Trump praises ICE agents he sent to US airports and again suggests deploying national guard amid DHS shutdown – as it happened

This concludes our live coverage of US politics for the day. We’ll be back on Thursday. Here is a summary of today’s developments:

• The Senate remained deadlocked on Wednesday over funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), after Republicans proposed legislation that would restart all of its operations with the exception of those involved in deportations, but exclude reforms that Democrats want. The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, quickly shot down the offer, and said Democrats had countered with a measure that coupled DHS funding with a host of new guardrails on immigration enforcement operations – something the party has insisted on for months. More here.

• The acting head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said on Wednesday that airports across the country are experiencing the “highest wait times in TSA history”, as the partial shutdown of the DHS enters its sixth week. At a House homeland security committee hearing, Ha Nguyen McNeill said her agency has been shut down for 50% of the fiscal year so far – a stretch that includes last year’s record-breaking 43‑day lapse in federal funding. She told lawmakers that by Friday, TSA employees will have missed $1bn in paychecks as a result of the closures. More here.

• The US has launched another strike on a vessel in the Caribbean, killing four people, the US Southern Command said. The command, which oversees combatant operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced on X that it had conducted a “lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations”. More here.

• Progressive lawmakers have unveiled a new policy to place a moratorium on the construction of AI datacenters. The policy, announced by Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democratic representative, aims to ensure the AI boom protects the environment and communities, and benefits workers instead of harming them. More here.

• The Trump administration’s federal housing director Bill Pulte is asking prosecutors to investigate New York attorney general Letitia James for insurance fraud, according to criminal referrals reported by MS Now and CBS News. The referrals to prosecutors in Florida and Illinois allege that James may have committed mortgage insurance fraud. The allegations center on applications made to Universal Property Insurance company, which is based in Florida, and Allstate in Illinois. More here.

President Trump seized on the death of the 18-year-old student who was shot last week, echoing his anti-immigrant agenda after a Venezuelan migrant was charged in connection with the death.

He went as far as to call the suspect an “illegal alien monster” during his remarks at tonight’s dinner.

Sheridan Gorman, 18, was killed on Thursday near Loyola University Chicago. Earlier this week, Trump accused the Venezuelan citizen of entering the US “through the open door policy” of the Biden administration.

Donald Trump praised US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after he ordered their deployment to airports nationwide to help alleviate security line delays amid the partial government shutdown.

“We decided to use our great patriots of ICE,” he said on Wednesday. “These people are great. They have endured so much punishment.”

“They didn’t need any rehabilitation, but they did in terms of the fake news, and they’re doing such an unbelievable job at the airports,” he said.

Trump also said that he would send “the national guard if we need to.”

Trump claimed ICE agents reduced wait times at airport security checkpoints from four hours to half an hour.

Earlier today, Ha Nguyen McNeill, the TSA’s acting administrator, said multiple airports are experiencing callout rates higher than 40%, and air travelers are experiencing the TSA’s highest wait times ever.

At tonight’s dinner, Donald Trump once again slammed mail-in voting despite having cast a mail-in ballot himself just days earlier.

According to the Palm Beach county supervisor of elections website, his ballot was for the special election in House District 87, where his Mar-a-Lago golf club is located. (He voted for Republican candidate, Jon Maples, who lost against Democrat Emily Gregory on Tuesday).

“I hate mail-in ballots,” he said on Wednesday. “I’ve won with mail-in ballots, but I hate mail-in ballots because basically, it’s a way of cheating.”

Donald Trump has just begun to address Republicans and donors at the annual National Republican Congressional Committee fundraising dinner at Union Station in Washington.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson announced that Trump will receive a so-called “America First” award. He also said that the dinner set a new fundraising record, bringing in $37m.

The White House will miss a Thursday deadline to name a permanent director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), leaving acting director Jay Bhattacharya in charge of the agency.

The CDC has faced leadership instability since August, when President Trump dismissed director Susan Monarez over policy disagreements with Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Bhattacharya has served as acting CDC director since mid-February, but federal rules impede him from serving any longer than this week.

“Dr. Bhattacharya will continue to oversee the CDC by performing the delegable duties of the CDC director,” Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesman Andrew Nixon told The Washington Post.

