ISLAMABAD  — The U.S. Justice Department plans Wednesday to present in a federal court in Virginia the alleged mastermind of the August 2021 bombing that killed 13 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The justice department said Islamic State Khorasan operative Mohammad Sharifullah, also known as “Jafar,” was charged on March 2 with “providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death.”

Sharifullah is expected to appear in the justice system’s Eastern District of Virginia, the department said in a statement on its website.

President Donald Trump broke the news of Sharifullah’s capture Tuesday night in a speech to Congress on Capitol Hill.

“Tonight, I am pleased to announce that we have just apprehended the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity,” Trump said. “And he is right now on his way here to face the swift sword of American justice.”

The Abbey Gate bombing at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 26, 2021 also killed roughly 170 Afghans.

Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization linked with the Islamic State terror group, claimed responsibility.

The suicide attack came amid the chaotic troop withdrawal at the end of the 20-year U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

In this speech, Trump hailed Pakistan for helping with the mission to arrest Sharifullah.

“And I want to thank, especially, the government of Pakistan for helping arrest this monster,” the U.S. president said.

Sharifullah’s capture

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif identified Sharifullah as a “top tier commander” and an Afghan national in a post on X.

“The wanted terrorist was apprehended in a successful operation conducted in Pakistan-Afghan border region,” Sharif said, without sharing details.

The justice department said the mission was a multi-agency effort that also involved the CIA and the FBI.

“Sharifullah admitted to helping prepare for the Abbey Gate attack, including scouting a route near the airport for an attacker,” the department said.

Sharifullah admitted to recognizing Abdul Rahman al-Logari who detonated the suicide bomb and admitted to playing a role in other attacks in Afghanistan and Russia, the statement added.

Islamabad-based security affairs analyst Iftekhar Firdaus told VOA that Sharifullah, a resident of Kabul, joined ISIS-K in 2016.

“He was arrested in 2019 and then released during the jailbreak of the Afghan Taliban during their takeover of August 15, 2021,” said Firdaus, founder of The Khorasan Diary, an online platform that monitors militancy.

If convicted, Sharifullah could get a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, the justice department said.

Cooperation with Pakistan

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump for acknowledging his country’s contribution in a post on the X social media platform.

“We thank U.S. President Donald Trump for acknowledging and appreciating Pakistan’s role and support in counter terrorism efforts across the region,” Sharif posted.

“We will continue to partner closely with the United States in securing regional peace and stability,” the prime minister added.

The arrest signals Islamabad and Washington are working closely on some security issues despite relations reaching a low since the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban to power.

“The arrest shows that counter-terrorism cooperation between Pakistan and the US remains robust even though relations are largely confined to a narrow bandwidth focused on counterterrorism,” former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, Maleeha Lodhi, told VOA.

“This is the first major development between both countries since the Trump administration took office,” Firdaus said. “It also exemplifies the dependence of both countries on each other when it comes to counterterrorism cooperation.”

Thaw in ties?

Still, experts warned the joint effort and the public expression of gratitude from the highest offices should not be seen as a thaw in relations.

“One has to be careful not to over read the significance of a single event for Pakistan-US relations, that have been at a crossroads since the US exit from Afghanistan in 2021 and need high-level engagement for a reset,” Lodhi said.

Most military aid to Pakistan remains blocked since Trump put a freeze on it during his first term in office.

Many in Washington also blame Pakistan for the losses the United States incurred in the Afghan war.

In congressional hearings soon after the troop withdrawal, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said Pakistan’s role in providing sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban needed to be “fully examined.”

Antony Blinken, then-Secretary of State, told Congress in a September 2021 hearing that the Biden administration would look into the role Pakistan played during the war.

Nearly two dozen Republican senators also proposed a bill that called for “an assessment of support by state and non-state actors, including the government of Pakistan, for the Taliban between 2001 and 2020.”

Pakistan, a major non-NATO ally has consistently denied allegations of covertly providing support to Taliban while supporting the U.S. in the Afghan war.

“We remain steadfast in our resolve and unwavering commitment to combating terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations,” Sharif said in his X post Wednesday.

