Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

More than 134 acres in Texas that was being used by a drug cartel for smuggling activities has been taken over by U.S. authorities, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a Feb. 10 post on X.

“We took the land and everything on it,” the post said.

A video shared with the post showed law enforcement officers arresting several people.

“They thought they were untouchable. They were wrong. Over 134 acres of land and property, taken from the westside Gulf Cartel, a terrorist organization operating near Rio Grande City, Texas,” according to the video.

The Gulf Cartel is a drug trafficking organization from Mexico that moves arms and migrants into the United States, and has engaged in the kidnapping and murder of American citizens. Drug cartels have been known to use U.S. lands to grow marijuana, with such activities exploiting sanctuary state policies and the sovereignty of native tribal lands.

In a message to the cartels, CBP said, “You think this is just about arrests? It’s not. We are dismantling your operations from the ground up. We’re cutting out your safe houses, your staging areas, your corridors. This is your warning.”

Over the past year, authorities have seized several cartel-linked assets.

In May, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned two high-ranking members of the Cartel del Noreste (CDN), a drug trafficking organization from Mexico. As a result, all assets and interests in assets of the designated individuals in the United States were blocked.

In March, the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned six people and seven entities for being involved in money laundering activity to support the Mexico-based Sinaloa Cartel, resulting in blocking their assets in the United States.

“Laundered drug money is the lifeblood of the Sinaloa Cartel’s narco-terrorist enterprise, only made possible through trusted financial facilitators like those we have designated today,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at the time.

“Treasury, as part of a whole-of-government approach to addressing this pressing national security threat, will use all available tools to target anyone who assists the cartels in furthering their campaign of crime and violence.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has introduced the Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act to seize cartel assets, according to a Dec. 18 statement from the lawmaker’s office.

The bill would authorize President Donald Trump to commission private U.S. operators under letters of marque to take over cartel assets on land and sea. A letter of marque is a written authority granted to a person by the government to seize the goods of enemies. Such letters once used to be a common tool against piracy.

Under the bill, private operators would have the right to employ “all reasonably necessary means” to seize assets outside the United States.

“The Constitution provides for Letters of Marque and Reprisal as a tool against the enemies of the United States,” Lee said.

“Cartels have replaced corsairs in the modern era, but we can still give private American citizens and their businesses a stake in the fight against these murderous foreign criminals. The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act will revive this historic practice to defend our shores and seize cartel assets.”

In January, Trump said that the United States will start launching strikes targeting cartels in Mexico. Last month, Mexico transferred 37 members of drug cartels to U.S. authorities amid pressure from the Trump administration to crack down on drug operations in the country.

Crackdown on Cartel Finances

In February 2025, the State Department designated several Mexican drug cartels and transnational criminal gangs as global terrorist organizations.

The designation allows authorities to block all assets of these entities in the United States, the department said.

“Terrorist designations expose and isolate entities and individuals, denying them access to the U.S. financial system and the resources they need to carry out attacks.”

In testimony during a Feb. 10 House hearing, Rodney Scott, commissioner of the CBP, said that cartels engage in human trafficking, of children and those exploited for labor, and use the profits generated by these activities to fund their illegal operations.

“Breaking this cycle requires certainty of consequences and complete border security. When we secure the border and deny illegal entry, we are not just enforcing a statute—we are bankrupting a cartel operation and protecting innocent people,” he said.

“When illegal entry no longer guarantees release into the interior, and when [unaccompanied alien children] are protected and monitored, the cartels lose their product, their presence in the United States, and their ability to profit from our failures.”

According to a Feb. 4 CBP statement, Border Patrol released zero illegal immigrants into the United States in January for the ninth consecutive month.

“Every individual apprehended was processed according to law—a milestone unmatched in modern border history,” it said.

The United States and China are seeking to preserve their fragile trade truce before President Donald Trump visits Chinese President Xi Jinping for a high-stakes summit in Beijing this spring, according to the South China Morning Post.

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in 2017. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

On the sidelines of the 2025 APEC summit in Busan, South Korea, Trump and Xi held a pivotal meeting that produced a significant—though temporary—trade agreement. Following months of escalating tariffs, curbs on rare-earth exports, and agricultural boycotts, the two leaders agreed to a one-year truce that provided a measure of relief to the world’s two largest economies.

