ICE Deploys to Airports, Then Mostly Stands There
ICE at checkpoints, confusion at the top. Plus: A pre-Civil War law could reshape modern voting. RFK's next health experiment may be on you. Trump pauses Iran threat, but troops keep moving.
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Mideast leaders are racing to avert a humanitarian crisis after President Trump threatened to bomb Iran’s energy infrastructure within 48 hours unless the regime reopened the Strait of Hormuz. He used the word “obliterate” to make sure no one missed the point.
Then today, Trump punted. He’s giving Iran five more days.
Critics are calling it a TACO — Trump Always Chickens Out. But others note that the troops Trump just deployed have not even reached the region yet. Five days gets them there. Iranian officials, for their part, deny that any negotiations are happening at all. Either way, this looks less like a pause than a runway for something larger.
In today’s newsletter, we explain how Trump is hedging his bets and what Iran is threatening in retaliation — including steps that could cripple Gulf nations. It’s a reminder that the US is not likely to face the worst consequences of this war.
There is plenty of non-Iran news today, too. The White House is deploying ICE agents to airports who, according to NNN readers on the ground, are “standing around” and “doing a whole lot of nothing.” But they are empowered to detain people and their presence alone is unnerving many travelers. One bright note: Trump ordered ICE agents at airports not to wear masks.
Also today: Trump rejected a plan to end the DHS shutdown. A runway collision at LaGuardia killed two. Plainclothes men grabbed a crying woman at SFO. The Supreme Court appears open to a new limit on mail-in voting. Georgia arrests a woman for a self-medicated abortion. The White House installed a new Christopher Columbus statue on the grounds this week — assembled from fragments of one torn down in Baltimore. And we remember Robert Mueller, whose legacy reflects the country judging it.
Iran Updates
Telephone: Trump on Monday claimed Iran reached out to make a deal. He said Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are negotiating with a “top” Iranian leader on an arrangement to allow the Strait of Hormuz to be “jointly controlled” by him and “whoever the Ayatollah is” after a “regime change.” He also said that Iran has agreed not to “have nuclear weapons anymore.” Two problems: Iran does not currently have nuclear weapons. And no Iranian official has publicly agreed to give up any ambitions to develop them. Iran flatly denies all this. The regime says it has had no contact with the Trump administration, insists the Strait will remain closed to its enemies, and accused Trump of spreading “fake news” to stabilize oil markets and buy time for US troops to get into position.
Full Steam Ahead? In fact, two Marine units of roughly 5,000 troops are en route to the region; elements of the 82nd Airborne are preparing to deploy and the UK is sending air defense systems to the Gulf. None of that signals de-escalation.
Diplomacy Attempts: Allied nations appear to be trying to pull both sides back from further confrontation. Iran on Monday did acknowledge “initiatives from regional countries to reduce tensions.” Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Qatar, and Oman have all reportedly engaged in talks with US and Iranian officials. For now Trump sounds pleased with what he called “very good and productive conversations,” which he said “will continue throughout the week.” But he warned if no deal is reached in the next five days, the US will “just keep bombing our little hearts out.”
Bet On That: US stocks are up and oil is down after Trump’s announcement. That is exactly what you’d expect if the goal was to calm markets, not close a deal.
Troubling Tea Leaves: Trump ally and informal foreign policy advisor Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Sunday urged Trump to “take Kharg Island,” Iran’s key oil export hub, claiming the US “did Iwo Jima, we can do this.” Graham’s comments drew blowback from Republicans, who noted the battle for Iwo Jima cost the lives of almost 7,000 US troops. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) accused Graham of treating US service members “as if they are expendable cattle.”
Water Wars: US officials directing this war go home to air conditioned capitals with clean water and easy access to power. Residents of Gulf nations don’t have that luxury. Iran warned that if the US attacks its infrastructure, it will retaliate by striking energy infrastructure and desalination plants throughout the region. Many Gulf nations have no permanent rivers and rely on desalination plants for over 90% of their drinking water. These plants underpin everything, from hospitals, power plants, and data centers, to filling the taps in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha. Gulf nations are among the world’s most water-stressed, and a CIA report warned that losing desalination there “could have more serious consequences than the loss of any other industry of commodity.” The countries would be cast into what the UN defines as “absolute water scarcity.” Intentionally disabling crucial civilian infrastructure, like desalination plants, could amount to a war crime. One US professor of the Middle East said “the political and psychological scars” of such attacks “would be of a magnitude that I can’t quite imagine.”
Here Are Your (Other) Headlines
This Won’t Fly: The Trump administration on Monday deployed up to 150 ICE agents to more than a dozen major airports across the country. No one, including administration officials, is exactly clear why. Some agents are armed. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Sunday insisted ICE agents have sufficient training to help TSA agents run security lines, saying “they know how to run the X-ray machines.” But White House Border Czar Tom Homan, who just hours before the deployment admitted he was still “working on the plan,” said agents were not trained to use X-ray machines. Instead, Homan said ICE agents would help with “certain parts of security,” such as “covering exits” to “make sure people don’t go through.”
