FIRST ON FOX: Republican lawmakers, led by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, on Thursday wrote to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas quizzing him about the extent to which he may have used a personal email address for personal business — after a fiery exchange earlier this year, in which the DHS chief called the claims ‘false.’

The senators wrote to Mayorkas seeking more information about the use of private email for work-related matters, which Marshall first raised as an issue in April during Mayorkas’ testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee after a Freedom of Information Act disclosure. They are seeking information about failures to comply with DHS rules on records, any additional communications and steps taken to create a ‘culture of careful communications and strict compliance with all federal laws.’

Lawmakers on the letter include Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah., Mike Braun, R-Ind., J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and James Lankford, R-Okla.

Mayorkas was asked about his use of private email by Marshall in the hearing in April and said ‘Your assertion is false, senator.’

‘If somebody errantly sends me an email on my personal email that should have been sent to my work email, I forward it to my work email — that’s what I do. I fulfill my responsibility scrupulously and I have 100% confidence in the integrity of my actions,’ he said.

The Americans for Prosperity Freedom of Information Act lawsuit led to the disclosure of hundreds of pages of emails and texts from Mayorkas’ personal email and cellphone. In many of those messages, Mayorkas does appear to forward the message to his work email and/or informs the person to work through official channels.

‘Thank you. I will review as soon as I can. I will forward this to my work e-mail. Please use my work e-mail,’ he says in one.

 However, there were significant redactions to the release, with dozens of full pages redacted before the release — something the lawmakers call ‘alarming.’

‘DHS withheld 56 pages in full and redacted over 200 others because they were ostensibly too sensitive to release,’ the senators say.

‘As you are no doubt aware, DHS policy on the use of non-DHS email directs that ‘employees may not use non-DHS e-mail accounts to create or send e-mail records that constitute DHS records’ unless there is an ‘emergency,’ the letter says.

Instead, they say that DHS officials ‘intentionally communicated with you through your private account, including in instances where there were no obvious exigent circumstances justifying deviation from required agency practice’ they write. ‘This suggests that DHS higher-level management tolerates a culture of careless communication, which skirts the spirit, if not the letter, of federal records management laws.’

The Republicans argue that the volume of communications raises ‘serious concerns about whether all official messages sent to or from these devices were properly forwarded back to your official DHS accounts.’ 

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a DHS spokesperson said that Mayorkas ‘uses his official email and devices for official communication.’ 

‘If someone mistakenly contacts him via his personal email about official business, the Secretary follows DHS policy and forwards it to his official account, so that the record is properly maintained and the communication continues through official channels. The Department takes FOIA, communication security and document preservation seriously, which is why this information was properly maintained and accessible,’ the spokesperson said.

The letter is the latest indicator of Republican pressure on the DHS chief, who Republicans have grilled repeatedly — particularly on his handling of the ongoing crisis at the southern border.

Fox News Digital reported on Wednesday that Mayorkas will appear before the House Judiciary Committee later this month, where he is expected to face questions on issues including immigration, border security and the efforts targeting alleged disinformation.
 

Republicans made huge gains among Hispanic, Asian and young voters in the 2022 midterm elections, a new Pew Research Center post-election analysis released Wednesday found.

According to the report, the margin between Hispanic voters who voted Democrat and those who voted Republican shrunk by a massive 26 points in the 2022 midterms compared to the 2018 midterms.

Although Democrats maintained their lead among Hispanic voters, their share of the Hispanic vote dropped from 72% in 2018 to 60% in 2022, while Republicans increased their share from 25% in 2018 to 39% in 2022. The margin went from 47 points in Democrats’ favor, to just 21 points.

An even larger margin shift toward Republicans came from Hispanic men, who favored Democrats by 42 points (69%) in 2018, but just 13 points (56%) in 2022. Republicans’ share of the vote from Hispanic men increased from just 27% in 2018 to 43% in 2022.

Hispanic women also saw a massive shift toward Republicans, dropping from a 52-point margin in Democrats’ favor in 2018 to a 30-point margin in 2022. Republicans won just 23% of Hispanic women votes in 2018, but that increased to 34% in 2022. Democrats won 75% and 64% respectively.

The report noted that 37% of Hispanic voters who voted in 2018 did not turn out to vote in 2022, but the total percentage of the electorate made up by Hispanic voters increased from 8% in 2018 to 9% in 2022.

