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In what one sage deemed "amateur-hour, clown-fucker, reality-show dictatorship shit," this week's House hearings on ICE abuses, Epstein cover-ups and other GOP atrocities showcased a parade of rancid, lying, stonewalling MAGA lickspittles and deplorables - loudest among them sneering "bad acid trip come to life" Pam Bondi - facing off against a for-once united cohort of smart, angry, truth-telling Democrats with righteous history on their side and, finally, no fucks left to give. We are here for it.
Deep in his delusional bubble, the mad child-king ostensibly in charge of these evil cretins told Fox News Wednesday that Americans are living in "the greatest period of anything we’ve ever seen." Maybe he meant how he's been bravely standing up for a bridge he thinks Canada ripped us off for while forgetting he praised it when it was built, and paid for, by Canada. Or maybe it's 'cause in exchange for idiotically spending our money trying to prop up dirty, pricey, inefficient coal - "the 19th century called and it wants its fuel source back" - and glitching out en route, the "simplest mark of all time" got another shiny participation trophy as the “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal." "Lookit his happy face!" the Internet chortled. "The big special boy is so big and so special!" Also, "Marvel is running out of Superheroes" and "This is the saddest thing I've ever seen."
Possibly sadder is MAGA Reps. Andy Ogles and Mark Alford still melting down about Bad Bunny's "pure smut" half-time show wherein "children were forced to endure explicit displays of gay sexual acts" that are "illegal to be displayed on public airways" which is why he wants a Congressional inquiry into said "unspeakable depravities," though they might be confusing them with Epstein's, which they've notably ignored. Also sad is another bigly fail by US Attorney Jeanine Boxwine to get a grand jury indictment for fake crimes, in this case against Dem Sens. Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin and four Reps, all veterans, for their video reading the law out loud to remind military they have the right not to obey illegal orders. The kicker: Her attempt was so ludicrous that reportedly zero grand jurors thought she hit the famously low ham-sandwich bar for probable cause.
In this week's House hearings, it was clear Dem lawmakers, like the rest of us, had reached the famed point in 1954's McCarthy hearings when an appalled Joseph Welch, at the limit of his tolerance for McCarthy's lies and cruelty, exclaimed, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" That fierce moral outrage, and the strength and clarity needed to vent it, has been evident in besieged Minnesota for weeks: In grand jurors' staunch refusal to indict so-called "rioters,” in protesters' profane, hilarious anthem pillorying ICE Barbie, in neighbors seething at the masked, armed rabble that just caused a multi-vehicle crash in St.Paul, the latest in a long line of ICE crimes and transgressions. "Oh my God, you guys are so....evil. I can feel it, " railed one resident. "Jesus. Fucking incels, racists, murderers, thugs. What are you doing?!"
So it was that, in Tuesday's House Homeland Security Committee hearing, when acting ICE director Todd Lyons whined in his opening statement that "to say the men and women of ICE are Gestapo (is) wrong" and hurts their alleged feelings, Rep. Dan Goldman wasn't having it. "People are simply making valid observations about your tactics, which are un-American and outright fascist," he said. Goldman cited their racial profiling, asking people for their papers, use of excessive force and other forms of intimidation, likening them to Nazi/ Soviet regimes and shutting down Lyons' protestations as "unnecessary speaking." "I have a simple suggestion," Goldman said calmly. "If you don’t want to be called a fascist regime or a secret police, then stop acting like one." Tell it to power-mad, I-want-my-blankey ICE Barbie, reportedly fascisting it up big time over her goons. Jesus.
Other Dems likewise minced no words. Rep. LaMonica McIver: "Mr. Lyons, do you consider yourself a religious man?" "Yes, Ma'am." "Well, how do you think Judgment Day will work for you with so much blood on your hands?" "I'm not gonna entertain that question." "Oh, ok, of course not. Do you think you’re going to hell, Mr. Lyons?" "I’m not gonna entertain that question." When the Chair sternly chides her about "standards of decorum," she blithely notes, "Well, you guys are always talking about religion, so it's OK for me to just ask a question, right? Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you." (One comment: "We need more Black women in Congress.") She goes on, "How many government agencies, Mr. Lyons, are you aware of that routinely kill American citizens and still get funding?” "Ma'am, I'm not gonna entertain that." "Of course you're not. This is exactly why we should not be funding this agency...The people are watching you."
