The Key West City Commission voted 4-2 to reverse its prior decision to void an agreement with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) to cooperate with President Trump’s mass deportation efforts. The vote follows pressure from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who threatened the city with potential legal action. UPDATE: Key West City Commission reinstates ICE agreement after state pressurehttps://t.co/qzzqM25BOR — Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) July 9, 2025 “Great to see the City of Key West heeding our warning and reversing course by reinstating their participation in ICE’s 287(g) program,” Uthmeier said. “Florida requires cities to commit best efforts to help the Trump administration enforce immigration law, and Floridians expect nothing less!” he added. Great to see the City of Key West heeding our warning and reversing course by reinstating their participation in ICE’s 287(g) program. Florida requires cities to commit best efforts to help the Trump administration enforce immigration law, and Floridians expect nothing less! — Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) July 9, 2025 More info from Florida’s Voice: The commission’s decision effectively reinstates the local police department’s formal partnership with ICE, a partnership that commissioners had voted 6-1 to nullify just over a week ago. The resolution approved Tuesday explicitly states that the prior vote to void the 287(g) agreement was identified as a violation of Florida law— specifically Section 908.103, Florida Statutes—which prohibits sanctuary policies. Uthmeier had immediately criticized Key West’s June 30 vote, stating that the city would be “hearing from [his] office very soon.” “Not in Florida. We will ensure law and order and be a force multiplier for ICE’s enforcement of immigration laws. I hope Key West chooses the easy way, not the hard way,” Uthmeier said. The resolution acknowledges the attorney general’s communication, which stated that voiding the 287(g) agreement “has rendered Key West a sanctuary city, thereby impeding the enforcement of federal immigration laws and exposing the city to potential civil and criminal penalties.” Miami Herald reports that over 100 people attended City Hall, with most asking the commissioners to stick with their original decision. Reversing course, Key West City Commissioners agree to cooperate with ICE agreement https://t.co/LkEPw39Br8 — Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) July 9, 2025 Check out some of the footage: Omg this is hilarious! This is the Key West City Commissioners meeting against the 287(g) program with ICE. @AGJamesUthmeier @JamesUthmeierFL pic.twitter.com/95tuXiT5LE — Key West Jess (@RealKeyWestJess) July 8, 2025 The crowd big mad when they realized the Key West City Commission is going to vote to follow the law and not be a sanctuary city. https://t.co/SvquwWQWQU pic.twitter.com/oV3XPpQf9W — PhotographicFloridian (@JackLinFLL) July 9, 2025 Miami Herald noted: Local musicians Jillian Todd and Jesse Wagner sang the Woody Guthrie song, “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” a protest song Guthrie wrote about a 1948 plane crash that killed almost 30 migrant farm workers on a deportation flight from California to Mexico. Lucy Hawk read a letter on behalf of 133 residents of Bahama Village, which has a large Haitian migrant community, pleading with commissioners to reject the 287(g) agreement. “These people are very proud of what you did last week, and we hope you honor that,” Hawk said. Last Tuesday, the commission voted 6-1 to void the agreement, which allows police officers to stop, question and detain undocumented immigrants, arguing it was not enforceable because it was approved in March by the police chief and not the city manager by way of elected officials. However, following pressure from Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier — including threats to remove elected and unelected officials from office — three of the six commissioners, as well as Key West Mayor Danise Henriquez, voted to stay in the agreement.

