The Feeding Our Future fraud is the largest pandemic-relief theft in American history – $250 million stolen, mostly by Somali immigrants who fabricated meal counts and pocketed federal child nutrition funds.

The prosecutions have dragged on for years.

Now that sentences are finally coming down, a troubling pattern is emerging: the punishments don’t seem to fit the crime.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel — nominated to the bench in 2018 through a package deal between the first Trump administration and Minnesota’s Senate Democrats — has been at the center of two recent sentencing decisions that have taxpayers seething. 

On March 29, she sentenced Abdul Abubakar Ali to one year and one day in prison. Ali ran a shell company called Youth Inventors Lab under Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship, orchestrated $3 million in fraud, submitted fake invoices claiming more than one million meals served, and served none. Federal sentencing guidelines recommended 30 to 37 months. Prosecutors asked for two and a half years. Brasel gave him a sentence of just one year and a day. That extra day is not accidental — it’s the legal threshold that makes Ali eligible for transition to a halfway house on good behavior.

One day later, Brasel sentenced Zamzam Jama to six months. Jama stole $5.6 million — nearly twice what Ali took — and was the first of six Jama family defendants associated with a Rochester restaurant to face sentencing; all were linked to the same fraud network. Prosecutors requested 16 months. Sentencing guidelines called for 10 to 16 months. Brasel issued a downward departure and handed Jama a sentence of just half a year. Jama must also pay $491,000 in restitution — a mere fraction of the $5.6 million she stole — and serve one year of probation.

When reports of widespread abuse went viral last year due to the investigations by independent journalist Nick Shirley, Gov. Tim Walz insisted on maintaining control of the investigation.

“This [was] on my watch,” the governor said at the time. “I am accountable for this, and more importantly, I am the one that will fix it.”

Unfortunately, federal judges in Minnesota are failing to give the fraudsters the sentences they deserve, and this will hardly serve as a deterrent to stop the fraud.

The contrast with how other jurisdictions handle similar fraud is actually quite jarring. Earlier this month, a North Carolina federal court sentenced four people in a $12.7 million Medicaid kickback scheme that exploited substance abuse patients. The ringleaders — who falsified records to deceive auditors — each received six years. Another defendant got two years, and another two and a half years. U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle even mentioned the Minnesota fraud in response to these sentences.

“This is shocking Minnesota-Somali-style fraud right here in North Carolina. For too long, government has allowed grifters to steal taxpayer dollars with impunity. Here, these vultures exploited particularly susceptible drug abusers trying to recover their lives and dignity. Shameful abuse, no remorse. They better learn, and everyone should get the message. Cheaters. Never. Win.” 

The math is simple and damning.

In North Carolina, fraud leaders who stole $12.7 million each were sentenced to six years.

In Minnesota, a fraudster who stole $5.6 million got six months, and another who ran a $3 million scheme got just over a year.

The deterrent value of the Minnesota sentences is approximately zero.

The question that hangs over all of this is whether the judiciary in Minnesota has become the final link in a chain of institutional permissiveness. Walz’s administration looked the other way while $250 million vanished. Minnesota Democrats who depend on Somali-American voter turnout had every political incentive to keep the issue quiet. And now a federal judge is handing out sentences so light they barely register as consequences. The message sent to anyone considering the next fraud scheme is that Minnesota is still open for business.

By Robert Walton of UtilityDive,

U.S. electricity prices have risen significantly in recent years, though “national trends mask stark differences” in state prices, according to an April 1 analysis by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and The Brattle Group.

Whether you take a “crisis” or “more nuanced view” of the increases – the analysis offers both – one thing is likely, according to the report: “Record levels of [investor-owned utility] rate increase requests & regulatory approvals suggest additional near-term price increases absent policy/market actions.”

There were $18 billion in rate increases proposed last year, according to the analysis, and about two-thirds of utility rate proposals were approved from 2021-2025.

IOU revenue increase requests in 2025 “exceeded any point since the mid-1980s, suggesting continued price increases in near term as regulators consider the requests,” the analysis said.

In the “crisis view” of electricity price drivers, national prices have surged since 2019 through 2025, up 33%. There are larger increases in California, the Northeast and parts of the Mid-Atlantic. A third of U.S. households spend more than 5% of their income on electricity, according the report.

