[Townhall] A bright spot in immigration policy, the issue on which President Trump polls the best, is the progress being made toward removing unwanted refugees from our country. On Monday Trump won the second of two court victories in March in favor of his policy to roll back Democrat practices to import massive numbers
Ten days after taking office, President Trump ended the misuse of the refugee program by issuing Executive Order No. 14163, "Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program." Biden had brought in more than 100,000 so-called refugees in fiscal year 2024, which was the highest level in 30 years.
Trump has properly sought to revoke the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of whole communities of Haitians and Syrians who were brought into our country under the fiction that they were being politically persecuted back home. Haitians famously settled mostly in Springfield and Columbus, Ohio, totaling about 350,000 people nationwide, and Trump won the election by campaigning on sending them and other mislabeled refugees back home.
Haiti is a poor country victimized by crime, but has strict gun control that impedes the ability of law-abiding residents to defend themselves, and no death penalty to deter murder. Visitors who have valid U.S. gun permits are not allowed to carry their arms in self-defense in Haiti.
As to Syria, the Biden Administration and liberals supported the toppling of the Syrian regime in December 2024 while Biden was still president. The theory that allowed thousands of Syrians to remain in our country as refugees from the former Assad regime no longer applies, and it’s time for them to go home.
Yet lower federal courts in liberal New York, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., have stymied the Trump Administration’s revocation of the "temporary" status that Biden conferred, in order to prevent Trump from sending refugees back home. Trump’s phenomenal Solicitor General, John Sauer, applied for emergency relief with the U.S. Supreme Court to stay two of these lower court decisions against Trump, and the Ninth Circuit ruled directly for Trump in the third case.
On Monday, the Supreme Court mostly granted Trump’s requested relief, by scheduling oral argument on this issue by late April and thereby signaling that a full decision will be rendered by the end of June. While the Court did not authorize the immediate removal of these refugees, it appears that their return will become possible by summer.
Earlier this month, in Pacito v. Trump, the Ninth Circuit held in favor of Trump’s Executive Order that halted the flow of so-called refugees into our country. That court recognized the nearly unlimited authority granted by Congress to the President to halt this misguided program.
More good news came from the First Circuit concerning the deportation of illegal aliens. Two of the three judges on the panel, including a Republican and a Democrat-appointed judge, ruled that Trump may be allowed to deport an illegal alien to a third country if his homeland refuses to accept him.
Last year Trump prevailed on this issue in the U.S. Supreme Court, but then the district judge said the facts had changed and continued to block Trump’s deportations to third countries. The district judge wanted a process by which the illegal alien would have a "meaningful opportunity" to object to being deported to another country after his homeland rejects his return.
But the ongoing campaign of deporting illegals has slowed, and there are reports that someone in the White House has told Republicans not to use the phrase "mass deportation." Other than a few reposts on his X account, White House Border Czar Tom Homan has been quiet for several weeks now.
The self-deportation campaign, by which DHS was paying illegal aliens $2,600 each to voluntarily leave through the use of a government phone app, depends on involuntary deportations to be effective. A total of 2.2 million people had self-deported through January of this year, and Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... were furious about an ad campaign encouraging more illegal aliens to self-deport.
[HotAir] Oh, I had not heard about this at all. It happened a couple of days ago, and what a development.
This began as a COVID-era fraud case, but what it ended up as should strike fear in the heart of every Somali Learing Center hustler and every Armenian hospice provider.
That naturalized citizenship is not the shield of steel one might have thought it was, or that it used to be back when no one paid attention to such things.
For the year between April 2020 and the next May, 25-year-old Joff Stenn Wroy Philossaint of Fort Lauderdale, FL, had himself a schweet little scheme going with COVID loan applications and all the various businesses he had registered in his name.
He and his partners in crime came into some serious cha-ching, courtesy of those very forgiving loan programs.
...Between April 2020 and May 2021, Philossaint fraudulently obtained COVID-19 relief funds through companies he owned or controlled and by preparing loan applications for others in exchange for kickbacks. The applications contained materially false representations about the applicants’ revenues and payroll.
