News from Multiple Perspectives

Argentinians are taking on loans, selling their belongings, and living on credit cards to pay for basics including food.

Awdah Hathaleen's brother says Israeli prosecutors’ plan to indict settler Yinon Levi is welcome, but not enough.

Israel takes another step towards annexing the occupied West Bank.

This combo from images provided by the FBI shows surveillance footage at the home of Nancy Guthrie the night she went missing in Tucson, Ariz. (FBI via AP) 2026-02-16T19:17:37Z Investigators working on the disappearance of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother are consulting with Walmart management to develop leads because a backpack the suspect was wearing is sold exclusively at the stores, the Pima County, Arizona, sheriff said Monday. Nancy Guthrie , 84, was last seen at her Arizona home on Jan. 31 and was reported missing the following day. Authorities say her blood was found on the front porch. Purported ransom notes were sent to news outlets, but two deadlines for paying have passed. The Federal Bureau of Investigation released surveillance videos of a masked person wearing a handgun holster outside Guthrie’s front door in Tucson the night she vanished. A porch camera recorded video of a person with a backpack who was wearing a ski mask, long pants, a jacket and gloves. Pima Count Sheriff Chris Nanos said in a text message to The Associated Press on Monday that the 25-liter “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack” backpack was the only clothing item that has been “definitively identified.” freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); “This backpack is exclusive to Walmart and we are working with Walmart management to develop further leads,” Nanos said. The suspect’s clothing “may have been purchased from Walmart but is not exclusively available at Walmart,” the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement Monday. “This remains a possibility only.” Investigators on Sunday announced that a glove discovered near the Guthrie home has been sent for DNA testing. The FBI said that it received preliminary results Saturday and was awaiting official confirmation. The development comes as law enforcement gathers more potential evidence and as the search for Guthrie’s mother heads into its third week. Authorities previously said they had not identified a suspect. The FBI said the suspect in the surveillance footage is a man about 5 feet, 9 inches tall with a medium build. Authorities have expressed concern about Nancy Guthrie’s health because she needs vital daily medicine. She is said to have a pacemaker and have dealt with high blood pressure and heart issues, according to sheriff’s dispatcher audio on broadcastify.com. SCOTT BAUER Bauer is the AP’s Statehouse reporter covering politics and state government in Madison, Wisconsin. He also writes music reviews. twitter mailto

Actor Robert Duvall arrives for the screening of the film "We Own the Night," at the 60th International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 25, 2007. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, file) 2026-02-16T18:50:27Z LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Duvall, the Oscar-winning actor of matchless versatility and dedication whose classic roles included the intrepid consigliere of the first two “Godfather” movies and the over-the-hill country music singer in “Tender Mercies,” has died at age 95. Duvall died “peacefully” at his home Sunday in Middleburg, Virginia, according to an announcement from his publicist and from a statement posted on his Facebook page by his wife, Luciana Duvall. “To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything,” Luciana Duvall wrote. “His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court. For each of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented.” The bald, wiry Duvall didn’t have leading man looks, but few “character actors” enjoyed such a long, rewarding and unpredictable career, in leading and supporting roles, from an itinerant preacher to Josef Stalin. Beginning with his 1962 film debut as Boo Radley, the reclusive neighbor in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Duvall created a gallery of unforgettable portrayals. They earned him seven Academy Award nominations and the best actor prize for “Tender Mercies,” which came out in 1983. He also won four Golden Globes, including one for playing the philosophical cattle-drive boss in the 1989 miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” a role he often cited as his favorite. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); In 2005, Duvall was awarded a National Medal of Arts. He had been acting for some 20 years when “The Godfather,” released in 1972, established him as one of the most in-demand performers of Hollywood. He had made a previous film, “The Rain People,” with Francis Coppola, and the director chose him to play Tom Hagen in the mafia epic that featured Al Pacino and Marlon Brando among others. Duvall was a master of subtlety as an Irishman among Italians, rarely at the center of a scene, but often listening and advising in the background, an irreplaceable thread through the saga of the Corleone crime family. “Stars and Italians alike depend on his efficiency, his tidying up around their grand gestures, his being the perfect shortstop on a team of personality sluggers,” wrote the critic David Thomson. “Was there ever a role better designed for its actor than that of Tom Hagen in both parts of ‘The Godfather?’” freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); In another Coppola film, “Apocalypse Now,” Duvall was wildly out front, the embodiment of deranged masculinity as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, who with equal vigor enjoyed surfing and bombing raids on the Viet Cong. Duvall required few takes for one of the most famous passages in movie history, barked out on the battlefield by a bare-chested, cavalry-hatted Kilgore: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ dink body. “The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like — victory.” Coppola once commented about Duvall: “Actors click into character at different times — the first week, third week. Bobby’s hot after one or two takes.” freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Honored, but still hungry He was Oscar-nominated as supporting actor for “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now,” but a dispute over money led him to turn down the third Godfather epic, a loss deeply felt by critics, fans and “Godfather” colleagues. Duvall would complain publicly about being offered less than his co-stars. Fellow actors marveled at Duvall’s studious research and planning, and his coiled energy. Michael Caine, who co-starred with him in the 2003 “Secondhand Lions,” once told The Associated Press: “Before a big scene, Bobby just sits there, absolutely quiet; you know when not to talk to him.” Anyone who disturbed him would suffer the well-known Duvall temper, famously on display during the filming of the John Wayne Western “True Grit,” when Duvall seethed at director Henry Hathaway’s advice to “tense up” before a scene. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Duvall was awarded an Oscar in 1984 for his leading role as the troubled singer and songwriter Mac Sledge in “Tender Mercies,” a prize he accepted while clad in a cowboy tuxedo with Western tie. In 1998, he was nominated for best actor in “The Apostle,” a drama about a wayward Southern evangelist which he wrote, directed, starred in, produced and largely financed. With customary thoroughness, he visited dozens of country churches and spent 12 years writing the script and trying to get it made. Among other notable roles: the outlaw gang leader who gets ambushed by John Wayne in “True Grit"; Jesse James in “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid"; the pious and beleaguered Frank Burns in “M-A-S-H"; the TV hatchet man in “Network"; Dr. Watson in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution"; and the sadistic father in “The Great Santini.” freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); “When I was doing ‘Colors’ in 1988 with Sean Penn, someone asked me how I do it all these years, keep it fresh. Well, if you don’t overwork, have some hobbies, you can do it and stay hungry even if you’re not really hungry,” Duvall told The Associated Press in 1990. In his mid-80s, he received a supporting Oscar nomination as the title character of the 2014 release “The Judge,” in which he is accused of causing a death in a hit-and-run accident. More recent films included “Widows” and “12 Mighty Orphans.” Ungifted in school, gifted on stage Robert Selden Duvall grew up in the Navy towns of Annapolis and the San Diego area, where he was born in 1931. He spent time in other cities as his father, who rose to be an admiral, was assigned to various duties. The boy’s experience helped in his adult profession as he learned the nuances of regional speech and observed the psyche of military men, which he would portray in several films. Duvall reportedly used his Navy officer father as the basis for his portrayal of the explosive militarist in “The Great Santini,” based on the Pat Conroy novel. He commented in 2003: “My dad was a gentleman but a seether, a stern, blustery guy, and away a lot of the time.” Bobby took after his mother, an amateur actress, in playing a guitar and performing. He was a wrestler like his father and enjoyed besting kids older than himself. He lacked the concentration for schoolwork and nearly flunked out of Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. His despairing parents decided he needed something to keep him in college so he wouldn’t be drafted for the Korean War. “They recommended acting as an expedient thing to get through,” he recalled. “I’m glad they did.” He flourished in drama classes. “Way back when I was in college,” Duvall told the AP in 1990, “there was a wonderful man named Frank Parker, who had been a dancer in World War I. We did a full-length mime play and I played a Harlequin clown. I really liked that. “Then, I played an older guy in ‘All My Sons,’ and at one point I had this emotional moment, where this emotion was pouring out. Parker said at that moment he didn’t think acting can be carried any further than that. And this guy was a very critical guy. So I thought, at that moment at least, this is what I wanted to do.” After two years in the Army, he used the G.I. Bill to finance his studies at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, hanging out with such other young hopefuls as Robert Morse, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. After a one-night performance in “A View From the Bridge,” Duvall began getting offers for work in TV series, among them “The Naked City” and “The Defenders.” Between his high-paying jobs in major productions, Duvall devoted himself to directing personal projects: a documentary about a prairie family, “We’re Not the Jet Set”; a film about gypsies, “Angelo, My Love”; and “Assassination Tango,” in which he also starred. Duvall had been a tango dancer since seeing the musical “Tango Argentina” in the 1980s and visited in Argentina dozens of times to study the dance and the culture. The result was the 2003 release about a hit man with a passion for tango. His co-star was Luciana Pedraza, 42 years his junior, whom he married in 2005. Duvall’s three previous marriages — to Barbara Benjamin, Gail Youngs and Sharon Brophy — ended in divorce. —- Former Associated Press Hollywood correspondent Bob Thomas, who died in 2014, was the primary writer of this obituary 获取更多RSS： https://feedx.net https://feedx.site

