Weeks out from the November election after two hurricanes, Democrats and civil rights groups in various states, including battleground states Democrats and Republicans covet, have launched lawsuits to extend voter registration deadlines.

Just this week in Georgia, where the voter registration deadline was Monday, civil rights groups were denied motions for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction. 

The Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples Agenda and Stacey Abrams’ New Georgia Project filed their initial complaint against Gov. Brian Kemp, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party Oct. 7, arguing that not extending the deadline violates voters’ rights. 

Secretary Raffensberger’s office responded to the court’s decision in a statement, saying “We agree with Judge Ross, who said, ‘I don’t think we had even one voter who had been harmed or would likely be harmed by failure to register to vote.'” 

RESIDENTS IN KEY NORTH CAROLINA DISTRICT REVEAL HOW THEY THINK THEIR COUNTY WILL VOTE IN NOVEMBER

The secretary also held a press conference shortly after the hurricane to announce various measures taken by the state to ensure citizens could make it to the ballot box. 

In Florida, District Judge Robert L. Hinkle denied a motion to issue a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction to block the Oct. 7 deadline and extend registration another 10 days.

The suit was initially filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern Florida Tuesday by multiple civil rights groups — the League of Women Voters, League of Women Voters of Florida Education Fund and the Florida chapter of the NAACP — against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Secretary of State Cord Byrd. It alleged the failure to extend the deadline places an “undue burden on the right to vote in violation of the First Amendment” and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. 

They alleged the registration deadline also favors Florida voters unaffected by the hurricanes. 

Republican election lawyer Jason Torchinsky noted that requests seeking to extend the voter registration deadline in Florida are anything but uncommon, stating they “are routinely denied.” In Georgia, however, Torchinsky predicted extending the voter registration deadline would have made little difference, if any, given the state’s registration rate. 

Kaivan Shroff, a Democratic political commentator, and Greta Bedekovics, associate director of Democracy Policy at the left-wing Center for American Progress, both specifically targeted DeSantis and Kemp. 

“It seems like Republican governors Kemp and DeSantis are trying to play partisan politics and prevent people from exercising their voting rights in the wake of these tragic natural disasters,” Shroff told Fox News Digital.

“However, I’m not sure that will be the case this time because when you look at urban centers like Tampa, they’ve been trending red in recent years.” 

“Governors in states like Georgia and Florida have issued emergency policy orders in the past, expanding voting and registration options in the aftermath of a hurricane, including during the 2022 election cycle. There is no reason that cannot be similarly done this year,” Bedekovics told Fox News Digital. 

Mark Ard, director of external affairs for the Florida Department of State, cheered Judge Hinkle’s decision, telling Fox News Digital in a statement that Florida’s voter registration system has been operating around the clock since the 2022 election, giving voters ample time to register to vote. 

“The Department of State and supervisors of elections across the state noticed and published the Oct. 7, 2024, date. The state has a substantial interest in maintaining deadlines created by the legislature,” the statement said. “We’re happy to see that the court ruled for the state of Florida by recognizing the substantial state interest in maintaining the voter registration deadline and denying the plaintiffs’ attempt to alter Florida law.”

Cecile M. Scoon, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, a plaintiff in the case, expressed disappointment in the ruling, saying the lawsuits are not politically motivated. 

“We’ve been bringing those kind of lawsuits for years. So, how is it political?” Swoon told Fox News Digital. “Before any of the parties were running for office, we were bringing these lawsuits.

“So, we have a history of being concerned about voters, regardless of how they vote. And, frankly, I do a lot of voter registration, and a lot of people that, when I work hard to get voter registration, many of them, probably more than 50%, are registering to vote for Trump. They say so.” 

DESANTIS FIRES BACK AT HARRIS OVER HURRICANE RESPONSE: ‘SHE HAS NO ROLE IN THIS PROCESS’

Fox News Digital also spoke with Chad Ennis, vice president of the conservative nonprofit Honest Elections Project, who noted that several of the lawsuits were filed close to the state’s voter registration deadline, saying the judges who declined to extend the registration period made “the right rulings given the time frame.”

“I hate to say it is politically motivated, although the left always wants voter registration up until the day of the election,” Ennis said. “In a lot of cases, during COVID, they used COVID as an excuse to change deadlines and, unfortunately, they also tried to use the hurricanes to change the deadlines here.”  

Leslie Marshall, a Democratic strategist, told Fox News Digital she thinks the denial to extend voter registration could actually negatively affect Republicans come November. 

“Because this race is so close and because Donald Trump and Republicans have made, not gains with women, but they have made gains with African Americans — specifically, male African Americans — they may be shooting themselves in the foot with this ruling,” Marshall said.   