The “nuanced” view notes that price increases have largely tracked inflation, and 29 states saw a decline in inflation-adjusted prices from 2019-2025. In most areas, electricity burdens are lower than they were in 2019.

Residential customers “have faced larger recent retail electricity price increases than have commercial and industrial customers,” the analysis said. 

From 2019 to 2025 the nominal price of a kilowatt-hour rose 33% for residential customers, 26% for commercial and 27% for industrial. All-sector average retail electricity prices increased 5.3% in 2025 compared to 2024, they said.

“Residential retail electricity price increases have been significant: broadly in line with some other household expenditures but higher than others,” researchers said. 

The average U.S. residential price of electricity, in nominal dollars, went from 13 cents/kWh in 2019 to 17.3 cents/kWh in 2025. Commercial customers saw prices increase from 10.7 cents/kWh to 13.4 cents/kWh. And industrial prices went from 6.8 cents/kWh to 8.6 cents/kWh.

The primary drivers of recent price increases include fuel and wholesale supply, distribution costs, the cost of new generation, transmission costs, storm recovery and capacity prices, the report said.

LBNL and Brattle’s analysis is a data update to 2025 work they did on factors driving electricity prices. 

The Department of War is preparing to double its fleet of Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, better known in the aviation community as “Warthogs,” in the Middle East in the very near term, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The surge of additional Warthogs, as many as 18, on top of the roughly dozen A-10s already operating in the region, has already been used to sink Iranian boats in the Hormuz chokepoint and strike Iran-backed militias in Iraq, according to the NYT, citing DoW officials. The expanded fleet suggests a broader aviation campaign in and around Hormuz and could even play a critical role in supporting a potential seizure of Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil hub in the northern Persian Gulf.

U.S. military sustainers are on top of their game. pic.twitter.com/EK9eqF4fc8

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 20, 2026

As of early 2026, the US Air Force had 162 A-10s remaining in its inventory. Air & Space Forces Magazine reported the service had 219 A-10s as of late 2024, then cut 57 aircraft in fiscal 2025, leaving 162 going into fiscal 2026.

The surge in A-10s suggests that as many as 30 could soon be operating in the Gulf region, representing about 18.5% of the USAF’s fleet.

The A-10’s most fearsome weapon is the 30mm GAU-8/A seven-barrel Gatling gun, which fires at an astonishing 3,900 rounds per minute. Typical A-10 armament also includes:

AGM-65 Maverick missiles

Laser- and GPS-guided bombs Mk-82 500-lb and Mk-84 2,000-lb bombs

Unguided and laser-guided 2.75-inch rockets

AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles

Chaff, flares, and jammer pods for self-protection

The NYT cited flight-tracking data indicating that US-based A-10s heading to the region have been stopping at Royal Air Force Lakenheath, a base in England, before continuing on to the Gulf region.

#BREAKING 12 US A-10C Thunderbolt II ‘Warthogs’ just landed at RAF Lakenheath in the UK en route to the Middle East for Operation Epic Fury. pic.twitter.com/ZcBXcStozP

— MCBN (@MCBNNEWSS) April 1, 2026

“The planes could be used to help U.S. ground forces seize territory near the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway Iran has effectively closed, or Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil hub in the northern Persian Gulf,” the outlet said. 

Earlier this month, Zoltan Pozsar of Ex Uno Plures noted that the Trump administration is “methodically building a portfolio of assets” from Venezuela to the Panama Canal to Iran’s oil flows and the Strait of Hormuz, a strategy aimed at reasserting American dominance, securing the empire for years to come, and tightening the screws on Beijing after last year’s rare earths stunt.

“Iran and Kharg Island are next. Iran is a Chinese vassal and so Kharg Island is basically a Chinese asset. Iran and Kharg Island will soon be a U.S. asset. The same with the SoH – it will soon be a U.S. asset,” Pozsar noted.

And this. 

In case you missed… Every Army Base and Army National Guard Base in America was training and testing on Black Hawk and Apaches today. Every one. Normal when you’re definitely not invading a country. pic.twitter.com/nxMsr8w86i

— Roger (@rdd147) April 1, 2026

Checking in today here are the BlackHawks…

Notice Fort Cavazos, TX, the largest Blackhawk base in the country. Nothing. Most blackhawks have been shipped, a few remain for training, and a lot of training happening 24-7 pic.twitter.com/cLMw7AabhZ

— Roger (@rdd147) April 1, 2026

Is this why we are moving excavators via train to the naval boat yards in San Diego?