And so it went. Eric Swalwell quoted Lyons' earlier testimony he "wanted to see a deportation process like Amazon Prime, but with human beings" before asking, "How many times has Amazon Prime shot a mom 3 times in the face?" "None," said Lyons, before lamely noting he meant it "needs to be more efficient" and he'd added, "we deal with humans so we can't be like them." Swalwell, coolly, "Speaking of humans, how many times has Amazon Prime shot a nurse 10 times in the back?” Online, commenters pointed out, "Obviously, Amazon Prime doesn't shoot you in the face. You have to pay for Amazon Prime Plus to get that level of service," though, "you'll still get ads unless you step up to Premium, and you'll have to pay for the ammo up front." From another, "Is this the first time Amazon has been used as the good guy in a comparison? Fuck him up."
Rep.Delia Ramirez ripped Lyons: "My mother, a Guatemalan immigrant and (finger in air) an American taught me I have a responsibility to look evil in the eye and you have used your power to perpetrate great evil, and it's time you answer to this committee for the lawlessness you have empowered." She named Good, Pretti, Marimar Martinez - "Do something bitch" - and myriad other crimes: 100 court orders violated, dozens of tear-gas attacks despite a court order, banned chokeholds, warrantless arrests, 3,800 children in detention, roving patrols, plate switching, observer intimidation. On ICE demands to "respect the mission": "I have as much respect for you as I do for the last white men who put on masks to terrorize communities of color... the inheritors of the Klanhood and the slave patrol. Their activities were immoral and criminal, and so are yours."
Wednesday, A.G. Pam Bondi appeared before the House Judiciary Committee in a rabid attempt to make them forget her months of covering up the Epstein files, missing deadlines, redacting perps, releasing survivors' names and otherwise ignoring them by "shouting, lying and being a cold bitch." Over five hours, in "an astonishingly contemptuous performance," she failed to answer a single question. Acting out "a sociopathic tween," she shrieked, veered, lied, argued, sniped, stonewalled, deflected, rolled her eyes and mean-girled through a book of scripted smears at Dems daring to seek accountability: "Insolent, Shouty Brat Brings Burn Book To Congress." She was "a nasty piece of work," a "demented skank," a "Nazi redneck bleach blond Barbie," a "historic villain" who once vowed to "put human trafficking monsters...behind bars" and will now be shunned "in every room she ever walks into for the rest of her life," to die "as a disbarred lawyer and a national disgrace...Her cheese has slid off her cracker."
She was snippy queen of the non-sequiturs. When Jerry Nadler asked how many Epstein co-conspirators she'd indicted - zero, obviously - she raved, "You all should be apologizing. You sit here and you attack the President, and I am not going to have it." Then she veered, wildly, yelling, "The Dow right now is over 50,000, the S&P at almost 7,000, the NASDAQ is smashing records, Americans’ 401(k)s and retirement savings are booming. That’s what we should be talking about.” When Zoe Lofgren asked her about redacting perps' names, she sneered, "I find it interesting she keeps going after President Trump, the greatest president in American history. She didn't say how much money she took from Reid Hoffman, did she?" Asked about Ludnick's ties to Epstein, she bickered, "what is ties?", scowled "shame on you," scoffed, "I'm stunned you want to keep talking."
Jamie Raskin, the Committee's Ranking Member, repeatedly called bullshit: "You can filibuster all you want, but not on our time. The way it works is, we ask you a question, you answer it. I warned you at the outset of this hearing." Bondi exploded. "You don't TELL ME anything,” she shrieked. “You’re a washed-up, loser lawyer." Then, mad-Lady-Macbeth-like, she muttered, "You’re not even a lawyer." (Raskin, a graduate of Harvard Law School and former editor of Harvard Law Review, is a longtime professor of Constitutional law at American University, and has written several books.) Unflappable, Raskin coolly accused her of running an Epstein cover-up of "staggering incompetence." "You've turned the people's Department of Justice into Trump’s instrument of revenge,” he charged. “Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza, and you deliver every time."