China's Eileen Gu waits for her scores as she competes in the women's freestyle skiing big air qualifications at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr) 2026-02-16T16:24:50Z MILAN (AP) — Eileen Gu is readying to defend her big air ski freestyle title and a Norwegian contender’s emotional reaction overshadowed the last men’s Alpine ski event of the Milan Cortina Olympics . Also on Day 10 of the Winter Games, the United States won its women’s hockey semifinal game . Canada plays next, which could set up yet another gold-medal decider between the old rivals. McGrath’s moment alone in the forest The men’s slalom race had a finish like no other. Norway’s Atle Lie McGrath was leading the race and skiing last on the second run but straddled a gate and was out. He stopped, threw his ski poles over a fence and then started walking through deep snow to the forest for some time alone. The dramatic finish overshadowed Loic Meillard of Switzerland winning gold , and an earlier fall for giant slalom winner and South American history maker Lucas Pinheiro Braathen. It’s been an especially tough Olympics for McGrath, whose grandfather died on the day of the opening ceremony. McGrath was racing with an armband as a tribute. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Eileen Gu’s quest in big air The freestyle star who skis for China is going for her second medal of these Olympics as she aims to win the big air event for the second Games in a row. Gu was second in qualifying and will be up against Mathilde Gremaud, who beat her to the gold medal in slopestyle. Gu is also competing in the halfpipe later in the Milan Cortina Games. Hockey semifinals The United States is into the women’s gold medal game after routing Sweden 5-0 as goaltender Aerin Frankel preserved a shutout streak which now stands at 331 minutes. The U.S. team is unbeaten and has allowed just one goal all tournament as it seeks a first gold medal since 2018. The defending Olympic champion Canadians play Switzerland in the day’s other semifinal game. More Dutch gold Xandra Velzeboer won her second gold medal of the Olympics in the women’s 1,000-meter short track speedskating to match her Dutch teammate Jens van ’t Wout with two gold medals for the games. Italy’s Arianna Fontana was chasing what would have been her 14th career Olympic medal but placed fourth. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Still to come The figure skating pairs event heads for its decider in the free skate, with Germany’s Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin leading after the short program. Medals are also on offer in women’s monobob and the men’s super team ski jumping. ___ AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

The group of 34 women and children with family links to Islamic State group have been held in the Roj camp for nearly seven years.

A town in northern Italy has started celebrating carnival with its annual Battle of the Oranges where people hurl the fruit at each other for fun.