“There seems to be a really strong appetite to maintain that fragile trade truce that we saw struck in late 2025,” Nick Marro, global trade lead at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told SCMP. “I think, at best, we could see this continuation of a detente in tariff policy.” 

South China Morning Post reports:

Extending the informal months-long understanding, a step seen by officials as realistic and achievable, would anchor the summit around short-term economic wins, including fresh Chinese purchase commitments, the sources said.

Trump is expected to travel to China in early April, according to four people familiar with the plans. An initial arrival date under consideration was March 31, leading to a bilateral meeting with Xi in the first week of April as part of a visit lasting about three days, two of the people said.

Trump described the 2025 deal as a “massive victory,” announcing reductions in certain U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods (from around 57% to 47% in key areas like fentanyl-related levies), while China committed to resuming large-scale purchases of American soybeans, sorghum, and other farm products, suspending new rare-earth restrictions, and cooperating on fentanyl flows.

The Busan agreement gave American farmers and manufacturers some breathing room, halted further escalation, and opened the door to potential longer-term negotiations, even as deeper structural issues around technology and supply chains remain unresolved.

“Both sides will look for deliverables that can be packaged as wins they can present at home,” Wang Dan, China director at Eurasia Group, told SCMP, adding “This could include numerical commitments for soybeans, energy and manufactured goods from the US.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, in the coming weeks to discuss deliverables ahead of the meeting, sources told the South China Morning Post.

Last week, senior @USTreasury staff visited China to strengthen channels of communication and advance the dialogue between our nations.

During their visit, our teams discussed preparation for the next high-level meeting on U.S.-China trade between myself and Vice Premier He…

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) February 9, 2026

Last week, Trump and Xi held their first phone call in months, which the president characterically called “excellent.”

“I have just completed an excellent telephone conversation with President Xi, of China. It was a long and thorough call, where many important subjects were discussed, including Trade, Military, the April trip that I will be making to China (which I very much look forward to!), Taiwan, the War between Russia/Ukraine, the current situation with Iran, the purchase of Oil and Gas by China from the United States, the consideration by China of the purchase of additional Agricultural products including lifting the Soybean count to 20 Million Tons for the current season (They have committed to 25 Million Tons for next season!), Airplane engine deliveries, and numerous other subjects, all very positive!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“The relationship with China, and my personal relationship with President Xi, is an extremely good one, and we both realize how important it is to keep it that way,” the president continued. “I believe that there will be many positive results achieved over the next three years of my Presidency having to do with President Xi, and the People’s Republic of China.”

China’s official readout presented a more pointed tone, emphasizing Xi’s focus on Taiwan and urging Washington to reduce tensions over the self-ruled island.

On Monday, US ambassador to China, David Perdue, said at an event organized by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade in Beijing said that the US was “not closing the door to doing business with China.”

“As President Trump has said, we want to trade with China, we need to trade, but that trade should be balanced and with full reciprocity,” Perdue said. “I’m very optimistic about the year ahead and also clear-eyed. The challenges are real.”

Xi called the U.S. approach to Taiwan “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” declaring that China “will never allow Taiwan to be separated from China.”

Authored by Kevin Downey Jr. via PJ Media,

A diversity judge just cut a sexual deviant’s sentence from 65 years down to 30. Why? Because Marxism.

A Jefferson County, Ky., judge, Tracy Davis, decided to cut the sentence of convicted rapist Christopher Davis by 35 years because, despite his heinous crime, he is just a poor lad who “fell through the cracks” and “experienced this society.” In other words, systemic racism made him don a mask, point a gun at a woman, kidnap her, sexually assault her, rob her, and sexually assault her again — all because his brain hasn’t fully developed yet.

I don’t want to get into the details of Thompson’s savagery, so I will let KTSA tell you:

In July 2023, Christopher Thompson, then 18, wore a ski mask and forced his way into a woman’s car at gunpoint in south Louisville, driving her to Sanders Elementary School where he sexually assaulted her twice and forced her to withdraw $220 from an ATM. DNA evidence from a water bottle left in the victim’s vehicle led to his arrest in January 2024. After a four-day trial in December 2025, a jury convicted Thompson of robbery, kidnapping, sodomy, and sexual abuse, recommending a 65-year prison sentence for what prosecutors called “every woman’s worst nightmare.”

Davis and Thompson had a little back-and-forth in the courtroom, during which Thompson incredulously repeated that God was with him.