Bondi blocked questions from Becca Balint with smears against Merrick Garland - Balint: "Weak sauce" - then with charges of anti-Semitism. Balint, whose grandparents were killed in the Holocaust: "You want to go there?! Really?!" Ted Lieu asked if Trump attended parties with underage girls; Bondi rolled her eyes. "This is so ridiculous," she said. "They are trying to deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done. There is no evidence he has committed a crime. Everyone knows that." Lieu: "I believe you just lied under oath, which is a crime." Bondi, screaming, "Don't you ever accuse me of committing a crime!" Jared Moskowitz noted Trump's name appears over a million times in the Epstein files, "more than God's name in the book about God." Grinning, he mused about her Burn Book zingers: "I'm curious. Just flip to Moskowitz. Because we’re in the Olympics, I’m going to give it a grade. Give me your best one. Whaddya got?"
With almost a dozen Epstein survivors sitting behind Bondi in the hearing room, Pramila Jayapal asked them to stand and raise their hands if they'd tried and failed to meet with DOJ officials. They all did. She asked Bondi to turn around and apologize; Bondi stood her ground: "I'm not going to get in the gutter with this woman and her theatrics." Noting an earlier claim that any victim who wants to talk to the DOJ has done so, Dan Goldman took up her quest. He asked how many had met with the DOJ: None. How many had reached out asking to: All. Of those who reached out, how many were ignored: All. And despite "their shameful, despicable efforts to intimidate," how many are still willing to talk to them? All. Bondi, still sitting, still hating, still steadfastly unperturbed, breezily flips her fake blond hair back, gazing into space.
Jasmine Crockett declined to "ask any questions of this witness because (she) has no intention of answering them." She turned to Ballint. "Right or wrong? Raping children." Ballint: "Wrong." "Killing random citizens." "Wrong." Etc. Crockett: "OK, thank you. I never woulda got that from our witness, who is somehow a lawyer but doesn't understand how it works with witnesses. I'm not sure what law school you went to (Stetson)... but you don’t seem very good at your job...Americans are looking for answers (not) protecting pedophiles and creeps. You will be remembered as one of the worst Attorney Generals in history." Bondi cuts in to rave about immigrants convicted of crimes in Texas. Crocket cuts her off: "CONVICTED! So what we talkin’ about? Convict some of these perpetrators who raped these women sitting behind you that you won’t even acknowledge are here!” She stalks out. Bondi is still babbling about Hakeem Jeffries and some money.
Observers were aghast at the wretched Bondi spectacle. Online, one older woman conceded "I'm sure this will get taken down" but spoke her mind for all of us: "Bondi is an absolute cunt, and needs to rot in prison for the rest of her life. What an evil evil woman. My God." Trump loved it: Bondi was "fantastic." John Pavlovitz, pastor and father, looked on at her "masterclass in gaslighting," and wondered, "How does someone become Pam Bondi?" He muses about "the meandering road to losing one's soul...so completely bereft of empathy, so seemingly unencumbered by other people’s suffering, and so strident in the face of simple accountability." As someone's daughter, he writes, "I'm sure there’s a story you have to tell yourself to keep the self-loathing at bay and let you sleep at night...I hope whatever you got for your soul was worth it to you. It sure as hell isn’t for the rest of us."
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In response to rising concerns about the extreme energy demands of artificial intelligence data centers, Democratic legislators in New York are proposing a three-year pause on their creation in the state.
The environmental group Food & Water Watch called the proposal, introduced Friday by state Sen. Liz Krueger (D-28) and Assemblymember Anna Kelles (D-125), the "strongest data center moratorium bill in the country," the sort that is in increasing demand as the public becomes aware of the staggering energy costs required to power the centers.
Last month, a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that US electricity demand could increase by 60% to 80% over the next quarter century, with data centers accounting for more than half the increase by 2030—costing anywhere from $886 billion to $978 billion and pumping anywhere from 19% to 29% more planet-heating carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
In large part due to data centers, New York's power grid may fall as much as 1.6 gigawatts short of reliability requirements, according to a projection from the New York Independent System Operator last year.
“Massive data centers are gunning for New York, and right now we are completely unprepared," Krueger said. When one of these energy-guzzling facilities comes to town, they drive up utility prices and have significant negative impacts on the environment and the community—and they have little to no positive impact on the local economy.