One passenger was taken to hospital after the derailment, which police say could have been caused by an avalanche.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that he met with U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal , D-Conn., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. "Thank you for seeing us," Blumenthal can be heard saying in a video included in Zelenskyy's post. "We look forward to hearing from you, ah, about how we can be more helpful." Zelenskyy indicated in the post that during the meeting he "thanked the United States for its strong bipartisan support and work for peace." UK, GERMAN DEFENSE OFFICIALS DEFEND MILITARY BUILDUP UNDER RUSSIAN THREATS President Donald Trump has been trying to help broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, but the two nations remain locked in conflict. "Before our meeting, the senators met with children whom Ukraine managed to return from Russia. Thank you, this is truly important," Zelenskyy noted in the post. RUBIO MEETS WITH ZELENSKYY AHEAD OF CRUCIAL GENEVA TALKS, SAYS TRUMP WANTS SOLUTION THAT ‘ENDS BLOODSHED’ "We see no better tools to influence Moscow than pressure. There is an important sanctioning act in the Senate right now, and we expect it to work. I also informed them about the constant Russian strikes on our people and, in particular, on American businesses as well. It is absolutely fair that Russian money should be used to defend against this terror, and we discussed the prospects of utilizing immobilized Russian assets to purchase missiles for the Patriot systems," he added. "I thank the President, Congress, and the people of the United States for their support," Zelenskyy noted. UKRAINE STRIKES MAJOR RUSSIAN AMMO DEPOT WITH ‘FLAMINGO’ MISSILE AS TRUMP URGES ZELENSKYY TO MOVE ON DEAL CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Fox News Digital reached out to the senators' offices on Monday.

French police raided the headquarters of the Arab World Institute (AWI) on Monday as part of its investigation into a former government official's connections to Jeffrey Epstein . Authorities searched the Paris headquarters along with several other locations, according to the national financial prosecutor. The investigators were searching for documents relating to ex-culture minister Jack Lang, who served as the AWI's head until his resignation last month. AWI is a part of France's foreign ministry. Both Jack and Caroline Lang have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or receiving financial benefits from Epstein. Their lawyer, Laurent Merlet, told French broadcaster BFMTV this month that "there was no movement of funds." Fallout from the release of millions of new documents related to Epstein has rippled through Europe. On Saturday, Paris prosecutors set up a dedicated team to review the files, coordinating with the financial prosecutor and national police. PRINCE WILLIAM, PRINCESS CATHERINE 'DEEPLY CONCERNED' BY EPSTEIN FILES REVELATIONS, PALACE SAYS Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in a letter on Saturday that "all" Epstein files have now been released, consistent with Section 3 of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. "In accordance with the requirements of the Act, and as described in various Department submissions to the courts of the Southern District of New York assigned to the Epstein and Maxwell prosecutions and related orders, the Department released all ‘records, documents, communications and investigative materials in the possession of the Department’ that ‘relate to’ any of nine different categories," the letter read. The letter includes a list of more than 300 high-profile names, including President Donald Trump , Barack and Michelle Obama, Prince Harry, Bill Gates, Woody Allen, Kurt Cobain, Mark Zuckerberg and Bruce Springsteen. CBS NEWS SCRAMBLES AS NEW CONTRIBUTOR'S EPSTEIN EMAIL CONNECTIONS SURFACE IN LATEST DOJ FILES In accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the list of names includes "all persons where (1) they are or were a government official or politically exposed person and (2) their name appears in the files released under the Act at least once," the letter said, adding that the names appear in a "wide variety of contexts." Some of the names mentioned had "extensive direct email contact with Epstein or Maxwell" while others were mentioned "in a portion of a document (including press reporting) that on its face is unrelated to the Epstein and Maxwell matters," the letter said. The document outlines the broad range of Epstein-related materials, including records concerning Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell; references to individuals—up to and including government officials—connected to Epstein’s activities; and documents tied to civil settlements and legal resolutions such as immunity deals, plea agreements, non-prosecution agreements and sealed arrangements. Reuters contributed to this report.

The British and German Defense chiefs contend that military buildup is necessary to protect Europe from potential Russian aggression. They pointed to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. "Moscow’s military buildup, combined with its willingness to wage war on our continent, as painfully evidenced in Ukraine, represents an increased risk that demands our collective attention," they declared in an opinion piece published by The Guardian. RUBIO SEALS CIVIL NUCLEAR COOPERATION AGREEMENT WITH HUNGARY United Kingdom Chief of Defense Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton and German Chief of Defense Carsten Breuer made an argument for peace through strength. "History teaches us that deterrence fails when adversaries sense disunity and weakness. If Russia perceives Europe in this way, it may be emboldened to extend its aggression beyond Ukraine. Indeed, we know that Moscow’s intentions range wider than the current conflict," they wrote. RUBIO BLASTS ‘WORLD WITHOUT BORDERS’ FANTASY, WARNS MASS MIGRATION THREATENS WESTERN CIVILIZATION They asserted that the continent must have a strong defense industry. "Ukraine shows us that industrial bases are key to sustaining and ultimately winning any major war. The increased defence spending under way across our countries proves that we are taking this seriously, as we cannot deter if we cannot produce. Our industries must be capable of sustained output – manufacturing the ammunition, systems and platforms our forces require at the pace modern conflict demands," they asserted. UKRAINE STRIKES MAJOR RUSSIAN AMMO DEPOT WITH ‘FLAMINGO’ MISSILE AS TRUMP URGES ZELENSKYY TO MOVE ON DEAL CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "There is a moral dimension to this endeavour. Rearmament is not warmongering; it is the responsible action of nations determined to protect their people and preserve peace. Strength deters aggression. Weakness invites it," they wrote.

The social media site was the subject of user complaints early Monday.

The day before nuclear talks were set to resume, Iran conducted live drills in the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway for oil and gas shipments.

Fans have fallen hard for plush dolls representing Tina and Milo, the mascots of Italy’s Winter Games.

