News – Page 16 – 105.7 WDNY

As online extremists push teens to self-harm, 2 senators join to propose new law making it a crime

December 9, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — For several years, as U.S. authorities have struggled to stop online extremist networks like “764” from pushing teens to livestream acts of violence or self-harm, including their own suicide, the Justice Department has faced what authorities and victims both say is a vexing challenge: Such coercion is not a federal crime.

That could change if the Republican chairman and the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, have their way.

Ahead of a committee hearing Tuesday on the evolving threat of online predators, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, introduced a first-of-its-kind piece of legislation that would explicitly criminalize the intentional coercing of minors to physically harm themselves or others, including animals.

Under their proposal, called the Ending Coercion of Children and Harm Online Act, some perpetrators could face life in prison.

“When offenders are eventually caught by law enforcement, prosecutors charge them with the most appropriate charges,” Grassley said in the hearing. “However, there are no specific laws to address the terrible and shocking acts conducted by gore groups such as 764 and those engaged in sextortion.”

Grassley and Durbin’s proposed legislation comes in the wake of several recent reports from ABC News about the growing threat of 764, including an extended interview with the parents of Jay Taylor, a 13-year-old from outside Seattle who in 2022 took his own life — and aired it live on social media — after allegedly being manipulated by a member of 764 in Germany.

“It’s almost biblical in its definition of evil, what happened,” Jay’s father, Colby Taylor, said in the ABC News interview. “Ten minutes of murder.”

That’s why the U.S. needs “to have something in our actual laws that allows us to prosecute” cases as “digital homicides,” he said.

The FBI has described 764 as one of the greatest current threats to teens online, with members finding vulnerable victims on popular platforms, eliciting private information and intimate sexual images from them, and then using that sensitive material to blackmail victims into mutilating themselves or taking other violent action — all while streaming it on social media so others can watch and then disseminate recordings of it.

According to authorities, Jay Taylor is just one of many victims pushed to suicide.

German law explicitly criminalizes such coercion, so the young man allegedly behind Jay Taylor’s death — calling himself “White Tiger” online — has been charged in Germany with murder, along with 203 other offenses involving more than 30 other victims.

According to former FBI agent Pat McMonigle, who helped uncover “White Tiger” and what he allegedly did, making online coercion a federal crime in the United States “would be very helpful.”

“This is truly a bipartisan thing that … could effect some change,” he recently told ABC News.

According to Grassley’s office, the Ending Coercion of Children and Harm Online Act — or “ECCHO Act” — would “specifically go after” networks like 764, creating a penalty of up to life in prison for those who intentionally coerce someone into even just attempting to die by suicide or who coerce someone into taking action that results in the death or killing of another person.

The bill would also create a 30-year maximum penalty for other harmful conduct that does not involve a death, Grassley’s office said.

“Because of modern technology, child predators from anywhere in the world can target American kids online,” Durbin, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the Senate as the Democratic whip, said in a statement. “As technology has evolved, so have online child predators.”

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says it received more than 2,000 reports of abuse tied to 764 or similar networks in the first nine months of this year.

As ABC News has previously reported, the FBI is investigating more than 350 people across the United States with suspected ties to 764 or similar networks. And the Justice Department has already publicly charged at least 35 such people in recent years.

Their victims have been as young as nine years old, according to authorities.

FBI Director Kash Patel recently called 764 “modern-day terrorism in America.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Tuesday will include testimony from an executive director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a former federal prosecutor who retired from the Justice Department earlier this year, and the mother of a teenage son who was victimized by sextortion and then took his own life, unrelated to 764.

Some states have enacted laws aimed at helping to protect children online. And in May, President Donald Trump signed into law the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which prohibits the nonconsensual publication of sexually-explicit images and pushes online platforms to remove violative material.

Several lawmakers — from both sides of the aisle — have introduced additional pieces of legislation in both the House and Senate that could help fight online predators.

But those laws and proposals don’t specifically address the coerced self-harm that is emblematic of 764 and similar online networks.

On Tuesday, Grassley and Durbin are expected to introduce two other pieces of legislation to help protect children online, including the Stop Sextortion Act, which would amend existing laws to address offenders who use threats to distribute sexually-explicit material to extort and coerce minors, according to Grassley’s office.

“I’m proud to introduce these bills to protect children from online abuse, hold dangerous criminals accountable and secure much needed justice for victims and their families,” Grassley said in his statement.

