure, the Trump administration sent ICE officers into cities across the U.S., including Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, as part of stepped-up federal immigration enforcement efforts that aimed to fulfill one of Trump’s key campaign pledges.
Democrats, immigration advocates and local officials decried ICE tactics, including allegations of racial profiling and aggressive tactics. Scrutiny of ICE intensified after the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis in January at the hands of immigration officers.
Members of the Trump administration praised Lyons’ leadership of the agency. In a statement, Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, said: “Todd has served selflessly as a highly respected and effective acting Director of ICE,” pointing to what he called a “record number of removals” in the first year of Trump’s second term, “despite unprecedented challenges.”
In appearances on Capitol Hill before lawmakers, Lyons has faced fierce criticism from Democrats, who have denounced the agency’s tactics and a rising number of deaths of detainees held in ICE custody.
The announcement of Lyons’ departure came the same day he appeared before a House subcommittee for a budget hearing, requesting $5.4 billion to sustain enforcement operations around the country and another $2.8 billion for Homeland Security Investigations.
“Despite routine villainization, ICE personnel are working around the clock to carry out President Trump’s commonsense agenda to make Americans safe again, restore order to our communities, and implement law-and-order policies,” Lyons said in his prepared testimony.
DHS funding remains snarled amid an ongoing partial government shutdown stemming from a dispute on Capitol Hill between Democrats and Republicans over changes to ICE tactics and policies.
Lyons started his service in the Air Force, then with a local police department in Florida before then joining what would become ICE in the late 1990s. He previously served as the head of the Boston ICE field office before becoming acting director.
The announcement of Lyons’ departure comes more than a month after Trump fired former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday that it is increasing its stipend for those who are in the United States illegally and self-deport by $1,600.
Previously, DHS offered $1,000 to those who use the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Home App to self-deport, but now, it’s raising that number to $2,600.
DHS claimed that since January 2025, 2.2 million people who are in the U.S. illegally have voluntarily self-deported — with “tens of thousands” using the CBP app. A report from the Brookings Institution released last week called DHS’ data into question, saying the department’s numbers “should not be considered a serious source.”
“To celebrate one year of this administration, the U.S. taxpayer is generously increasing the incentive to leave voluntarily for those in this country illegally- offering a $2,600 exit bonus,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a release. “Illegal aliens should take advantage of this gift and self-deport because if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return.”
The increased amount is to mark to the first year of President Donald Trump’s term in office, and may only be temporary, DHS said in the release.
For months, the department has been pushing self-deportations — spending millions on advertisements that showcased it’s previous $1,000 payment and a plane ticket that people who register to self-deport are given.
It’s not clear how much money in total has been given to people who have self-deported.
DHS said in the first year of Trump’s term, there were 675,000 deportations. The authors of the Brookings Institution report estimated a figure much lower last week — saying there were between 310,000 and 315,000 removals in 2025.
Deporting migrants who are illegally in the U.S. was one of Trump’s key campaign promises, but advocates have said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol tactics have gone too far in some cases.
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(WASHINGTON) — A Customs and Border Protection official on Friday told a federal judge that the agency does not have the technology or manpower to immediately process $166 billion in tariff refunds, arguing the process would distract from its role addressing “imminent threats to national security.”
In a sworn filing, the official said that CBP needs an additional 45 days to create a system to process refunds for the more than 53 million entries related to the unlawful tariffs.
“CBP has never been ordered to, nor has it attempted to, process a volume of refunds anywhere near the volume of total entries and Entry Summary lines on which IEEPA duties have been deposited,” wrote Brandon Lord, the executive director of CBP’s Trade Programs Directorate.
The disclosure comes two days after a judge from the Court of International Trade initially ordered the Trump administration to remove the tariffs from its backlog of import paperwork. Even though the liquidation process — when the agency finalizes a tariff payment after goods enter the country — is largely automated and the Supreme Court overturned the tariffs two weeks ago, Lord said that Customs and Border Protection “is not able to comply” with the court’s order.
“CBP is now facing an unprecedented volume of refunds. Its existing administrative procedures and technology are not well suited to a task of this scale and will require manual work that will prevent personnel from fully carrying out the agency’s trade enforcement mission,” Lord said.
According to Lord, the current system used to process tariffs cannot handle the volume of refund requests, and that doing so manually would take resources away from “responsibilities that serve to mitigate imminent threats to national security and economic security.”
Following a hearing on Friday related to the refund process, which was closed to the public, Judge Richard Eaton of the Court of International Trade suspended his earlier order to immediately begin recalculating tariffs dues.
By lifting his initial order, the judge appears to be making room for the refund process to play out, though the exact timeline of refunds remains unclear.
During previous hearings, the judge had expressed skepticism that the refund process would be a “mess” or that the government lacked the resources to issue refunds.
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