Bhattacharya, who also leads the National Institutes of Health, is the third person to head the agency in seven months, following a brief tenure by Health and Human Services deputy secretary Jim O’Neill.

Senate Republicans today launched a probe into abortion pill manufacturers and called on the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to curb online sales of the drug mifepristone, the latest move in the Trump administration’s broader push to limit abortion access nationwide.

The probe is being led by Bill Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and comes amid a broader push by conservatives to restrict access to mifepristone following the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade.

“Chemical abortion drug makers profit off killing innocent children while putting mothers’ lives at risk,” said Cassidy in a statement. “These manufacturers and websites have facilitated the explosion in online sales of these harmful drugs without regard for women’s health and safety while opening the door for coercion and abuse. FDA should act within its existing authorities to curb this abuse and immediately reinstate safeguards such as the in-person dispensing requirement.”

Republicans are arguing that, even though there are still Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy requirements in place, manufacturers are not demonstrating how they ensure that the doctors and pharmacies selling their drugs are actually following those rules, “especially when pills are sold online and without the in-person oversight of a medical professional.”

Senators are seeking detailed compliance records from all three FDA-approved manufacturers: Danco Laboratories, GenBioPro and Evita Solutions, including production sites, prescriber certifications, pharmacy audits, adverse event reports, sales data and reasons for any prescriber or pharmacy decertifications.

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to return a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) to the US, ruling that her deportation to Mexico last month was a “flagrant violation” of the legal protections afforded to immigrants who arrived in the country as children.

Judge Dena Coggins said in her Monday ruling the administration must return Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a Daca recipient, to the US within seven days. She was arrested on 18 February in Sacramento during her green-card appointment, and was deported to Mexico the next day.

“Less than 24 hours after the petitioner’s good-faith appearance to pursue lawful permanent resident status in this country”, Coggins wrote, “she was removed to a nation where she had not lived in over 27 years, pursuant to an order purportedly entered against her when she was 15 years old.”

Estrada Juarez said in a statement that she was “overwhelmed with relief and hope after learning about the court’s decision”.

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The racial justice organization NAACP, which has organized along grassroots groups across the country in support of local moratoria on AI datacenters, applauded the new federal proposal for a temporary ban on the facilities which Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled on Wednesday.

“Part of the reason why the NAACP called for a moratorium on AI data center build-outs in many places is that they’re essential where there is no transparency, no real community say and no clear plan for long-term impacts – both economic and environmental,” said Abre’ Conner, NAACP’s environmental and climate justice director. “AI and the dirty datacenters that run it pose grave threats to communities across the country.”

The justice department has reached an undisclosed financial settlement with Michael Flynn, a retired army lieutenant general who served as Trump’s national security adviser in his first term, resolving his lawsuit that sought millions of dollars for alleged wrongful prosecution.

The lawsuit stems from the fallout of the 2017 investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and potential obstruction by Trump and his allies. Flynn twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration.

He later tried to withdraw his plea, claiming prosecutors violated his rights and duped him into a plea agreement.

In 2023, Flynn sued the justice department, alleging he was maliciously prosecuted as part of the investigation by then special counsel Robert Mueller. His lawsuit sought at least $50m in damages.

The settlement was revealed in a brief filing in federal court in Tampa, Florida, according to the Associated Press.

The US Postal Service plans to introduce its first-ever fuel surcharge on packages to offset rising energy costs, according to a statement.

The surcharge, set at 8%, is expected to take effect on 26 April and remain in place until 17 January 2027 under the current plan.

Packages under Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage and Parcel Select will be affected by the surcharge.

“Transportation costs have been increasing, and our competitors have reacted with a number of surcharges,” reads the statement by the USPS. “We have steadfastly avoided surcharges and this charge is less than one-third of what our competitors charge for fuel alone, so even with this change, the Postal Service continues to offer great value in shipping with some of the lowest rates in the industrialized world.”

Democrats were quick to voice their concern.

“Groceries. Gas. Now packages. Is there anything Donald Trump hasn’t made more expensive? Call it what it is: the Trump Mail Tax,” said JB Pritzker, governor of Illinois, in a post on social media.

“Trump has messed up on affordability so badly that he’s even managed to make the mail more expensive,” the US senator Raphael Warnock said in a post.