President Donald Trump is intensifying his efforts to punish his critics by signing a pair of memoranda directing the Justice Department to investigate two officials from his first administration and stripping them of any security clearances they may have.

A government watchdog says the Trump administration forced migrant parents to leave the United States without their children under its family separation policy.

FILE - In this Sept. 23, 2020, file photo, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee during his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Shawn Thew/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s acting head of the Department of Homeland Security abruptly resigned Monday, leaving the post ahead of schedule as the nation faces a heightened terrorism threat from extremists seeking to reverse the election. The announcement by acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf was perplexing. Peter Gaynor, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will serve as acting head of the Department of Homeland Security until the Biden administration takes over. Trump appointed Wolf acting secretary in November 2019, following the resignation of Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary who took over following the resignation of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

“DHS failed to follow the order of succession as it was lawfully designated,” U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote. About 650,000 people are part of DACA, which allows young immigrants who were brought to the country as children to legally work and shields them from deportation. In Garaufis' ruling Saturday, the judge wrote that DHS didn't follow an order of succession established when then-Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned in April 2019. Kevin McAleenan, who succeeded Nielsen until he resigned in October 2019, also didn't have statutory authority to hold the position, Garaufis wrote. President-elect Joe Biden plans to reinstate DACA and is expected to use executive orders to reverse some of Trump's other immigration actions.

A published report says former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen ordered officers to stop people from stepping on U.S. soil at official crossings with Mexico to claim asylum when she was U.S. The internal watchdog said U.S. Customs and Border Protection had unused detention space at two crossings that could have been used to process asylum-seekers. At the time, CBP was turning away people at official crossings, though Nielsen disputed those reports. The inspector general says that CBP, without public notice, stopped processing asylum-seekers at seven of 24 southern border crossings, all of them in the San Diego and Laredo, Texas, field offices. Agents at four border crossings — three in the San Diego field office and one in Nogales, Arizona — turned back asylum-seekers who were on U.S. soil but had not yet cleared inspection.

This March 27, 2018, provided by the Department of Homeland Security, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and then-Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor, right, meet with Honduran President Juan Hernandez, not pictured, and security ministers from the Northern Triangle countries in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Taylor, a former Trump administration official who penned a scathing anti-Trump op-ed and book under the pen name Anonymous made his identify public Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020. (Tim Godbee/Department of Homeland Security via AP)

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White found Kevin McAleenan improperly leapfrogged to acting secretary when Kirstjen Nielsen resigned in April 2019. The Homeland Security and Justice departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday night. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency with Homeland Security that awards citizenship, green cards and temporary work permits, said it was reviewing the decision. Eight advocacy groups sued the administration in August after Homeland Security published a final version of the fee hikes, incorporating public feedback. McAleenan initially proposed the hikes in November in one of his last acts as acting secretary.

“People need to understand how dangerous a moment we are in.”There are plenty of others weighing the same decision. But Mattis and Coats, like former White House chief of staff John Kelly and former national security adviser H.R. The White House punched back with an aggressive attack campaign aimed at discrediting her through a barrage of statements, interviews and denunciations from the lectern in the White House briefing room. “The White House knows if they show this is a very costly thing to do they will scare people from going forward," he said. He added that while more people are still considering coming forward, the White House tactics have worked to some extent — dissuading one senior official who had been on the cusp of speaking out.

Russian President Vladimir Putin "is not deterred,” said Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee. Senior Trump administration officials have been eager to focus more on China in discussing election interference, asserting that Beijing is the more potent danger. Trump's stance on Russian interference, including publicly questioning intelligence agencies' assessment at a Helsinki news conference with Putin, has colored his relationship with spy chiefs. Also Thursday, the Trump administration Justice Department charged a Russian national in a plot to sow discord in the U.S. Himes, the House Intelligence Committee member, said he was concerned heading into the Nov. 3 election about intelligence being twisted for political reasons.

WASHINGTON – A whistleblower's complaint and a tight timeline are making it increasingly unlikely that the Senate will confirm Chad Wolf as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security before the election. President Donald Trump formally sent the nomination late Thursday to the Senate after announcing his intention to appoint Wolf in a tweet last month. But the full Senate is unlikely to hold a confirmation vote before the election, said two Republican aides granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. Trump appointed Wolf acting secretary in November 2019, following the resignation of Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary who took over following the resignation of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. “Their toxic and unethical actions are wholly incompatible with the non-partisan mission of the Department of Homeland Security,” he said.

Brian Murphy says in a whistle-blower complaint filed with the agency's inspector general that he was demoted for refusing to alter his intelligence reports in an illegal and improper" manner. The former FBI agent and Marine Corps veteran had served as principal deputy under secretary in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. In August, he was demoted to assistant to the deputy under secretary for DHS Management. A copy of the complaint was released Wednesday by Rep. Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. A founder and former leader of a neo-Nazi group has pleaded guilty to conspiring to place hoax phone calls targeting an African American church, a Cabinet official, journalists and others. Prosecutors say Denton was leader of a group called Atomwaffen Division. More than a dozen people linked to Atomwaffen Division or an offshoot called Feuerkrieg Division have been charged with federal crimes since the groups formation in 2016. Denton also placed swatting calls to the New York City offices of news outlet ProPublica, and to a ProPublica reporter in Richmond, California. Another member of the swatting conspiracy, former ODU student John William Kirby Kelley, is scheduled to enter a plea next week.

Immigrant advocates and DACA recipients from across the country descended on the steps of the Supreme Court Tuesday morning. One of the plantiffs in the case, Antonio, was first in line in front of the Supreme Court Tuesday morning to attend the arguments. One group of four DACA recipients had been in line since Monday at 1 p.m., staying just steps from the court overnight. According to the Supreme Court Public Information Office, there are typically around 50-70 seats available for the general public and an additional 25 seats for the general public that rotate every 3-5 minutes. Dozens of marchers who began their journey in New York arrived at the Supreme Court just before arguments after walking for nearly two weeks.