In a post on X, Washington-based South Asia expert Micheal Kugelman said Pakistan is interested in a new security partnership with the U.S.

“Pakistan wants to leverage U.S. concerns about terrorism in Afghanistan and pitch a renewed security partnership with the U.S.,” said Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center, adding “it will be a hard sell to the administration.”

The joint counter-terrorism operation comes just days after the Trump administration released $397 million for a program that supports Pakistan’s use of F-16 fighter jets acquired from Washington. Islamabad is stipulated to use the fighter jets for only for counterterrorism purposes, and not against archrival India.
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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — A U.S. judge on Tuesday denied Elon Musk’s request to prevent OpenAI from becoming a for-profit business in a loss for the Tesla tycoon amid his feud with Sam Altman. 

U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Musk and his xAI startup failed to prove an injunction against OpenAI was necessary as the case heads to trial. 

Musk sued in California federal court to stop OpenAI from transitioning from a nonprofit to a for-profit business, arguing the startup violated antitrust law and betrayed his trust in their mission as a co-founder of OpenAI. 

The judge wrote that, while Musk did not prove the need for an injunction, she is prepared to expedite a trial on that claim later this year. 

The ruling leaves OpenAI free to continue its transition from nonprofit to for-profit enterprise. 

Musk’s injunction bid argued that OpenAI’s co-founders, including chief executive Altman, “took advantage of Musk’s altruism in order to lure him into funding the venture,” according to court documents. 

Musk contended in filings that it was clear his backing of OpenAI was contingent on it remaining a nonprofit, offering a few email exchanges to support the claim. 

“Whether Musk’s emails and social media posts constitute a writing sufficient to constitute an actual contract or charitable trust between the parties is debatable,” the judge said in her ruling. 

OpenAI’s board chairman in February rejected a Musk-led offer to buy the valuable artificial intelligence company for $97.4 billion. 

“OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition,” OpenAI Board Chair Bret Taylor said in a statement posted by the company on Musk-owned X, formerly Twitter. 

OpenAI currently operates in a hybrid structure, as a nonprofit with a money-making subsidiary. 

The change to a for-profit model, one that Altman says is crucial for the company’s development, has exacerbated ongoing tensions with Musk. 

Musk and Altman were among the 11-person team that founded OpenAI in 2015, with the former providing initial funding of $45 million.  

Three years later, Musk left the company, with OpenAI citing “a potential future conflict for Elon … as Tesla continues to become more focused on AI.” 

Musk established his own artificial intelligence company, dubbed xAI, in early 2023 after OpenAI ignited global fervor over the technology. 

The massive cost of designing, training, and deploying AI models has compelled OpenAI to seek a new corporate structure that would give investors equity and provide more stable governance. 
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NEW YORK — The Pritzker Prize, dubbed the “Nobel” for architecture, was awarded Tuesday to China’s Liu Jiakun, who was recognized for designs that celebrate “everyday lives.”

“In a global context where architecture is struggling to find adequate responses to fast evolving social and environmental challenges, Liu Jiakun has provided convincing answers that also celebrate the everyday lives of people as well as their communal and spiritual identities,” the award’s jury wrote in a statement.

Born in 1956, Liu has worked on more than 30 projects in China ranging from academic and cultural institutions to civic spaces and commercial buildings.

“Architecture should reveal something  it should abstract, distill and make visible the inherent qualities of local people,” Liu said in the statement, evoking his craft’s capacity to create “a sense of shared community.”

Liu lives and works in his birth city of Chengdu, where he prioritizes the use of local materials and traditional building techniques.

His projects include the Museum of Clocks in Chengdu, a large circular structure with a skylight that illuminates an interior strip of photographs.

Alejandro Aravena, who won the award in 2016 and is chair of the jury, said Liu’s works offer “clues on how to confront the challenges of urbanization” especially because they are sometimes “a building, infrastructure, landscape and public space at the same time.”

“Cities tend to segregate functions, but Liu Jiakun takes the opposite approach and sustains a delicate balance to integrate all dimensions of the urban life,” Aravena said.

Liu, who is the 54th recipient of the Pritzker Prize, will be honored at a celebration in Abu Dhabi in spring, award organizers said.

