Daily Caller
Mayor of Chicago Vows To Fight Trump’s Immigration Crackdown As Notorious Venezuelan Gang Takes Root In His City

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson on Tuesday vowed to fight the incoming Trump administration’s plans to crack down on illegal immigration and sanctuary cities, even as the city struggles with its own presence of migrant gang crime.
When asked if he was prepared to resist President-elect Donald Trump’s preparations to deploy “a squad” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to sanctuary cities like Chicago and attempts to withhold federal funds from sanctuary governments, Johnson reaffirmed his commitment to local laws that prevent cooperation with immigration enforcement authorities. The comments came despite recent reports indicating organized migrant crime has been hitting the Windy City, particularly from Tren de Aragua, an international crime syndicate originating from Venezuela.
“We’re going to defend the people of this city because, look, his attack — let’s be very clear — the president-elect, former President Trump, his threat is not just toward new arrivals and undocumented families,” Johnson said. “His threats are also against black families.”
“We’re going to stand up and protect undocumented individuals,” the mayor went on, and continued to make a connection between immigration enforcement and racial animus.
The mayor’s comments were in reaction to former ICE director Tom Homan, who has been tapped by the president-elect to serve as “border czar” for the upcoming administration. In his announcement of the appointment, Trump said Homan would be in charge of all deportations of illegal migrants.
“If you are not going to help us, get the hell out of the way because we’re gonna do it,” Homan said on Monday in his first interview since his appointment, speaking on expected pushback from anti-ICE politicians. “So, if we can’t get assistance in New York City, we may have to double the number of agents we send in New York City.”
“We are going to do the job,” Homan continued. “Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals.”
Law enforcement authorities confirmed in September that Tren de Aragua members have been arrested in Cook County — where Chicago is located — on weapons and narcotics charges, and internal emails obtained from the Cook County Sheriff’s office confirmed that members of the Venezuelan gang are in the city, according to NBC Chicago. The arrival of Tren de Aragua — which has coincided with Chicago’s own migrant crisis — has been linked to a rise in crime and has led to concerns of an impending turf war between their members and local gangs in the city, according to Fox 32.
The Chicago Police Department has arrested at least 30 suspected Tren de Aragua members between January 2023 and September of this year, documents obtained by the New York Post indicate.
Chicago officials have welcomed in at least 43,000 migrants since August 2022 and have so far spent around $150 million to house and feed them, amid the border crisis that began under the Biden-Harris administration. Many of the foreign nationals are from Venezuela and have largely been bussed into the city by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as he has sought to relieve his own state.
A growing number of Democratic politicians, such as the mayor of Los Angeles and a slate of governors across the country, have also declared their opposition to Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.
Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Business
Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan Ramp Up Pressure On Google Parent Company To Deal With ‘Censorship’

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Andi Shae Napier
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan are turning their attention to Google over concerns that the tech giant is censoring users and infringing on Americans’ free speech rights.
Google’s parent company Alphabet, which also owns YouTube, appears to be the GOP’s next Big Tech target. Lawmakers seem to be turning their attention to Alphabet after Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta ended its controversial fact-checking program in favor of a Community Notes system similar to the one used by Elon Musk’s X.
Cruz recently informed reporters of his and fellow senators’ plans to protect free speech.
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“Stopping online censorship is a major priority for the Commerce Committee,” Cruz said, as reported by Politico. “And we are going to utilize every point of leverage we have to protect free speech online.”
Following his meeting with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai last month, Cruz told the outlet, “Big Tech censorship was the single most important topic.”
Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent subpoenas to Alphabet and other tech giants such as Rumble, TikTok and Apple in February regarding “compliance with foreign censorship laws, regulations, judicial orders, or other government-initiated efforts” with the intent to discover how foreign governments, or the Biden administration, have limited Americans’ access to free speech.
“Throughout the previous Congress, the Committee expressed concern over YouTube’s censorship of conservatives and political speech,” Jordan wrote in a letter to Pichai in March. “To develop effective legislation, such as the possible enactment of new statutory limits on the executive branch’s ability to work with Big Tech to restrict the circulation of content and deplatform users, the Committee must first understand how and to what extent the executive branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.”
Jordan subpoenaed tech CEOs in 2023 as well, including Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Tim Cook of Apple and Pichai, among others.
Despite the recent action against the tech giant, the battle stretches back to President Donald Trump’s first administration. Cruz began his investigation of Google in 2019 when he questioned Karan Bhatia, the company’s Vice President for Government Affairs & Public Policy at the time, in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Cruz brought forth a presentation suggesting tech companies, including Google, were straying from free speech and leaning towards censorship.
Even during Congress’ recess, pressure on Google continues to mount as a federal court ruled Thursday that Google’s ad-tech unit violates U.S. antitrust laws and creates an illegal monopoly. This marks the second antitrust ruling against the tech giant as a different court ruled in 2024 that Google abused its dominance of the online search market.
Daily Caller
Daily Caller EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s Broad Ban On Risky Gain-Of-Function Research Nears Completion