The Justice Department has revealed on Tuesday that former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey are now under criminal investigation for their alleged role in the 2016 Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Rollins explained this week that there will be no amnesty for farm workers. That appears to include hotel workers since the President said there will be no amnesty for anyone. He is looking at a guest worker program for those workers who go home and return on a guest visa. […] The post The No Amnesty, Guest Worker Program Explained appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Another day, another far-Left street protest. It gets hard to keep up with the current “thing” as activists switch out causes like the average person changes underwear. Last month’s pro-Palestine protest is yesterday’s anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protest is today’s pro-Iran protest. But the issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution. Even more concerning is how K-12 schools have been infiltrated by organizations to serve as fertile recruiting and training grounds for the next generation of far-Left activists. Leveraging (liberated) ethnic studies courses as an access point, these outside groups hide behind “history” and “culture” to advance their radical ideology and recruit students and staff into their ranks. School districts, in order to comply with California’s Assembly Bill 101 (2021) which mandates that students in the class of 2029-30 complete one semester of ethnic studies, have been hiring far-Left organizations to assist in developing and implementing these course curriculums, as well as running professional development trainings and conferences for teachers. For example, an early July ethnic studies conference in Arizona features a “Pre-Institute Field Day on the Border” which includes “visiting a desert surveillance tower with local organizers.” The participants will “examine how the same technologies are used against Palestinians.” On May 13, 2025, Stockton Unified School District’s board approved spending $28,000 to send ten ethnic studies educators to attend the institute. One of the institute’s sessions, titled “Education as a Front, A Weapon & A Tool,” includes panelists such as the chair of the Association of Raza Educators (ARE) and co-founder of Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMC), and the director of Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC). According to the description on Instagram, the “panel of educators and organizers will share tactics on how we can join forces by highlighting their work in the streets and in the schools, and help us identify critical fronts for cross movement solidarity.” Both ARE and AROC openly engage in far-Left street activism. ARE’s Instagram is filled with protest propaganda, including a February 23, 2023, post which shows members of ARE following ICE agents to their “home base.” Additionally, AROC helped organize the blockade of the Bay Bridge in 2023, and boasts about shutting down the Port of Oakland in 2024 in support of Palestine. In 2023, San Francisco Unified School District approved a four year agreement with AROC to provide “workshops in classrooms related to leadership development and cultural empowerment.” AROC is a fiscal project of the Tides Foundation. Not only are teachers being trained to advance far-Left activism, but the ideology has been embedded in ethnic studies curriculums, including how students are graded. On June 18, 2025, Carlsbad Unified School District’s board approved a year-long elective ethnic studies course which includes units on studying and engaging in activism. Grading rubrics included in the draft document reveal that students are assessed on how well they advocate for “justice in speech and perspective” and recognize “equity as essential.” In other words, students are taught to identify oppression and injustice (critical consciousness) and to act on it (praxis). Critical consciousness, a primary concept in ethnic studies, teaches students to view everything using an oppressor — oppressed binary lens. The goal is to get the youth to constantly seek out new social justice causes to which they can attach themselves. For example, a 2023 Pajaro Valley Unified School District board presentation reveals how the district integrated into its “Ethnic Literature and Studies “ course an “Ethnic Studies Praxis Story Plot” that replaces a traditional plot diagram with one steeped in critical consciousness. Students are taught to read stories in a circular fashion, moving from exposing the problem and recognizing the oppressed and oppressor classes, to “resistance and revolution” and how to apply the lessons to their own social justice activism. Instead of seeking out meaningful resolutions and solutions, these courses, such as in Carlsbad and Parajo Valley schools, create perpetual social justice activists who bounce from one cause to the next in an effort to tear down the “oppressive” system and foment “revolution.” While far-Left ethnic studies consultants make millions in consulting fees to advance their anti-Western