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Court orders Biden admin to stop selling border wall materials, was ‘illegally subverting’ laws: Texas AG

Court orders Biden admin to stop selling border wall materials, was ‘illegally subverting’ laws: Texas AG

The Biden administration on Friday said it would stop selling off materials slated to be used to build a border wall ahead of the incoming Trump administration, which has promised to bring back tougher efforts to combat illegal immigration. The Biden administration confirmed to a court that it will agree to a court order preventing it from disposing of any further border wall materials over the next 30 days, allowing President-elect Trump to use those materials, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said.  The Biden administration has been auctioning off border wall parts since at least 2023, with parts listed for sale on auction marketplaces, after it abruptly shut down most border wall construction in 2021. GOP SENATOR MOVES TO BLOCK FEDS FROM DISPOSING OF BORDER WALL MATERIALS AMID AUCTION BACKLASH  President-elect Donald Trump then urged the Biden Administration to stop. Fox News Digital has reached out to Trump’s representatives.  “We have successfully blocked the Biden Administration from disposing of any further border wall materials before President Trump takes office,” Paxton said.  “This follows our major victory forcing Biden to build the wall, and we will hold his Administration accountable for illegally subverting our Nation’s border security until their very last day in power, especially where their actions are clearly motivated by a desire to thwart President-elect Trump’s immigration agenda,” he added.  CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS In a news release, Paxton’s office said that if the Biden administration disposes of border wall materials purchased with funds subject to an injunction in violation of a court order, “it would constitute unethical and sanctionable conduct and officials could be held in contempt of court.” Texas has said it intends to do all it can to help the incoming administration build the wall at the southern border when Trump enters office. The Biden administration abruptly ended border wall construction in January 2021 after 450 miles had been built in the first Trump administration. While border hawks say a wall is a critical tool to stopping illegal immigration, some Democrats have said a wall project is xenophobic and ineffective. HOUSE OVERSIGHT REPUBLICANS INVESTIGATING BIDEN ADMIN’S SALE OF BORDER WALL PARTS: ‘WASTE AND ABUSE’  The auctioning off of border wall parts began in 2023 with parts listed for sale on GovPlanet.com, an online auction marketplace. The Defense Department’s logistics agency told media outlets that the excess material had been turned over for disposition by the Army Corps of Engineers and was now for sale. Those auctions have continued, with officials in Arizona telling Fox News Digital that auctions have been occurring weekly for some time. The practice drew attention last week when The Daily Wire published video showing unused wall parts being transported on flatbed trucks in Arizona, even though the materials could be used in the next Trump administration.  Trump previously called Biden’s efforts to sell unused border wall materials at a discounted rate “almost a criminal act.” Trump said the auctions would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to re-purchase the large steel bollards and concrete. He called on President Biden to “please stop selling the wall” and suggested his team would obtain a restraining order to halt the sales. “What they’re doing is really an act, it’s almost a criminal act,” he said. “They know we’re going to use it and if we don’t have it, we’re going to have to rebuild it, and it’ll cost double what it cost years ago, and that’s hundreds of millions of dollars because you’re talking about a lot of, a lot of wall.” Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw, Brooke Singman and Peter Pinedo contributed to this report. 

Biden White House to send $1.25 billion in weapon aid to Ukraine before Trump transition: report

Biden White House to send .25 billion in weapon aid to Ukraine before Trump transition: report