On the other hand, Democrats in South Carolina were successful in their legal maneuvers after the South Carolina Democratic Party (SCDP) sued the South Carolina Elections Commission, and a circuit court judge ruled to extend the registration deadline to Oct. 14. 

“We are pleased the voter registration deadline has been extended. This isn’t a partisan issue. It’s an issue of the public good and ensuring the right to vote is protected for everyone,” said SCDP Chair Christale Spain.

South Carolina Election Commission public information officer John Michael Catalano said the commission was “able to comply with the order with minimal impact to election administration. We don’t anticipate this causing any issues for voters during early voting or on Election Day.”

Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key Wednesday night, leaving around 3.2 million people in Florida alone without power by Thursday afternoon. Milton came in as a Category 3 storm, just a few weeks after Hurricane Helene battered parts of Florida before devastating North Carolina. 

With three-and-a-half weeks until Election Day, former President Trump is holding a rally in Southern California on Saturday.

His campaign also announced this week that the Republican presidential nominee will hold a rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden later this month. 

On Friday, Trump stopped in Colorado, and on Tuesday he’s scheduled to parachute into Illinois.

It’s been 40 years since a Republican carried New York in a presidential election, 36 years since California and Illinois went red in a White House race, and two decades since the GOP captured Colorado.

THE CLOSER: FORMER PRESIDENT OBAMA HITS THE TRAIL FOR HARRIS IN THE CLOSING STRETCH

With time an extremely precious commodity for the presidential campaigns in the final stretch of a White House showdown in a margin-of-error race with Vice President Kamala Harris, many are wondering why Trump is stopping in blue states, which his chances of carrying are extremely slim to nonexistent.

“We just rented Madison Square Garden. We’re going to make a play. We’re going to make a play for New York. Hasn’t been done in a long time. It hasn’t been done in many decades,” Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania this week, hours after his campaign announced the New York City date.

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“We’re making a play for New Jersey. We’re making a play for Virginia,” Trump continued, before adding that he’s also aiming to compete in Minnesota and New Mexico.

Despite the former president’s bravado about expanding the electoral map, the latest Fox News Power Rankings in the 2024 presidential election rank New York, New Jersey, California and Colorado as solid Democrat, with Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia as likely blue.

Trump on Saturday will headline a rally in Coachella, a city in California’s Riverside County southeast of Palm Springs that’s best known nationally for a music festival that takes place nearby every April. 

“President Trump’s visit to Coachella will highlight Harris’ poor record and show that he has the right solutions for every state and every American,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.

The stop in Coachella may also benefit Trump with Latino voters — who have been trending towards the GOP in recent years — not only in southeast California, but more importantly in neighboring Arizona and Nevada, two of the seven crucial battleground states that will likely determine if the former president or Harris wins the 2024 election.

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Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27 will be his third major campaign event in Democrat-dominated New York this year.

Last month, he packed the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, just outside of New York City. And he attracted thousands at a rally in NYC’s borough of The Bronx in May.

He also held a large rally in May along the shore in New Jersey.

“Choosing high-impact settings makes it so the media can’t look away and refuse to cover the issues and the solutions President Trump is offering,” a senior Trump campaign adviser told Fox News when asked about the strategy of holding October events in blue states. “We live in a nationalized media environment and the national media’s attention on these large-scale, outside-the-norm settings increases the reach of his message across the country and penetrates in every battleground state.”

Longtime Republican strategist Jesse Hunt, a veteran of multiple GOP presidential campaigns, noted that these stops in blue states are less about geography and more about the message.

“Trump is creating a lot of unique and interesting contrast situations that can then be beamed into a mass audience in states that they care about,” Hunt said. “You have to create compelling narratives, compelling contrasts. I think that’s part of what Trump is doing.”

Hunt argued that Trump is a pro “at creating these moments that penetrate our fractured media environment” and that “voters in Georgia, voters in North Carolina, are certainly going to consume news about Trump’s event in Madison Square Garden.”

Pointing to veteran campaign strategists Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, who are steering Trump’s 2024 campaign, Hunt said they’re “a pretty smart team… and they’re not going to waste his time.”

Seasoned Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett agreed that “we are at a point where everything is nationalized.”

He argued that the Trump blue state events “will spin an entire news cycle. It will give his supporters talking points. And I think there’s admiration of going into the belly of the beast, to going into your opponent’s territory.”

Bartlett added that “of course, there’s a downside.”

“In the waning days, if this strategy proves ineffective, it could be similar to what Hillary Clinton did, which was mismanaged her time in the last few days of 2016, by not being in the critical swing states, not being in places where you have to drive turnout,” he warned.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

More than a dozen Congressional Medal of Honor recipients endorsed former President Trump in the 2024 presidential race. 

