Federal immigration authorities have taken a Nigerian national into custody in California in connection with alleged financial crimes, including identity theft and bank fraud, as removal proceedings move forward.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed that officers in Los Angeles detained 49 year old Etinosa Osahon on May 21. The agency said the arrest followed a review of his criminal history, which includes allegations of mail theft, possession of stolen mail, bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
Officials indicated that Osahon remains in federal custody while immigration authorities determine the next steps regarding his removal from the United States.
Details released by the agency show that the case is being handled within the broader immigration enforcement framework, with proceedings underway to decide whether deportation will be carried out.
Accounts from Sahara Reporters and Punch Nigeria cited statements from immigration officials confirming both the arrest and the charges tied to the suspect’s record.
The arrest comes amid continued national debate over the role and reach of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security and is responsible for enforcing immigration laws and investigating cross border crimes.
Over the years, the agency has drawn criticism from civil rights advocates and immigration groups over its detention practices and enforcement operations. Concerns have focused on workplace raids, family separations, and allegations of excessive force during arrests.
At the same time, supporters of the agency argue that its work remains critical to national security and the integrity of the immigration system, particularly in cases involving financial crimes and identity theft.
The case involving Osahon reflects a wider pattern in which immigration enforcement intersects with financial crime investigations. Authorities often prioritize cases that involve identity theft and fraud because of their impact on financial institutions and individuals whose identities may be compromised.
Legal analysts note that such arrests can strengthen the government’s position in removal proceedings, as criminal allegations tied to fraud offenses are frequently treated as serious violations under immigration law. However, they also point out that due process remains essential, as individuals in immigration custody still retain legal rights during proceedings.
The arrest also highlights the continued focus on major urban centers like Los Angeles, where federal agents concentrate resources due to higher population density and reported financial crime activity.
More broadly, the case underscores the ongoing tension between enforcement priorities and civil liberties concerns. As immigration authorities expand operations tied to criminal investigations, scrutiny is likely to intensify over how those powers are exercised and whether safeguards are sufficient.
For policymakers, the situation adds another layer to an already complex national conversation about immigration, law enforcement authority, and the balance between public safety and individual rights.
ABUJA, Nigeria — President Bola Tinubu swept the All Progressives Congress presidential primary on Saturday, collecting votes across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory in numbers so lopsided that his sole challenger, Stanley Osifo, recorded zero votes in most states where results were declared — securing the ruling party’s ticket for the 2027 general election before the final national tally was even complete.
Tinubu was set to receive his certificate of return and the APC party flag Sunday at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre in Abuja, where governors, National Executive Committee members, National Assembly lawmakers, and senior party officials were expected to attend the formal presentation.
The primary was conducted simultaneously across 8,809 wards nationwide under a direct primary format. APC governors served as collation and returning officers in their respective states, and Independent National Electoral Commission officials monitored the exercise to ensure compliance with electoral procedures.
The numbers tell the story plainly. In Rivers State, Tinubu polled 280,468 votes while Osifo registered zero across all 23 local government areas. In Gombe State, Tinubu received 450,516 votes against Osifo’s zero, with Governor Muhammadu Yahaya noting the state had 550,516 registered APC members. In Ebonyi, Tinubu swept all 207,579 valid votes cast across 13 local government areas, again against zero for Osifo. In Kwara, the final count gave Tinubu 310,990 votes to Osifo’s zero. In Edo, Tinubu collected 131,096 votes against Osifo’s one. In Osun, Tinubu took 100,880 votes and Osifo received none across 332 wards. Bayelsa gave Tinubu 277,192 votes and Osifo five. Zamfara gave Tinubu 321,579 against Osifo’s 42.
The president cast his vote at his polling unit in Ward L2, Ikoyi, Lagos, accompanied by First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu. He described the primary as the expression of grassroots democratic participation.
“This is a demonstration of internal democracy,” Tinubu said after voting. “This is politics — grassroots politics, where every member of the party has a right to participate and be involved. It’s to ensure that we have internal democracy, and it’s peaceful and well-organised.”
APC National Secretary Ajibola Basiru confirmed results had been collated across all 774 wards and across all states, with some state-level collation still ongoing at the time he spoke. He described what he had seen as evidence of a landslide and said the formal declaration would follow Sunday’s national presentation of state results to the presidential primary election committee.
The ground-level scenes reinforced the numerical picture. In Kaduna, party members across all 255 wards unanimously endorsed Tinubu, with Governor Uba Sani commending the exercise as peaceful, orderly, and transparent. In Plateau State, APC members formed queues from early morning at collation venues across the Central and Southern zones, with Jos North LGA Chairman J.K. Chris describing the turnout as evidence of unified resolve.
In Abia State, former Governor Orji Kalu, now a senator representing Abia North, led more than 4,000 registered APC members at Igbere Ward A in Bende Local Government Area. At Bende itself, the hometown of Deputy House Speaker Benjamin Kalu, over 13,000 party members reportedly lined up for Tinubu while Osifo received no votes.