In a final push ahead of the impending Trump Administration, the Biden White House is set to announce an additional $1.25 billion in military assistance to Ukraine. The large package of aid includes a significant number of munitions, including for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems and the HAWK air defense system. The package will also include Stinger missiles and 155 mm and 105 mm artillery rounds. The officials are expected to make the announcement on Monday, the Associated Press reported. ZELENSKYY FEARS DANGER IF UKRAINE LOSES UNITY, DEFEAT IF US CUTS FUNDS, 1,000 DAYS AFTER WAR BEGAN  The recent funding came after Biden earlier this month announced a $988 million aid package to Ukraine to ensure it “has the tools it needs to prevail in its fight against Russian aggression.”  “This administration has made its choice. And so has a bipartisan coalition in Congress. The next administration must make its own choice,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin previously said during a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. “But, from this library, from this podium, I am confident that President Reagan would have stood on the side of Ukraine, American security and human freedom.”  The Biden administration has been committed to giving Ukraine as much aid as possible before Trump takes office in January. During the campaign, President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance heavily criticized the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion. FLORIDA REP CALLS OUT DEMOCRATS FOR ‘ESCALATING’ CONFLICT IN UKRAINE Trump also said he would end the war before even entering office without offering further details. Vance suggested earlier this year that the best way to end the war was for Ukraine to cede the land Russia has seized and for a demilitarized zone to be established, a proposal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flatly rejected.  Since the campaign trial, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while at a ceremony commemorating the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Saturday after a devastating fire there in 2019.  This latest announcement marks the administration’s 22nd aid package through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.  CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Earlier in December, House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected a request by the administration for Congress to authorize $24 billion in additional funding. “It is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now,” Johnson previously said. “We have a newly elected president, and we’re going to wait and take the new commander in chief’s direction on all that. So, I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now.”

Trump says fate of TikTok should be in his hands when he returns to White House

Trump says fate of TikTok should be in his hands when he returns to White House

President-elect Trump says he should be the one to make the decision on whether TikTok can continue operating in the United States due to the unique national security and First Amendment issues raised by this case, he said in an amicus brief Friday. Trump’s argument comes in an amicus brief “supporting neither party,” filed Friday, weeks before the Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments on Jan. 10, 2025 on the law that requires a divestment of TikTok from foreign adversary control. TIKTOK DIVESTMENT COULD BE ‘DEAL OF THE CENTURY’ FOR TRUMP, HOUSE CHINA COMMITTEE CHAIR SAYS TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a company based in Beijing and connected to the Chinese Communist Party.  “Today, President Donald J. Trump has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to extend the deadline that would cause TikTok’s imminent shutdown, and allow President Trump the opportunity to resolve the issue in a way that saves TikTok and preserves American national security once he resumes office as President of the United States on January 20, 2025,” Trump spokesman and incoming White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital. “President Donald J. Trump (“President Trump”) is the 45th and soon to be the 47th President of the United States of America,” the brief states. “On January 20, 2025, President Trump will assume responsibility for the United States’ national security, foreign policy, and other vital executive functions.” Trump argues that “this case presents an unprecedented, novel, and difficult tension between free-speech rights on one side, and foreign policy and national-security concerns on the other.” “As the incoming Chief Executive, President Trump has a particularly powerful interest in and responsibility for those national-security and foreign-policy questions, and he is the right constitutional actor to resolve the dispute through political means. President Trump also has a unique interest in the First Amendment issues raised in this case,” the brief states. “Through his historic victory on November 5, 2024, President Trump received a powerful electoral mandate from American voters to protect the free-speech rights of all Americans—including the 170 million Americans who use TikTok.” “President Trump is uniquely situated to vindicate these interests, because ‘the President and the Vice President of the United States are the only elected officials who represent all the voters in the Nation,’” the brief continues. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Police searching for man who allegedly groped 5-year-old near New York migrant shelter

Police searching for man who allegedly groped 5-year-old near New York migrant shelter