This week, ProPublica published a story I wrote based in part on interviews with parents and children being held at the nation’s only operating detention center for immigrant families in Dilley, Texas. I had asked some of the parents to see if their children would be willing to write to me about their experiences inside. More than three dozen did. One of those letters came from 9-year-old Maria Antonia Guerra Montoya from Colombia. Her letter was written on a piece of notebook paper. She decorated it with rainbows and hearts. And she drew a portrait of herself and her mom wearing their detention uniforms and government-issued ID badges. I had initially met Maria a few weeks earlier, when I managed to get inside the Dilley Immigration Processing Center. It’s just south of San Antonio. Maria Antonia, her mother and more than 3,500 people, half of them minors, had cycled through there since the Trump administration reopened it early last year. I went in mid-January, before the facility burst into public view when Liam Conejo Ramos — the 5-year-old in a blue bunny hat detained with his father in Minneapolis — was sent there, with the aim of hearing about the conditions in which children were being held, from the children themselves. After signing in, I passed through a metal detector and a series of locked doors to get to the visitation room. Maria Antonia and another girl her age were quietly playing fast-moving hand games, when her mother, Maria Alejandra Montoya, called her over to introduce me.   Maria Antonia, wearing her long brown hair in a ponytail, didn’t hesitate. She scooted forward to the front edge of her chair, pushed her thick white-framed glasses up on her nose and dove right in.  I asked her how she and her mom had ended up there. Well, she said, we had a plan to go to “Disneylandia” but instead ended up in “Dilleylandia.” Then she told me the story. She lived in Colombia with her grandmother and regularly traveled back and forth to the United States to visit her mother, who had been in the U.S. since 2018. (Maria Alejandra had overstayed a visa but since married a U.S. citizen and was applying for a green card.) In August, the whole family had vacationed together in Disney World. It was so fun, Maria Antonia said, that she begged her mom to go back for the park’s annual Halloween celebration. They booked tickets for a 10-day vacation during her school holidays. She lit up telling me about how she had planned out a “101 Dalmatians” costume — she would be Cruella de Vil and her mom and stepdad the spotted dogs. The whole getup was so bulky it basically filled her entire suitcase.  But everything started going wrong as soon as she arrived at the Miami International Airport on Oct. 2. She was supposed to be dropped off with her mom by the flight attendant accompanying her. But she said was intercepted by immigration officers who took her into a room to be interrogated while her mother was taken to be questioned in a separate room. They were asking me all kinds of questions I had absolutely no idea how to answer , I recall her telling me (I was not allowed any notebooks or voice recorders inside the detention facility). I kept just saying over and over again: “I can tell you my name and my birthday and my mom’s name and her birthday and that I am from Colombia. That’s about it.” I didn’t know what else to tell them . After what they both said were hours of questioning, they were put in a cold room together. Maria Alejandra’s phone was confiscated. They had no way to contact her stepdad, who was waiting for them in the airport. Maria Antonia said they had no idea why they were being detained if her mother was applying for a green card and she had a valid tourist visa.  Maria Antonia had learned English at her private school in Medellin. She overheard one immigration officer tell another that if she had been 10 years old, they would have been able to keep her separated from her mom. That, she said, is when the real fear set in. Then it was 42 hours of waiting in the airport holding rooms. Eventually they were put on a plane — then a minivan — to the facility in Texas. Maria Antonia said she didn’t really understand where they were going until they saw the center out the window. A page from Maria Antonia’s letter to reporter Mica Rosenberg: “They don’t give me my diet I am vegetarian, I don’t eat well, there is no good education and I miss my best friend julieta and my grandmother and my school I already want to get to my house. Me in dilei [Dilley] am not happy please get me out of here to colombia.” Obtained by ProPublica By the time I met them, they had been detained for nearly four months. I asked Maria Antonia what being stuck in Dilley was like. She told me she had fainted two times since she got there; she is vegetarian and said she ate mostly beans. She felt like she had nothing to do all day and she missed her school, echoing concerns of many of the other kids I spoke with over the course of my reporting. She said she had made some new friends inside Dilley, but it was hard. She and her mom had been detained for so long that new people she met would often leave when they were released or deported. Her mother, Maria Alejandra, had told me in long, vivid emails about some of more serious concerns about her and her daughter’s deteriorating mental and physical health during their prolonged detention. She said Maria Antonia would wake up in the middle of the night crying, fearful she would never leave detention or alternatively that she would be separated from her mom. Read More The Children of Dilley I asked the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which DHS oversees, about what Maria Alejandra and Maria Antonia told me. In an email, they said Maria Alejandra overstayed her tourist visa and had been previously arrested for theft, a charge that according to court documents was dismissed. DHS said that during her time in detention, Maria Antonia was seen by medical professionals twice and also had weekly check-ins with mental health professionals, “where she stated she was calm and well-nourished.” DHS said everyone held at the facility is “provided with 3 meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries” and “certified dieticians evaluate meals.” DHS also said “children have access to teachers, classrooms, and curriculum booklets for math, reading, and spelling” and no one is denied medical care. CoreCivic, which operates the facility, said it is subject to multiple layers of oversight and that health and safety are top priorities. Soon we all said goodbye. But I remained in touch with her mother and stepdad and attorneys following the case. They shared documentation about what happened to them and their legal pleas to be released.  I learned an immigration judge had granted them “voluntary departure” on Jan. 6, allowing Maria Alejandra to pay their own way back to Colombia, avoid having a formal deportation order on her record and continue her green card application from abroad. But it wasn’t until Feb. 6 that they were finally sent back to Colombia. A few days after they returned, her mother told me the first thing Maria Antonia wanted to do was throw out the government-issued sweatsuit she had been wearing for months. Then I received a video. It showed Maria Antonia, wearing pink leggings and a T-shirt with a teddy bear on it, running to embrace her teachers one by one outside her school. One of the teachers leads her by the hand into her classroom: “Look who I brought you!” the teacher says. Another young girl, Maria Antonia’s best friend, leaps out of her desk to wrap her arms around her. Another friend rushes to join the hug. She was finally home. The post How a Planned Disney World Vacation Turned Into Four Months in Immigration Detention appeared first on ProPublica .