“We, 15 recipients of the Medal of Honor, having served this great nation in wars, support and endorse Donald J. Trump for President of the United States,” they wrote. 

The recipients include those who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. 

HUNDREDS OF NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIALS, EX-CABINET MEMBERS, GOLD STAR FAMILIES ENDORSE TRUMP

“We believe that American citizenship is a revered privilege. We believe that a patriotic nation is a strong nation. We believe that the sacrifices by the men and women in our armed forces preserves and protects American freedom,” they wrote. 

“We believe that the integrity of our institutions is fundamental to the trust placed in them. We believe in the commitment to the United States Constitution and our solemn oaths to protect it. We believe valor is great fortitude when faced with profound adversity,” they continued. 

“We believe in the devoted pledge of allegiance to the United States of America. We believe that American veterans should be celebrated and supported by our nation,” they wrote. “We believe that our nation must have borders secure from our enemies.” 

The recipients also said they believe in “protecting the right for all citizens to participate in free and fair elections.” 

TRUMP, HARRIS LOCKED IN DEAD HEAT IN 7 BATTLEGROUND STATES, POLL FINDS: ‘COULD NOT BE CLOSER’

In an apparent swipe at Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the recipients said they believe that “fabricating military service is beneath the dignity of a veteran and demeaning to those who have served honorably in the Armed Forces.” 

Walz had come under fire for his service in the Minnesota National Guard. He retired in 2005 after 24 years of service ahead of his battalion being deployed to Iraq. He’s been faced with accusations of “stolen valor,” with some saying he retired early and did not complete trainings. 

The recipients also said they believe that “the enemies of freedom must be defeated,” and that “the flag is a powerful symbol of freedom.”

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“We believe the United States of America is the greatest nation the world has ever imagined. We believe in mutually pledging to every American our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor,” they wrote. 

“We believe in Donald Trump.” 

Meanwhile, the Harris-Walz campaign touted in September the endorsements from “a bipartisan group of more than 700 national security leaders and former military officials.”

The Harris-Walz campaign declined to comment on the Trump endorsements when reached Friday by Fox News Digital.

Buying off voters, calling in bomb threats and paying protesters to antagonize police — these are the tactics authorities say the Kremlin has taken up to thwart an upcoming election in Moldova. 

The tiny former Soviet state has been caught up in a battle between pro-Russian and pro-European forces ahead of an Oct. 20 vote for a new president and on a referendum on whether to join the European Union (EU). 

EU membership would deepen Moldova’s ties to the West — and is a direct effort to keep Russia’s influence out. 

Russia is intent on keeping Eastern European nations that were once a part of the Soviet Union — like Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine — out of the EU. Historically, a vote to join the EU often precedes a vote to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Cold War-era alliance designed to combat Russia. 

The vote comes as some call for NATO and the EU to allow war-torn Ukraine membership — a move that is seen by others as a risky provocation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Moldovan authorities have accused a complex web of Russian agents of vote-buying, money laundering and illegal financing to shape the results of both the presidential election and the EU membership referendum.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Moldova has swung between pro-Western and pro-Russian leadership at its helm. 

And earlier this year, the U.S. pledged some $136 million to Moldova, with its roughly 3 million-person population, to reduce its dependency on Russian energy and counter Russian disinformation. 

PUTIN MEETS WITH IRANIAN PRESIDENT TO CELEBRATE ‘VERY CLOSE’ RELATIONSHIP

National police chief Viorel Cernauteanu said more than 130,000 Moldovans — or 5% of the nation’s voters — had been bribed by a Russia-managed network to vote against the referendum and in favor of Russia-friendly candidates in what he called an “unprecedented, direct attack.”

“We are faced with the widespread phenomenon of financing and corruption with the aim of disrupting the electoral process in Moldova,” Cernauteanu told reporters.

The issue has drawn the attention of U.S. politicians: Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote a letter Thursday to the CEOs of Meta, Alphabet and Google to urge them to commit resources to address disinformation in Moldova. 

He said some $15 million had been transferred in September alone to accounts opened at Russia’s Promsvyazbank.

Ilan Shor, a pro-Russian oligarch living in exile, recently posted on Telegram offering to pay people to vote “no” on the referendum. Shor, who was convicted last year in a scandal that involved a $1 billion theft from Moldovan banks, is believed to be tied to a broader network of Russian state actors intent on keeping the nation out of the EU. 

Meanwhile, incumbent President Maia Sandu has portrayed the Oct. 20 contest as a test of her pro-European politics. Sandu, who is seeking a second term, has long accused Moscow of trying to overthrow her government, a charge Moscow denies. 

Writing on his own Telegram channel, Shor said Moldova under Sandu “has been turned into a police state for good,” referring to the detention of five of his supporters by prosecutors this week on charges of illegal financing of political parties.