Durbin similarly said he was “proud to join” Grassley’s effort.

At least one other top Democrat in the Senate, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Virginia, has previously expressed support for such legislation, recently telling ABC News that online coercion is “a total crime,” even if “it’s through a digital connection.”

Still, it’s unclear how successful Grassley and Durbin’s effort will be.

One high-profile piece of legislation aimed at protecting children online, the Kids Online Safety Act, passed overwhelmingly in the Senate last year — by a vote of 93 to 1 — only to languish in the House, largely due to First Amendment concerns.

“This is a problem that is going to continue to morph, and if we don’t do something, potentially could get worse,” Sen. Warner told ABC News.

1 year after his arrest, Luigi Mangione’s pretrial hearing enters 5th day

December 9, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — One year after his arrest on Dec. 9, 2024, the pretrial hearing in the case of accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione enters its fifth day in a lower Manhattan courtroom.

Attorneys for Mangione, who is accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk last December, are seeking to exclude from trial critical evidence that they say was illegally seized from his backpack without a warrant after officers apprehended him in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s five days after the shooting.

On a slip of paper police said they pulled from his backpack, Mangione had reminded himself on Dec. 5, 2024, to “pluck eyebrows.”

The McDonalds manager who called 911 said her customers recognized the young man seated in the back corner eating a Steak McMuffin and hash brown because of the distinctive eyebrows, which were visible even as a surgical mask and hood concealed much of his face.

On the reverse side of the paper is a crudely drawn map and a reminder to “check Pittsburgh red eyes, ideally to Columbus or Cincin (get off early).” Another reminder said, “keep momentum, FBI slower overnight.”

The piece of paper had not been seen publicly until it was shown during the ongoing hearing at which Mangione’s attorneys are trying to exclude everything taken from the backpack, including the alleged murder weapon, two loaded magazines, a silencer and a cell phone in a Faraday bag designed to conceal its signal.

They argue that officers from the Altoona Police Department skipped steps and violated Mangione’s constitutional rights against illegal search and seizure because they were eager to help crack a big case.

The district attorney’s office said the officers legitimately feared the backpack could contain something dangerous and their search complied with Pennsylvania law.

Nine witnesses have testified so far. Their testimony will help Judge Gregory Carro determine what evidence is allowed at trial and what, if any, evidence should be omitted.

7 civilians killed, thousands displaced amid Thailand-Cambodia border clashes

December 9, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — At least seven civilians have been killed and approximately 20 others have been injured in Cambodia amid renewed border clashes with neighboring Thailand, according to the Cambodian Ministry of National Defense.

This week’s Thai attacks, which stem from a long-running border dispute between the two Southeast Asian nations, have also forced more than 20,000 from their homes in several communities, the Cambodian ministry said, along with destroying infrastructure, damaging temples disrupting public services.

“In addition to these major impacts, further tragedies and damages continue to unfold, as the Thai military has launched various types of long-range munitions into Cambodian civilian settlements located up to 30 kilometers from the border,” the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, at least one Thai soldier has been killed and 29 others have been injured in the reignited combat around contested frontier territory, according to the Royal Thai Army.

The army said in a statement that its troops were on Tuesday enduring “continuous attacks against our positions” by Cambodian forces. Opposing troops had been “firing BM-21 multiple-launch rockets and employing bomb-dropping drones and kamikaze drones targeting our bases and defensive positions across several battlefronts” near the border, the army said.

More than 125,000 people were using the hundreds of temporary shelters set up on the Thai side of the border, the army said.

Since Monday, the clashes have spread to several provinces along the Cambodia-Thailand border. Both sides accuse each other for starting the fighting.

The latest clashes come just months after both sides agreed to a ceasefire. The two Southeast Asian nations have long disputed territorial sovereignty along their land border of more than 500 miles, according to The Associated Press.

Supreme Court hears major challenge to campaign spending limits

December 9, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — As candidates and political parties gear up for the 2026 midterm election campaign, the Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider whether long-standing legal limits on coordinated spending — enacted to prevent corruption — violate the First Amendment.

The case was brought by Republican senatorial and congressional campaign committees along with then-Sen. JD Vance and former Rep. Steve Chabot, both Ohio Republicans, against the Federal Election Commission, which is tasked with enforcing the rules.

The coalition seeks to eliminate limits on the ability of parties, which often have a fundraising advantage over individual candidates, to more freely and directly finance TV ads and organizing efforts of candidates they favor. The practice is known as coordinated spending.