"New Yorkers are suffering from an affordability crisis and a climate crisis, and data centers are going to make both of those much harder to deal with," she added.
The bill would halt new data center projects exceeding 20 megawatts for three years and require the state to conduct environmental reviews and propose new regulations to address any identified impacts.
"Data centers are being built rapidly and with little meaningful oversight, despite the serious strain they place on our energy system, water resources, and local communities," explained Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas (D-34), another supporter of the legislation.
"These facilities increase pollution, drive up electricity costs, and threaten farmland and natural land, while disproportionately impacting low-income communities and Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities that have long faced environmental injustice," she said.
According to Politico, pushes to curb data center growth are gaining steam around the country:
New York is the largest state where lawmakers have proposed a moratorium on data centers. But concerns about the growing issue are bipartisan, with Republicans and Democrats backing moratoriums in various states.
Similar measures have been introduced in Maryland, Georgia, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Vermont. A Republican legislator in Michigan—where dozens of local governments have already passed moratoriums—has said she’ll introduce a statewide measure there, as well. In Wisconsin, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate has also called for a moratorium.
Eric Weltman, senior New York organizer at Food & Water Watch, said the bill was necessary to curb "one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation."
"This expansion is rapidly increasing demand for dirty energy, straining water resources, and raising electricity rates for families and small businesses," Weltman said. "New Yorkers are paying the price while Big Tech rakes in the riches. This strongest-in-the-nation moratorium bill is logical, it’s timely, and it will deliver the results we need."
Yvonne Taylor, vice president of Seneca Lake Guardian, said the bill "not only safeguards our shared future here in New York, but sets a powerful precedent for states across the nation."
US Sen. Bernie Sanders responded incredulously on Tuesday to President Donald Trump's claim that the nation's economy under his stewardship is "the greatest... actually ever in history," despite surging personal and business bankruptcies, plunging consumer sentiment, rising costs, and anemic job and wage growth.
In an appearance on MS NOW, Sanders (I-Vt.) said that "you wonder whether Trump is completely crazy and delusional or just a pathological liar, but the idea that anybody would believe that this is a great economy when 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, when the cost of healthcare is going up, people can't afford housing, people can't afford their basic groceries, the childcare system is dysfunctional, people can't afford to go to college."
"If this is the greatest economy in the history of the world," the senator added, "God help us."
Watch:
Sanders' remarks came in response to Trump's interview Tuesday with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, during which the president falsely claimed he has ushered in "the greatest period of anything that we've ever seen," including "the greatest economy actually ever in history."
While Trump and members of his class have seen their wealth surge to record levels during his second White House term, working-class Americans are struggling to make ends meet as the president's tariffs and assault on the social safety net drive up costs. One recent analysis estimated that the average US family paid $1,625 in higher costs last year as prices for groceries, housing, and other necessities continued to rise.
Trump's claim of an economic "golden age" in the US was also undermined by a new House Budget Committee report report showing that personal bankruptcy filings increased 11% last year, reaching levels not seen since 2019—during the president's first term in the White House. Those figures came on top of earlier data showing that business bankruptcies are at a 15-year high.
“Donald Trump’s reckless tariff taxes are driving up prices, hurting the economy, and leaving families to pay the price," Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement. "The only people benefiting in Donald Trump’s economy are his billionaire donors—everyone else is falling further behind.”
Sanders echoed that message during his MS NOW appearance late Tuesday, saying, "The billionaires who sat behind Trump at his inauguration: Yeah, the economy is the best ever for them."
"But for the average working person," Sanders said, "not quite the case."
Silicon Valley elites are planning to spend big money in 2026 to ensure that the next US Congress will be even more friendly to the artificial intelligence industry than the current Republican-led version.
CNN reported on Wednesday that Leading the Future, a super political action committee (PAC) focused on electing AI-friendly members of Congress, is pledging to spend at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterm election.
The PAC, which is backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and other AI heavyweights, is working to elect lawmakers who will pass legislation that will set a single set of AI regulations that will take effect throughout the US, overriding any restrictions placed on the technology by state governments.
The massive sum the PAC is dedicating to the 2026 midterms prompted Matthew Stoller, researcher at the American Economic Liberties Project, to remark that this is "what oligarchy looks like."