Another, albeit smaller, shift toward Republicans happened among Asian voters. In 2018, Democrats garnered 72% of the Asian vote with Republicans at just 26%, a margin of 47 points. Republicans jumped to 32% in 2022 while Democrats won to 68%, shrinking the margin to 36 points. 

The share of Asian voters making up the total electorate increased from 2% in 2018 to 3% in 2022.

Support from Black voters remained largely unchanged with Democrats winning 92% in 2018 and 93% in 2022, compared to Republicans’ 6% in 2018 and 5% in 2022.

Republicans also made gains with voters under the age of 30, traditionally a source of strong Democratic support. The share of the electorate made up of voters aged 18 to 29 fell slightly to 10% from 11%, but the margin fell from 49 points in Democrats’ favor in 2018 to 37 points in 2022. 

The age group voted just 23% for Republicans in 2018, but that jumped to 31% in 2022 while Democrats dropped from 72% to 68% respectively. 

The report found that, despite Republicans winning control of the House of Representatives, there was no large shift in voters’ party preference for those who cast a ballot in 2018 and 2022. For those that did shift their party support, the net flip fell at 1% to 2% from Democrat to Republican.

If voters who voted in both 2018 and 2022 were broken down by party, 92% of voters who voted for Democrats in 2022 also voted for Democrats in 2018, while 95% of voters who voted for Republicans in 2022, also voted for Republicans in 2018.

Congressional Republicans fumed at the Secret Service ending the White House drug probe without a culprit, and questioned what it means for security in the White House and transparency in the Biden administration.

Republicans on the Hill weren’t happy with the Secret Service’s investigation into the cocaine found at the White House over the Independence Day weekend, with Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., telling Fox News Digital he was ‘disgusted’ that the briefing was classified after ‘they told us in the meeting that it was not classified.’

‘They should have transparency and immediately had alerted the press to that,’ Burchett said. ‘They should have been telling the press instead of a bunch of congressmen so that they would piecemeal it all together out to the press.’

Burchett said he ‘felt sorry’ for the Secret Service agents and that ‘they’re professional people, and they’re just put in a bad position by this administration.’

The Tennessee Republican said the Secret Service told lawmakers there is ‘no video of the area’ where the cocaine was found and called it ‘100% suspicious.’

‘You’ve got the press secretary of the president of the United States, she’s telling us where it was found. And then, of course, it wasn’t found there,’ Burchett said. ‘[It’s] like the bag of cocaine got legs, apparently. And, you know, it’s just ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous.’

‘To think that the most secure building in the world, dude,’ Burchett said. ‘I mean, when I was mayor of Knox County, if somebody walked into one of our buildings, we had cameras.’

Burchett said that if he were to call the Knox County Police Department to D.C., they would ‘do circles’ around the Secret Service.

‘This is ridiculous. This is beyond the pale,’ Burchett said. ‘This is indicative of a White house that is out of control and that has no leadership and is rudderless.’

‘This trash can needs to be cleaned out with a garden hose immediately,’ he added.

Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News Digital it ‘is ridiculous that the Secret Service wants us to believe that, even with the FBI’s help, they can’t identify a suspect who brought cocaine into the most secure building in the world.’

‘Why would you close the investigation in less than a week if you wanted to know who did it?’ Austin added.

Ohio Rep. Bob Latta, a Republican, told Fox News Digital that the ‘West Wing of the White House should be one of the most secure government offices in the nation.’

‘The fact cocaine was found on the premises raises major security concerns, and it is unacceptable the Secret Service is now abandoning their investigation without even ID’ing a suspect,’ Latta continued.

Texas GOP Rep. Troy Nehls, a former sheriff, told Fox News Digital said that President Biden’s son Hunter’s history with drug abuse should have made the Secret Service consider him ‘a person of interest.’

‘With Hunter Biden’s past documented behavior and use of the exact same substance, one could believe that he would be at least considered a person of interest,’ Nehls said. ‘Americans deserve answers about how cocaine was found in one of the most secure buildings in the world.’

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre rebuked reporters last week for asking whether the cocaine was related to any Biden family members, saying the question was ‘incredibly irresponsible.’

Texas Republican Rep. Pete Sessions told Fox News Digital he is ‘deeply unsettled by the Secret Service closing their investigation without identifying the culprit.’

‘A lack of surveillance footage in a ‘heavily trafficked’ area near the West Executive entrance is unacceptable,’ Sessions said. ‘This incident isn’t just about an illegal substance found in the White House; it’s a grave testament to the lacking accountability and disregard for security under the Biden administration.’

