🎧News Brief: Trump’s Border Czar Reveals Plans for Children of Illegal Immigrants; Republicans Face ‘Zero Seat’ House Majority

Incoming border czar Tom Homan (C) and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) serve food to Texas personnel deployed to the southern border, in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Nov. 26, 2024. Darlene McCormick Sanchez/The Epoch Times

Good morning, and welcome to The Epoch Times News Brief for Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. I’m Bill Thomas, we’re four days away from a brand new year, we have some pressing stories to share with you right now, and here’s what’s going on.

President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming border czar reveals new plans for the children of illegal immigrants, Republicans have zero room for error when the next Congress begins, and the Empire State has a new law that charges some energy-producing companies for polluting the air.

Also, tragic details emerge regarding this week’s deadly plane crash in Kazakhstan, and a major credit card company says business is booming—we’ll tell you what people were buying over the holidays.

We’ll break down each of these stories for you one by one, and we begin here. The former immigration official picked by President-elect Donald Trump to head up his mass deportation plan now says that separating families may be necessary to achieve their mission. More now on our top story.

Trump’s Border Czar Reveals Plans for Children of Illegal Immigrants

Earlier this week, Tom Homan said that the incoming administration may put the children of illegal immigrants into halfway houses while they’re waiting for officers to make what he calls travel arrangements for their parents.

The incoming border czar said that dealing with children who are U.S. citizens is going to be “a difficult situation” because they’re not going to be detained along with their parents who are illegal immigrants.

Homan said that parents who came to the country illegally and chose to have a child put their families in a very difficult position. He also said that the incoming administration will have to build new detention facilities to hold all of the families who will be leaving the United States, and in the past, he predicted that 100,000 beds would be needed to do the job.

The incoming border czar went on to say that having a child who’s a U.S. citizen does not make an illegal immigrant immune to our laws, and it won’t stop them from being removed.

During the campaign, one of Trump’s main promises was to initiate the deportation plan, while Homan later said that the administration would first target illegal immigrants with criminal records.

Meanwhile, Trump recently told Time magazine that he would use the U.S. military to the fullest extent of the law to back any deportation efforts, that he considers illegal immigration to be an invasion of our country, and that his administration would try to deport our nation’s illegal immigrants as quickly as possible.

By the way, according to the Department of Homeland Security, there were an estimated 11 million immigrants living here in the United States illegally at the beginning of 2022, and one pro-immigration group says the cost of removing all of them would lead to a significant reduction in our country’s gross domestic product.

As we continue, in a strange turn of events, the GOP House majority could turn into a House minority in the new year, which could lead to serious complications for the Republican Party, and more now on this story.

Republicans Face ‘Zero Seat’ House Majority

When the 119th Congress returns next week to begin its two-year term, Republicans will start out with a narrow majority after winning 220 seats in the House.

The number gives them a narrow three-seat margin over the majority mark of 218; however, those numbers could change soon after Congress begins because three elected members have either resigned or are leaving to join the incoming administration.

Until special elections are held to replace these members, the temporary reduction of the majority to zero seats could jeopardize the GOP’s ability to pass legislation, and could possibly even flip control of the House to the Democratic Party.

Additionally, in order to pass their desired legislation, House Republicans will need the unanimous support of every party member, and during the last Congress, some conservative members often voted with Democrats to bring down a number of GOP initiatives.

Meanwhile, the opposition of just a few House GOP members could imperil the Trump administration’s legislative agenda, which a majority of House Republicans are seeking to enact.

Right now, the House Democratic Caucus currently has 215 members and needs to gain just three seats to reach a majority, take control of the lower chamber, and elect a new speaker of the House.

A move now to the state of New York, whose governor has a plan to retroactively charge a number of companies for carbon emissions, the price tag is staggering, and other states may soon follow suit. More now on what we know.

New York to Charge Fossil Fuel Companies for Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Gov. Kathy Hochul just signed a new law that will charge a number of carbon-emitting companies an estimated $75 billion for the climate damage they allegedly caused between 2000 and 2018.

Each year, the state will assess the carbon emissions that it says were produced by a number of large companies during the first 19 years of the 21st century. The collected revenue will then be used to “repair damage” due to the extreme weather it says was aggravated by the greenhouse gas emissions.

The law, which begins in 2028, estimates that compliance will cost about three dozen of the state’s largest carbon-emitting companies about $3 billion collectively each year for the next 25 years.