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tried to get a provision preempting state AI regulations slipped into the GOP's major budget package last year, but it was ultimately taken out amid bipartisan resistance to giving the AI industry a blank regulatory check.
President Donald Trump subsequently signed an executive order instructing the US Department of Justice to create a task force that would sue any state governments that enact supposedly "onerous and excessive" regulations on the technology.
However, as an executive order, this directive can be overturned by any future president who supports stronger AI regulation.
CNN noted that Leading the Future's planned flood of cash is coming at a time when AI has been drawing skepticism from factions within both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for instance, has thrown his support behind a "Citizen Bill of Rights for AI," which would provide privacy protections for end users and place restrictions on the construction of AI data centers.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), meanwhile, has called for a full moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers.
Leading the Future also appears to understand that the AI industry's reputation is becoming toxic for voters.
As Fast Company reported on Wednesday, the super PAC has launched negative ads against Democratic New York US congressional candidate Alex Bores by highlighting his past work at Palantir, which has become controversial for providing technology used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to carry out mass deportations.
Current and former Palantir employees told Fast Company that they believe the ad against Bores to be highly deceptive, as Palantir wasn't nearly as integrated with ICE operations during his tenure as it is today.
"If Bores’ campaign is one that would restrict the tech industry’s growth," one former Palantir employee told Fast Company, "and his base is one that is already primed to be critical of Palantir, people (like me!) who watch this ad wouldn’t suspect that it’s people with significant interests in Palantir and the broader industry that are funding the ads, too."
A day after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signaled a possible imminent end to Operation Metro Surge, Saint Paul Mayor Kaohly Her renewed her call for the immediate conclusion of President Donald Trump's immigration operation in the state following a car crash involving federal agents in her city that left at least one person injured.
"The incident today at Selby and Western underscores the fact that ICE is still present, causing chaos, and putting residents at risk in Saint Paul," Her said in a statement, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"I want to thank those who continue to show up and keep watch over their neighbors," she continued. "I also want to thank the Saint Paul Police for staying on the scene to clean up and ensure those impacted received assistance."
"Because of the reckless way that ICE is running their operation, one person ended up in the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, and several bystanders had their cars damaged," the mayor added. "This is just another incident that tells us loud and clear: Operation Metro Surge needs to end immediately."
The Saint Paul Police said in a statement that at around 9:39 am local time, its officers were called to the intersection, where "a large crowd had formed," and received a preliminary report that "federal agents were pursuing a person in a vehicle when the vehicle crashed."
Police confirmed that "the person that was being pursued sustained non-life-threatening injuries and was transported to a local hospital by Saint Paul Fire medics," and directed further questions to ICE and its parent agency, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
"On February 11, ICE officers attempted to conduct a targeted vehicle stop of Alexander Romero-Avila, an illegal alien from Honduras RELEASED into the country by the Biden administration in 2022," DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital. "In a dangerous attempt to resist arrest, this illegal alien tried to evade law enforcement and began driving recklessly and ran red lights, endangering public safety and law enforcement."
"Romero-Avila crashed his vehicle into multiple vehicles and a ICE law enforcement vehicle. Law enforcement immediately called 911 to get medical assistance. No members of the public or ICE officers were injured in the crash. The illegal alien was taken to Regents Hospital for evaluation of injuries," McLaughlin added.
A high-speed car chase involving a federal agent in St. Paul ended with a multi-vehicle crash and injuries to the fleeing driver, who was taken away in an ambulance. bit.ly/4kvJo0M📸: Leila Navidi
[image or embed]
— Minnesota Star Tribune (@startribune.com) February 11, 2026 at 2:38 PM
According to the Minnesota Reformer:
The man was transported to a hospital in an ambulance covered by a sheet. A Saint Paul Fire medic said the man asked to be covered for privacy. The injuries were "not serious, that's all I can say," the medic said. A woman whose airbag went off also went to the hospital; it was unclear whether she was injured.
Three cars were damaged. A crowd of people gathered at the scene, yelling "F*ck ICE" at over a dozen federal agents who had shown up after the crash.