‘It is critical that the White House reassess and strengthen our security measures to prevent this scenario from occurring again, and that every individual within the White House is held to the highest standards of conduct and responsibility,’ he added.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters on Thursday that it seems to him that ‘Biden Inc. strikes again.’

‘How can in the White House — 24/7 security — they find cocaine, but now they just closed the investigation?’ McCarthy asked. ‘Where in the country do you get treated like this? Only with the Bidens, with the Bidens in charge. There is no equal justice.’

The speaker said he wants ‘to see an answer to the question like every other American’ on how there was ‘cocaine sitting in a cubbyhole just by the Situation Room.’

‘First of all, we never got the right news. We found it in different places, different places, different places. . . . Anything involving around Biden Inc. gets treated differently than any other American, and that’s got to stop.’

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., told Fox News Digital that, during the briefing, she had inquired about specific security measures in place for the lockers where the cocaine had been found. Boebert said the Secret Service had admitted that the key to the locker in question ‘is missing.’ 

‘There are 182 lockers in that foyer and currently … locker number 50 where the cocaine was found, that key is missing,’ Boebert said. ‘There were more than 500 people who went through the West Wing during the weekend of when this substance was found, when the cocaine was found in the White House, and none of those people who have come through are classified as suspects.’ 

‘We do not know how many were tourists, individual citizens, or staffers, and they currently are not looking any further into those more than 500 people who entered that foyer of the West Wing during that weekend,’ she said. ‘Instead, they are quickly wanting to close this investigation and move on to the next Biden crime crisis.’ 

Boebert also told Fox News that she learned that ‘there are no logs of the lockers. There’s no video surveillance of the lockers.’ 

‘The only thing that the Secret Service did was conduct background searches for past drug use or conviction of the over 500 individuals that came through that weekend,’ Boebert said. ‘They did not go further back in time, nor did their investigation produce any results to flag an individual person.’ 

She added, ‘I believe that every staffer who went into the White House that weekend … should be drug tested.’

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., defended the Secret Service, saying that testing hundreds of potential suspects for drugs would be ‘a massively disproportionate and overblown response that would violate people’s civil liberties.’

‘I mean, if there were small amounts of marijuana or cocaine found somewhere in the Capitol Complex, we would not want to drug test everybody who works here,’ he said.

The Secret Service announced Thursday that it has closed its investigation into the cocaine found at the White House earlier this month and said it is ‘not able’ to ‘single out a person of interest’ because of a lack of physical evidence.

In a statement Thursday, after briefing members of Congress on the matter, the Secret Service said the cocaine had been found on July 2 ‘inside a receptacle used to temporarily store electronic and personal devices prior to entering the West Wing.’

The Secret Service said it has been investigating ‘how this item entered the White House,’ including a ‘methodical review of security systems and protocols.’

‘This review included a backwards examination that spanned several days prior to the discovery of the substance and developed an index of several hundred individuals who may have accessed the area where the substance was found,’ the Secret Service said. It said that investigators had developed ‘a pool of known persons for comparison of forensic evidence gleaned from the FBI’s analysis of the substance’s packaging.’

The Secret Service said it had received the FBI’s lab results on Wednesday and that the effort ‘did not develop latent fingerprints and insufficient DNA was present for investigative comparisons.’

‘Therefore, the Secret Service is not able to compare evidence against the known pool of individuals,’ the Secret Service said, adding that the FBl’s evaluation of the substance ‘also confirmed that it was cocaine.’

‘There was no surveillance video footage found that provided investigative leads or any other means for investigators to identify who may have deposited the found substance in this area,’ the Secret Service continued. ‘Without physical evidence, the investigation will not be able to single out a person of interest from the hundreds of individuals who passed through the vestibule where the cocaine was discovered.’

‘At this time, the Secret Service’s investigation is closed due to a lack of physical evidence,’ they said.

The Secret Service briefed members of Congress on the investigation Thursday morning.

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Elizabeth Elkind contributed reporting.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday matched the record for the most tie-breaking votes cast in the U.S. Senate by a sitting vice president. 

Her history-making 31st vote was cast in favor of advancing President Biden’s nomination of Kalpana Kotagal to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She now matches the record of John C. Calhoun, who served as vice president from 1825 to 1832. 

‘It is a moment and I think that there’s still so much left that we have yet to do,’ Harris told reporters afterward.