Oral arguments will take place before a Supreme Court that has been consistently skeptical of campaign finance regulations on free speech grounds, narrowing the scope of contribution limits and in 2014 famously rolling back caps on corporate campaign spending with the Citizens United decision.

The Trump administration, which controls the FEC, is declining to enforce or defend coordinated spending limits. In its place, the Democratic National Committee and a Supreme Court-appointed attorney will argue for why they should be preserved.

“This has been held constitutional at least twice before by the Supreme Court and more times by lower courts,” said Marc Elias, the Democratic attorney defending the law. “The entire campaign finance system is built upon these limits.”

Congress in 1974 set limits on the amount of money American individuals, organizations and political parties can give directly to candidates, and the Supreme Court has upheld them as permissible protections against bribery in the electoral process.

In 2025, the political contribution limits are $3,500 per person to an individual candidate and $44,300 per person to a national party committee per year, according to the FEC.

At issue in this case are added limits set by Congress on the amount of money a political party can spend in direct coordination with a candidate.

The FEC’s coordinated spending limits are computed based on each state’s voting-age population and the number of members of Congress. For Senate nominees, the cap is between $127,200 and $3.9 million in 2025; for House nominees, the limit is $63,300 in most states, according to the FEC.

Advocates say the spending limits prevent quid pro quo corruption between a candidate and party, and prevent individuals from attempting to circumvent contribution rules by essentially funneling donations to a candidate through the party, which is subject to the higher caps.

“If those contributions, which dwarf the base limits on [individual] contributions to candidates, are effectively placed at a candidate’s disposal through coordinated spending, they become potent sources of actual or apparent corruption,” argue attorneys for Public Citizen, a nonprofit voter advocacy group, in a brief to the high court.

More than a dozen states and independent election watchdog groups have also urged the court to leave campaign-finance rules to legislators, arguing they are better positioned to establish policies for elections than judges are.

The defenders of the limits also contend that the Republican plaintiffs lack legal standing to bring the case. They say that because the Trump FEC is not going to enforce the rules, there is no injury to the parties involved and that Vance and Chabot are not even active candidates for office who would be affected by the coordinated spending limits.

Republicans insist coordinated spending limits are unconstitutional suppression of free speech and that they are ineffective in the purported goal of curbing corruption.

“One of the key functions of a political party is to make sure that its candidates will vote for the party’s platform once in office,” the Republican committees tell the Supreme Court.

The case — National Republican Senatorial Committee, et al. v. Federal Election Commission — is expected to be decided by the end of June 2026 when the Supreme Court’s term concludes.

Pope Leo meets Zelenskyy, calls for ‘just and lasting’ peace in Ukraine

December 9, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Pope Leo XIV near Rome on Tuesday, amid a flurry of meetings with fellow European leaders to discuss the latest permutations of a U.S.-proposed peace plan to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of his country.

The Vatican Press office said the two men met at the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo outside the Italian capital.

“During the cordial talks, which focused on the war in Ukraine, the Holy Father reiterated the need for the continuation of dialogue and expressed his urgent desire that the current diplomatic initiatives bring about a just and lasting peace,” the Vatican statement said.

“In addition, the questions of prisoners of war and the need to assure the return of Ukrainian children to their families were also discussed,” the statement said.

Zelenskyy and the pope greeted journalists and photographers from the balcony of the papal residence.

The Ukrainian president is due to meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday afternoon.

That meeting follows discussions with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in London on Monday.

Zelenskyy is meeting with European leaders to discuss their approach to the latest version of the U.S.-proposed peace deal to end Russia’s invasion.

Following talks in Geneva, Moscow and Miami over the past couple of weeks, the initial 28-point peace plan presented to Kyiv by American negotiators has been revised down to 20 points, Zelenskyy said on Monday.

Key issues such as territorial control and future Western security guarantees for Ukraine remain unsettled.

“The Americans think we must look for compromises. There are difficult questions about territories. In this regard, there is no compromise for now,” Zelenskyy told reporters on a plane after the meetings in London.

Zelenskyy said the “strongest security guarantee” that Ukraine can get would be from the U.S. “They are so far reacting positively to such a move,” he said.

The “Coalition of the Willing,” as the group of mostly European leaders refer to themselves, will also provide security guarantees, but Zelenskyy said he has not received an answer on what they would be ready to do in the event of a “repeated aggression from Russia.”