The Missouri prosecutor overseeing an investigation into the 2020 vote in Fulton County, Georgia, has taken part in meetings since last fall with lawyers tasked by President Donald Trump to reinvestigate his loss to Joe Biden.  Thomas Albus, whom Trump appointed last year as U.S. attorney for Missouri’s Eastern District, has had multiple meetings set up with top administration lawyers to discuss election integrity.  At those meetings was Ed Martin, a Justice Department lawyer who until recently led a group investigating what the president has described as the department’s “weaponization” against him and his allies, according to a source familiar with the meetings who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.  White House lawyer Kurt Olsen, who has been tasked with reinvestigating the 2020 election, also was directed to join at least one of the meetings, according to the source. Both Martin and Olsen worked on behalf of Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election results, and a federal court sanctioned Olsen for making false claims about the reliability of voting machines in Arizona. The meetings reveal new details about the length of the preparations for, and people involved in, the January FBI raid on Fulton County, which election and legal experts told ProPublica was a significant escalation in Trump’s breaking of democratic norms. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi picked Albus and has granted him special authority to handle election-related cases nationwide, even though his earlier work as a federal prosecutor didn’t involve election law or election-related cases. The meetings with Martin, Olsen and other lawyers for the Justice Department were described by the source as being about “election integrity,” a term the Trump administration has used to describe investigations into its false claims that elections are rigged.  Martin, Olsen, Albus and others declined to answer questions about the meetings and other detailed questions from ProPublica. The White House and the Justice Department also did not respond to questions. The meetings came at a particularly crucial time. Martin’s efforts to obtain election materials from Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold, had hit a wall. In August, he sent a letter demanding that a Fulton County judge allow him to access tens of thousands of absentee ballots for “an investigation into election integrity here at the Department of Justice,” but he had reportedly received no reply . Martin explained to Steve Bannon on a podcast that aired around the time of the meetings that although the White House had given Olsen the official mandate to reinvestigate the 2020 election, “inside DOJ, myself and a couple of others have been working also on the same topic” — including getting the Fulton County ballots. But Martin described progress as a “challenge.” Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist in his first term, asked why Martin didn’t just “get some U.S. marshals to go down and seize” the ballots. Martin suggested it was easier said than done, but agreed: “Look, we’ve got to get” the ballots.    Ed Martin posted a photo from his meeting with Thomas Albus in Washington, D.C., on social media. Via X Before long, Albus and Olsen were interviewing witnesses for their case. Kevin Moncla, a conservative researcher, told ProPublica that he spoke to Albus and Olsen a couple of times, both together and separately, around the turn of the year. He identified himself as Witness 7 in the affidavit that persuaded a judge to sign off on the raid, and the affidavit mentions a 263-page report he authored that activists believe may have justified the raid, ProPublica has reported . Moncla has a long history of working with Olsen, dating back to an attempt by Kari Lake , a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, to overturn her 2022 loss.  Just a few weeks after those interviews, in late January, Albus was listed as the government attorney on the search warrant that authorized the seizure of roughly 700 boxes of election material in Georgia, far outside of Albus’ usual jurisdiction.   Former U.S. attorneys from both parties said it was rare for a federal prosecutor from one region to take on cases in other states or be granted the nationwide authority Albus has been given.  Under Trump, senior roles across the White House, DOJ and FBI have increasingly been filled by a small, interconnected group of Missouri lawyers with longstanding ties to one another. Another top federal official in the meetings was Jesus Osete, the principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights . Before joining the Justice Department, Osete worked in the Missouri attorney general’s office, where he represented the state in at least five lawsuits against the Biden administration regarding vaccine mandates, immigration and other policies. Osete did not respond to requests for comment or to a detailed list of questions. When the FBI raided Fulton County’s election center, Andrew Bailey, another lawyer from the same political circles, was in charge . Before joining the FBI as deputy director, he had used his position as Missouri’s attorney general to pursue high-profile cases against prominent Democrats and said he supported all efforts to investigate Biden , his family and his administration. A spokesperson for the FBI declined to answer detailed questions about Bailey. Last year, Roger Keller, a veteran federal prosecutor from Albus’ office, was brought in to help prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud in Virginia after the original career prosecutors on the case were replaced by political appointees. After a judge dismissed the case, two federal grand juries declined to indict James again, and Keller returned to Missouri. Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, previously served as Missouri’s solicitor general under state attorneys general Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt. He and Schmitt signed Missouri’s amicus brief supporting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Sauer later represented Trump in his presidential-immunity case, successfully arguing before the Supreme Court that Trump was entitled to broad immunity from prosecution. Albus’ connection to the other Missouri lawyers goes back decades. Unlike some of the others, though, he has never held elected office or had a high public profile, nor has he waged culture-war campaigns like Bailey or Martin. Instead, he spent most of his career as a federal prosecutor and as a judge in a Missouri state circuit court. Emails show Albus exchanging brief messages with Martin in 2007, when Albus was an assistant U.S. attorney in St. Louis and Martin was chief of staff to then-Gov. Matt Blunt. The emails were part of records from the Blunt administration that became public after being released under Missouri’s Sunshine Law.  In the email exchange, Albus put in a good word for a St. Louis lawyer who was a finalist for an appellate court judgeship, and Blunt ultimately selected that candidate.  Albus served as first assistant to Schmitt from early 2019 until Albus was appointed by Gov. Mike Parson to fill a circuit court judge vacancy in early 2020. Schmitt, now a U.S. senator, praised Albus as “one of the finest prosecutors I have ever met” when endorsing his nomination for U.S. attorney in December. Lawyers who appeared in Albus’ court rated him as well prepared, professional and attentive, according to Missouri judicial performance reviews. They said he followed the evidence, applied the law correctly and gave clear reasons for his rulings.  Albus came under more critical scrutiny after Trump named him interim U.S. attorney last summer. Much of that attention centered on a fraud case he inherited when he took office. Prosecutors alleged that developers in St. Louis falsely claimed to be using minority- and women-owned subcontractors to qualify for city tax breaks, conduct the Justice Department has historically treated as wire fraud.  One of the defendants was represented by lawyer Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi. The developers’ lawyers argued that even if the government’s claims were true, they were legally irrelevant because the Trump administration had taken the position that tax breaks based on race or gender were unlawful. Albus accepted those arguments and dropped the case . As part of the resolution, Albus personally hand-delivered to City Hall a check of about $1 million from one of the developers’ companies as restitution. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he intervened “to make it clear” his office wanted to drop charges and hand-delivered the check “to make sure they got it.”  In a letter to Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Congressional Democrats said the dismissal of the St. Louis case and other cases in which the Justice Department intervened on behalf of Brad Bondi’s clients raised “ significant broader ethical concerns .” In the St. Louis case, and in a separate matter involving another Brad Bondi client whose charges were dropped, a Justice Department spokesperson said Pam Bondi’s relationship with her brother had “ no bearing on the outcome .” A spokesperson for the developers said their lawyers communicated only with the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis about the case and had no direct contact with Pam Bondi. He said the dismissal reflected “a recognition that this case should never have been brought in the first place.” Brad Bondi did not respond to a request for comment. Weeks later, around the time of Albus’ meetings about election integrity, he posed with Martin in Martin’s office, flanked by a framed photo of Trump and a copy of “A Choice, Not an Echo,” the influential conservative manifesto by Phyllis Schlafly arguing that Republican voters were being manipulated by party elites and the media.  Martin posted the photo on X with the caption, “Good morning, America. How are ya’?” The post What Meetings Among Trump Lawyers Reveal About the FBI’s Seizure of Election Records in Georgia appeared first on ProPublica .