This conversation took place (I’m going to bold the parts where it seems as though the judge is coaching Thompson on what he should be saying to get a reduced sentence):

Judge Davis: The thing is, when the court is considering that and considering sentencing you and applying the actual law – Because you’d be surprised, me in this seat, I apply the law. Regardless of what the media thinks, regardless of what anybody thinks, I apply the law. I do not judge people before they walk before me. I don’t. I reviewed your PSI (pre-sentencing investigative report). I looked at who you were. You refused to come over. I ‘by any means’ you because you deserve to be here and to say whatever it is that you want to say to the court prior to the court imposed a sentencing.

No person, as long as they are breathing, is beyond rehabilitation and being on the correct path. So if you know anything about God in your Bible, you know about Barabbas. At the very last minute, what happened to him?

It’s not about your past. It’s about your future. And it’s about you not being angry. This is your whole life. Your whole life. And if for one second, you came in here and said, “Judge Davis, you know what? I want to be a different person. Regardless of what my past is, regardless of how angry I’ve been, regardless of the things that I have said, regardless of how you look at that, I don’t want to be that person from today into the future.”

Thompson: “It’s hard to be that when I’m in jail.”

Judge Davis: “And if you give me that opportunity, and sentence me to the minimum, I can show you that I will go to school. I will get training. I will do everything that I can so that when my sentence is done, I can be an active member of society.” But that’s not what you’ve done. You came in here off the cuff saying negative things, trying to get a response out of everybody, and that’s not it. I hope that you get what you need while you are incarcerated.

If that didn’t make you puke, read how the judge refuses to even tell Thompson that he caused harm to the community:

Thompson: I got Jesus. I don’t need nothing else.

Judge Davis: I hope that somewhere along the line, your brain fully develops, and you begin to make better decisions so that you are not someone that can cause harm to the community, and so that you yourself do not get harmed.

Thompson: So you’re saying I did cause harm to the community?

Judge Davis: I didn’t say that. I said so that you would not. I didn’t say that you did.

Thompson: All right.

Ugh.

Poor Thompson, according to the judge, isn’t a vile, remorseless rapist who hates everyone. He is a tragic victim of “society” and just requires a little brain development.  

BILLY MAYS-O-RAMA! But wait, there’s more!

Thompson didn’t care about the coaching, the proceedings, the victim, or the victim’s family, and he had some saucy words for the judge and prosecutor as well. I’d write them out, but the “naughty word” alarm would melt, so I’ll let you watch Thompson lay into everyone around him:

Despite Thompson showing no remorse and a ton of attitude — not to mention suggesting he’d spit on the judge if he could, and suggesting the judge ingurgitate his membrum virile — Davis decided 65 years in the hoosegow for the career animal was too much time and knocked his sentence down to 30 years. With good behavior, which seems wildly unlikely, Thompson could be out in 20 years when he is 40 years old.

FACT-O-RAMA! The Marxist judge was also aware at the time of sentencing that Thompson is facing an assault charge against a corrections officer.

SHOCK WARNING: Judge Davis is a pronoun Punchinello, and check out her Twitter handle:

This filthy, DEI Marxist just cut a savage rapist’s sentence in half. He even insulted her in her own court.

She didn’t care. For the communists, it’s all about the “revolution.” pic.twitter.com/vcxkDYs32E

— The Kevin Downey, Jr. Show Mon- Fri. 9-11 am EST! (@KDJRadioShow) February 10, 2026

In that potty-mouthed exchange video, you may have heard Anthony Piagentini, councilman for Metro Council District 19,  mention “shock probation.”  What’s that? 

Kentucky’s definition: Shock probation is when a judge ignores a convict’s sentence and chooses to send him to jail for a substantially shorter sentence, in order to “shock” the guilty into the reality of prison life and, hopefully, compel the prisoner into a life of lawfulness.

KDJ’s definition: It’s a reason to let animals out of jail as soon as possible. The communists need crime and chaos to destabilize our nation, and nothing does that better than violence in our streets.

It seems Judge Davis has applied “shock probation” 40 of the 44 times she’s been requested to do so, more than any other judge in Jefferson County.

What could go wrong by letting violent criminals out of jail?

This:

Meet Judge David Kelly of Chicago. Prosecutors begged him not to release Davaughn Credit who was arrested for a series of violent robberies.

He released him anyway on an ankle monitor.

Well Davaughn escaped the monitor and just allegedly moIested a young girl.