Last year’s prize went to Japan’s Riken Yamamoto, whose projects are credited with promoting human contact and who said at the time his objective was to “design architecture that can bring joy to people around it.”
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The U.S. skating community came together Sunday for a fundraiser and tribute to the victims of a collision between an American Airlines flight and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter on Jan. 29 over the Potomac River in Washington.

Sixty-seven people, all the people on both aircraft, died in the crash, including 28 members of the U.S. figure skating community — 11 young figure skaters, four couches and 13 family members — who had been to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas.

One of the most emotional performances Sunday night was delivered by Maxim Naumov, who skated to a favorite song of his parents, Evgenia Shishkov and Vadim Naumov, who died in the crash.

The two-hour Legacy on Ice event was hosted by Olympic figure skating champions Brian Boitano and Kristi Yamaguchi. They and other veteran skaters, including Scott Hamilton and Nathan Chen, also performed.

The event began to take shape a week after the crash. Monumental Sports and Entertainment, organizers of the tribute, said they have so far raised $1.2 million for the victims’ families and the first responders.

“We continue to be in awe of and grateful to this community, whose compassion and support was out in full force for the ‘Legacy on Ice’ event,” Monumental chairman Ted Leonsis said in a statement.

He said the money raised is set to be divided among the families impacted by the collision, first responders and U.S. Figure Skating.

The Associated Press reported that almost 500 first responders and approximately 150 family members of the victims were in the audience.

NBC is scheduled to broadcast “Legacy on Ice” on March 30.
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WAUKEGAN, ILLINOIS — An Illinois man pleaded guilty Monday to killing seven people and injuring dozens more when he opened fire on a 2022 Independence Day parade in a Chicago suburb, a stunning development moments before opening arguments in his trial on charges of murder and attempted murder. 

Appearing in a Lake County circuit courtroom, Robert E. Crimo III, 23, withdrew his earlier not-guilty plea in the Highland Park shooting. 

Prosecutors initially charged him with 21 counts of first-degree murder — three counts for each person killed — as well as 48 counts of attempted murder. Prosecutors dropped the less serious 48 counts of aggravated battery before the start of the trial with jury selection last week. 

On Monday, Judge Victoria Rossetti read the charges to Crimo and asked questions to be sure he understood before any open plea was read to the court. He was sitting next to his lawyers wearing a dark suit. 

“Is that what you went over with your attorneys?” Rossetti asked. 

“Yes,” Crimo replied to the judge. 

He gave one-word answers, indicating he understood the charges. His mother, Denise Pesina, had a brief outburst at the news and was called up to the judge for a warning. 

“We’re going to move forward. You are not a party to this proceeding. If you would like to stay in the courtroom please have a seat and be quiet,” the judge said to her. 

She was allowed to stay. 

The judge said with the plea change, there would be no trial or further motions on the case. 

“He has knowingly and voluntarily waived those rights and pleaded guilty,” Rossetti said. 

Lake County prosecutors read the names of all those killed in the shooting and of those injured in the shooting, with the judge stopping to ask questions to make sure Crimo understood. 

They went over the substantial evidence, including his prints on the gun used in the crime, and statements to police admitting to the mass shooting. 

Sentencing will come April 23, but Crimo is certain to spend the rest of his life behind bars. Each count of first-degree murder carries a natural life prison sentence. 

Crimo did not further address the court or ask questions before leaving the courtroom. 

His defense attorneys declined comment ahead of the trial. 

Security was very tight for the proceedings at the courthouse in Lake County, with multiple bag checks and observers required to lock up their phones. The crowd at what was supposed to be opening statements included survivors and their family members. 

Jurors, who were chosen last week, had not even been let into the courtroom yet when the plea change happened. 

The trial that began Feb. 24 was expected to last about a month with testimony from survivors and police. Prosecutors had submitted thousands of pages of evidence, as well as hours of a videotaped interrogation during which police say Crimo confessed to the shooting. But the 24-year-old had then pleaded not guilty. 

Dozens of people were wounded in the shooting in the suburb about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Chicago. The wounded ranged in age from their 80s down to an 8-year-old boy who was left partially paralyzed. 