‘My mother gave me great advice, which is that I may be the first to do many things,’ she added. ‘I’m going to make sure I’m not the last.’

Unlike Calhoun, who spent eight years accumulating his total, Harris reached 31 in 2 1/2 years. It’s a reflection of her unique circumstances, with a narrowly divided Senate and a sharply partisan atmosphere.

‘It really says more about our time, and our political climate, than it does about anything else,’ vice presidential historian Joel K. Goldstein told The Associated Press. ‘Our politics is so polarized that, even on the sort of matters that in the past would have flown through, it takes the vice president to cast a tie-breaking vote.’

Harris’ record-matching vote was cast without pomp or ceremony. She entered the Senate chamber Wednesday, recited some lines to cast her vote, and was then congratulated by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the vice president serves as the president of the Senate but may only cast a vote when there is a tie. As of July 12, 2023, there have only been 299 tie-breaking votes cast by a vice president in U.S. history.

Schumer called the vice president’s responsibility an ‘immense burden’ and said Harris has ‘carried out her duties with supreme excellence’ while taking on ‘all the other demands she faces’ in her job.

Harris’ role as tie-breaker for the Democrats has largely defined the first two years of her service as vice president. She had expected to be relieved of that duty when Senate Democrats expanded their majority from 50 to 51 in November, but absences in the Democratic conference have kept her in demand for votes.

KAMALA HARRIS ‘CULTURE’ WORD SALAD STUMPS TWITTER USERS: ‘EMPTIEST HUMAN BEING ALIVE’ 

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., missed several weeks of work when he was hospitalized for clinical depression in February. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was diagnosed with shingles in March and missed votes as well.

Both senators have since returned to work, but Harris has been forced to break ties on contentious votes, usually nominations, where Biden has not consolidated Democratic support. 

While breaking ties requires Harris to be in Washington, D.C., and can prevent her from traveling to promote the Biden-Harris administration’s accomplishments, it also means Harris was directly involved in passing some of the landmark legislation of Biden’s first term. 

If and when Harris decides to pursue another bid for the White House herself, she can brag that she was the deciding vote on the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief measure, and the Inflation Reduction Act, a $739 billion tax and climate spending package intended to curb inflation. And Republicans, of course, can attack her for those votes.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.  

President Biden appeared to stumble while going up a flight of stairs to board Air Force One on Thursday.

Biden was boarding the presidential airplane in Helsinki, where he met with Nordic leaders following a two-day NATO summit in Lithuania. 

Video showed Biden stumble slightly on a step roughly halfway up and quickly recover in stride before reaching the top of the stairs, where he turned and waved to onlookers on the tarmac at Helsinki-Vantaan International Airport.

Since taking office, his mental state has been questioned after a series of gaffes and physical lapses such as trips and falls in public. 

Prior to the stumble, Biden assured the other leaders that the U.S. is committed to NATO, given the Russian invasion of Ukraine and criticisms of the group from within the Republican Party. 

‘No one can guarantee the future, but this is the best bet anyone could make,’ he said during a joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö.

Biden said there was support for NATO from the American people, Congress and from both Democrats and Republicans.

‘There is no question there’s overwhelming support from the American people. There’s overwhelming support from the members of the Congress, both House and Senate, in both parties notwithstanding the fact that some extreme elements of one party,’ he said, referring to Republicans. 

Biden’s tone was much different than when then-President Donald Trump sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki nearly five years ago. 

It has been more than five months since the Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina. Since then, the FBI has been the main government agency looking into the espionage device. Other agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon, are assisting with that probe. 

Defense officials recently said the balloon did not collect information in real time as it flew across the U.S.

‘We were aware that it had intelligence collection capabilities,’ Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said. ‘We also took steps to mitigate the potential collection efforts of that balloon.’

A senior Pentagon source told Fox News the device held specialized Chinese sensors. It also contained publicly available American-made equipment. The U.S. has export controls in place to prevent China from accessing its more sensitive technology.

‘The (People’s Republic of China) officials continue to object quite strongly to the export controls that we have imposed to prevent the transfer of sensitive U.S. technology to China,’ State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said. ‘We’re not going to allow you to take U.S. technology and use it against us.’

The Defense Intelligence Agency has been examining the military-related equipment within the device. The DIA told Fox News its analysis is still ongoing. It also pointed us to its report on China’s military power, which notes that China’s military equipment is ‘primarily domestic systems heavily influenced by technology derived from other countries.’