Zelenskyy says no compromise reached on territory question in peace settlement talks

December 8, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — No compromise has been reached on the question of territorial control to reach a peace settlement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said following his meeting with European leaders on Monday.

Following talks in Geneva, Moscow and Miami over the past couple of weeks, the initial 28-point peace plan is now 20 points, Zelenskyy said. Key issues such as territorial control and future Western security guarantees for Ukraine remain unsettled.

Zelenskyy said the “strongest security guarantee” that Ukraine can get would be from the United States, adding, “They are so far reacting positively to such a move.”

The Coalition of the Willing, made up of mostly European leaders, will also provide security guarantees, but Zelenskyy said he has not received an answer on what they would be ready to do in the event of a “repeated aggression from Russia.”

Ahead of traveling to the U.K., Zelenskyy on Sunday urged “collective pressure on Russia” amid the latest American peace push in Ukraine, and as Moscow and Kyiv both continued their long-range barrages despite renewed diplomatic maneuvers.

“We are starting a new diplomatic week,” Zelenskyy said in posts to social media, saying Ukrainian representatives would be meeting with European counterparts in the coming days.

Zelenskyy said the most pressing questions included “security issues, support for our resilience and support packages for our defense.” For the latter, “air defense and long-term funding for Ukraine” are Kyiv’s prime concerns, he said.

Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian negotiating team held “substantive discussions” with U.S. envoys in recent days, with Kyiv’s delegation — led by National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov and Chief of the General Staff Andrii Hnatov — now returning to Europe.

“I expect detailed information from them on everything that was said to the American envoys in Moscow, and on the nuances the Americans are prepared to modify in negotiations with us and with the Russians,” Zelenskyy said.

“Ukraine deserves a dignified peace, and whether there will be peace depends entirely on Russia — on our collective pressure on Russia and on the sound negotiating positions of the United States, Europe, and all our other partners,” Zelenskyy wrote.

“Russia must be held accountable for what it is doing — for the daily strikes, for the constant terror against our people, and for the war itself,” Zelenskyy said.

Trump on Sunday appeared to express frustration with the Ukrainian position on the latest U.S.-proposed peace deal, which neither Kyiv nor Moscow have publicly committed to supporting in full.

“We’ve been speaking to President Putin and we’ve been speaking to Ukrainian leaders, including President Zelenskyy,” Trump told reporters. “I have to say that I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelenskyy hasn’t yet read the proposal — that was as of a few hours ago.”

“His people love it, but he has — Russia’s fine with it,” Trump continued. “Russia’s, you know, Russia, Russia, I guess would rather have the whole country, when you think of it. But Russia is, I believe, fine with it. But I’m not sure that Zelenskyy is fine with it. His people love it, but he hasn’t read it.”

The U.S. initially presented Kyiv with a 28-point peace plan that critics dismissed as equivalent to Ukrainian capitulation. The blueprint was widely perceived as pro-Russian for its demand that Ukraine surrender territories in the east of the country and cap the size of its military. Nonetheless, Moscow refrained from offering its full backing, though Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested the document could “form the basis for future agreements.”

Presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner have since traveled to Moscow to meet with Putin and held meetings with Ukrainian representatives as they sought to firm up a potential framework for a future peace deal.

Long-range Russian drone and missile strikes continued all across Ukraine through the weekend, with Ukrainian officials reporting that the attacks focused on critical energy infrastructure.

On Monday morning, Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 149 drones into the country overnight, of which 131 were shot down or suppressed.

Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said in a post to Telegram that the continued Russian strikes had caused significant power outages for customers in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy and Chernihiv regions.

Ukraine also continued its own cross-border strike campaign. Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that its forces downed at least 74 Ukrainian drones overnight, including two over the Moscow region.

ABC News’ Hannah Demissie and Meghan Mistry contributed to this report.

Supreme Court likely to allow Trump FTC firing, expanding presidential power

December 8, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINTON) — The Supreme Court on Monday appeared likely to allow President Donald Trump to remove a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission purely for policy reasons, likely rolling back 90 years of legal precedent that had prevented at-will removal of independent agency officials in a decision that would expand presidential power.

The case could transform the federal government and effectively end the independence of some two dozen bipartisan agencies that Congress had designed to be insulated from political interference and direct White House supervision.