When county clerk Brianna Lennon got an email in November saying a newly expanded federal system had flagged 74 people on the county’s voter roll as potential noncitizens, she was taken aback. Lennon, who’d run elections in Boone County, Missouri, for seven years, had heard the tool might not be accurate. The flagged voters’ registration paperwork confirmed Lennon’s suspicions. The form for the second person on the list bore the initials of a member of her staff, who’d helped the man register — at his naturalization ceremony. It later turned out more than half the Boone County voters identified as noncitizens were actually citizens. The source of the bad data was a Department of Homeland Security tool called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE. Once used mostly to check immigrants’ eligibility for public benefits, SAVE has undergone a dramatic expansion over the last year at the behest of President Donald Trump, who has long falsely claimed that millions of noncitizens lurk on state voter rolls, tainting American elections. At Trump’s direction, DHS has pooled confidential data from across the federal government to enable states to mass-verify voters’ citizenship status using SAVE. Many of the nation’s Republican secretaries of state have eagerly embraced the experiment, agreeing to upload all or part of their rolls. But an examination of SAVE’s rollout by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune reveals that DHS rushed the revamped tool into use while it was still adding data and before it could discern voters’ most up-to-date citizenship information. As a result, SAVE has made persistent mistakes, particularly in assessing the status of people born outside the U.S., data gathered from local election administrators, interviews and emails obtained via public records requests show. Some of those people subsequently become U.S. citizens, a step that the system doesn’t always pick up. According to correspondence between state and federal officials , DHS has had to correct information provided to at least five states after SAVE misidentified some voters as noncitizens. Texas and Missouri were among the first states to try the augmented tool. In Missouri, state officials acted on SAVE’s findings before attempting to confirm them, directing county election administrators to make voters flagged as potential noncitizens temporarily unable to vote. But in hundreds of cases, the tool’s determinations were wrong, our review found. Lennon was among dozens of clerks statewide who raised alarms about the system’s errors. “It really does not help my confidence,” she said, “that the information we are trying to use to make really important decisions, like the determination of voter eligibility, is so inaccurate.” In Texas, news reports began emerging about voters being mistakenly flagged as noncitizens soon after state officials announced the results of running the state’s voter roll through SAVE in October. Our reporting showed these errors were more widespread than previously known, involving at least 87 voters across 29 counties. County election administrators suspect there may be more. Confusion took hold when the Texas secretary of state’s office sent counties lists of flagged voters and directed clerks to start demanding proof of citizenship and to remove people from the rolls if they didn’t respond. “I really find no merit in any of this,” said Bobby Gonzalez, the elections administrator in Duval County in South Texas, where SAVE flagged three voters, all of whom turned out to be citizens. Even counting people flagged in error, the first bulk searches using SAVE haven’t validated the president’s claims that voting by noncitizens is widespread. At least seven states with a total of about 35 million registered voters have publicly reported the results of running their voter rolls through the system. Those searches have identified roughly 4,200 people — about 0.01% of registered voters — as noncitizens. This aligns with previous findings that noncitizens rarely register to vote . Brian Broderick leads the verification division of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the DHS branch that oversees SAVE. In an interview this month, he acknowledged the system can’t always find the most current citizenship information for people not born in the U.S. But he defended the tool, saying it was ultimately up to states to decide how to use SAVE data. “So we’re giving a tool to these folks to say, ‘Hey, if we can verify citizenship, great, you’re good. If we can’t, now it’s up to you to determine whether to let this person on your voter rolls,’” Broderick said. In Texas, Secretary of State Jane Nelson declined an interview request. Her spokesperson, Alicia Pierce, said the office hadn’t reviewed SAVE’s citizenship determination before sending lists to counties because it isn’t an investigative agency. In a statement, Pierce added that the use of SAVE was part of the office’s “constitutional and statutory duty to ensure that only eligible citizens participate in Texas elections.” A spokesperson for Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins called SAVE a valuable resource even though some people it flagged might later be confirmed as citizens. “No system is 100% accurate,” Hoskins said in an interview, “but we’re working to get it right.” Asked whether it was problematic that his office directed clerks to temporarily bar voters from casting ballots before verifying SAVE’s findings, Hoskins said that was a “good point.” While 27 states have agreed to use SAVE, others have hesitated, concerned not only about inaccuracies, but also about privacy and the data’s potential to be used in immigration enforcement. Indeed, speaking at a recent conference, Broderick said that when SAVE flags voters as noncitizens, they are also referred to DHS for possible criminal investigation. (It is a crime to falsely claim citizenship when registering to vote.) People who’ve been flagged by SAVE in error say it’s jarring to have to provide naturalization records to stay eligible to vote when they know they’ve done nothing wrong. Sofia Minotti was erroneously flagged as a potential noncitizen voter by a Department of Homeland Security tool. Shelby Tauber for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune Sofia Minotti, who lives north of Dallas in Denton County, was born in Argentina but became a U.S. citizen years ago. Nonetheless, she was one of 84 Denton County voters identified by SAVE as a potential noncitizen. She and 11 others have since provided proof of citizenship, giving the system an error rate in the county of at least 14%. The real rate is probably higher, a county official acknowledged, since some of those sent notices to prove their citizenship might not respond in time to meet the deadline. They’ll have to be reinstated to vote in the midterms later this year. Minotti, though still on the rolls, felt singled out unfairly. “I’m here legally, and everything I’ve done has been per the law,” she said. “I really have no idea why I had to prove it.” Election administrators in many states have long hungered for better access to federal information on citizenship status. States don’t typically require people to provide proof of citizenship when they sign up to vote, only to attest to it under penalty of perjury. Previous efforts