President Biden told reporters in June that China may not have been fully aware of the spy balloon’s whereabouts.

‘I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional,’ President Biden said. ‘I don’t think the leadership knew where it was, knew what it was in it and what was going on.’

The DIA report also details China’s investment in developing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment and how it uses those devices to deceive its adversaries.

According to the document, ‘The (People’s Liberation Army) uses military deception to reduce the effectiveness of adversaries’ reconnaissance and to deceive adversaries about the PLA’s warfighting intentions, actions, or major targets.’

The DIA often makes certain reports public that explain how adversaries spy on the U.S. The Wall Street Journal reported the agency was among other parts of the military that supported displaying the balloon debris publicly. Biden administration officials have pushed back on any public release.

‘I wouldn’t expect that we’re going to lay all that out for the public. This was an espionage piece of equipment. And we want to get a better handle on it, understand it for our own national security purposes,’ National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby told reporters in May.

The State Department deferred to the FBI for any public release. When asked for an update to its investigation, the FBI responded with Director Christopher Wray’s comments from his February Fox News interview and said it had nothing else to add.

‘Our technical folks, our lab folks, our counterintelligence folks who specialize in Chinese spying are working hand in hand with our military and other government partners to analyze all the debris. And that work is ongoing,’ Wray said in that interview. ‘This balloon thing is just one piece of a much broader threat.’

The FBI had no updates on the three smaller objects shot down over Alaska, Lake Huron and Canada’s Yukon Territory. Officials initially suspected they were likely research or recreational balloons. Search efforts for those ended soon after they began as U.S. and Canadian authorities announced that no debris was located.

‘What looks embarrassing is that we shot down some toys, it seems,’ Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and Sen Ted Budd, R-N.C., are hoping to pass legislation that would mandate tracking systems for high-altitude weather and research balloons.

‘The problem we face right now is, weather balloons, kid’s science experiments, universities have put up science payloads,’ Kelly said. ‘We’re going to have a way where we can identify it and track it because there’s enough of these things that we can’t be scrambling an F-22 to potentially shoot it down on a weekly basis.’

Congress has also pledged to hold China accountable and is questioning why the U.S. government didn’t detect the objects sooner. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently met with Chinese officials in Beijing. His initial trip had been canceled over the spy balloon incident. He told NBC News relations with China have since stabilized so long as its spy balloons stay grounded.

‘We did what we needed to do to protect our interests,’ Blinken said. ‘We said what we needed to say and made clear what we needed to make clear in terms of this not happening again. And, so, as long as it doesn’t, that chapter should be closed.’

Some lawmakers want to keep that book open and have grown frustrated with the lack of information provided by the Biden administration.

‘There are a lot of questions left unanswered,’ Wicker said. ‘What does it say about our preparedness? What does it say about how seriously we take threats from China?’

The House of Representatives voted Thursday to terminate the Defense Department’s policy of allowing servicemembers to travel across state lines to get an abortion and reimbursing them for their travel costs.

Lawmakers voted 221-213 in favor of an amendment to the annual defense policy bill from Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, that would force the Pentagon to end this policy. The Defense Department put the policy in place shortly after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.

The House vote is a victory for conservatives who hinted that including the language in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was critical to their support for the entire bill. However, the language is certain to lead many Democrats to vote against the bill.

It would theoretically put House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in a tough spot when it comes to passing the NDAA. With just a razor-thin House majority, he can afford to lose no more than four votes for any legislation to pass without Democratic support. It’s also not clear yet if hardliners in his conference will get everything they want in order to vote yes on the final bill.

‘My colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to thank the troops and talk about honoring their sacrifice, and that’s all frankly empty words and broken promises if this amendment passes,’ Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., said during debate ahead of the vote. ‘This amendment puts service women and military families’ lives at risk by denying the basic right to travel for healthcare no longer available where they are stationed.’

In his defense of the amendment, Jackson argued the Biden administration’s policy is ‘in direct violation of federal law.’

‘In the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the Biden administration immediately set out to side-step the ruling and circumvent the law wherever possible,’ Jackson said. ‘The Biden administration has encouraged every federal agency to create rules and adopt policies that not only expand abortion access but also leave American taxpayers on the hook to subsidize abortion services.’

He cited an existing rule, the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds to perform abortions.