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Emily Kopp
President Donald Trump could sign a sweeping executive order banning gain-of-function research — research that makes viruses more dangerous in the lab — as soon as May 6, according to a source who has worked with the National Security Council on the issue.
The executive order will take a broad strokes approach, banning research amplifying the infectivity or pathogenicity of any virulent and replicable pathogen, according to the source, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the anticipated executive action. But significant unresolved issues remain, according to the source, including whether violators will be subject to criminal penalties as bioweaponeers.
The executive order is being steered by Gerald Parker, head of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, which has been incorporated into the NSC. Parker did not respond to requests for comment.
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In the process of drafting the executive order, Parker has frozen out the federal agencies that have for years championed gain-of-function research and staved off regulation — chiefly Anthony Fauci’s former institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.
The latest policy guidance on gain-of-function research, unveiled under the Biden administration in 2024, was previously expected to go into effect May 6. According to a March 25 letter cosigned by the American Society for Microbiology, the Association for Biosafety and Biosecurity International, and Council on Governmental Relations, organizations that conduct pathogen research have not received direction from the NIH on that guidance — suggesting the executive order would supersede the May 6 deadline.
The 2024 guidance altered the scope of experiments subject to more rigorous review, but charged researchers, universities and funding agencies like NIH with its implementation, which critics say disincentivizes reporting. Many scientists say that researchers and NIH should not be the primary entities conducting cost–benefit analyses of pandemic virus studies.
Parker previously served as the head of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), a group of outside experts that advises NIH on biosecurity matters, and in that role recommended that Congress stand up a new government agency to advise on gain-of-function research. Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield has also endorsed moving gain-of-function research decision making out of the NIH to an independent commission.
“Given the well documented lapses in the NIH review process, policymakers should … remove final approval of any gain-of function research grants from NIH,” Redfield said in a February op-ed.
It remains to be seen whether the executive order will articulate carveouts for gain-of-function research without risks of harm such as research on non-replicative pseudoviruses, which can be used to study viral evolution without generating pandemic viruses.
It also remains to be seen whether the executive order will define “gain-of-function research” tightly enough to stand up to legal scrutiny should a violator be charged with a crime.
Risky research on coronaviruses funded by the NIH at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through the U.S. nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance typifies the loopholes in NIH’s existing regulatory framework, some biosecurity experts say.
Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act in 2023 indicated that EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak submitted a proposal to the Pentagon in 2018 called “DEFUSE” describing gain-of-function experiments on viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 but downplayed to his intended funder the fact that many of the tests would occur in Wuhan, China.
Daszak and EcoHealth were both debarred from federal funding in January 2025 but have faced no criminal charges.
“I don’t know that criminal penalties are necessary. But we do need more sticks in biosafety as well as carrots,” said a biosecurity expert who requested anonymity to avoid retribution from his employer for weighing in on the expected policy. “For instance, biosafety should be a part of tenure review and whether you get funding for future work.”
Some experts say that it is likely that the COVID-19 crisis was a lab-generated pandemic, and that without major policy changes it might not be the last one.
“Gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens caused the COVID-19 pandemic, killing 20 million and costing $25 trillion,” said Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist and longtime critic of high-risk virology, to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “If not stopped, gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens likely will cause future lab-generated pandemics.”
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