Demands for DHS agents to leave the Twin Cities have ramped up in response to immigration officials' violence against locals, which resulted in two deaths of US citizens in Minneapolis. After ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot Good on January 7, Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez similarly killed Alex Pretti on January 24.
After taking over the operation, Trump's "border czar," Tom Homan, announced last week that 700 immigration agents would leave Minnesota. However, with around 2,000 set to remain there, Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, whose district includes Minneapolis, argued that the drawdown was "not enough" and "the terror campaign must stop."
An investigation conducted by Al Jazeera based on evidence collected by the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip has concluded that nearly 3,000 Palestinians have been "evaporated" by Israel through the use of thermal weapons—some of them supplied by the US.
As reported by Al Jazeera on Tuesday, the investigation found that 2,842 Palestinians were killed due to Israel's "systematic use of internationally prohibited thermal and thermobaric weapons, often referred to as vacuum or aerosol bombs, capable of generating temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Celsius [6,332 degrees Fahrenheit]."
The heat generated by these weapons is so intense, investigators noted, that they leave behind almost no detectable human remains other than blood stains or pieces of flesh.
Israel's use of such weapons was flagged last year in a social media post by Omar Hamad, a Gaza pharmacist who posted a video purportedly showing a thermobaric bomb being detonated in Beit Hanoun.
Israel is using thermobaric (vacuum) bombs in Beit Hanoun. These are shock waves that spread in a circular and low pattern near the ground surface, preceding the appearance of the dust cloud by far, indicating a speed faster than the speed of sound.
This is genocide. pic.twitter.com/tA7jC61g33
— Omar Hamad | عُـمَـرْ 𓂆 (@OmarHamadD) July 13, 2025
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Gaza Civil Defense, said hat the investigation was not a mere estimate of Palestinians incinerated by thermal and thermobaric weapons, but the result of painstaking forensic work.
"We enter a targeted home and cross-reference the known number of occupants with the bodies recovered," Basal explained. "If a family tells us there were five people inside, and we only recover three intact bodies, we treat the remaining two as ‘evaporated’ only after an exhaustive search yields nothing but biological traces—blood spray on walls or small fragments like scalps."
Unlike the explosions caused by traditional bombs, the thermobaric weapons used by Israel in Gaza first disperse clouds of fuel in a given area that are then ignited to create an enormous and intense fireball.
The investigation found that the fuel typically used in Israeli thermobaric weapons was tritonal, a mixture consisting of 80% TNT and 20% aluminum powder often found in US-manufactured weapons such as the Mark 84 aircraft bomb.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that the heat generated by these weapons is so intense that any living creatures' bodily fluids will immediately boil.
"When a body is exposed to energy exceeding 3,000 degrees combined with massive pressure and oxidation, the fluids boil instantly," al-Bursh explained. "The tissues vaporize and turn to ash. It is chemically inevitable."
Gaza resident Yasmin Mahani told Al Jazeera that her son, Saad, was incinerated by a 2024 Israeli strike that hit a school in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City.
“We found nothing of Saad," Mahani said. "Not even a body to bury. That was the hardest part.”
“Through its third country deportation deals, the Trump administration is putting millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of foreign governments, while turning a blind eye to the human costs," reads a new Senate report.
Using secretive agreements, often with countries that have histories of human rights abuses, the Trump administration has "expanded and institutionalized" a system in which the government deports migrants to nations where they have never lived, according to a report released Friday by Democrats on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The report, titled At What Cost? Inside the Trump Administration’s Secret Deportation Deals, was commissioned by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and is the first comprehensive review of the administration's coercive and secretive agreements with countries including El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, and Eswatini.
Third-country deportations were "previously a rare tool used only in exceptional circumstances," said the authors, but "the Trump administration has broadened this practice into a sprawling system of global removals," sending direct financial payments of $32 million in taxpayer money to foreign governments.
Five countries, which also include Palau and Rwanda, entered into those deals and have taken 300 people. In all, the administration has spent more than $40 million on the deportations, according to the report.
“This report outlines the troubling practice by the Trump administration of deporting individuals to third countries—places where these people have no connection—at great expense to the American taxpayer and raises serious questions,” said Shaheen, the ranking member of the committee. “Through its third country deportation deals, the Trump administration is putting millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of foreign governments... For an administration that claims to be reigning in fraud, waste, and abuse, this policy is the epitome of all three.”