In total, Philossaint and his co-conspirators prepared and submitted 40 fraudulent loan applications, obtaining approximately $3.8 million in loan proceeds. Philossaint personally received approximately $549,000 through the scheme in the form of loan proceeds and kickbacks.
This is where it gets really interesting. Thanks to a quirk in immigration law, if you are in the middle of criminal activity when you apply for your citizenship, you can also be charged with submitting a fraudulent application.
Haitian-born Philossaint was definitely up to no good in 2020 when he dropped his citizenship application papers, and, when the feds collared him in 2022 for the loans conspiracy charges, guess what else they hung on him?
Philossaint pled out on the conspiracy charges, and a federal jury nailed him on the fraudulent citizenship application.
But another charge — whether he had lied on a naturalization form about his criminal history while his citizenship was pending — went before a Fort Lauderdale federal court jury. According to trial evidence, Philossaint applied to become a U.S. citizen in April 2020. While that application was pending, prosecutors said Philossaint orchestrated his COVID-19 loan scheme in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
On Dec. 15, 2020, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officer interviewed Philossaint about his naturalization application. During the interview, Philossaint "falsely stated" that he had never committed a crime for which he had not been arrested and that he had never made misrepresentations to receive a public benefit such as the PPP loans in the United States, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In 2023, a federal judge sentenced him to 50 months.
That would have been the end of the story in most administrations, but not in this one. In February of this year, the Justice Department petitioned the court for an order revoking Philossaint's citizenship, and it was formally stripped yesterday.
A Haitian national has been stripped of his United States citizenship after bilking nearly $4 million from COVID-19 relief programs during his naturalization process, federal authorities said.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith ordered the citizenship of Joff Stenn Wroy Philossaint, 36, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to be revoked after ruling that he illegally procured residency by making false statements to immigration officials, Department of Justice officials announced Tuesday.
"United States citizenship is one of the greatest privileges our nation can offer, and it must be earned honestly," U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones said in a statement. "This defendant built his path to citizenship on false statements while stealing millions from programs meant to keep small businesses alive during the pandemic. The court’s order revoking his citizenship restores accountability and reinforces a simple principle: If you lie to obtain immigration benefits and commit federal crimes, you will lose what you unlawfully gained."
This isn't the only case they have simmering away, either. The former mayor of North Miami is on the DoJ hotseat, both for fraud he's allegedly committed and for a fraudulent marriage and citizenship application.
They have filed to restore him to Citizen of Haiti status, too.
NEW: In a rare denaturalization case, DOJ has filed to strip U.S. citizenship away from the former mayor of North Miami, FL, who they allege is a Haitian fraudster who used two identities & committed marriage fraud to obtain American citizenship after illegally entering the U.S.… pic.twitter.com/8YzBbIxEFg
...DOJ says he used a fraudulent "photo switched" passport under the name Jean Philippe Janiver to enter the U.S. before being ordered deported under that identity in 2001. He appealed the deportation order, then withdrew the appeal, claiming he had moved back to Haiti, when in reality, he remained in the U.S. and took on a new name, Philippe Bien-Aime, and new date of birth, then married a U.S. citizen to obtain permanent resident status.
But DOJ says that marriage was fraudulent, because he was already married to a Haitian citizen.
DOJ says after making a serious of fraudulent statements to immigration authorities, he was eventually naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2006 under the new identity.
DOJ says federal Sherlocks at DHS/USCIS discovered the fraud & confirmed it through a comparison of fingerprints that he provided under the two identities.
That review is part of an ongoing national initiative designed to find fraud in partnership between DOJ & USCIS.
Hiz Dishonor is taking his 'partner/wife #3/what' with him into the immigration fraud ether. It turns out she's a serious visa overstayer as well. Her 'final deportation order' dates back 26 years.