In Bayelsa, Governor Douye Diri, who served as state collation and returning officer, certified the results after aggregating numbers from all eight local government areas. “I hereby certify that the results announced represent the true, correct, and accurate collation of votes from all local government areas in Bayelsa State,” Diri said. “The process was conducted peacefully and in accordance with party guidelines.”
Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma drew applause with a declaration that captured the mood of the day. “If only our party members vote for President Tinubu, he has already won the election,” Uzodimma said, commending the electronic membership registration process.
As the APC consolidated around Tinubu with orderly if predictable uniformity, the African Democratic Congress found itself in the opposite position heading into its own presidential primary scheduled for Monday.
The ADC had initially pursued a consensus arrangement to produce its 2027 candidate, but disagreements among three significant aspirants have complicated that path. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, ex-Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, and businessman Mohammed Hayatu-Deen have each refused to step aside despite pressure from party figures seeking to avoid a contested primary.
John Oyegun, former APC national chairman and now chairman of the ADC’s 50-member Policy and Manifesto Committee, said the party preferred consensus but was prepared to hold a direct primary if the aspirants could not reach an agreement.
“Consensus will save us valuable time. This would have been better for all of us, but if the aspirants fail to agree, we will follow what the law says. The law says where there is no agreement on consensus, we must conduct a direct primary. If that is what we have to do, we will do it,” Oyegun said in an interview with Sunday Punch.
Amaechi has made his position clear repeatedly and without softening. “I am not stepping down for anyone,” he declared in Kano. “Let the people decide who they want to lead.”
Hayatu-Deen has taken a less confrontational tone while still rejecting calls to withdraw, saying he would support whoever emerged from a credible and transparent process. Atiku, the most experienced of the three in national presidential contests, has not publicly commented in recent days on the internal negotiations.
ADC chieftain Timothy Osadolor urged Atiku specifically to pursue a negotiated outcome rather than a floor fight. “No one is in doubt as to the capacity and competence of the Wazirin Adamawa in every party primary he has been engaged in,” Osadolor said. “However, times have changed significantly, and perceptions have too. He will be making a mistake in thinking that Rotimi Amaechi can be wished away or run over in today’s politics or within the ADC.”
Media entrepreneur and ADC figure Dele Momodu acknowledged that the combination of strong personalities and the financial investments each aspirant had already committed to their campaigns made consensus genuinely difficult to achieve, while arguing that a competitive process was not inherently damaging to the party provided it remained credible.
Saturday’s APC primary was not a contest in any meaningful electoral sense. The outcome was settled long before polling units opened. Every major APC organ, including the National Executive Committee, the National Working Committee, the Progressive Governors Forum, and state party structures across all 36 states, had endorsed Tinubu before Saturday. His challenger, Stanley Osifo, was not a figure with an organizational base, a political network, or a history of national political engagement capable of mounting a genuine challenge.
What Saturday’s exercise provided was not drama or uncertainty. It provided legitimacy — a formal record that the incumbent president sought his party’s second-term ticket through a direct primary involving party members rather than simply receiving it through a backroom arrangement among party elites. Whether that distinction matters to Nigerian voters in 2027 will depend on what the next two years of governance look like, how the cost of living pressure evolves, and whether the security situation in the north and southwest shows measurable improvement.
The ADC primary scheduled for Monday carries more genuine uncertainty, though that uncertainty may itself be the problem. A deeply fractured opposition entering the 2027 cycle against a unified ruling party with incumbency advantages, federal resources, and a just-ratified candidate will need more than internal drama to build a credible challenge. Atiku has run for president multiple times without success. Amaechi has significant northern political capital but no clear national coalition. Hayatu-Deen brings business credibility and a fresh face but limited political infrastructure.
If the ADC cannot achieve consensus and a bruising primary produces a candidate who enters the general election with unhealed internal wounds, the practical advantage that Tinubu’s clean Saturday sweep provides grows considerably larger. The certificate Tinubu receives Sunday morning represents more than a party ticket. In the context of Nigerian opposition politics as it currently stands, it represents something approaching a running start.
A gunman who opened fire near a security checkpoint steps from the White House was shot and killed by agents Saturday evening, while a bystander suffered critical injuries in the exchange, officials said.
The U.S. Secret Service said the suspect approached the area near 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue shortly after 6 p.m. and pulled a weapon from a bag before firing. Agents returned fire and struck the individual, who was taken to a hospital and later died.
A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigation, identified the suspect as 21 year old Nasire Best. Authorities are examining his background, which includes a prior arrest tied to an attempt to breach a White House checkpoint in 2025.
The incident left at least one bystander critically wounded. Investigators have not determined whether the person was struck by the suspect’s gunfire or rounds fired by responding officers.
President Donald Trump was inside the White House at the time and was not harmed, officials said.
Journalists working within the White House complex described hearing a rapid burst of gunfire and were quickly directed to shelter inside the press briefing room as agents secured the grounds.