Maybe it’s just for sand castles in Iran.

They’re gonna go for it.

Watch what they do. Not what they say. https://t.co/VTFYKxG5G3 pic.twitter.com/6PzYFYcv5E

— EconstratPB (@EconstratPB) March 31, 2026

The surge in A-10s suggests the US is preparing for a dirtier, more prolonged campaign centered on Hormuz, coastal targets, and possibly a seizure or raid of Kharg Island or others.  

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Beneath city streets and suburban neighborhoods, a vast network of pipes and wastewater treatment systems is reaching the end of its life. This subterranean infrastructure is already suffering tens of thousands of failures per year, while exposing millions of Americans to contamination risks.

Utilities, plumbing experts, and environmentalists warn that the scope of the problem has expanded rapidly in recent years. As of 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that $630 billion in wastewater infrastructure investment would be needed to repair and replace deteriorating systems. At the same time, extreme weather events and growing populations were putting additional strain on America’s aging pipes.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), in its 2025 report card, gave U.S. wastewater infrastructure a D-plus, which the group largely attributed to a lack of funding to meet the needs of communities with failing systems.

Meanwhile, average utility prices for wastewater consumers increased from $35 per month to nearly $65 per month between 2010 and 2020, ASCE researchers found. Even still, they said, rising utility prices aren’t “keeping pace with the growing costs for utilities to provide routine operation and maintenance.”

Paradoxically, as household water and sewer bills increased more than 24 percent between 2020 and 2025, wastewater infrastructure renewal and replacement rates for large-scale projects actually decreased over the past decade, from 3 percent to 2 percent, according to the ASCE analysis.

The scope of the problem becomes clearer when considering the sheer volume of sanitary sewer overflows. As of April 2025, the EPA estimated there were between 23,000 and 75,000 overflow incidents per year, and that didn’t include sewage that backed up into buildings or residential homes.

Some of the reasons for these spills included blockages, line breaks, design defects, and overloaded treatment systems.

A spokesperson for the EPA told The Epoch Times that the agency is “committed to accelerating investments in water infrastructure by stewarding federal funding appropriated by Congress.”

Recent funding highlights from 2025 include the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, which committed $13 billion for infrastructure improvements in communities across the nation, according to the EPA spokesperson.

A worker uses a vacuum truck to remove sewer water after a sewer main break in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Feb. 24, 2020. Much of the nation’s aging wastewater infrastructure is nearing the end of its lifespan, with thousands of spills each year exposing millions to contamination risks. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

When asked about the staggering volume of sewer overflows per year, the agency representative emphasized the value and importance of this network.

“EPA estimates that our nation’s sewers are worth a total of more than $1 trillion,“ the representative said. ”The collection system of a single large municipality is an asset worth billions of dollars and that of a smaller city could cost many millions to replace.

“Ongoing maintenance and rehabilitation can add value to the original investment by maintaining the system’s capacity and extending its life. The costs of rehabilitation and other measures to correct [sanitary sewer overflows] can vary widely by community size and sewer system type.”

The United States’ wastewater pipe network is a part of the national infrastructure that has been neglected for years and suffers “chronic underinvestment,” according to the Association of State Floodplain Managers.

The country has roughly 800,000 miles of sewer pipes, according to ASCE’s 2021 report card. For perspective, the National Highway System only covers an estimated 164,000 miles, according to the Department of Transportation.

Within that sprawling web, the average age of sewer pipes is around 45 years, ASCE’s 2021 report found. But in some American cities, sewer systems date back a century or more: in the city of St. Louis, for example, some sewer lines were built in Civil War days. And parts of Philadelphia’s working sewer system date back to 1800, Municipal Sewer and Water reported in 2025.

“Wastewater treatment systems are meant to act as a barrier to disease both for public health and environment,“ Laura Underwood, director of digital water solutions for Locus Technologies, told The Epoch Times. ”If you have overflows or failures, these events can release pathogens into waterways and increase the risk of gastrointestinal illnesses, skin infections, and contamination of recreational or drinking waters.”