‘No doubt my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will insist that taxpayer dollars are not directly funding abortions thereby rendering the current policy legally sound. This is absolutely misleading,’ Jackson said.

The vote was part of a series of 12 largely Republican-backed amendments to the NDAA being voted on as part of a series. There are more than 300 amendments offered in the House in total.

Amendments by GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida to curb the U.S.’ funding to Ukraine failed with no Democratic support and were largely opposed by Republicans as well.

Another by Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., that would ban the use of military healthcare for gender transition surgeries or hormone therapies, passed 222-211.

Two amendments from Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, were aimed at cracking down on the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the military, and both were approved. The first looked to ban the use of federal funds to establish diversity officer and advisor roles within the Pentagon, while the second prohibited the Defense Department’s educational arm from promoting teachings that call the U.S. and its founding documents racist.

FIRST ON FOX: Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is urging Attorney General Merrick Garland against any ‘unconscionable’ moves to investigate Florida’s transportation of migrants — after California Gov. Gavin Newsom urged the DOJ to do so.

‘While I would urge you not to bail out California or engage in another political investigation or litigation, if you make the unconscionable and unfounded determination to do so, Florida stands ready to fight against DOJ’s overreach,’ the letter to Garland, obtained by Fox News Digital says.

Newsom, along with California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, wrote to Garland on July 6 about Florida’s ‘unauthorized alien transport program,’ which flies migrants to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions across the U.S.

The program has transported migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts and to California. It picked up additional funding signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year and is one of many similar initiatives that some Republican states implemented in response to the ongoing border crisis.

Newsom alleged that while it is common for jurisdictions and NGOS to facilitate travel elsewhere in the U.S., ‘this scheme is different.’ The letter cites news accounts that migrants were deceived into taking flights ‘based on promises of jobs and shelter.’

 In the letter, he urges DOJ ‘to open federal criminal and civil investigations into these incidents.’ 

‘It is unconscionable to use people as political props by persuading them to travel to another state based on false or deceptive representations. We urge USDOJ to investigate potential violations of federal law by those involved in this scheme,’ he said.

Separately, California Attorney General Rob Bonta accused Florida of ‘state-sanctioned kidnapping.’

But in her letter, Moody says there is ‘no basis’ for the DOJ to investigate the Sunshine State, and repeats claims made by the state that the relocation program is voluntary and that contractors were present to ensure the migrants made their way to non-governmental organizations. 

Moody dismisses the move by California as a ‘political stunt, not a legal request’ and says that the call is because Gov. Ron DeSantis is running for president and could potentially beat President Biden.

‘Instead, they hope that DOJ can be improperly utilized, yet again, against a Republican presidential candidate during an election. This seems to seek from DOJ exactly what you pledged DOJ would not do.’

In a statement, Moody called the request a ‘ridiculous political stunt.’

‘Our voluntary immigration relocation program is lawful, and California’s request fails to identify any violation of federal law,’ she said. ‘As an Attorney General who leads hundreds of highly qualified lawyers and has led dozens of legal challenges against this administration, it is jarring that California is not competent enough to articulate even a minimal legal basis for its request.’

The move comes as part of an ongoing feud between California and Florida over the issue, as well as between Republican-led and Democrat-led states more broadly on the issue.

As they have faced an ongoing border crisis which they blame on the Biden administration, Republican states including Florida and Texas have been bussing migrants to states or cities with ‘sanctuary policies’ which they say encourages migration to the border.

‘They attacked the previous administration’s efforts to try to have border security. And so that’s the policies they’re staking out. And then what?’ DeSantis said last month. ‘When they have to deal with some of the fruits of that, they all of a sudden become very, very upset about that?’

Moody meanwhile has taken legal action against the Biden administration and secured a major win when a judge agreed to block multiple parole release policies of migrants — including one that saw migrants released into the U.S. without court dates due to overcrowding.

‘Another opportunity for litigation will only shine a brighter light on the Biden administration’s complete abdication of its responsibility as to immigration and the jeopardy which it has placed our country and our citizens.’

The left-wing campaign for cities, states and the federal government to pay reparations as a way to make amends for slavery and racism is gaining momentum as more communities across the country weigh payment proposals – including for historically oppressed groups other than Black Americans.

The issue of reparations has dominated headlines in recent months in large part due to California, where a task force created by state legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020 has been examining the possibility of implementing statewide reparations.

Late last month, the task force released its final recommendations, which the state legislature will consider whether to implement and send to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.