ABC News senior correspondent Selina Wang shared video on social media capturing the moment shots rang out, prompting her to take cover mid broadcast. The footage quickly spread online, drawing widespread attention to the unfolding situation.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed its personnel responded to assist in the investigation, with Director Kash Patel stating that updates would be provided as more information becomes available.
Physical evidence marked the scene late Saturday, including dozens of markers placed along a sidewalk near the White House perimeter, along with medical equipment used in the emergency response.
The Metropolitan Police Department urged the public to avoid the area while federal agents processed the scene.
The shooting marks the third instance of gunfire near the president in recent weeks. Authorities had already responded to a separate incident during the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April, where a suspect allegedly attempted to attack the president at a Washington hotel.
Another confrontation earlier in May near the Washington Monument also resulted in a suspect being shot by agents after gunfire was directed at officers, leaving a teenage bystander injured.
The latest violence occurred within walking distance of a deadly ambush last year involving members of the West Virginia National Guard, underscoring ongoing security concerns in the nation’s capital.
Saturday’s shooting underscores a troubling escalation in security threats around one of the most heavily protected locations in the United States. While the Secret Service maintains layered defenses designed to neutralize threats quickly, the frequency of recent incidents suggests increasing strain on the system.
The suspect’s prior contact with law enforcement, including a stay away order linked to earlier behavior near the White House, raises questions about how individuals flagged as potential risks are monitored and managed. Experts often point to gaps between legal restrictions and real time enforcement, particularly in high traffic public areas surrounding federal buildings.
The presence of a bystander critically injured in the exchange also highlights the inherent risk to civilians when violence erupts in densely populated zones. Even rapid and trained responses can carry unintended consequences in such environments.
From a policy standpoint, the incident is likely to intensify debate over perimeter security, mental health intervention, and intelligence sharing among federal and local agencies. It also places renewed focus on how repeated threats near the president could influence operational decisions, including public access and event planning.
As investigators continue to piece together the suspect’s motives and actions, the event serves as a stark reminder that even the most fortified locations remain vulnerable to sudden and unpredictable acts of violence.
A security scare unfolded near the White House on Saturday evening after what sounded like multiple gunshots were heard close to the North Lawn, prompting a swift response from federal agents.
Journalists on the grounds reported hearing about 20 rapid shots shortly after 6 p.m. Eastern Time, with the sounds appearing to come from the direction of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which sits adjacent to the White House complex.
Agents with the U.S. Secret Service quickly moved to secure the area, directing members of the press into the White House briefing room as a precaution.
In a statement shared with CBS News, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said the agency was aware of reports of shots fired near the intersection of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest and was working to verify the situation with personnel on the ground.
Earlier in the day, a White House official said Donald Trump had been at the residence, though it was not immediately clear whether he was still inside at the time of the incident.
Coverage from ABC News indicated that the North Lawn was cleared as part of standard security protocols, with reporters instructed to move quickly to a secure location.
Authorities have not confirmed whether gunfire actually occurred, and no injuries or arrests were immediately reported.
Incidents involving possible gunfire near the White House are treated with the highest level of urgency, even when details remain unclear. The rapid lockdown reflects the layered security posture designed to protect both the president and the surrounding government infrastructure.
False alarms or unverified reports are not uncommon in high security zones, where loud noises such as construction activity or vehicle backfires can trigger emergency responses. However, the scale of the reaction in this case suggests officials considered the reports credible enough to warrant immediate action.
The proximity of the reported sounds to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adds another layer of concern, as the structure houses key executive branch offices and staff.
In a broader sense, the episode highlights the constant security pressures surrounding the White House complex. Even unconfirmed threats can disrupt operations and draw national attention, underscoring the delicate balance between public access, press coverage and security enforcement in one of the most heavily protected locations in the world.
Thai police forced their way into three apartments in a luxury riverside condominium near Bangkok on Thursday, arresting six Nigerian nationals accused of running an AI-powered romance scam operation that used artificially generated faces and fake video calls to deceive older Thai women into sending money — a raid that began as a drug trafficking investigation and ended with the exposure of a sophisticated fraud network operating out of upscale accommodations its members had no legitimate income to afford.
The operation, which police named Dark Room Crackdown, was executed on May 22 at a condominium near Phra Nang Klao Bridge in Bang Kraso, Muang district of Nonthaburi Province. Officers arrived with warrants from the Nonthaburi Provincial Court covering three units. The suspects refused to open their doors, apparently tipped off to the raid and attempting to destroy evidence. Officers forced entry.
When they got inside, one suspect tried to escape over a balcony. Another was found hiding on the bathroom floor, reportedly sending warning messages to people in neighboring units. Some of the 18 mobile phones seized by officers were still displaying active conversations with victims when police picked them up.
Pol. Maj. Gen. Theeradej Thammasuthee, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, confirmed the arrests Saturday and said officers also recovered three laptop computers and three bank passbooks from the raided apartments.
The six suspects, aged between 23 and 35, initially admitted to charges of illegal association and visa overstay. Additional fraud and romance scam charges are expected as investigators coordinate with victims and police stations handling related complaints.