A huge tank full of wastewater is seen at DC Water’s Blue Plains plant in Washington on Nov. 23, 2015. In its 2025 report card, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. wastewater infrastructure a D+, which the group largely attributed to funding gaps that don’t meet the needs of expanding usage and failing systems. Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

Close to Home

Underwood has worked within the utility space as a compliance director for water and wastewater treatment operations. She didn’t sugarcoat the reality of what further delays in upgrades will cost Americans.

“You will continue to see more frequent overflows and plant bypasses. These spills and untreated discharge events can lead to degraded waterways with increased contamination risks to the public and environment,” she said.

This isn’t some speculative future problem. In January, more than 250 million gallons of sewage entered the Potomac River near Washington. The event marked one of the worst incidents of its kind in U.S. history; President Donald Trump called it a “massive ecological disaster.”

In an account published on the American Rivers website,  a witness to the Potomac River disaster, Gary Belan, recalled arriving at the site of the sewage overflow and seeing “several massive pumps” diverting raw waste into the C&O canal area, which runs parallel with the river.

Belan said the area is a “popular spot to walk, bike, and access the river for fishing and boating.” He said he’s been taking his kids there since they were toddlers.

Pumps and pipes divert raw sewage into the C&O Canal and around a broken section of the Potomac Interceptor in Cabin John, Md., on Feb. 16, 2026. A section of the six-foot-wide sewage pipe collapsed on Jan. 19, causing more than 250 million gallons of raw sewage to be poured into the Potomac River.

“There is a literal river of sewage flowing open along the towpath that parallels the canal,” he wrote. “The estimated repair time is going to be 9 [to] 10 months, disrupting the communities nearby. This doesn’t include time for the environmental remediation.”

Some industry insiders say surface water contamination is far from the only hazard of aging sewer system failures.

“The biggest challenge I see on the ground is aging pipes, specifically the catastrophic failure of cast iron and clay sewer laterals that connect individual properties to the main municipal line,” master plumber Steven Morgan told The Epoch Times. “These pipes were installed 50 [to] 80 years ago and are now collapsing, cracking, and being invaded by tree roots.”

Morgan is the head of technical training and development at 24hr Supply and deals with the ugly truth of America’s antiquated wastewater network regularly. He said a lot of people don’t understand how aging sewer infrastructure can cost them directly and dearly.

“Homeowners don’t realize they’re responsible for the section from their house to the street, and when it fails, they’re looking at $8,000 [to] $25,000 in emergency repairs,” he said.

Old rusty utility pipes sit on the ground where workers with East Bay Municipal Utility District are installing a new water pipe in Oakland, Calif., on April 22, 2021. Leaky pipes take on a whole new dimension when toxic sludge enters rivers and other water resources. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Morgan believes the real problem is that these failures create blockages and backups that force raw sewage into basements during heavy rains.

“Multiply that across an entire neighborhood with aging infrastructure, and you’ve got a public health crisis waiting to happen,” he said.

“The pipes aren’t just old, they’re fundamentally incompatible with modern water usage patterns and climate realities like increasingly intense storms.”

Direct contact with contaminated water spills in places such as basements, lawns, streets, or recreational areas can cause serious health concerns. Contaminated water can contain bacteria, viruses, parasites, worms, and industrial chemicals such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS or “forever chemicals.”

Official data put the number of Americans affected by waterborne pathogens annually at 7.15 million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Within that group, about 118,000 are hospitalized and 6,630 die from related illnesses.

A plumber turns the water back on after repairing a burst pipe in a home in Houston on Feb. 21, 2021. Bland Warren said that as weather patterns shift, wastewater systems and storage infrastructure are often required to manage more variable conditions. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Long Range Impacts

Leaky pipes take on a whole new dimension when it’s toxic sludge entering rivers and other water resources. Groundwater contamination is prevalent at 85 percent of EPA Superfund project cleanup sites.

“Failing sewer lines or poorly maintained [wastewater] lagoons can allow untreated sewage to seep into groundwater. However, this is typically a smaller-scale localized contamination,” Underwood said.

“I would say there is a larger contamination risk with [treatment] plant bypasses where a portion of untreated wastewater is discharged to a surface water outfall.”