Witnesses described confusion as the shots began, followed by panic as families fled the downtown parade route, leaving behind lawn chairs and strollers to find safety inside nearby businesses or homes. 

Authorities said Crimo perched on a roof and fired into crowds assembled for the annual Fourth of July parade in downtown Highland Park. 

The criminal case proceeded slowly for months, partly due to Crimo’s unpredictable behavior. In June 2024, when he was expected to accept a plea deal and give victims and relatives a chance to address him publicly, Crimo showed up to court in a wheelchair and rejected the deal, surprising even his lawyers. 

He also fired his public defenders and said he would represent himself. Then he abruptly reversed himself. 

As potential jurors were questioned last week, he sporadically appeared in court, at times refusing to leave his jail cell. 

Father charged, tried earlier

The trial came almost two years after his father’s case focusing on how Crimo obtained a gun license. 

In 2019, at age 19, Crimo was only allowed to apply for a gun license with the sponsorship of a parent or guardian. His father agreed, even though a relative had reported to police that his son had a collection of knives and had threatened to “kill everyone.” 

His father, Robert Crimo Jr., a onetime mayoral candidate, was charged in connection with how his son obtained a gun license. He pleaded guilty in 2023 to seven misdemeanor counts of reckless conduct and served less than two months in jail. 

He has attended his son’s hearings, sometimes making eye contact with him during court. He declined to discuss the case in detail ahead of the trial. 

“As a parent, I love my son very much,” he said. “And Bobby loves this country more than anyone would ever know.” 

Residents in the wealthy Highland Park community of roughly 30,000 set along Lake Michigan have mourned the losses deeply. Some potential jurors were excused because of their connections to the case. 

The victims killed in the shooting included Katherine Goldstein, 64; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63; Stephen Straus, 88; Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78; Eduardo Uvaldo, 69; and married couple Kevin McCarthy, 37, and Irina McCarthy, 35. 

Survivors and their families have filed multiple lawsuits, including against the maker of the semiautomatic rifle used in the shooting and against authorities they accuse of negligence.
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Crews battled wildfires in North and South Carolina on Sunday amid dry conditions and gusty winds and evacuations were ordered in some areas.

The National Weather Service warned of increased fire danger in the region due to a combination of critically dry fuels and very low relative humidity.

In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency Sunday to support the wildfire response effort, and a statewide burning ban remained in effect.

Crews worked to contain a fire in the Carolina Forest area west of the coastal resort city of Myrtle Beach, where residents were ordered to evacuate several neighborhoods, according to Horry County Fire Rescue.

The South Carolina Forestry Commission estimated Sunday afternoon that the blaze was burning about 4.9 square kilometers (1.9 square miles) with 0% containment. No structures had succumbed to the blaze and no injuries had been reported as of Sunday morning, officials said.

The 410 personnel involved in the effort were expected to remain until the fire was contained, county fire officials said. Evacuations were expected to remain in place Sunday and officials warned residents in the Carolina Forest area to be prepared with go-bags and emergency plans if more evacuations were called in their neighborhoods.

In North Carolina, the U.S. Forest Service said fire crews were working to contain multiple wildfires burning on more than 161.87 hectares (400 acres) in four forests across the state Sunday. The largest, about 121.41 hectares (300 acres), was at Uwharrie National Forest, about 80.47 kilometers (50 miles) east of Charlotte.

The small southwestern town of Tryon in Polk County, North Carolina, urged some residents to evacuate Saturday as a fire spread rapidly there. On Sunday, officials said those evacuations remained in effect.

That fire was burning about 161.87 hectares (400 acres) Sunday afternoon, with 0% containment, according to the Polk County Emergency Management/Fire Marshal’s office. The North Carolina Forest Service was conducting water drops and back-burning operations on the ground, and area residents should expect a lot of smoke during those operations, officials said.

Officials have not said what caused any of the fires.
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The need to end the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The United States imposing tariffs on other countries, and the downsizing of the U.S. federal government. Those are some of the topics that President Donald Trump is expected to highlight when he delivers the first address of this second term in office to Congress this week. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday he had signed a declaration to expedite delivery of about $4 billion in military assistance to Israel.