to use state data to catch noncitizens on voter rolls have gone poorly. Texas officials had to abandon a 2019 push after it became clear their methodology misidentified thousands of citizens, many of them naturalized, as ineligible voters. Until recently, SAVE hadn’t been much of a resource. State and local election officials needed to have voters’ DHS-assigned immigration ID numbers — information not collected in the registration process — to verify their citizenship status. Plus, officials had to pay to conduct searches one by one, not in bulk. In March, Trump issued an executive order that required DHS to give states free access to federal citizenship data and partner with the Department of Government Efficiency to comb voter rolls. The order triggered a series of meetings at USCIS designed to comply with a 30-day deadline to remake SAVE, a document obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and reviewed by ProPublica shows. The system’s main addition was confidential Social Security Administration data, which allowed states to search using full or partial Social Security numbers and incorporated information on millions of Americans who were not previously in Homeland Security databases. David Jennings, Broderick’s deputy at USCIS, had pressed his team to move quickly, he said on a June video call with members of former Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network, which has spread false claims about noncitizen voting. “We tested it and deployed it to our users in two weeks,” Jennings said on the call, which ProPublica obtained a recording of. “I think that’s remarkable. Kind of proud of it.” Jennings added that to get quick access to the Social Security data, which has been tightly guarded, USCIS partnered with DOGE. (In an unrelated matter, DOGE has since been accused of misusing Social Security data.) Jennings did not respond to questions from ProPublica and the Tribune. Perhaps because of its accelerated timetable, USCIS expanded the system before meeting legal requirements to inform the public about how the data would be collected, stored and used, according to voting rights organizations that sued . (UCSIS did not respond to a request for comment about this.) It also blew past concerns from voter advocacy groups about the accuracy of SSA’s citizenship data, which multiple audits and analyses have shown is often outdated or incomplete. This is particularly true for people not born in the U.S., who often get Social Security numbers well before they become citizens. According to emails obtained by ProPublica and the Tribune, SAVE first checks SSA’s citizenship information. If that shows a voter isn’t a citizen, DHS searches other databases, but it can be difficult to locate and match all the data the systems have on a person. This can lead to errors. Broderick said in the interview that Trump’s executive order dramatically accelerated the timetable for launching SAVE, getting agencies to cooperate and move quickly. But he insisted the work was done responsibly. “Do I think it was reckless? Do I think it wasn’t planned? Do I think it wasn’t tested? Absolutely not,” he said. By September, Texas had uploaded its entire list of more than 18 million registered voters into SAVE. Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming put voter data into the system, too. They would soon start to unveil what SAVE had found. One of the first out of the gate was Texas. In late October, with early voting underway in state and local elections, Nelson, the secretary of state, announced SAVE had identified 2,724 potential noncitizens on the rolls. But as Nelson delegated the task of investigating those voters’ statuses to local election officials, confusion took hold. At a meeting, Nelson’s staff told county clerks’ offices to investigate flagged voters and then send notices to those for whom they were unable to confirm citizenship. In a follow-up email, Nelson’s staff told the clerks they should already have heard from someone in the office with more details. That set off a chain of messages on the local officials’ email group Travis County voter registration director Christopher Davis said he hadn’t been contacted and had just learned the county had 97 flagged voters. Marsha Barbee, in Wharton County near Houston, shared that she talked to a Nelson staffer who said she’d been directed not to tell local officials about their lists because they were in the middle of early voting. “They said we have enough on our plates and didn’t want us to worry right now,” Barbee wrote. In the absence of clear state guidance, clerks proceeded inconsistently. Some said they didn’t act on their lists, waiting for more direction. Others, unsure how to investigate flagged voters’ status, said they simply sent notices asking for proof of citizenship, though some opted not to remove nonresponsive voters from the rolls. “I give them many chances; I don’t just expire them right away,” Dee Wilcher, a clerk in East Texas’ Anderson County, said about flagged voters, adding that she wanted to avoid removing citizens from the rolls and looking “stupid.” Chris McGinn, executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials, said many clerks expressed frustration with the secretary of state’s lack of guidance and failure to help with investigations. When he shared clerks’ concerns, McGinn said Nelson’s staff didn’t respond, leading him to conclude that checking SAVE’s findings wasn’t an agency priority. He called the state’s use of SAVE “more political and appearance-based” than a practical way to ensure election integrity. One way to check SAVE’s findings would have been to get information from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which requires proof of citizenship if residents register to vote when obtaining a driver’s license. The secretary of state’s office didn’t do this and didn’t direct counties to either. Several county officials said they hadn’t thought to ask DPS for information; those who did often found the agency had documentation showing some of the voters who SAVE identified as noncitizens were in fact citizens. In the Texas Panhandle, Potter County elections officials quickly confirmed through DPS that three of nine voters on their list had proof of citizenship on file. In neighboring Randall County, DPS helped officials verify that one in five had a U.S. passport, according to interviews with the local officials. In December, Travis County learned that 11 of the 97 voters flagged by SAVE had proven their citizenship to DPS. After getting the data, the county’s voter registrar, Celia Israel, said in an interview that she felt even more uncomfortable about moving forward with sending notices to voters, given SAVE’s errors. “It has proven to be inaccurate,” she said. “Why would I rely on it?” To be sure, SAVE also identified some people who weren’t eligible to vote, clerks said. Several came across instances in which voters marked on registration forms that they weren’t citizens, but were registered by election office staffers in error. Clerks also said voters have told them they’d misunderstood questions about eligibility when getting drivers’ licenses. (It’s not clear if any of those registered in error voted; overall, noncitizens rarely vote .)  