All six of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices indicated during oral arguments in the case, Trump v. Slaughter, that a president should have absolute control over the leadership of any government body carrying out executive functions, such as rulemaking and law enforcement.

They pointed to Article II of the Constitution which says, “the executive power shall be vested in a President” and that he alone “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

Such a ruling would overrule or substantially limit a unanimous 1935 Supreme Court decision involving the FTC — Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S. — which had affirmed limits on a president’s ability to fire members of the commission only for cause.

“Humphrey’s Executor is just a dried husk of whatever people used to think it was,” Chief Justice John Roberts said bluntly.

Justice Samuel Alito suggested that the earlier Supreme Court had egregiously erred, opening the door for Congress to circumvent the president altogether if it wanted to.

Could every Cabinet office “be headed by a multi-member commission whose members are not subject to at-will removal by the president?” he asked Amit Agarwal, the attorney representing the terminated FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.

The Supreme Court’s three liberal members vigorously defended the agencies as they were designed by Congress — and signed into law by prior presidents — as legitimate sentinels of the public interest and regulatory continuity across administrations.

“You’re asking us to destroy the structure of government,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Trump administration Solicitor General John Sauer.

Justice Elena Kagan said she worried about a slippery slope.

“The result of what you want is that the president is going to have massive unchecked, uncontrolled power not only to do traditional execution [of the laws] but to make law,” Kagan said, referring to the agencies’ regulatory authority.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned of the “danger” in allowing a president to replace members of independent commissions with “loyalists and people who don’t know anything” about the agency’s expertise.

Independent agencies have regulated American monetary policy and stock trades, transportation systems and election campaigns, consumer product safety and broadcast licenses historically overseen by subject-matter experts from both parties.

“If the petitioners get their way,” said Agarwal, “everyone is on the chopping block.”

Few of the conservatives seemed concerned about the consequences.

“It’s been suggested if we rule for you, the entire government will fall,” Alito told Sauer.

“The sky will not fall. In fact, the entire government will live with accountability,” Sauer replied.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the justices most often in the majority camp on the Supreme Court’s decisions, made a point of downplaying the impact of potential fallout.

“Overruling or narrowing Humphrey’s won’t affect the existence of these agencies,” he pointed out. Sauer agreed.

Kavanaugh also suggested the Supreme Court is likely to carve out two exceptions to a ruling that would give a president greater control: the Federal Reserve Bank, which is also an independent agency, and administrative courts, such as the tax court, which are operated out of the executive branch.

Next month, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case involving Trump’s unprecedented attempt to fire a Democratically-appointed member of the Federal Reserve, Lisa Cook. She currently remains on the job after the justices declined Trump’s request to stay a lower court decision.

The outcome in the Slaughter case will determine whether or not there will be any Democrats left on the FTC or other regulatory bodies, and whether any of the other independent agencies will be truly “independent” any longer.

A decision in the case is expected by the end of June 2026.

6-year-old girl dies after go-kart accident at Florida trampoline adventure park: Police

December 8, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.) — A 6-year-old girl died after she was injured in a go-kart accident at a trampoline adventure park in Florida, police said.

First responders were dispatched to an Urban Air Trampoline and Adventure Park in Port St. Lucie on Saturday shortly before 9 p.m. for a “medical run” after staff at the facility reported a go-kart accident involving a child, according to local police.

The girl was airlifted to a hospital in Fort Pierce and died from her injuries on Sunday, according to the Port St. Lucie Police Department.

“Detectives are actively investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident,” the Port St. Lucie Police Department said in a statement on Monday.

The medical examiner’s findings are pending, a police department spokesperson said in a statement earlier Monday.

Police did not release any additional details on the incident, including the nature of the injuries, citing the ongoing investigation.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has also been notified, “as required,” police said.

ABC News has reached out to the franchise location for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The Port St. Lucie location includes a number of attractions in addition to trampolines, including go-karts, bumper cars, a zip line and laser tag.

Mother of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s nephew ordered released from immigration detention

December 8, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The mother of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s nephew was ordered released from immigration detention on Monday, according to her attorney.

Bruna Caroline Ferreira, who is in the process of obtaining a green card and previously held DACA status, was ordered released by an immigration judge on a minimum bond of $1,500.

Ferreira’s attorney, Todd Pomerleau, told ABC News that he argued at a hearing that his client is not a “criminal illegal alien,” as described by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), nor that she is a flight risk.

Ferreira is expected to be released Monday or Tuesday, according to Pomerleau.