Sarahjane Ternier, the long-time partner of former North Miami mayor Philippe Bien-Aime and mother of three of his children, has been detained by federal immigration officials amid an ongoing effort to strip the Haiti-born politician of his U.S. citizenship.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement front man confirmed Friday to the Miami Herald that Ternier was arrested by agents on Wednesday in Miami in relation to a final deportation order issued on July 31, 2000. According to the agency, Ternier entered the U.S. on June 12, 1994; her appeal of the deportation order was dismissed on Oct. 23, 2002, by the Board of Immigration Appeals. She will remain in ICE custody pending her removal from the United States. ICE’s detainee locator showed on Saturday morning that she was being held at the Broward Transitional Center.
Ternier and Bien-Aime have long been a couple, though details from Bien-Amie’s ongoing federal denaturalization case cast doubt upon whether the couple’s 1993 marriage in Haiti was legitimate. According to the case, he was simultaneously married to two other women during his relationship with Ternier, a registered nurse
There's a whale of a mess to straighten out.
And Ms Ternier seems like a real peach herself.
...Ternier also wasn’t always saying who she was.
A criminal complaint filed in the U.S. Northern District of New York shows that on Feb. 14, 1997, she attempted to enter the U.S. using a fake Canadian identification card.
She was in a car with a man named William Jean Louis when they arrived at the Champlain Port of Entry at the Quebec-New York border. Broward County has records of a 2001 marriage between Ternier and a Haitian man with a similar name.
During the inspection in New York, the officer noted that Ternier did not match the identification on the citizenship card. "She was unable to match the card signature, or produce additional documentation to support her claim," read the complaint.
We can't be rid of both of them soon enough.
And I certainly hope there's more of this kind of action in progress everywhere. What am I saying - betcha there's a bunch in the works.
[IsraelTimes] Pair tried to breach Faslane base in Scotland, which houses the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent, will appear in court on Monday
An Iranian man and a Romanian woman have been charged for attempting to enter a Royal Navy base where Britannia’s nuclear submarines are based, police said Saturday.
The pair were arrested for trying to breach the Faslane base in Scotland on Thursday, which houses the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent — four submarines armed with Trident ballistic missiles.
"A 34-year-old Iranian man and a 31-year-old Romanian woman have been arrested and charged in connection with the incident," the Scottish police said in a statement.
They are due to appear in court in the Scottish town of Dumbarton on Monday, it said.
UK police, the domestic MI5 intelligence service and members of parliament have long warned about a growing threat of Iranian espionage in Britannia.
There are fears in Britannia that the country could be a target over its role in the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Britannia has authorised American forces to use two of its bases for some US operations against Iran, which the British government insists are purely "defensive."
It said Friday that would now also include allowing the United States to use the bases — Fairford in England and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean — to strike Iranian sites threatening the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane.
Britannia has also deployed air assets to support Middle Eastern allies targeted by Iran’s retaliatory campaign.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday of "putting British lives in danger" by allowing the bases to be used "for aggression against Iran."
[Breitbart] More than 20 nations spanning from Asia to Europe to the Gulf have expressed a “readiness to contribute” to the effort of opening up the Strait of Hormuz amid threats to ships by the Islamist regime in Iran.
In a joint statement released on Saturday morning, the nations of Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Republic of Korea, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom condemned in the “strongest terms” the recent attacks by Iran against unarmed, civilian shipping vessels, its attacks on oil and gas infrastructure throughout the Gulf, and its move to shut down traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
“We express our deep concern about the escalating conflict. We call on Iran to cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the Strait to commercial shipping, and to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 2817,” the group of nations said.
Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said on Saturday that Iran’s ability to threaten ships in the Strait has been “degraded” and that U.S. forces continue “to eliminate Iran’s ability to project meaningful power outside its borders.”
Adm. Cooper said that the U.S. recently dropped multiple 5,000-pound bombs on underground coastline facilities used to house various missiles and launchers “that presented a dangerous risk to international shipping.”
“We not only took out the facility but also destroyed intelligence support sites and missile radar relays that were used to monitor ship movements,” he said. “Iran’s ability to threaten freedom of navigation in and around the Strait of Hormuz is degraded as a result and we will not stop pursuing these targets.”