Civilization ideology in schools, they are simultaneously turning K-12 students into the next generation of campus and street revolutionaries. As liberated ethnic studies expands its tentacles across the country, parents, board members, administrators, teachers, and policymakers must grapple with this destructive ideology masquerading as “culture” and “history.” The metastasis of these far-Left recruiting and training programs in our K-12 schools must be stopped. American families deserve schools that teach children to read, write, and do math at the highest of standards — not indoctrination into social justice activism. * * * Rhyen Staley is the Research Director for Defending Education. He holds a master’s degree in elementary education and has over a decade of classroom experience in both public and private schools. He has over 25 years of volleyball coaching experience from Women’s Division I down to junior high. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Arkansas GOP senator Tom Cotton, who has been at the forefront of efforts to protect the United States from Communist China, is introducing a bill that would expedite the harvesting of minerals needed for the nation’s defense and reduce the nation’s dependence on China. The bill, titled the Necessary Environmental Exemptions for Defense Act, would make it easier for mining activities and permit the Pentagon to “operate with maximum agility and efficiency to ensure it is prepared to deter and, if necessary, fight and win a conflict with the Chinese Communist Party,” Fox News reported. “Currently, China produces roughly 60% of the world’s critical mineral supply, and processes up to 90%,” Fox News noted. The group of rare earths is comprised of “17 elements composed of scandium,  yttrium, and the lanthanides,” James B. Hedrick of the US Geological Survey noted. The lanthanides include lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium. “On April 4, China’s Ministry of Commerce imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements (REEs) and magnets used in the defense, energy, and automotive sectors in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff increases on Chinese products,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies reported. “The restrictions apply to seven medium and heavy rare earths: samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium. The United States is particularly vulnerable for these supply chains. Until 2023, China accounted for 99 percent of global heavy REEs processing, with only minimal output from a refinery in Vietnam. However, that facility has been shut down for the past year due to a tax dispute, effectively giving China a monopoly over supply.” “Current environmental laws put our readiness to counter Communist China at risk and waste taxpayer dollars on projects that stall out and die on the vine,” Cotton told Fox News Digital. “This bill will create jobs, better arm and prepare our soldiers, and spend taxpayer dollars more efficiently.” Cotton’s bill would permit the administration to circumvent the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act and Federal Water Pollution Control Act; he stated that they “frequently and unnecessarily delay” the military’s readiness without “substantial benefit to the environment or protected species.” Cotton suggested as far back as January 30, 2020, that the COVID-19 virus might have come from Wuhan, prompting harsh criticisms from leftists. Speaking at a Senate Armed Services Hearing, he asserted, “I want to talk about the biggest and most important story in the world. The Wuhan coronavirus. This coronavirus is a catastrophe on the scale of Chernobyl for China. But actually, it’s probably worse than Chernobyl, which was localized in its effect. The coronavirus could result in a global pandemic. While you were all sleeping overnight, the number of diagnosed cases in China increased by 30%. Let me be clear: that’s not new cases; that is just newly-admitted cases. It is probably several orders of magnitude higher than that.” “We still don’t know where coronavirus originated,” Cotton said. “Could have been a market, a farm, a food processing company. I would note that Wuhan has China’s only biosafety level-four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus.” In March 2020, Cotton said bluntly, “I have never trusted a Communist and I never will trust a Communist. And that’s who runs China — the Chinese Communist Party.” A 2019 Pentagon report stated: China’s military modernization also targets capabilities with the potential to degrade core U.S. operational and technological advantages. China uses a variety of methods to acquire foreign military and dual-use technologies, including targeted foreign direct investment, cyber theft, and exploitation of private Chinese nationals’ access to these technologies, as well as harnessing its intelligence services, computer intrusions, and other illicit approaches. In 2018, Chinese efforts to acquire sensitive, dual-use, or military-grade equipment from the United States included dynamic random access memory, aviation technologies, and anti- submarine warfare technologies.