Who They Are and How Long They Had Been There
All six suspects were identified by first name only in the police disclosure. Denis, 23, had overstayed his visa by 726 days. Ejikeme, 24, had overstayed by 827 days. Ibekwe, 29, had overstayed by 1,166 days. Okorom, 26, had been in the country illegally for 695 days beyond his visa. Nwosu, 30, led the group with 1,560 days of overstay — more than four years beyond his permitted stay. The overstay status of the sixth suspect, Obielu, 35, was still being confirmed at the time of the arrest.
All six had been living in the luxury condominium on student visas, police said, with no evidence that any of them had ever attended a class or reported to any place of employment. Their lifestyle did not match their immigration status. Their cash flows were described as unusually large. Investigators found the disconnect suspicious long before they found the scam scripts.
The Scam and the AI Behind It
The alleged operation was designed to exploit loneliness and trust. The suspects created fake online profiles using AI-generated images of attractive, wealthy-presenting foreign men — pilots, American military officers, lawyers, doctors, and engineers — and used those identities to approach victims through Facebook Messenger, WeChat, TikTok, Line, and Zalo, the Straits Times confirmed.
The targets were predominantly older Thai women. Once a romantic connection was established over days or weeks of conversation, the script shifted to a crisis: a valuable package or gift sent from abroad was being held by customs officials and required payment of clearance fees before it could be released to the recipient. Victims were asked to transfer money to resolve the customs problem.
Police found the scripts on the seized devices. They also found sexually suggestive conversation templates designed to deepen emotional manipulation and keep victims engaged. Some phones were logged into active chats with victims at the moment of arrest.
The AI component went beyond profile images. Investigators said the group manipulated video calls as well, using artificially generated Western faces to maintain the fraud even when video contact was expected. The technology allowed the suspects to sustain long-running deceptions with victims who had never met them and had no way to verify that the person they were communicating with had any connection to reality.
The Drug Trail That Led to the Condo
The arrests were the second phase of an investigation that started with narcotics. In April, Thai police arrested a Nigerian suspect identified only as Patrick, described as a significant figure in a cocaine trafficking network, along with four associates. Officers seized assets valued at approximately 2.5 million baht in that operation.
Financial analysis of that case pointed investigators toward unusual transactions connected to foreign nationals living in the Nonthaburi riverside condominium. When police examined who was living there, how they were paying for it, and what their declared immigration status allowed them to do, the picture did not add up. The romance scam network emerged from that financial thread.
Theeradej said some of the phones seized during the raid still displayed active drug transaction conversations, suggesting the two criminal operations, romance fraud and narcotics trafficking, may have overlapped within the same network. The investigation is continuing.
All six suspects were taken to Rattanathibet Police Station along with the seized evidence.
AI as a Criminal Tool and the Geography of Fraud
The Nonthaburi arrests illustrate something that law enforcement agencies across Asia and Africa have been documenting with increasing frequency: the use of artificial intelligence to industrialize romance fraud in ways that were not possible five years ago.
Generating convincing profile photographs of non-existent people once required access to stolen images, careful curation, and the risk that a reverse image search would expose the fraud. AI face generation eliminates that vulnerability. The faces do not exist anywhere else on the internet because they were never photographs of real people. Video call manipulation takes the technology a step further, allowing fraudsters to maintain the fiction even when a suspicious victim demands a live interaction.
For older women who may be less familiar with the capabilities of AI generation, the combination of a convincing profile, extended emotional engagement through scripted conversation, and a video call that appears to show a real person represents a deception that is genuinely difficult to detect without specific knowledge of how these technologies work.
The geographic pattern matters too. Six Nigerian nationals in Thailand, living on student visas with no evidence of student activity, financing a luxury lifestyle through money that came from victims in a different country, operating a fraud network that stretched across multiple messaging platforms and presumably multiple national jurisdictions. The crime does not belong to any single country’s law enforcement framework. It requires exactly the kind of coordinated international response that the separate Ugberaese extradition case from the United States this week also demonstrated.
Thailand has increasingly become a staging point for international fraud networks, with its accessible visa pathways, high-quality infrastructure, and proximity to both Southeast Asian victims and regional financial systems making it an operationally convenient base for criminal groups that target people elsewhere.
For the Thai women whose phones were still mid-conversation when police walked in and picked them up, Thursday’s raid represents an intervention that came, for at least some of them, before the money transfer request arrived. For others, whose conversations were further along and whose bank accounts may already have been drained, the raid comes too late to undo the damage but perhaps early enough to prevent more.
The U.S. Department of Justice has removed dozens of public records tied to prosecutions stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, describing the archived material as politically driven content.
The move represents a significant shift in how the federal government presents one of the most consequential investigations in recent American history. The deleted materials included announcements of charges, convictions and sentencing outcomes connected to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in an effort to disrupt certification of the 2020 election results.
In a public response posted on social media, the department said the removals were intentional and framed the earlier releases as biased. Officials indicated the changes are part of a broader effort to reverse what they described as prior misuse of the justice system.