The Trump administration, which took office on Jan. 20, has approved nearly $12 billion in major foreign military sales to Israel, Rubio said in a statement, adding that it “will continue to use all available tools to fulfill America’s long-standing commitment to Israel’s security, including means to counter security threats.”

Rubio said he had used emergency authority to expedite the delivery of military assistance to Israel, which is now in a fragile ceasefire in its war with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

Hamas started the war with its terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, an attack which left 1,200 dead in Israel, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages. The Israeli military offensive has, since then, killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, more than half of whom have been women and children.

The Pentagon said on Friday that the State Department had approved the potential sale of nearly $3 billion worth of bombs, demolition kits and other weaponry to Israel.

The administration notified Congress of those prospective weapons sales on an emergency basis, sidestepping a long-standing practice of giving the chairs and ranking members of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees the opportunity to review the sale and ask for more information before making a formal notification to Congress.

Friday’s announcements marked the second time in recent weeks that President Donald Trump’s administration has declared an emergency to quickly approve weapons sales to Israel. The Biden administration also used emergency authority to approve the sale of arms to Israel without congressional review.

On Monday, the Trump administration rescinded a Biden-era order requiring it to report potential violations of international law involving U.S.-supplied weapons by allies, including Israel. It has also eliminated most U.S. humanitarian foreign aid.

The Jan. 19 Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement halted 15 months of fighting and paved the way for talks on ending the war, while leading to the release of 33 Israeli hostages held in Gaza and around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel. 
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The United States will deploy nearly 3,000 additional troops to its border with Mexico, bringing the total number of active-duty personnel there to around 9,000, U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, said Saturday.

Border security is a key priority for President Donald Trump, who declared a national emergency at the U.S. frontier with Mexico on his first day in office.

“Approximately 2,400 soldiers from elements of the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT), 4th Infantry Division” will be sent to the border, along with “approximately 500 soldiers from the 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade,” NORTHCOM said in a statement.

“Tasks carried out by 2nd SBCT will include detection and monitoring; administrative support; transportation support; warehousing and logistic support; vehicle maintenance; and engineering support. Personnel will not conduct or be involved in interdiction or deportation operations,” it said.

Troops from the aviation unit will “assist in the movement of personnel, equipment, and supplies; and provide aerial medical evacuation capabilities,” NORTHCOM said.

“These deployments will bring additional agility and capability to further efforts to stop the flow of illegal migrancy and drugs at the southern border,” its commander, General Gregory Guillot, said.

The Trump administration has launched what it cast as a major effort to combat illegal migration that has included immigration raids, arrests and deportations, including via the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Trump unveiled a surprise plan last month to hold up to 30,000 migrants at the base — a facility notorious for abuses against terror suspects detained after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — and U.S. forces have detained dozens of people there in recent weeks, many of whom have since been deported.
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Academy Award-winning actor Gene Hackman likely died on Feb. 17, the last day there was any activity on his pacemaker, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said Friday. “According to the pathologist,” Mendoza said, “that is a very good assumption that was his last day of life,” nine days before investigators found his body.

The bodies of Hackman, 95, and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 64, a classical pianist, were found, along with the dead body of one of their three dogs, Wednesday in their home in the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico.

The initial findings of autopsies on the couple revealed that Hackman and his wife both tested negative for carbon monoxide poisoning and “no external trauma” was reported to either of them.  Mendoza said, “There were no apparent signs of foul play.”

However, the couple’s “manner and cause of death has not been determined,” according to the sheriff. “The official results of the autopsy and toxicology reports are pending.”

Investigators have retrieved an assortment of prescription and over-the-counter medications, in addition to cellphones and records from medical diagnostics testing from the house.

“I’m pretty confident there is no foul play,” Mendoza said Friday on The Today Show. He said the autopsy results “will steer us in the right direction” in determining what happened to Hackman and his wife.

Without the autopsy, the sheriff said, it is difficult to determine how long the couple had been dead.

A search warrant affidavit issued Thursday said the circumstances surrounding the couple’s deaths were “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation.”

Mendoza told The Today Show that several doors around the house were unlocked and one door in the rear of the house was open. Earlier reports said the front door was open.