Former President Joe Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, pleaded the Fifth during a closed-door deposition before Congress on Wednesday. The interview, part of an investigation into Biden’s mental state and whether he authorized the use of autopen signatures for major executive actions, lasted roughly an hour on Capitol Hill. In a statement, O’Connor’s attorneys told House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and the other members of the Oversight Committee that their client would not violate his oath of confidentiality to his patients, including Biden. They also insisted that a “pending” Department of Justice criminal investigation left O’Connor “no choice” but to assert his Fifth Amendment rights. Comer, who had subpoenaed O’Connor to testify, confirmed that the witness declined to cooperate. “It’s now clear there was a conspiracy to cover up President Biden’s cognitive decline after Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician and family business associate, refused to answer any questions and chose to hide behind the Fifth Amendment,” Comer said in a post on X. “The American people demand transparency but Dr. O’Connor would rather conceal the truth,” Comer added. “Dr. O’Connor took the Fifth when asked if he was told to lie about President Biden’s health and whether he was fit to be President of the United States. Congress must assess legislative solutions to prevent such a cover-up from happening again. We will continue to interview more Biden White House aides to get the answers Americans deserve.” O’Connor’s deposition took place after Trump waived his executive privilege, which also happened for former White House Staff Secretary and Director of the Domestic Policy Council Neera Tanden, who testified for several hours last month and denied there was an effort to cover up Biden’s condition. Other former Biden aides are expected to testify before the House Oversight Committee in the coming weeks. Democrats have dismissed the House Oversight Committee’s probe as baseless. “The only thing extraordinary that came out of that deposition was it was an extraordinary waste of time,” Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) told reporters on the day Tanden gave testimony. Biden, now 82, abandoned his 2024 re-election bid following a faltering presidential debate against Trump amid pressure from allies. A book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on Biden’s “decline” and the “cover-up,” alongside the former president’s recent “aggressive” prostate cancer diagnosis and the release of audio from special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with him, has intensified scrutiny. Trump ordered a separate investigation into whether aides improperly used an autopen for executive actions in an effort to conceal Biden’s health issues, suggesting there could be “implications” for the legality and validity of the presidential acts in question. Senate Republicans are also looking into Biden’s mental fitness. Biden has pushed back on the notion that he did not dictate his executive actions. “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” Biden said in a statement. “This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans.”

Three teenage girls are suing the state of Oregon over laws that allow trans-identifying men to compete in women’s sports. Two of the girls told Fox News they were inspired by the online fight between former Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and conservative activist Riley Gaines. Maddie Eischen and Sophia Carpenter refused to compete against a trans-identifying athlete at an Oregon track meet in April, Fox News reported. Gaines contacted the teenagers and recommended that they file a lawsuit against the state. Eischen and Carpenter told the outlet they were convinced by the social media fight between Gaines and Biles. “I think especially when Riley Gaines and Simone Biles, and that whole thing happened and kind of seeing how that played out and how the public responded, I think that was encouraging to see how many people are on the side of protecting women’s sports,” Carpenter told Fox News. Eischen said she appreciated the negative response to Biles’ comments. “All of the comments on Simone’s post were very negative to her, I saw people that commented on it, and I liked it. But there was a lot of shock that she had even said that, and disappointment,” Eischen told Fox News. The fight began when Biles attacked Gaines on X seemingly out of the blue, calling her a “sore loser” and telling her to “bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male,” The Daily Wire reported. A few days later, following immense backlash, Biles posted an apology and then appeared to delete her X account. The account has since been restored. America First Policy Institute filed the Title IX lawsuit filed the lawsuit on behalf of the teens. “This case is a landmark federal challenge to a statewide policy that permits males to compete in K–12 girls’ sports based on nothing more than self-proclaimed gender identity,” AFPI said in a statement on its website. “That policy, enforced by the Oregon Department of Education and the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA), violates the plain language of Title IX and undermines decades of progress for female students and athletes.” The lawsuit names the Oregon Department of Education, the OSAA, and Gov. Tina Kotek as defendants. Gaines thanked AFPI for representing the teens. “Simone Biles’ disparaging comments towards female athletes totally backfired,” Gaines said on social media. “She inadvertently inspired two high school girls in Oregon to sue the state after being forced to compete against a boy at their state championship meet. Poetic.” Simone Biles' disparaging comments towards female athletes totally backfired. She inadvertently inspired two high school girls in Oregon to sue the state after being forced to compete against a boy at their state championship meet. Poetic.pic.twitter.com/ilLwLHgGNM — Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) July 9, 2025 The lawsuit follows President Trump’s executive order banning men from women’s sports. The Department of Justice just announced a lawsuit against the state of California over alleged Title IX violations, in reference to keeping men out of women’s sports. “When the law is clear but the government refuses to follow it, it’s up to citizens and the courts to restore balance,” AFPI said. “This fight is far from over.”