The action follows sweeping clemency measures taken by Trump upon returning to office in January 2025. Those steps included pardons, sentence reductions or commitments to drop charges against more than 1,500 individuals tied to the Capitol breach, including some convicted of violent assaults on law enforcement officers.
In a separate development, the administration recently introduced a multi billion dollar compensation initiative aimed at individuals who claim they were unfairly targeted during earlier investigations. The proposal has drawn criticism from lawmakers across party lines, particularly over whether those convicted of violent offenses could qualify for payments.
Among the materials removed from the department’s website were case summaries involving members of groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Prosecutors had previously secured convictions against several leaders on charges including seditious conspiracy.
Court filings reviewed by The Associated Press show that the Justice Department has also sought to vacate those convictions. A federal appeals court granted that request, allowing prosecutors to move toward dismissing the cases entirely.
The earlier prosecutions were pursued during the administration of Joe Biden, which had characterized the convictions as central to accountability for the Capitol attack. At the time, juries in Washington found that leaders of extremist groups had coordinated efforts to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
Supporters of the recent policy changes argue that the legal actions restore fairness and correct overreach. Critics, including former law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol that day, say the moves risk minimizing the scale and severity of the violence, which left more than 100 officers injured.
The removal of official records tied to Jan. 6 cases marks more than a technical website update. It reflects a broader redefinition of how the federal government interprets and communicates a pivotal national event.
Historically, Justice Department press releases serve as part of the public record, offering transparency into prosecutorial decisions. Erasing or reframing those records raises questions about institutional memory and the permanence of legal history.
The decision also underscores an ongoing constitutional tension between executive authority and accountability. While the president holds broad clemency powers, efforts to revisit or erase convictions after the fact are rare and politically charged.
At a political level, the shift could deepen divisions over the legacy of Jan. 6. For supporters of the administration, the changes may reinforce claims of political bias in earlier prosecutions. For critics, they may signal an erosion of accountability for actions widely viewed as an attack on democratic processes.
Looking ahead, the long term impact may extend beyond the Capitol riot cases. The precedent of removing or revising official justice records could influence how future administrations handle politically sensitive prosecutions, potentially reshaping public trust in federal institutions.
A powerful gas explosion at a coal mine in northern China has killed at least 90 workers, state media confirmed Saturday, in one of the country’s deadliest industrial disasters in more than a decade.
The blast struck the Liushenyu coal mine in Qinyuan county in Shanxi Province late Friday while hundreds of workers were underground, according to the state news agency Xinhua News Agency.
Authorities said about 247 miners were on duty at the time of the explosion. Initial reports listed far fewer casualties, but the death toll rose sharply as rescue teams reached deeper sections of the mine.
Emergency crews continued search and recovery efforts into Saturday, while several workers remained unaccounted for. Many of the injured suffered from exposure to toxic gases, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Officials said the cause of the explosion is under investigation. Early indications suggest gas levels inside the mine may have exceeded safe limits shortly before the blast, with some reports pointing to a carbon monoxide alert issued prior to the incident.
Executives linked to the mining operation have been taken into custody as authorities examine possible safety failures.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for a full scale rescue effort and ordered a thorough investigation, urging officials to hold those responsible accountable and strengthen workplace safety oversight nationwide.
Premier Li Qiang also called for transparent updates and strict enforcement of safety regulations.
Footage shared online showed ambulances and emergency vehicles lined up near the mine entrance as rescue teams worked through the night.
The Associated Press and Reuters both confirmed the rising death toll and ongoing rescue operations, describing the explosion as among the most severe mining accidents in recent years.
Despite improvements in oversight over the past two decades, China’s coal mining industry remains one of the most hazardous in the world. Gas explosions, often caused by methane buildup in poorly ventilated shafts, continue to pose a major risk, particularly in high output regions such as Shanxi.
Shanxi produces nearly a third of China’s coal, making it central to the country’s energy supply. The pressure to maintain production levels can strain safety enforcement, especially in smaller or privately operated mines.
The sharp increase in the reported death toll highlights a recurring issue in major industrial accidents in China, where early figures are often revised as access improves and the scale of damage becomes clearer.
This disaster is likely to renew scrutiny of regulatory enforcement and corporate accountability in the mining sector. While Beijing has introduced stricter safety rules in recent years, incidents of this magnitude suggest gaps remain between policy and practice.
Globally, the accident also underscores the ongoing reliance on coal as a primary energy source, even as China invests heavily in renewable energy. The tension between energy demand and worker safety continues to shape the future of the industry, both within China and beyond.
The Trump administration announced Friday that foreign nationals living temporarily in the United States who want to become permanent residents will now be required to leave the country and apply for a green card from their home nations, upending a policy that has been in place for more than half a century and immediately raising alarms among immigration attorneys, advocacy groups, and the hundreds of thousands of people affected each year.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the change without providing a date for when it would take effect, without clarifying whether pending applications already in the system would be covered, and without specifying how long applicants would need to remain abroad during the process. The agency said exceptions would be granted only in “extraordinary circumstances,” with individual USCIS officers deciding who qualifies.