These… pic.twitter.com/e1yknuSnn1

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 11, 2025

FACT-O-RAMA! The party that lets criminals walk out of jail early also has a pesky habit of trying to take away your guns. We call those people Democrats.

You may be wondering what you can do to stop Democrat, pinko judges from letting animals out of prison early.

For starters, you should convince your family and friends to never vote for a Democrat again:

A man attempted to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh.

Maryland Biden Judge Deborah Boardman sentenced him to only 8 years.

A man attempted to assassinate President Trump.

Florida Trump Judge Aileen Cannon sentenced him to life.

Too many of today’s Democrat judges are truly evil. pic.twitter.com/nH5ZhTsaT9

— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) February 4, 2026

Something changed in Minneapolis, and fast.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told lawmakers during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday that local police arrested 54 anti-ICE protesters overnight, a development that would have been almost unthinkable just a few weeks ago. During his testimony, Lyons described a noticeable shift on the ground as immigration enforcement operations continue in the city.

Minneapolis Police officer William Martin stands outside burning buildings near Lake Street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, following protests and property damage surrounding the police killing of George Floyd. Photo by Tony Webster/Minnesota Reformer. 

For weeks, Minneapolis had been a flashpoint. Demonstrators swarmed federal agents. Officers were filmed, heckled, and in some cases assaulted while trying to carry out what Lyons described as “targeted, intelligence-driven enforcement operation[s].” Instead of focusing on apprehending criminal illegal aliens, agents were stuck navigating angry crowds, something they weren’t trained to do.

That appears to be changing.

Under questioning from Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Lyons confirmed that protests have cooled and ICE agents are once again able to concentrate on their core mission. “We’ve seen a de-escalation in the fact that the protests, while they still go on, have subsided, and ICE has been allowed to do their targeted, intelligence-driven enforcement operation,” Lyons said.

The key detail was who made the arrests. According to Lyons, the 54 protesters were taken into custody by local authorities. “ICE officers did not have to be engaged in that,” he told the committee.

That line spoke volumes.

For much of the recent unrest, ICE agents were left in a precarious position. McCaul pointed to what he described as a surge in hostility fueled by overheated rhetoric from Democrats about ICE. He noted “rhetoric on the left led to over a thousand percent increase in assaults on ICE officers” and “an increase of over eight thousand death threats to them.”

Those numbers help explain why federal agents found themselves pulled into crowd-control situations they were never meant to handle.

“Your officers are not trained to effectuate crowd control,” McCaul pointed out. “They are trained to move in surgically, go in and remove these dangerous, violent criminals from the United States of America.”

McCaul argued that former Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino’s leadership was the problem. He noted that under his watch, the situation deteriorated to the point where two shooting deaths occurred amid the chaos, and coordination between federal and local authorities broke down, which McCaul described as “a perfect storm.”

McCaul described Homan as “a consummate professional, law enforcement professional,” and made it very clear he supports President Trump’s move to replace Bovino with Homan. And based on Lyons’ testimony, the impact of the change has been immediate.

McCaul outlined what he sees as a return to basics: targeted enforcement actions, better coordination with state and local law enforcement on crowd control, renewed emphasis on ICE detainers, body cameras for agents, and an end to roving interior patrols in major cities. McCaul argued that patrol-style tactics belong at the border, and that Homan is “returning to the original mission of ICE.”

.@RepMcCaul says he believes Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino’s presence in Minneapolis “escalated the situation” in Minneapolis.

With Homan’s arrival, McCaul says order has been restored.

Acting ICE Director responds, saying that since Homan’s arrival, protests have… pic.twitter.com/dajDyOQBBn

— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) February 10, 2026

The 54 arrests in Minneapolis mark a turning point. Local authorities are finally stepping in to handle protesters who try to obstruct federal operations. That shift lets ICE agents focus on apprehending violent offenders instead of fending off crowds. 

Last week, Homan revealed that, thanks to cooperation with local law enforcement, he was pulling 700 federal agents out of Minnesota.

“We currently have an unprecedented number of [Minnesota] counties communicating with us now and allowing ICE to take custody of illegal aliens before they hit the streets,” Homan said.

The change in leadership and tactics is clearly paying off. There are fewer clashes, fewer distractions, and a clearer chain of responsibility between federal officers and local police.

If this trajectory holds, Minneapolis may offer a preview of how the administration intends to carry out immigration enforcement nationwide: tightly focused operations, visible coordination, and a firm line against interference.