A 2023 study from the University of Parma observed that leaky sewers negatively impacted not only surface and groundwater but also subsurface aquifers.

“Sewer pipeline ruptures are a severe risk to groundwater quality. When sewerage deterioration conditions occur, aquifers can be contaminated by contaminants contained within sewer water,” the study said.

Read the rest here…

Constellation Energy’s high-profile effort to revive one of the Three Mile Island reactor plants, now renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center, has run into a four-year-tall roadblock: the grid itself.

The company had targeted a restart in the second half of 2027 to deliver roughly 835 megawatts of nuclear power to Microsoft data centers under a long-term agreement.

Yet PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator, reports full deliverability could take until 2031.

The holdup stems from needed transmission upgrades.

The $1 billion loan secured by Constellation has only been followed by delays…

BOOM

*CONSTELLATION GETS $1B US LOAN TO REOPEN THREE MILE ISLAND

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 18, 2025

Constellation pushed back quickly, insisting the plant remains on schedule for 2027 operations and that it is actively negotiating with PJM and local utilities to shorten the timeline. The 2031 date, the company said, reflects only the point of complete certainty around upgrades rather than an outright bar to earlier partial output.

The real culprit is not the data centers driving the demand. Tech giants and hyperscalers are not conjuring the problem out of thin air. Decades of underinvestment in transmission lines, permitting bottlenecks, and overloaded interconnection queues have left the grid ill-equipped for any surge, whether from nuclear restarts, renewables, or new industrial loads. PJM’s own studies show the system has evolved since Three Mile Island’s 2019 closure, yet the backlog of projects, both generation and demand, continues to grow. Utilities and operators face the same squeeze whether the request comes from a reactor or a server farm.

Less than a year ago, Bloomberg reported Constellation Energy moved the restart date up one year from the original 2028 completion date to 2027. The reactor owner noted the connection to the PJM grid would take another year, to 2028. Yet, here we are nine months later and that grid connection timeline has already moved out an additional three years. 

Just last month, the IEA warned electricity demand is rising fast while over 2,500 GW of projects worldwide sit stalled in connection queues, with the U.S. portion especially strained. We also noted transmission projects routinely face five-to-seven-year delays from permitting and interconnection hurdles.

The pattern is clear. Data centers expose the weakness; they do not create it.

Until transmission spending and permitting catch up with the real-world need for reliable power, even the cleanest, most reliable plants will sit idle longer than planned.

The Three Mile Island delay is simply the latest symptom of a system that has been neglected for far too long.

* * * Grab it here

Anza Big Bowie – now THAT’s a knife! pic.twitter.com/oEZ6HVaMYg

— ZeroHedge Store (@ZeroHedgeStore) August 25, 2025

Authored by John Mearsheimer

There is much talk about President Trump preparing to launch a ground attack against Iran. In the media discourse, much is made of the fact we have about 50,000 troops in the region. See for example these three articles.

One might think those are all combat troops and we therefore have roughly three combat divisions available to invade Iran. But that is not true.

Until recently, there were about 40,000 US troops in the region, which were mainly a mixture of Air Force, Army, and Navy forces. Very importantly, there were few Army or Marine combat troops, although there were certainly some special forces. But they are of little use for major combat operations, for which you need organized combat units like battalions, brigades, regiments, and divisions.

In essence, until recently, there was hardly any organized ground power in the Middle East, which is what you need to invade and hold Iranian territory. As Napoleon was known to say: “God is on the side of the big battalions.”

Marine Corps image, illustrative/Camp Schwab, Okinawa

President Troop has recently sent about 2,000 combat troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East as well as the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) comprised of about 2,500 combat troops. There is another MEU – the 11th – on its way to the Middle East from California, which I assume will add another 2,500 combat troops. That MEU is not expected to arrive until mid-April. That means there will be a total of roughly 7,000 combat troops organized in combat units after mid-April, but 4,500 before then.