For decades, foreign nationals with legal status inside the United States, including students, temporary workers, tourists, refugees, political asylum seekers, and spouses of American citizens, have been able to complete the entire green card application process without leaving. That pathway, known as adjustment of status, processed roughly 600,000 applications annually from people already living in the country.
Under the new framework, those applicants must instead travel to U.S. consular offices in their home countries and navigate the process from abroad, under State Department supervision.
“We’re returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly,” USCIS said in its statement. “From now on, an alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances.”
Who Gets to Stay and Who Must Go
The agency carved out a category of people who may be permitted to apply from within the United States. Those who provide an “economic benefit” or serve a “national interest” could potentially remain in the country while their applications are processed, USCIS told the Associated Press in an emailed statement. The agency did not define those terms or explain what documentation would establish eligibility for the exemption.
USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler framed the policy as a systemic correction rather than a restrictive measure. He said it would reduce the number of people who stay in the country illegally after being denied residency, arguing that those who applied from abroad and were rejected would simply remain in their home countries rather than disappearing into the population.
“This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes,” Kahler said. “When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally after being denied residency.”
The agency also argued the change would free USCIS resources to focus on other priorities, including applications from victims of violent crimes, human trafficking survivors, and naturalization requests.
The Human Stakes
Critics of the policy drew a straight line between the announcement and the administration’s broader stated goal of reducing the number of people who obtain permanent residency and, through it, a path to American citizenship.
Doug Rand, a former senior adviser at USCIS during the Biden administration, said the intent was not ambiguous. “The goal of this policy is very explicit,” Rand said. “Senior officials in this administration have said over and over that they want fewer people to get permanent residency because permanent residency is a path to citizenship and they want to block that path for as many people as possible.”
Immigration attorneys warned of a specific danger for applicants from countries currently under U.S. travel bans or visa processing suspensions. The Trump administration has imposed outright entry bans on nationals from certain countries and paused visa processing for dozens of others. If a person from one of those countries is required to return home to apply for a green card, they face the possibility of being barred from re-entering the United States entirely, effectively stranding them abroad regardless of the strength of their immigration case.
In December 2025, the administration had already halted processing of green card and citizenship applications filed by nationals of countries on the travel ban list, a suspension that primarily affected immigrants from selected African and Asian nations already living legally in the United States and seeking to adjust their status. The Trump administration subsequently directed USCIS to freeze all immigration petitions, including permanent residency and citizenship applications, from nationals of 19 countries covered by an expanded travel ban announced in June, a move that followed the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., allegedly carried out by an Afghan national.
The Friday announcement compounds those earlier restrictions for affected nationals. People from travel-ban countries who had been waiting out the freeze on their applications inside the United States now face a new requirement to leave in order to apply, with no guarantee they will be permitted to return.
Nigeria and the Broader African Impact
The policy change carries particular weight for Nigerian nationals, who represent one of the largest African immigrant communities in the United States and who have been disproportionately affected by the administration’s sequential tightening of immigration access since Trump returned to office. Nigerians in the United States on student visas, work permits, and other temporary status who had been working toward permanent residency through the adjustment of status process now face a fundamental disruption to plans that may have been years in the making.
The broader pattern of restrictions, including the travel ban freeze, the green card processing suspension, and now the requirement to apply from abroad, has created compounding uncertainty for tens of thousands of African immigrants who entered the United States legally and have been following
A Policy Built to Reduce Numbers, Not Just Change Process
The administration’s stated rationale for the green card change, that it restores the original intent of immigration law and that temporary visitors should leave when their visits end rather than transitioning to permanent status from within the country, is legally coherent in a narrow sense. Consular processing, the mechanism that requires overseas applications, has always existed as one pathway to a green card. The adjustment of status process that the new policy effectively eliminates for most applicants was a parallel pathway that grew over decades as a practical accommodation.
What the stated rationale does not fully explain is the specific design of the new policy. If the goal were purely administrative efficiency or legal consistency, the administration would have provided clear timelines, explicit definitions of the economic benefit exception, and guidance on pending applications. It provided none of those. The vagueness appears functional rather than accidental — it maximizes uncertainty for applicants while giving USCIS officers discretionary authority over who qualifies for exceptions, a structure that history suggests will be applied inconsistently.
Rand’s assessment, that the explicit goal is fewer people obtaining permanent residency as a way of closing the path to citizenship, fits the evidence better than the agency’s framing. The Trump administration has been consistent and open about wanting to reduce both legal and illegal immigration. The green card policy change is one more instrument in a toolkit that has grown substantially since January, with each new restriction building on previous ones to create a cumulative barrier that is greater than any individual measure would suggest.
For the 600,000 people who apply for green cards from within the United States each year, and for the immigration lawyers who advise them, Friday’s announcement created urgent and unanswered questions. The lack of an implementation date, the absence of guidance on pending applications, and the undefined scope of the extraordinary circumstances exception mean that people who have built lives in the United States around a legal immigration pathway that existed last week must now navigate a changed landscape without the information needed to make basic decisions about where to live and how to proceed.