ProPublica and the Tribune surveyed the 177 Texas counties that had voters flagged by SAVE, receiving data from 97 that had either checked DPS records or sent notices to voters to try to verify SAVE’s citizenship information. Overall, more than 5% of the voters SAVE identified as noncitizens proved to be citizens. In some smaller counties, most of those flagged were eligible to vote. That includes six of 11 in the Panhandle’s Moore County, and two of three in Erath County, near Dallas. But some of those who didn’t respond to notices also might be citizens. In Denton County, where Sofia Minotti lives, checks by elections administrator Frank Phillips’ staff delivered clear answers on the citizenship status of 26 of the 84 voters flagged by SAVE. Twelve, including Minotti, proved they were citizens. Fourteen more had marked on their registration forms that they weren’t and the blame rested with workers for registering them nonetheless. Phillips said he removed anyone who didn’t provide proof by the deadline from the rolls to comply with the secretary of state’s instructions, but he fears some were eligible voters. “What is bugging me is I think our voter rolls may be more accurate than this database,” Phillips said. “My gut feeling is more of these are citizens than not.” At least initially, Missouri took a more targeted approach to SAVE than Texas did. State officials used the system to search for information on a subset of about 6,000 voters they had reason to think might not be citizens, according to emails between federal and state officials . The state had results by October, but in early November, a USCIS official wrote to Missouri and four other states to say some people flagged by SAVE as noncitizens were actually citizens, emails obtained through public records requests show. “We have continued to refine our processes used to obtain and review the citizenship data available to us,” the official wrote, adding that one such improvement revealed the errors. The staffer attached amended search results, but Missouri officials withheld the attachment from its response to a public records request and did not respond to a question about how many corrections were made. Based on the updated data from USCIS, Missouri sent lists of flagged voters to county election administrators in November. ProPublica and the Tribune obtained these lists for seven of 10 most populous counties in the state, which show SAVE initially identified more than 1,200 people as noncitizens just in these areas. The Missouri secretary of state’s office told election administrators it would work to verify SAVE’s citizenship determinations. In the meantime, local officials were instructed to change the status of flagged voters, making them temporarily unable to vote. The lists were met with swift pushback from county election officials, who, like Lennon, soon spotted people they knew to be citizens and questioned the directive’s legality. On a group call in November, they traded examples, saying they recognized neighbors, colleagues and people they’d helped to register at naturalization ceremonies. In St. Louis, the Board of Election Commissioners didn’t alter the eligibility of anyone on its flagged voter list after being advised not to by its attorney. Rachael Dunn, a spokesperson for Hoskins, the Missouri secretary of state, said state law allows officials to change voters’ status during investigations into their eligibility — for example, if there are signs they’ve moved. The laws she cited don’t directly address investigations into citizenship status, however. In early December, some 70 clerks, Republicans and Democrats, wrote a letter to Missouri House Speaker Jonathan Patterson saying there were better ways than SAVE to keep noncitizens off voter rolls. Weeks later, the state’s election integrity director, Nick La Strada, wrote USCIS to ask why a voter that SAVE had identified as a noncitizen in October had showed up in a more recent search as a citizen. A USCIS official replied that between the initial search and the follow-up, DHS had gotten access to passport data, which contains more up-to-date citizenship information on some people not born in the U.S. The USCIS staffer explained that some of the most accurate citizenship information — which is within DHS’ own records — still wasn’t searchable in SAVE because running that kind of search would require the voter’s DHS identifier, which can’t always be located. The staffer said they were working on improvements but those could take until March. “You don’t start with something at that scale until you work the bugs out, and that is not the case here,” Clinton Jenkins, president of the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities, said in an interview. Jenkins is also the clerk for Miller County in the Ozarks. In early January, in what was framed as a “SAVE review update,” the secretary of state’s office sent counties across Missouri revised lists with reduced numbers of voters identified as potential noncitizens. It instructed election administrators to move voters who’d been initially flagged in error by SAVE back to active status, restoring their eligibility to vote. Dunn, Hoskins’ spokesperson, didn’t specify what prompted these adjustments. Even the new lists may not be final, she acknowledged. Once the review is complete, the state has said it plans to send letters to those still on the lists, demanding proof of citizenship and giving recipients 90 days to respond. The addition of new data to SAVE makes it a more valuable resource, she maintained, “while also reinforcing the need for careful, layered review before any action is taken.” After the January revision, St. Louis County’s initial list of 691 potential noncitizens dropped to 133. Zuzana Kocsisova, who lives in St. Louis, was among those incorrectly flagged by SAVE on its first pass. Originally from Slovakia, she became a U.S. citizen in 2019. She showed ProPublica and the Tribune a copy of her naturalization certificate, which she keeps with a letter from Trump congratulating her for “becoming a citizen of this magnificent land.” When a reporter told her that SAVE had initially identified her as a potential noncitizen, she said she wasn’t surprised. She saw it as part of the Trump administration’s targeting of immigrants. She was more frustrated than relieved to learn that she wasn’t on the smaller list of flagged voters sent in January. “Overall, it seems like this process has done more to worry people who can vote than to identify actual registered voters who don’t qualify,” she said. “It’s just a waste of resources. I don’t think it makes the elections any more safe.” In Boone County, where Lennon is the clerk, the count of flagged voters fell from 74 to 33 and the naturalized citizen who Lennon’s staff helped register was no longer on the list. Lennon said she and other county clerks would happily accept data that helps them correctly identify noncitizens on their voter rolls. But so far, SAVE hasn’t done that. And until it does, she said, she won’t purge voters purely because SAVE has flagged them. “This is not ready for prime time,” Lennon said. “And I’m not going to risk the security and the constitutional rights of my voters for bad data.” The post “Not Ready for Prime Time.” A Federal Tool to Check Voter Citizenship Keeps Making Mistakes. appeared first on ProPublica .

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