President Trump is shutting down Venezuelan airspace “in its entirety” amid a surge in drug trafficking from the South American nation, he announced Saturday morning.
“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY. Trump wrote in a morning Truth Social post.
“Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The measure comes just two days after the president said he would begin bombing land-based drug trafficking targets.
“The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon,” Trump told reporters.
The US has been conducting a sea-focused campaign since September, bombing alleged drug boats originating in Venezuela and other Latin American nations.
Trump claims “poison” trafficking via sea has dropped by 85% since the bombings started, a practice Democrats, scholars and human rights experts have described as extrajudicial executions.
The administration has since carried out at least 21 fatal strikes on the boats. --->READ MORE HERE
The Department of Homeland Security said Friday night that it is seeking to pause 2.2 million pending asylum cases in response to an Afghan asylee’s Thanksgiving eve attack on National Guard members near the White House.
The announcement follows the Trump administration launching a review of more than 720,000 current green-card holders from 19 “countries of concern” — after Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, fatally gunned down Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and critically injured Andrew Wolfe, 24, near the White House.
Lakanwal, evacuated from Afghanistan in 2001 after working with the CIA as part of a “Zero Unit,” was granted asylum in April — which would have made him eligible for a green card 12 months later.
The State Department on Friday also paused visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports “in the wake of a horrific terror attack against the National Guard.”
“The Trump administration has no higher priority than ensuring the safety of Americans and has launched a whole-of-government effort to defend America’s national security,” Tommy Pigott, principal deputy spokesperson, said.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow said on X that his agency “has halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible. The safety of the American people always comes first.”
It was not immediately clear how the pronouncement would impact people arriving at ports of entry claiming persecution in their homelands, or people with pending court dates before immigration judges, who make decisions on their claims.
Edlow previously announced Thursday that “[a]t the direction of [Trump], I have directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.”
Trump, who did not immediately release his own statement on either development, wrote Friday that “Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation.”
A senior White House official told The Post that plans for the green-card review in particular are “being worked on,” with the “details under discussion.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
It’s unclear if a particular nation will be prioritized for scrutiny — or if the green-card holders will be asked to sit for interviews. --->READ MORE HERE
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