Girls told the adults in charge. They described hidden cameras. They brought sealed cups of what they believed was drugged soda. They reported a pastor who made them strip naked and perform stretches in a church bathroom. And for 15 years, according to a new lawsuit, the church leaders who heard those warnings did little but protect the man accused of committing the abuse.
Six women filed a civil lawsuit this week in Craighead County Circuit Court against Refuge Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and regional and national leaders of the Assemblies of God, alleging that repeated warnings about children’s pastor Tony Waller were dismissed, minimized, and buried — allowing him to groom, molest, and secretly film girls across nearly a decade and a half before his wife finally went to police in 2015.
Waller pleaded guilty in 2016 to raping two girls and is serving a life sentence. The women behind the lawsuit say the criminal conviction is not enough.
“Tony’s in prison for the rest of his life, and that’s good,” said Stephanie Davis, one of the plaintiffs. “But he’s not the only one responsible for what happened to us.”
What the Girls Said and When They Said It
The earliest reports about Waller reached church leadership in 2000, the lawsuit alleges. That spring, Jonesboro police and elementary school officials opened an investigation after receiving reports that Waller had been frequently visiting a school to spend time with an 11-year-old girl he had met through a church ministry. A police report reviewed by NBC News described allegations that Waller bought the girl clothes, took her to a hotel parking lot late at night, and had her stay overnight at his home. A teacher reported seeing him speaking with girls on the playground and said he avoided her when she tried to approach.
Police closed the investigation after the girl denied any wrongdoing. School officials banned Waller from campus anyway. Before closing the case in April 2000, a detective, a school resource officer, and an elementary school principal met with Refuge Church’s senior pastor Mike Glover to tell him what had been reported and inform him that Waller had been barred from the school.
Waller remained in charge of the church’s children’s programs.
Around 2004, the situation became impossible to explain away. Girls in Waller’s church homeschool program were required to enter a bathroom one at a time before gym activities, remove their clothing, and perform stretches. Waller told them being unclothed allowed for unrestricted movement. Davis, then in sixth grade, complied until she and other girls found a hidden camera aimed through a hole in the bathroom door.
Shortly after, Davis said, Waller gave her a soda in a plastic cup that tasted wrong and left her disoriented. She ran to the church secretary and called her mother. Her family brought the cup, sealed in a plastic bag, along with their concerns about the camera, to Glover directly. A classmate, Elizabeth Dryer, went to Glover around the same time with her mother to report the hidden camera and tell him that Waller had been groping her during physical activities at the church.
According to the lawsuit, church leaders removed the camera, patched the bathroom door, and suspended Waller for two to four weeks. Then they gave him his job back.
“They did nothing about it,” Davis said. “Absolutely nothing.”
About two years later, another girl, Courtney Blackburn, discovered Waller secretly filming her as she undressed in her bedroom. Her mother, Rhonda Kelly, brought the allegation to Glover. Kelly told NBC News that Glover later informed her the church board had prayed over the matter and that God had told them it was a misunderstanding — that Blackburn was simply being too sensitive.
Waller stayed in ministry.
Two younger women named in the lawsuit allege he continued abusing girls in the same church bathroom between roughly 2008 and 2014. One, Taylor Perrin, alleges Waller played the role of a beloved father figure while groping girls during games. A second plaintiff, identified as Jane Doe, alleges that when she was approximately 12 years old, Waller gave her a drugged drink in a foam cup and recorded himself molesting her. Investigators later found that video on Waller’s computer.
The End and the Evidence
The abuse stopped in 2015 when Waller’s wife found incriminating images on his computer and contacted police. Investigators uncovered dozens of hidden-camera videos recorded inside the church bathroom and elsewhere. Two additional girls came forward during the criminal investigation alleging Waller had molested them for years beginning around 2006 and 2007, when they were 10 and 11 years old. Those allegations formed the basis of his 2016 conviction.
What the Church and Denomination Say
The General Council of the Assemblies of God, the denomination’s national governing body, said in a statement that it did not learn of allegations against Waller until 2015. “Mr. Waller was promptly reported to the appropriate legal authorities, investigated, and his ministerial credentials were dismissed,” the statement said, adding that the response was consistent with a zero-tolerance policy the denomination said had been in place for decades.
Refuge Church, formerly known as Jonesboro First Assembly of God, did not respond to a request for comment. The church previously told NBC News it adopted enhanced child safety policies after Waller’s arrest, including background checks, mandatory reporting requirements, and security cameras.
Glover, the former senior pastor who hired Waller in 1999 and is named as a defendant, disputed the accounts through his attorney, Glenn S. Ritter, who said Glover “denied all accusations of negligence and fault.” In prior interviews with NBC News, Glover acknowledged the 2000 meeting with police but said the officer told him only that Waller had been spending too much time at the school. He said no one ever reported a hidden camera or sexual misconduct to him. “That didn’t happen on my watch,” Glover told NBC News. “He would have been long gone. That was never reported to me.” He also said he had no recollection of the conversations Blackburn’s mother described.