By the way, the money generated by the law will be used to upgrade roads and bridges, maintain stormwater systems, and protect coastal wetlands, as well as infrastructure-related projects.

This year, similar bills are also being considered in several other states, including Massachusetts, California, Maryland, and Minnesota.

However, you should know that these so-called Superfund bills have also drawn heated opposition from a significant number of businesses, and the bills are likely to be challenged in court because there are already federal regulations in place.

These companies say that state governments should not be making energy policy, that “polluter pays” concepts unjustly focus on the energy sector, and that there are other approaches that can better help states reach their emission mandates while also prioritizing energy affordability.

New information to share with you now regarding this week’s airline disaster in Kazakhstan: what experts believe happened to that aircraft prior to the crash, which took the lives of dozens of people.

White House: Indications Show Azerbaijan Air Crash Caused by Russian Air Defense Systems

Yesterday, the White House said there are early indications that the Christmas Day crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight was caused by Russian air defense systems.

A national security adviser says that an ongoing investigation is underway, that both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are conducting it jointly, and that the United States has offered assistance to help out with the process if needed.

Earlier in the day, the Azerbaijani transport minister said that a preliminary investigation concluded that the airliner experienced what he called an “external impact” before the crash. He went on to say that the type of weapon that caused the impact will be determined during the ongoing probe.

In case you missed it, the Brazilian-built airplane was traveling from Russia to Azerbaijan when it crash-landed in Kazakhstan. As a result of the crash, 38 people aboard the plane were killed, and there were 29 survivors.

One Ukrainian defense official immediately accused Russia of shooting down the aircraft. He said that Russia was facing a Ukrainian drone attack when the flight was arriving, that it had failed to close the surrounding airspace, and that the damaged plane was sent to Kazakhstan instead of being allowed to land in the area.

Additionally, several Russian experts seem to back up these claims, including one who said the tail section of the plane looked like it had been damaged by some missile fragments.

The head of Russia’s civil aviation authority confirmed the Ukrainian drone attack, and said the plane had been trying to land in thick fog before the captain decided to head to another region.

Earlier this week, a spokesman for the Kremlin appeared on Russian state media and requested that people wait for the results of the crash investigation before jumping to any conclusions.

This is a developing story and one that we’ll all be watching very closely as the year winds down.

Moving along, we have time now to squeeze in just one more story, and if you recently spent more than expected during your holiday gift-buying spree, one international payment company says you’re not alone, and here’s more now on that story.

Mastercard: US Retail Sales Surge Over Holiday Season

Mastercard says that during this year’s holiday season, retail sales rose by nearly 4 percent across the United States compared to 2023.

The widely used credit card company looked at both in-store and online retail sales across the country from Nov. 1 through Christmas Eve, and it tracked all payment types, including cash and debit cards.

It went on to point out that a number of major retailers, including Walmart and Amazon.com, ramped up their promotions to attract shoppers during this year’s shorter-than-usual holiday season. Meanwhile, one economist at Mastercard said the results show that consumers are still driven by a search for value.

The company said that this year, shoppers splurged mostly on jewelry, electronics, and clothing, whose sales all increased significantly from a year ago. It also said that people spent a great deal more this year on dining out.

Additionally, this year, many shoppers appeared to prefer making their purchases online. Mastercard says that those numbers grew by a significantly larger margin than in-store sales, and most Americans who shopped online purchased clothing.

You should know that these rising retail sales occurred even though consumers faced higher prices this year amid lingering inflation, and that consumer spending accounts for nearly 70 percent of all U.S. economic activity.

However, we should also point out that this latest data has not been adjusted for inflation.

And now, it looks like our time is just about up for today, so we’re going to call it a wrap for the Saturday edition (the weekend edition) of The Epoch Times News Brief.

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And finally, as we do each and every day on this program, we wrap everything up with a very notable quote, and with the new year rapidly approaching, this timely quote comes to us from singer-songwriter Brad Paisley, who said: “Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one.”

For all of us here at The Epoch Times News Brief, I’m Bill Thomas.

The Epoch Times News Brief program is written each day by David Ross.

Thank you for making us your one-stop source for a concise, accurate, and unbiased daily synopsis of many of the news stories you need to know about.

Enjoy the remainder of your day, and we’ll see you right back here next time for another edition of The Epoch Times News Brief.

For now, it’s imperative that we all continue to watch out for one another, and have an absolutely superb day today. Bye for now.