Hackman’s body was found near the rear of the house, while his wife’s body was found in a bathroom. The dead dog’s body was found in a dog crate, not far from Arakawa’s body. The couple had three German shepherds. The other two dogs were found alive and healthy at the property.

The search warrant affidavit also revealed that police called the Santa Fe Fire Department and the New Mexico Gas Company to Hackman’s residence, but no toxic fumes or leaky pipes were found on the grounds.

Storied career

Hackman had a lengthy career on stage and screen, including appearing in Broadway shows, on television and in more than 80 films.

He won an Oscar for best actor for his role in the 1971 film The French Connection and a best supporting Oscar for the 1992 film Unforgiven.

Hackman’s resume featured three other Oscar nominations, including his breakout role in Bonnie and Clyde in 1967 as well as I Never Sang for My Father in 1970 and Mississippi Burning in 1988.

His work crossed genres as he appeared in action movies, thrillers and off-beat comedies.

In addition to his award-nominated works, he was also known for roles in films such as The Poseidon Adventure, Young Frankenstein, Superman, Hoosiers, The Birdcage, and The Royal Tenenbaums.

His last film was Welcome to Mooseport in 2004.

His loss was immediately felt throughout the entertainment community as fellow artists praised him on social media. Director Francis Ford Coppola and actor Morgan Freeman were among those who posted their remembrances of the actor.

“The loss of a great artist, always cause for both mourning and celebration,” Coppola posted on Instagram. “Gene Hackman a great actor, inspiring and magnificent in his work and complexity. I mourn his loss and celebrate his existence and contribution.” Hackman starred in Coppola’s 1974 film The Conversation.

Freeman posted on Instagram: “One of the personal highlights of my career was bringing the French Film Gardé a Vue (Under Suspicion) to life with the incredibly gifted Gene Hackman. And of course… Unforgiven. Rest in peace, my friend.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Friday designating English as the official language of the United States, according to the White House.

The order will allow government agencies and organizations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer documents and services in languages other than English, according to a fact sheet about the impending order.

It was not immediately clear when on Friday that Trump planned to sign the order.

The executive order will rescind a mandate from former President Bill Clinton that required the government and organizations that received federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.

Designating English as the national language “promotes unity, establishes efficiency in government operations and creates a pathway for civic engagement,” according to the White House.

More than 30 states have already passed laws designating English as their official language, according to U.S. English, a group that advocates for making English the official language in the United States.

For decades, lawmakers in Congress have introduced legislation to designate English as the official language of the U.S., but those efforts have not succeeded.

Within hours of Trump’s inauguration last month, the new administration took down the Spanish language version of the official White House website.

Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion and frustration at the change. The White House said at the time it was committed to bringing the Spanish language version of the website back online. As of Friday, it was still not restored.

The White House did not immediately respond to a message about whether that would happen.

Trump shut down the Spanish version of the website during his first term. It was restored when President Joe Biden was inaugurated.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the order Friday.
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WASHINGTON — The number of migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in February is on pace to be at or near a record monthly low, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson and two other sources told Reuters.

The U.S. Border Patrol is on pace to have arrested around 8,500 migrants at the border in February as the end of the month nears, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said. Two other sources said the monthly total would be at or near a record low.

President Donald Trump, a Republican, took an array of actions to deter illegal immigration after returning to the White House on January 20, saying a crackdown was needed after high levels of migration under his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.

Trump’s moves included implementing a sweeping ban on asylum at the border and surging military troops to assist border security.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration over the ban earlier this month, arguing it violated U.S. asylum law and international treaties.

The Trump administration also struck new agreements with Mexico and Central American countries to accept U.S. deportees from other nations and has sent some migrants to a camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

U.S. Border Patrol’s monthly enforcement statistics go back to 2000. The lowest monthly total on record is currently April 2017, when the agency arrested 11,127 at the start of Trump’s first term.

While the number of border arrests similarly dipped at the start of Trump’s 2017-21 presidency, they rebounded in the months and years that followed.

The February projection would be a steep drop from the 141,000 migrant arrests in February 2024 and down from 29,000 in January, according to U.S. government figures.
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