That is a tiny force with little chance of conquering and holding Iranian territory, especially when you consider that:

1) all these units are light infantry,

2) they have not prepared to fight this particular war and are doing it on the fly,

3) supporting them logistically when they are in combat will be very difficult,

4) Iran has mobilized an army of about a million men and is lying in wait,

5) the Iranian army is likely to put up fierce resistance as not only will it be defending sacred territory, but the fighting forces will surely understand they are facing an existential threat,

6) the skies over the US troops are likely to be filled with deadly drones – think Ukraine where it is hard for either side’s soldiers to move in the open without getting killed,

7) Iranian ballistic missiles, rockets, and artillery will be directed at the US forces.

There is talk that President Trump might send another 10,000 combat troops to the Middle East, but that has not happened yet as best I can tell. Even if it happens, however, the resulting force would still only have 17,000 combat troops. It is worth noting that there will be no Israeli forces involved in the invasion.

Finally, I assume that the combat forces from the 82nd have to be located on a US base or bases once they get to the Middle East. But the Iranians have basically wrecked or seriously damaged the 13 major US installations in the region. So, where do they go and won’t Chinese and Russian intelligence spot them wherever they are and tell the Iranians, who will strike at them?

The Marines, on the other hand, will be on giant amphibious assault ships like The USS Iwo Jima (31st) and the USS Boxer (11th). Can ships like that be located near the Persian Gulf, much less in the Strait? Would they not be sitting ducks? All the big Navy ships are parked far away from the Gulf today for good reason.

I must be missing something here, because I don’t understand how we could possibly have a serious ground force option.

Maybe with some luck we could take a small island in the Persian Gulf, but I don’t think we could hold it, and even if we did, it would hardly affect the course of the war. In the process, many Americans would die for a lost cause.

Nine tankers seized by the US since it began taking direct action against the so-called shadow fleet that transport illicit oil around the world have delivered more than 20 million barrels of Iranian crude to China since 2013, according to the WSJ. The figures form part of a new report that provides an insight into the level of support China has given Iran by buying its sanctioned oil.

Between 2013 and 2025, these nine vessels delivered 20.3 million barrels of Iranian crude to Chinese ports, the report said, citing data from Kpler. The vessels also carried 37.9 million barrels of Venezuelan crude and 11.1 million barrels of Russian crude to Chinese ports.

U.S. forces taking control of an oil tanker in the Indian Ocean

Altogether, that crude is worth at least $4 billion, according to the report, which is set to be released soon by Republicans on the House Select Committee on China, and seen by The Wall Street Journal.

To be sure, the amount from the seized vessels represents just a small fraction of the oil China has imported from Iran, a process which has accelerated since the Iran was started, lifting Iran’s output to the highest in years.

Still, it underscores how China has been a major user of the shadow fleet, bankrolling Iran, as well as Venezuela and Russia. In 2025, China received a third of the crude oil carried by shadow and sanctioned tankers and 10% of heavy refined products such as fuel oil and crude residuals, the report said, citing Kpler data.

Shadow fleet vessels carrying sanctioned cargo have also used China’s BeiDou satellite navigation in an effort to operate outside Western oversight, the report said. BeiDou is Beijing’s answer to the U.S. Global Positioning System, or GPS, and offers positioning, navigation and timing data globally. China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully pulled the plug on nearly a million asylum-seekers who were temporarily allowed to live in the U.S. thanks to the Biden-era CBP One app.

Fox News reports that the app was used by then-President Joe Biden’s administration beginning in 2023 to allow migrants to schedule appointments with immigration officials with many of the migrants being paroled into the U.S. for up to two years.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs invalidated the Trump administration’s decision to end the immigration parole status of migrants who entered the country under the Biden-era CBP Home policy.

🚨BREAKING: Obama-appointed Judge, Allison Burroughs, ruled President Trump must RESTORE the legal status of over 985,000 migrants ordered to leave through the CBP app.

Burroughs said the administration acted “unlawfully” when they sent a notice on the app that read:

“It is… pic.twitter.com/eccP5TXuYv

— Patriot🇺🇸Newswire (@NewswirePatriot) April 1, 2026

In her ruling, Burroughs wrote, “When Defendants terminated the impacted noncitizens’ parole without observing the process mandated by statute and by their own regulations, they took action that was ‘not in accordance with law,’” the judge added, “The regulations do not give the agency unfettered discretion to terminate parole.”

According to CBS News, under the CBP One system, more than 900,000 migrants from countries across the globe were allowed into the U.S. at official ports of entry along the southern border.