The New York Police Department Special Victims Unit is searching for a man suspected of groping a 5-year-old girl near a government-funded migrant shelter in Midtown Manhattan. New York local news source 1010 WINS reported the girl and her mother, who have not been identified by authorities, are residents of a migrant shelter funded by the City of New York at the old Roosevelt Hotel. A representative from the New York Police Department’s Deputy Commissioner of Public Information office confirmed the investigation to Fox News Digital. The representative told Fox News Digital the incident occurred about a block away from the Roosevelt Hotel at 5th Avenue and 46th Street at about 7 p.m. Dec. 24. BLUE STATE FACES SPIKE IN MIGRANT SEX CRIMES AS TOP CITY PLEDGES RESISTANCE TO TRUMP DEPORTATIONS The representative declined to give any information about the identity of the suspect and did not say whether he was also a resident of the Roosevelt Hotel migrant shelter. However, according to 1010 WINS, the suspect knows the girl and her mother.  The radio station reported that after the alleged groping, the girl was taken to Bellevue, a hospital in Manhattan. Referred to by some as a “modern Ellis Island,” the Roosevelt Hotel was converted into a migrant shelter and processing hub by the City of New York in May 2023 amid a surge in migrants flocking to the city. The hotel has become the epicenter of much of the migrant gang activity in New York City, resulting in violence and crime reportedly spiking in the area. JUVENILE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT GANG MEMBERS BEHIND ROBBERY SPREE STAY OUT OF JAIL DUE TO AGE The New York Police Department has not said whether the suspect they are searching for is a member of the notorious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua or any other gang. Tren de Aragua has had a heavy presence in the hotel’s vicinity. On Dec. 5, a 17-year-old, Yeremi Colino, allegedly a member of the Tren de Aragua-affiliated gang “Diablos de la 42” (Devils of 42nd Street), was stabbed to death during what is believed to have been a confrontation with a rival gang.  Another migrant, 18-year-old Alan Magalles Bello, was also stabbed alongside Colino but survived. 

Arizona attorney general warns Trump deporting Dreamers would be a ‘bright red line’

Arizona attorney general warns Trump deporting Dreamers would be a ‘bright red line’

Arizona’s top law enforcement officer said in a recent interview she is unafraid to stand up to President-elect Trump on immigration enforcement. Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes told the U.K.’s Guardian any plans to construct deportation centers, which she previously called “concentration camps,” in the Grand Canyon State would be a nonstarter. Mayes defended Dreamers, beneficiaries of the Obama-era DACA program, saying any federal attempts to send them to their home countries would be “a bright red line for me.” “I will not stand for an attempt to deport them or undermine them,” Mayes said. “I will do everything I can legally to fight [family separation or construction of deportation camps]. MD MAYOR PUSHING IMMIGRANT LEGAL ADVOCACY FUND TO REBUFF TRUMP AGENDA “Not on our soil.” The Dreamer moniker originates from the DREAM Act — Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors. It was first proposed by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and the late Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in 2001 and has been reintroduced in several succeeding sessions of Congress by Durbin but has never become law. Most recently, it was proposed in 2023 by Durbin and his Republican counterpart in Senate Judiciary Committee leadership, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Former President Obama borrowed pieces of the legislation when he instituted DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump previously tried to get rid of DACA but was stopped by the Supreme Court in DHS v. University of California. MARYLAND GOVERNOR DEFENDS $190K TRUMP-CENTRIC CONSULTANT CONTRACT AS PRESIDENT-ELECT MOVES IN NEXT DOOR “I think the Supreme Court will ultimately see the merits of protecting them,” Mayes said of Dreamers.  “We want to give the courts the opportunity to make the right decision here, and we’ll be making very strong arguments on that proposition.” In previous comments reported by the Arizona Mirror, Mayes said the issue with mass deportation proposals from people like Trump and “border czar”-designate Tom Homan is that they can lead to abuses of the system. Mayes has said she wants to see violent criminal offenders and drug cartel members removed from the U.S. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP In the Guardian interview, Mayes credited near-complete border-state cooperation on the matter of immigration. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Mayes are “united,” she said, adding Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is the one border state lawman who is not. “[W]e are going to fight for due process and for individual rights,” she said of herself, Torrez and Bonta. Mayes also acknowledged the fentanyl crisis and a porous border, saying Arizonans rightly want it rectified. She reportedly said more federal resources should be spent on additional Border Patrol and prosecutions of cartel-connected people, as opposed to Trump’s idea of using the National Guard to help deport illegal immigrants. “[W]hen Arizonans voted for Donald Trump, they did not vote to shred the Arizona and U.S. Constitution [and] I strongly believe that,” she told the Guardian. Fox News Digital reached out to Team Trump and some members of Arizona’s Republican congressional delegation for comment on Mayes’ Guardian interview but did not receive a response by press time.