A Yearlong Investigation and a Pattern Across the Denomination
The lawsuit builds on reporting NBC News published following a yearlong investigation into sexual abuse within the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination. That investigation identified approximately 200 Assemblies of God pastors, church employees, and volunteer leaders accused of sexual abuse over the past 50 years. Survivors across multiple churches described the same cycle: children warned adults, pastors minimized the reports, abusers were quietly returned to positions of authority, and more children were harmed.
NBC News found the Assemblies of God had repeatedly resisted mandatory child protection measures, including background checks and requirements to report abuse to police, leaving those decisions to individual churches.
The women’s attorney, Joshua D. Gillispie, put the institutional failure at the center of his statement on the lawsuit. “The Assemblies of God caught this predator red-handed in 2004, holding his camera and his list of nude exercises in their hands,” Gillispie said. “Instead of calling the police or protecting vulnerable children, they actively chose to shield the denomination’s reputation and treat a child molester with tenderness and forgiveness at the expense of children’s innocence.”
Davis said her goal in filing the lawsuit extends beyond what happened in Jonesboro. She wants the Assemblies of God to adopt mandatory nationwide child protection standards and reporting requirements so that what happened to her and the other women cannot be replicated in another church with another children’s pastor who understands that warnings will be met with prayer and two-week suspensions.
“These things could have been prevented,” Davis said, “if somebody had listened.”
Institutions That Protect Themselves First
The Tony Waller case is not a story about one predatory pastor. It is a story about what happens when an institution treats the protection of its own reputation as a higher priority than the protection of the children in its care.
The documentary evidence in this case is damning precisely because it spans so many years and so many separate incidents. Police met with Glover in 2000. Girls brought a sealed cup of what they believed was drugged soda to church leadership in 2004. A hidden camera was physically removed from a bathroom. A mother was told God himself had reviewed the situation and found it to be a misunderstanding. At every point where an institution was confronted with evidence that demanded a hard decision, the hard decision was not made.
This pattern is not unique to one Arkansas church. NBC News found it replicated across approximately 200 Assemblies of God cases over five decades. The common thread is structural: a denomination that left child protection decisions to local churches, that resisted mandatory background checks, that prioritized grace and forgiveness toward accused ministers in ways that consistently came at the direct expense of children who had done nothing except trust the adults their parents placed them with.
The Assemblies of God’s statement that it didn’t know about Waller until 2015 may be technically accurate as a matter of what reached the national office. It does not address why a denomination that claims to have had a zero-tolerance policy for decades structured its reporting and oversight in a way that allowed a children’s pastor to abuse girls for 15 years in a single church without that information traveling up the chain.
Davis and the five women with her are asking a civil court to impose accountability that the church declined to impose on itself. Whether the lawsuit succeeds legally, it has already accomplished something: it has put on public record, in granular and documented detail, exactly what the girls said, exactly when they said it, and exactly what the adults who heard them chose to do instead.
A powerful explosion and fire at a shipyard on Staten Island, New York, left at least 16 people injured Friday, including firefighters responding to the scene, according to officials.
The incident occurred along Richmond Terrace at a dockside facility, where emergency crews were dispatched after reports that workers were trapped inside a structure.
Officials with the New York City Fire Department said the call came in around mid afternoon, with firefighters arriving to find a blaze burning in the basement of a metal building near the shipping docks.
Roughly 50 minutes after crews began battling the fire, a large explosion tore through the site, escalating the emergency and triggering distress calls from firefighters inside the structure.
Authorities said all firefighters who issued emergency alerts were later accounted for and received medical attention.
By early evening, at least 16 people had been treated for injuries. The victims included firefighters and emergency medical personnel, along with at least one civilian worker. Three individuals suffered serious injuries, while others were listed in moderate to minor condition and transported to nearby hospitals.
Fire officials said one additional worker may still be unaccounted for, though that status had not been confirmed.
The blaze continued to burn for hours as crews worked to contain it, with road closures put in place to allow emergency operations to proceed.
The cause of the explosion and fire remains under investigation.
The Associated Press confirmed the timeline of events, noting that firefighters were still engaged in suppression efforts when the explosion occurred, significantly increasing the number of injuries.
Industrial sites such as shipyards present heightened risks during fire emergencies due to the presence of fuel, chemicals, and confined spaces. The sequence described by officials, an initial fire followed by a delayed explosion, often points to the buildup of flammable gases or pressure within enclosed areas.
The number of injured responders highlights the dangers faced by firefighters operating in unpredictable environments. Emergency alerts issued during the incident suggest that conditions deteriorated rapidly, a scenario that can challenge even experienced crews.
This event also raises questions about workplace safety measures and hazard controls in industrial zones along New York’s waterfront. Investigators will likely examine whether proper storage protocols, ventilation systems, and emergency safeguards were in place.
In the broader context, incidents like this often lead to reviews of safety regulations and enforcement, particularly in aging infrastructure areas where industrial and residential zones intersect. The outcome of the investigation could influence future safety standards and emergency response strategies across similar facilities in the region.