On Friday, President Trump said that “it would be nice” for allied nations that rely on oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz to help keep the passage open, noting that the U.S. is mostly energy-independent and therefore less affected by its closure.
President Trump said that it would be a relatively “simple military maneuver” but said that a large “volume” of ships would be required for the effort.
Reopening the Strait for energy shipments will be critical for the global energy markets, with around one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas passing through the waterway
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03/22/2026 00:00 ||
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[Jpost] The likely cause of the increasing number of child brides seen in the Palestinian territory is the displacement, poverty, and collapse of social, legal, health, and protection systems.
Blame Hamas for deliberately starting a war they intended to lose for the propaganda points.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] The massive confrontation in the Middle East has shifted the global community's focus to Iran's struggle with the United States and Israel. Meanwhile, the dynamics of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a key focus for the past three years, have faded into the background.
In the wake of the Gulf War, few people notice that serious changes are taking place in the Gaza Strip, including the growing influence of Hamas, the Palestinian movement that Israel considered (and apparently still considers) "virtually defeated."
This, however, does not prevent Hamas from strengthening its positions on the ground and, judging by indirect signs, preparing to return the Palestinian exclave to full control.
FULL OWNERS
After the fighting in the Gaza Strip froze in the fall of 2025, Israel considered itself victorious. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz noted, not without pride, that the army had "managed to break the back" of the Gaza resistance and deprive Hamas of any chance of a genuine return to power.
In practice, the situation was somewhat different. By November 2025, Hamas had already regained control of trade in the exclave, and by December, it had rebooted the tax system, capturing the majority of revenues.
The Israelis' unspoken reliance on an "internal opposition," which in theory was supposed to curb Hamas's growth without the direct involvement of the Israeli military, failed. Leaders and activists of Gaza groups that had previously been part of the pro-Israeli militia system either went into hiding or fled abroad, away from local counterintelligence.
Others publicly repented and swore allegiance to the victors, promising to atone for their past mistakes “by deed and blood.”
The sad, yet in many ways revealing, example of pro-Israeli field commander Yasser Abu Shabab, who was shot by his own forces in the heat of the moment following the rapid withdrawal of Israeli forces in September 2025, served as an ideal propaganda hook. Judging by the rapid strengthening of the movement's vertical command structure, those willing to play a double game have noticeably diminished.
And after February 2026, when Israel was distracted by the confrontation with Iran, the work to strengthen influence in Gaza became almost open.
The Israeli press has been flooded with revelations from anonymous Palestinian sources lamenting that since March 2026, almost nothing has been done in the Strip's major cities without Hamas's knowledge and approval. The movement's fighters move openly and "feel like they own the place."
MODERATE BELLIGERENCE
Hamas itself, however, has also so far refrained from public saber-rattling. After the start of the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, the movement, although it criticized Israel, did not join the "axis of resistance" in its military actions.
Moreover, the movement even attempted to publicly rebuke Tehran by sending a letter to the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei calling on him to refrain from attacks on “brotherly Muslim countries,” primarily the Arabian monarchies.
Appealing to the bonds of Islamic brotherhood, Hamas recommended turning the anger of the Iranian people against the real instigator of the conflict – Israel.
However, judging by recent leaks, the message also had a secret component, in which Palestinian underground activists, on the contrary, urged Tehran to press harder and "constrain the Israelis as much as possible." And to spare no "Arab collaborators and sycophants" who "betrayed shared ideals" on the path to achieving its grand goal.
The reason for this detailed double-dealing is obvious. Amidst an intense regional conflict, Hamas's leadership is attempting to strike a balance, maintaining its senior partner in the "axis of resistance" while also avoiding angering the Arabs. This includes Qatar, in particular, which for many years has allowed the Hamas Politburo to legally conduct political activity on its territory.
If Doha were to believe that the Palestinians welcomed the attacks on the Qatari theory, Hamas would have to urgently find a new “home country,” which, given the changes that have taken place in the Middle East, would not be so easy.