The senators conducted a 10-month review of the administration's agreements and third country deportations through January 2026, with staff traveling to the countries and meeting with people who have been deported, attorneys, US and foreign officials, and human rights organizations.
The agreements, said the senators, amount to an "expensive and dangerous form of shadow diplomacy that prioritizes the appearance of toughness over the security of Americans" and includes little oversight over whether public funds are being used to finance human trafficking or rights abuses.
While the agreements include "blanket language" on upholding international human rights laws, the report states, the senators' extensive review uncovered no evidence that the administration is conducting systemic monitoring or follow-up enforcement, "raising serious concerns that the assurances made by foreign governments exist only on paper and that the United States is turning a blind eye to what happens to migrants in third countries."
Cart Weiland, a deputy assistant secretary at the US State Department, was questioned by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about his work helping to establish the third country agreements and "could not articulate whether any oversight on their treatment had been conducted. Instead, he reiterated that 'the agreement has a provision that explicitly mandates adherence to international human rights treaties and conventions.'"
Committee staff members also heard from US officials in one country that they had been instructed "not to follow up on the treatment of deportees."
A Trump administration attorney even acknowledged in a federal court case regarding deportations to Ghana, another country that has entered into agreements with the administration, that it appeared "Ghana was violating assurances it had provided the United States, including that it would comply with the Convention Against Torture, after sending a migrant onward to a country where they would likely be tortured."
The senators also found that the administration is likely using third countries to circumvent US immigration law—carrying out removals "that US law would otherwise prohibit, such as sending protected individuals onward to countries where they may face persecution or death."
The majority of migrants flown to third countries have had court-ordered protections prohibiting the US from sending them back to their home countries, where they could face persecution or torture.
"One migrant with protective orders stated: 'While at the fuel stop in the US Virgin Islands, the apparent head [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] official on the plane... told me that those on the plane were being sent to Ghana and that Ghana would send us to our home countries," according to the report.
The document said that "the Trump administration’s defense is that the United States 'does not have the power to tell Ghana what to do,'" a claim it also made after garnering condemnation for its use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport about 250 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, where they were imprisoned in the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
The report also details how the administration has threatened some countries with increased tariffs, travel bans, or cuts to US foreign aid if they don't enter into the deals.
"The Trump administration is expending political capital in its bilateral relationships that could instead be used to advance more pressing USb national security interests, while not being transparent about the full extent of its deal-making, including what is being offered to foreign governments," reads the report.
The senators emphasized that they released their report "as the administration is aggressively seeking to strip hundreds of thousands of migrants of legal status in the United States through the ending of temporary protected status and humanitarian parole, among other avenues, increasing the risk of expanded third country deportations."
The Democrats on the committee said they would continue to conduct oversight of the agreements and demand transparency.
"The Trump administration should cease its use of these third country deportation deals," they said, "which are putting millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of foreign governments without oversight while turning a blind eye to the potential human cost."
The co-founder of Palestine Action called the decision "a monumental victory both for our fundamental freedoms here in Britain and in the struggle for freedom for the Palestinian people."
The British High Court ruled Friday that the United Kingdom government's ban on the anti-genocide advocacy group Palestine Action was unlawful, a decision that campaigners cheered as a major victory while also demanding the dismissal of all charges against those arrested and imprisoned for backing the group.
The UK-based Stop the War Coalition noted that roughly 3,000 activists have been arrested on terrorism charges for "holding signs in support of Palestine Action," which has targeted the UK operations of Israeli weapons manufacturers and engaged in civil disobedience to protest Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza. More than 250 people have been charged under the Terrorism Act due to the Palestine Action ban, according to the Associated Press, and more than 20 people are still jailed while awaiting trial.
Lindsey German, convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, called the High Court's ruling "fantastic news" and "an utter humiliation for Yvette Cooper, Shabana Mahmood, and the rest in this most authoritarian government in living memory," referring to the UK's foreign secretary and home secretary.
German said UK authorities must now "drop all the charges against those wrongly arrested and imprisoned without trial for peacefully protesting a genocide."