The White House did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment.

DHS confirmed two weeks ago that Ferreira had been detained. A reporter with ABC New Hampshire station WMUR spoke with Leavitt’s brother, Michael Leavitt, who also confirmed the arrest and said Ferreira had been detained a few weeks previously.

A DHS spokesperson then described Ferreira, a Brazilian national, as a “criminal illegal alien” who had a previous arrest for battery and had overstayed a visa that expired in 1999.

“ICE arrested Bruna Caroline Ferreria, a criminal illegal alien from Brazil. She has a previous arrest for battery. She entered the U.S. on a B2 tourist visa that required her to depart the U.S. by June 6, 1999,” the DHS spokesperson said. “She is currently at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center and is in removal proceedings. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, all individuals unlawfully present in the United States are subject to deportation,” the spokesperson said.

“Bruna has no criminal record whatsoever, I don’t know where that is coming from. Show us the proof,” Pomerleau told Boston ABC station WCVB after Ferreria’s arrest was announced.

Pomerleau also said then that Ferreira entered the country lawfully, previously held DACA status and was in the process of obtaining a green card. He further said that his client was arrested in her car in Massachusetts after being stopped with no warrant, adding that he now has to litigate her case in Louisiana, thousands of miles away from her home.

Pomerleau also told WCVB that he did not believe that his client’s connection to Karoline Leavitt could affect the case, adding that he believes it’s just “happenstance.”

ABC News’ Armando Garcia, Jason Volack and Hannah Demissie contributed to this story.

Asylum seeker who fled Taliban is at risk of deportation back to Afghanistan: Attorney

December 8, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — An asylum seeker who fled Afghanistan last year after being persecuted by the Taliban is at risk of being deported back to his home country, according to his attorney.

Attorney Elora Mukherjee told ABC News that despite having no criminal record and having future asylum hearings scheduled, her client was apprehended by immigration authorities last Wednesday during a routine “check in” at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City.

Mukherjee and her client’s family requested his name not be used due to fear of threats.

The asylum seeker’s arrest comes after President Donald Trump directed his administration to suspend all Afghan immigration cases in response to a shooting earlier this month that killed one National Guard member and left another in critical condition in Washington, D.C. The administration has accused the Biden administration of not properly vetting asylum seekers.

The suspected shooter is an Afghan refugee named Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who previously worked with the U.S. government, including the CIA, in Afghanistan. He has pleaded not guilty.

Since the shooting, immigrant advocates and attorneys say Afghan asylum seekers and refugees have been targeted for detention and deportation.

Mukherjee told ABC News that her client applied to enter the United States through the Customs and Border Protection’s One app and received an appointment to enter the country in May 2024.

According to a habeas petition filed by Mukherjee, her client fled Afghanistan “after being subject to forced eviction and threats of potential death by the Taliban.”

The man was held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for six months and then released on parole, according to court documents. Shortly after being released, he appeared before immigration court and applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and Convention Against Torture relief.

Mukherjee said her client has attended all of his immigration hearings and has one scheduled for February 2026.

But last Wednesday, Mukherjee told ABC News, her client received a notification from ICE to appear at 26 Federal Plaza, the government building that has become an epicenter for clashes between immigrants and immigration authorities, for a “check in.”

After the man entered the ICE waiting room, Mukherjee said, he was apprehended by immigration authorities and taken to a detention center in New Jersey.

“I tried to stay by his side, but officers insisted on separating us … in fact, they took [him] and detained him,” said Mukherjee.

Mukherjee told ABC News she filed a habeas petition challenging his detention.

“He’s not done anything wrong,” she said. “He has complied with all of his immigration check-in requirements. Filed a timely asylum application. He was persecuted by the Taliban and he will be very seriously harmed, tortured and killed by the Taliban if he’s forced to return to Afghanistan.”

ABC News reviewed federal and state court records and did not find a criminal record for the man.

During a hearing on Friday, a federal judge ordered the government to answer to the habeas petition by Wednesday and Mukherjee to respond by Thursday.

A representative of the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

“He was not safe in his home country,” said the man’s brother, who also asked that his name not be used due to fear of threats to him and his family. “So he came to the United States and he feels safe over here, and he wants to establish a secure life for his future.”

He told ABC News that his brother was working and taking English classes before he was detained.

“Being returned to Afghanistan is on everyone’s mind,” his brother said. “I’m very worried.”

+ More