It’s unclear how many of those migrants will be affected by Burrough’s ruling as some of them have already been deported or gained another lawful status since the Trump administration repurposed the CBP One app a year ago, allowing paroled migrants to self-deport.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced in April 2025 that it was terminating the parole status of those processed under the CBP One program, arguing that the Biden administration did not have authority to create such a program.

DHS officials, at that time, said that the app violated U.S. immigration law by allowing hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the country outside of the traditional legal immigration system.

The statement released yesterday following the judge’s ruling read as follows: “We disagree with this blatant judicial activism undermining the President’s Article II authority to determine who remains in this country. The Biden Administration abused the parole authority under the disastrous CBP One program to allow millions of illegal aliens into the U.S. which further fueled the worst border crisis in U.S. history.”

The Justice Department is likely to appeal the ruling.

* * *

In a clear concession announced April 1, 2026, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) yielded to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and agreed to advance the Senate-passed bill funding most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – explicitly excluding ICE and key CBP enforcement operations – while moving long-term immigration enforcement and border security funding to the partisan reconciliation process.

This is the same bill that Johnson and House R’s rejected for over a week.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer quickly claimed victory:

NEWS: House Republicans caved.

They’ve agreed to pass the Senate bill to fund DHS except for ICE and CBP that unanimously passed a week ago. https://t.co/261f3cukS4

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) April 1, 2026

Full Johnson-Thune Joint Statement

“We appreciate and share the President’s determination to once and for all bring an end to the Democrat DHS shutdown.

“In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process.

“We appreciate that Senator Graham and the Senate Budget Committee have already initiated the process of developing a budget resolution that will ensure border security and immigration enforcement will be funded for the balance of the Trump Administration and insulated from future attempts by the Democrats to defund those agencies.

“We operated under a belief that while our country is in the midst of an international armed conflict, Democrats might finally come to their senses and understand that defunding our homeland security agencies is beyond reckless and very dangerous. While we hoped they would accept the 60-day CR to fund the Department entirely so that bipartisan negotiations could continue, it is now abundantly clear that Democrats place allegiance to their radical left-wing base above all else — including their own power of the purse — which means open borders and protecting criminal illegal aliens. That is not acceptable to Republicans in Congress, nor is it to the American people. We cannot allow Democrats to any longer put the safety of the American public at risk through their open border policies, so we are taking that off the table.

“In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited. In return, Democrats will once again demonstrate to the American people their support for open borders and keeping criminal illegal immigrants in America.” –Speaker Johnson, X

The impasse began after House Republicans passed a full DHS bill with strong ICE/CBP funding. Senate Democrats blocked it, triggering a partial shutdown in mid-February that idled TSA, FEMA, Coast Guard, and CISA while leaving ICE/CBP on prior-year funds. On March 27 the Senate passed its stripped-down version by unanimous consent; House GOP initially rejected it as “garbage” and countered with a 60-day full CR that Schumer killed. Trump ultimately backed the two-track Senate approach.

🚨 Good on paper, Thune… but we’ve heard this song before. President Trump demanded FULL border security — that means funding ICE + Border Patrol AND passing the SAVE America Act to STOP non-citizens from voting in our elections. Without the SAVE Act, this is just half a win.…

— Donald J Trump The Service Dog (@Donnie4Veterans) April 1, 2026

This deal also leaves the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act – the House-passed bill requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration – completely untouched and stalled in the Senate. Trump and GOP hardliners had demanded it be attached to any DHS package; it was not included in the Senate bill or the immediate appropriations track.

Will the DHS shutdown end between April 1-4, 2026?
Yes 44% · No 56%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

Leaders may try elements in the reconciliation package for ICE/CBP funding, but the Byrd Rule makes non-budgetary policy changes difficult. Many conservatives on X are already blasting Johnson and Thune for failing to deliver the SAVE Act now.

What Happens Next

House expected to pass the Senate bill within days, reopening TSA/FEMA/Coast Guard and paying workers.
Senate Budget Committee advances reconciliation resolution to lock in three years of enforcement funding, protected from future Democratic defunding.
The SAVE Act fight is deferred, setting up another round of intra-GOP tension.

The agreement ends the immediate partial shutdown but guarantees continued immigration battles heading into the 2026 midterms.