In its approximately 1,000-page report, the task force proposed dozens of statewide policies and ways to calculate monetary reparations designed to redress slavery and historical injustices against Black Americans. According to the task force, such history has created lingering consequences that exist today in the form of systemic racism.

Critics counter that reparations proposals are fiscally unmanageable and don’t make sense by having people who never owned slaves pay money to others who never were slaves as way to atone for slavery.

Still, the task force estimated the minimum dollar amount in harm that California has caused or could have prevented totals at least $1 million per eligible Black Californian.

Beyond cash payments, the task force recommended a variety of other reparations proposals, such as ending the prosecution of low-level crimes and mandating ‘anti-bias training’ as a graduate requirement for medical school, among other measures.

California isn’t alone. The state legislature in New York passed a bill last month that would create a commission to study the effects of slavery and racial discrimination in the Empire State and make recommendations for potential reparations, such as restitution payments from the government. The commission’s recommendations would be non-binding, meaning the legislature would decide whether to take them up for a vote.

Gov. Kathy Hochul is reportedly reviewing the bill but hasn’t commented publicly on the legislation, which needs her signature to become law. If Hochul signs the bill, New York would be the second state to establish a reparations commission, following California’s lead.

According to the legislation, Hochul and legislative leaders from the state Senate and Assembly would each appoint three qualified members to the nine-member commission, which beyond slavery would also address lingering economic, political and educational disparities experienced by Black people in New York state.

While New York and California are the only states actively pursuing a comprehensive statewide reparations plan, several areas across the country may follow suit at the local level — and at least one city has already begun implementing reparations.

The Chicago suburb of Evanston in 2019 committed to spend $10 million over 10 years on local reparations. Two years later, it became the first U.S. city of any size to fund reparations, specifically $25,000 for qualifying Black residents for home repairs, property down payments and interest or late penalties due on city property.

Now, Evanston has become the first city to actually start paying reparations. City staff have met with 48 recipients who are each eligible for the $25,000, and 16 of them received payments this week, according to the Evanston RoundTable. The city expects to dole out the reparations to 140 mostly elderly residents by the end of this year out of about 75,000 total, officials told the Wall Street Journal.

‘I see it as like a test run for the whole country,’ Justin Hansford, a leading advocate for reparations and head of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University, told the Journal.

Evanston is the first city of any kind to deliver on reparations, but San Francisco could be the first major U.S. city to fund such a policy as its own local commission explores potentially doling out millions of dollars each to qualifying Black residents.

Beyond San Francisco, some California cities – such as Oakland, Los Angeles and Sacramento – have been pushing their own reparations initiatives even as the state advances its own payment plan.

In Maryland, meanwhile, legislation to create a state reparations commission has died twice in the General Assembly in the past two years. However, Greenbelt in 2021 became the first city in Maryland to vote for setting up a commission that will study paying reparations. Baltimore did the same in May.

And then on Tuesday, the Caucus of African American Leaders voted unanimously to present a reparations resolution to Maryland officials, seeking programs to address the effects of slavery among Black residents. The resolution will be presented to Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley next week, and then to Gov. Wes Moore and Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman in August.

Elsewhere on the East Coast, Asheville, North Carolina, and Providence, Rhode Island, have each committed millions of dollars to their own local reparations programs.

All of these reparations plans were created with the idea of making amends specifically for slavery and anti-Black discrimination. However, with the idea of reparations becoming increasingly widespread, there are signs that other historically persecuted groups may soon be in the discussion for such payments as well.

Indeed, 11 Native American tribes are calling for reparations from the University of Minnesota, arguing the land was taken from them.

‘You have these schools that have tens of millions of dollars at their disposal, but they are not looking at any ways they can improve living situations for Indigenous peoples today,’ An Garagiola, a descendant of the Chippewa tribe, told the Washington Post. ‘Yet their existence as institutions, as schools of learning, are only there today because of everything that was taken.’

Several universities are facing pressure to address the acquisition of their land, often purchased from Native American tribes for far less than the land was worth. Some of the schools are taking steps to make amends.

The University of California system, for example, has pledged to give free tuition to some Native American students amid a movement to reclaim tribal lands. The University of Wisconsin at Madison flew the flag of the Ho-Chunk Nation on campus for the first time in 2021 in an effort to acknowledge land taken from the tribe. And Cornell University launched a research project to account for all the land that it took from Native communities.