Fantastic news! Utter humiliation for Yvette Cooper, Shabana Mahmood and the rest in this most authoritarian govt in memory
We call on Mark Rowley and Cooper to resign
Now drop all the charges against those wrongly arrested and imprisoned for peacefully protesting genocide! https://t.co/RRqhw2s5AW
— Stop the War Coalition (@STWuk) February 13, 2026
Huda Ammori, the co-founder of Palestine Action who brought the case against the government, said the ruling represents "a monumental victory both for our fundamental freedoms here in Britain and in the struggle for freedom for the Palestinian people, striking down a decision that will forever be remembered as one of the most extreme attacks on free speech in recent British history.”
The Labour government's designation of Palestine Action as a terrorist group and ban on the organization, which took effect last summer, will remain in place pending appeal of the High Court's Friday decision. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she was "disappointed" by the ruling and intends to "fight this judgment," which characterized the ban as "disproportionate" and unjustified. Under the ban, membership in or support for Palestine Action was made punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
"Thousands of people of conscience saw that branding protest as terrorism was a move straight out of the dictator’s playbook," said a spokesperson for the advocacy group Defend Our Juries in response to the decision. "Together we took action at great personal risk—inspired by each other’s courage. We helped make this proscription unenforceable by saying, 'We do not comply.'"

Tom Southerden, Amnesty International UK’s law and human rights director, praised the High Court's ruling as "a vital affirmation of the right to protest at a time when it has been under sustained and deliberate attack."
"The High Court’s decision sends a clear message: The government cannot simply reach for sweeping counter‑terrorism powers to silence critics or suppress dissent," said Southerden. "We welcome this judgment as an essential check on overreach and a powerful reminder that fundamental freedoms still carry weight in UK law."
The demand came after a group of United Nations experts condemned the embargo as "a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order."
The United Nations' human rights chief on Friday called on the Trump administration to lift its oil embargo against Cuba as the humanitarian crisis on the island deepens, with fuel shortages disrupting critical functions on the island and food and medicine shortages leaving families desperate for relief.
Marta Hurtado, a spokesperson for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, said in a statement that "we are extremely worried about Cuba’s deepening socio-economic crisis—amid a decades-long financial and trade embargo, extreme weather events, and the recent US measures restricting oil shipments."
"This is having an increasingly severe impact on the human rights of people in Cuba," Hurtado said. "Given the dependence of health, food, and water systems on imported fossil fuels, the current oil scarcity has put the availability of essential services at risk nationwide. Intensive care units and emergency rooms are compromised, as are the production, delivery, and storage of vaccines, blood products, and other temperature-sensitive medications."
The spokesperson noted that more than 80% of Cuba's water-pumping equipment depends on electricity, which has been undermined by widespread power cuts stemming from fuel shortages.
"The fuel shortage has disrupted the rationing system and the regulated basic food basket, and has affected social protection networks—school feeding, maternity homes, and nursing homes—with the most vulnerable groups being disproportionately impacted," said Hurtado. "Access to essential goods and services, including food, water, medicine, and adequate fuel and electricity, should always be safeguarded, as they are fundamental in modern societies to the right to life and the ability to enjoy many other rights."
In the face of the growing humanitarian catastrophe, Turk "reiterates his call on all states to lift unilateral sectoral measures, given their broad and indiscriminate impact on the population," Hurtado said.
"Policy goals cannot justify actions that in themselves violate human rights," she added.
The US has been economically suffocating Cuba for decades, but the Trump administration intensified the assault last month by cutting the island off from its primary source of oil—Venezuela—and threatening to slap tariffs on countries that send fuel to the beleaguered Caribbean nation, which has long been in the crosshairs of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other right-wing supporters of regime change.
"Cuba is ready to fall," US President Donald Trump declared in early January after his administration kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
In a statement on Thursday, a group of UN human rights experts said that Trump's January 29 executive order imposing a fuel blockade on Cuba represents "a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order."
“It is an extreme form of unilateral economic coercion with extraterritorial effects, through which the United States seeks to exert coercion on the sovereign state of Cuba and compel other sovereign third States to alter their lawful commercial relations, under threat of punitive trade measures,” the experts said. "A democratic international order cannot be reconciled with practices whereby one State claims the authority to dictate the internal policies and economic relations of others through threats and coercion."