The movement's restrained public rhetoric is partly aimed at drawing as little attention as possible to the Gaza Strip and the situation there, so as not to disrupt the previously begun restoration of its own governing institutions.
SPOT HUNTING
The Israeli leadership is so far demonstratively ignoring the developments in the Gaza Strip and, apparently, is not seeking to open a "third front." However, some high-ranking "hawks"—like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir —are calling for the emerging "public courage" to be harnessed to the cause and the final subjugation of the Gaza Strip, driving Hamas out of the exclave.
Moreover, the “big brothers” in the form of Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah are unlikely to come to their aid this time.
However, the Israeli leadership's apathy doesn't equate to a complete lack of action on the Palestinian front. However, security forces have switched from massive strikes to targeted assassinations.
For example, on March 18, as a result of a joint operation by the army and counterintelligence in the exclave, Muhammad Abu Shala, the chief of staff of Hamas military intelligence in the Khan Yunis brigade and a prominent functionary of the Palestinian underground, was eliminated.
However, this operation can be considered more of a settling of old scores, since in 2023 Shala was actively involved in preparing the invasion of Israel and had a high priority on the Jewish state’s “liquidation lists.”
Even though the Israeli army's official press release stated that the man killed was "engaged in restoring the combat capability" of Hamas units, the Israeli side has not provided any confirmation of this information.
RECOVERING STRENGTH
It's worth noting that not all Palestinians are happy with the shift in the balance of power in the Gaza Strip. Technocrats, who have already been promised seats in the new compromise government by international mediators, fear that the strengthening of Hamas will put an end to this project.
That's why they're trying to draw the attention of the Peace Council to the problem, including reaching out to US President Donald Trump.
But the White House is too preoccupied with the conflict in Iran and seems to have significantly weakened its interest in the Palestinian issue. The Peace Council continues to operate, but it is not delving into the situation on the ground. Even countries that previously actively competed for influence in the Gaza Strip have distanced themselves from the issue.
This also plays into Hamas's hands. The movement hopes that the time the US and Israel spend on the campaign against Iran and the ground operation in southern Lebanon will be enough to restore their combat capability to at least 2024 levels. And only after that will they attempt to at least partially recapture the territories beyond the "yellow" line.
Until the organization's goals are achieved, Hamas does not consider it shameful to pretend to be supporters of regional de-escalation.
According to Axios: The Trump administration has begun initial discussions on what peace talks with Iran might look like, involving Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
No direct U.S./Iran contact in recent days. Egypt, Qatar and the U.K. have passed…
According to Axios: The Trump administration has begun initial discussions on what peace talks with Iran might look like, involving Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
No direct U.S./Iran contact in recent days. Egypt, Qatar and the U.K. have passed messages between the two sides, with Egypt and Qatar telling the U.S. and Israel that Iran is interested in negotiating.
The U.S. wants six commitments from Iran:
1. No missile program for five years
2. Zero uranium enrichment
3. Decommissioning of bombed reactors at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow
4. Strict outside observation of centrifuges and related nuclear machinery
5. Regional arms control treaties with a missile cap no higher than 1,000
6. No financing for proxies — Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas
"Our view is we've stunted Iran's growth," a U.S. official told Axios.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/22/2026 00:00 ||
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#1
"Our view is we've stunted Iran's growth," a U.S. official told Axios.
According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release, Iran’s Intelligence and Security Ministry (MOIS) used the domains to conduct “hacking and transnational repression schemes,” which included "claiming credit for hacking activity, posting sensitive data stolen during such hacks, and calling for the killing of journalists, regime dissidents, and Israeli persons."
“Terrorist propaganda online can incite real-world violence. Thanks to our National Security Division and the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, this network of Iranian-backed sites will no longer broadcast anti-American hate,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said regarding the seizures.
#7
The regime has already eliminated 30,000 of the most motivated to rebel. Let that sink in. Several more weeks of whacking the bullyboys needs to progress.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...every time you hear the phrase 