As for reparations at the federal level, racial justice groups and some Democrats in Congress have been pushing President Biden for months to establish a national reparations commission by executive order. The White House has indicated Biden, who’s largely been quiet about the issue, supports studying potential reparations for Black Americans but has stopped short of saying he’d back a bill introduced in Congress that would create such a commission.

Reparations at the federal government level appear stalled amid widespread Republican opposition and only partial support among Democrat lawmakers.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, in an interview with Fox News Digital this week, said the construction of a wall at the southern border is not enough to stop the ongoing migrant crisis, and he said he believes the military should be deployed to both the southern border and possibly the northern border.

‘I think that building the wall is not and has not been enough. They are now building tunnels underneath that wall, literally underground tunnels that are being used to bring in illegal migrants and even to support human trafficking and drug trafficking,’ Ramaswamy said in Manchester, New Hampshire. ‘So, I think that’s a serious problem.’

Ramaswamy said that, if elected, he would deploy troops to the southern and potentially the northern borders.

‘I would use our own military to secure our own southern border. I think that is legally, ethically and constitutionally justified. That is how we seal the southern border. In fact, I think it’s going to be an approach that we will eventually need to seal our own northern border as well,’ he said.

Ramaswamy’s remarks come as the U.S. remains in a migrant crisis at the southern border now into its third year. Numbers have recently dropped from the highs seen before the ending of Title 42 in May, but it is unclear how long that will last.

The U.S. saw more than 1.7 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2021 and more than 2.4 million in fiscal year 2022. Even with a sharp drop in encounters in May, there were still beyond 200,000 for the month.

Meanwhile, at the northern border, while numbers have been significantly lower, there has been a significant increase. So far in fiscal year 2023, there have been more than 115,000 encounters, compared to 109,535 in fiscal year 2022 and 27,180 in fiscal year 2021.

While the Biden administration has said it is rebuilding legal asylum pathways shut down by the Trump administration while also dealing with a hemisphere-wide migration crisis, Republican critics have accused the administration of fueling the crisis by ending Trump-era policies and expanding ‘catch-and-release.’

Republican presidential candidates have been firmly on the side of increased enforcement and stricter measures to combat illegal immigration – coming out in favor of policies that include restoring the Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy and ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants.

Ramaswamy said he would not only restore ‘Remain in Mexico’ – which kept migrants in Mexico for the duration of their asylum hearings and was abolished by the Biden administration – but also put greater pressure on Mexico to control its own border.

‘Yes, absolutely. And I think this is part of what we are going to need – Mexico to regain its sovereignty means Mexico needs control of its own southern border. Many of the immigrants, most of the illegal migrants that come into the United States illegally through the southern border did not actually start in Mexico. They started in other countries south of Mexico. So, I think that ‘Remain in Mexico’ is absolutely essential to create the incentives for Mexico to take control of its own borders and its own sovereignty,’ he said.

The entrepreneur, who is the son of legal immigrants, reasserted his belief that birthright citizenship should not be in play for the children of illegal immigrants.

‘I don’t think that you should be able to earn citizenship, that you do legally earn citizenship if you’re the child of illegal immigrants who crossed that border illegally. And I say this as somebody who actually celebrates birthright citizenship as a major American accomplishment. Most nation’s identities were founded on an ethnicity or a monarch or a religion, not America’s. America was a country founded on a set of ideals that anybody could be a part of, regardless of their ethnicity,’ he said. 

‘So, I say that starting from a very good place in the unique heritage of this country, to say that still we’re a nation founded on the rule of law, and your first act of entering this country cannot be a lawbreaking one,’ he said.

The GOP hopeful said he would seek to pass a constitutional amendment on the matter and also go a step further and require those born in the U.S. to take a civics test at 18 similar to the way that foreign nationals are required to take.

‘I would go further and codify into a constitutional amendment that I would support if necessary that dovetails on the constitutional amendment that I’ve already said that I would support, which is to say that anyone born in this country, if you want to enjoy the full privileges of citizenship at age 18, that means that you have to pass the same civics test that a naturalized citizen has to pass in order to become a full voting citizen as well,’ he said.

‘So, in many ways, I’m going even further with the unique American vision that says: Yes, we are a nation founded on ideals. That means that more than just being born here, it’s being born here but also having the civic duty of knowing something about this country, of actually having a stake in this country in order to be a full voting citizen.’

Fox News’ Matteo Cina contributed to this report.