Where: ICE agents have reportedly been sent to airports in Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Ft. Myers, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and San Juan.
Detentions: Trump said the agents are empowered to arrest “all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country.”
Hard At Work: Reports and pictures of ICE agents standing around, seemingly doing nothing, have already begun spreading on social media. “They’re in the way,” one worker at Newark airport said. One passenger said ICE agents are “making it worse.”
Critics: The ACLU condemned the move, noting that “never in our history has a president deployed armed agents to the airport to inspire fear among families.” The president of the union representing many TSA agents argues they “deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be.”
Protecting Your Privacy: If you’re going to travel and are worried about encountering or interacting with ICE, consider reviewing this guide of your rights, these two guides on protecting your data from government agencies, and this checklist on protecting your data from ICE specifically.
Art of the No Deal: Republicans handed Trump a deal to end the DHS shutdown. He turned it down. Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) reportedly told Trump Democrats would agree to fund all of DHS except for ICE, with ICE funding to be secured through a process called reconciliation, which would allow Republicans to pass bills by a simple majority. But Trump on Truth Social insisted the GOP refuse to “make any deal” with Democrats unless they agree to pass the Save America Act, which Democrats are largely united against. (That’s the show-your-papers bill; Trump on Monday said Republicans should pass it “for Jesus.”)
Still Waiting: The DHS shutdown has caused security lines at multiple airports to stretch out of the airport buildings themselves. One passenger who’d been waiting in Atlanta airport for three hours said it was “total chaos.” There are reports of six hour lines in Atlanta. Over 400 TSA agents have quit.
Tragedy: A plane carrying over 70 passengers collided with a rescue-and-firefighting vehicle on the runway at LaGuardia Airport Sunday evening, killing the pilot and co-pilot and hospitalizing dozens of others, including a flight attendant thrown from the plane. An air traffic controller had cleared the vehicle to cross a runway to respond to a report of an odor on another plane, and can be heard frantically calling for the vehicle to stop as an Air Canada flight barreled toward it at roughly 100mph. The plane struck the truck, severing the cockpit. “We were dealing with an emergency,” the air traffic controller said. “I messed up.” “Everybody just jolted out of their seats,” one passenger recalled. “People were bleeding.” The crash isn’t directly linked to the shutdown; air traffic controllers aren’t affected. The Federal Aviation Administration has been struggling with chronic shortages of air traffic controllers for years, though LGA is not one of the worst-affected airports. “This has been happening for years,” a former Transportation Department inspector general said. “I don’t know how many wakeup calls the [FAA] needs.”
Disturbing: Two men presumed to be plainclothed ICE agents were filmed on Sunday detaining a woman traveling with her young daughter in San Francisco International Airport. Videos show the agents, who reportedly refused to show their badge numbers, violently grabbing the woman while crowds of people call out in protest. City police arrived and prevented people from interfering with the arrest; state and city law forbid law enforcement from helping immigration agents detain people. An airport spokesperson said the incident was unrelated to ICE’s deployment to airports but said they were unable to confirm “who [the men] were, what they were doing, or why.” San Francisco airport has a private contract for security and doesn’t rely on TSA, so these agents weren’t part of the current deployment.
Culture War: The Trump administration this weekend installed a statue of Christopher Colombus on White House grounds. It’s a replica of a statue torn down by protestors in Baltimore in 2020. Trump has repeatedly praised Columbus in part to win Italian-American votes, telling them earlier this year to “remember when you go to the voting booths, I reinstated Columbus Day.” The former chief historian of the White House Historical Association said the statue was part of Trump’s “radical reshaping” of White House grounds, which he said are “turning it into a partisan battleground.”
Rain, Rain: Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said recent storms, which caused the state’s worst flooding in over two decades, have caused over $1 billion in damages. Hundreds of people were evacuated; no deaths have been reported.
Attacking Those Who Aid: British counter-terror police are investigating an antisemitic arson attack that destroyed multiple ambulances owned and operated by a Jewish charity in London. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said it was “particularly sickening” to target ambulances whose “sole mission is to protect life, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.” Security footage shows three hooded figures setting the ambulances ablaze; subsequent explosions damaged nearby windows and sent residents fleeing. Nobody was hurt. An Iran-linked group claimed responsibility. The mayor of London condemned the “antisemitic hate crime” and said it is “really important for all of us to show allyship to the Jewish community.” The British government will replace the destroyed ambulances, police have announced additional patrols in the area — where roughly half of residents identify as Jewish — and fundraisers have collected over $1.3 million.
Which Amendment? The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case challenging a Texas law that makes asking public officials for undisclosed information a felony. A journalist was arrested in 2017 for fact-checking a story with information a police officer voluntarily provided her. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who dissented from the Court’s decision, wrote the arrest was “a blatant First Amendment violation.”
Keep reading for information on…
The 1845 law that might convince the Supreme Court to reshape how Americans vote
How RFK is quietly working on “one of the biggest medical experiments” in US history — with “Americans as the test subjects”
Why Georgia police charged a woman who took abortion medication with murder
The storied life of Robert Mueller, “America’s straightest arrow,” who died this weekend at 81
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