Moldova, which has a Romanian-speaking majority and a Russian-speaking minority, has alternated between pro-Russian and pro-Western governments since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

“Moldova has embarked on a journey of reform, of change, that’s why we have aspirations of joining the EU,” Moldova’s deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Anton Lungu told Fox News Digital, adding that he supports the referendum. “So, we must bear in mind the Soviet legacy and interest towards keeping spheres of influence. The expectation is that this malign influence will continue until Election Day.”

Russian proxies in the nation are reportedly being trained on how to antagonize police and provoke them to use agents like tear gas to stoke anxiety and violent clashes ahead of the election. 

BIDEN, NATO HEAD CLAIM A STRONGER OBAMA RESPONSE TO CRIMEA INVASION MAY HAVE PREVENTED UKRAINE WAR

Shor and his network are known to pay protesters up to $100 a night to sleep in protest camps. Fake bomb threats and cyberattacks against schools and government buildings are meant to stoke “controlled chaos,” according to Rebekah Koffler, former senior official in the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and author of “Putin’s Playbook.”

In September, Moldovan police said they arrested two people who were vandalizing government buildings. They then discovered the pair were among a group of 20 young people who had been flown to Moscow to train on how to provoke police during protests and other destabilization activities, and had received more than $5,000 each to vandalize government buildings. 

Koffler likens Russia’s influence to the U.S.’ Monroe Doctrine — an 1823 doctrine that warned European nations against interfering in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. Now applied to adversaries like Russia and China, the doctrine was invoked symbolically in 1962 when the Soviet Union began to build missile-launching sites in Cuba. 

“Russia, for centuries, relied on a strategic buffer, or strategic security perimeter, of which the former Soviet states Ukraine, Moldova are part of,” she said. 

NORTH KOREA TROOPS NOW FIGHTING FOR RUSSIA IN UKRAINE, SEOUL SAYS

“With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, that strategic security perimeter has reduced, specifically the distance between NATO and Moscow and St. Petersburg,” Koffler said, referring to Russia’s capital and second-most key city. St. Petersburg is only about 100 miles from the border of a NATO country — Finland. 

Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership just after the outbreak of war in Ukraine and were incorporated into the alliance in 2023. 

Some observers believe the expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders and the increasing U.S. influence among Eastern European states threatened Putin and prompted him to invade Ukraine in 2022. Others believe he’s long had territorial ambitions to restore the Soviet Union and could not have been dissuaded from invading. 

Russia is known to follow the Gerasimov Doctrine, peddled by high-level Russian General Valery Gerasimov, which advocates for secretly hacking into an enemy’s society and sowing chaos rather than attacking directly through force. 

Russian-linked interference in Moldova would fit this form of shadowy puppeteering to control outcomes.

“The very ‘rules of war’ have changed. The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness… All this is supplemented by military means of a concealed character,” Gerasimov wrote in the Russian trade paper “Military-Industrial Kurier.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

The U.S. congressman representing one of the areas hit hardest by Helene is raising concerns about the deadly storm’s impact on voter access in the region.

“There will likely be some people out there that, for one reason or another, will not be able to exercise their most important constitutional right,” Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., told Fox News Digital in an interview Friday.

Edwards is urging his constituents to make plans now, sending out a press release to residents of his district roughly three weeks before Election Day, asking those who intend to vote to start figuring out how they will do so.

“I’ll also follow up with folks in the area and make offers to help get transportation for those folks that feel like they might not have a normal life or a transportation style to make it to the polls,” Edwards said.

POLITICAL STORM: ON TRUMP ‘ONSLAUGHT OF LIES,’ BIDEN URGES FORMER PRESIDENT TO ‘GET A LIFE MAN’

“I’m concerned. But I also have a lot of confidence with the folks in the area to help folks exercise that constitutional right. We just have to start thinking about it now. We can’t wait till the last minute, as too many times we’re accustomed to doing.”

Hurricane Helene tore through the Southeast two weeks ago, leaving billions of dollars of destruction and more than 230 people dead across multiple states.

Edwards estimated his district alone has seen “about 100 deaths” but noted many were still missing.

“About 9,200 acres of western North Carolina was affected in 28 counties. About 6,000 of that is right here in my district,” he said.

In addition to the devastation to life and property, however, the storm could have potentially severe ramifications for the election. North Carolina and Georgia, two of the hardest-hit states, emerged as battlegrounds in the 2020 presidential race.

HURRICANE MILTON CARVES DEADLY PATH THROUGH FLORIDA, MILLIONS WITHOUT POWER

About 17% of North Carolina’s registered voters are in the counties designated as Helene disaster areas, according to Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College.

“Folks are still in the process of putting their lives together, desperately trying to get their power back on, trying to get in touch with their loved ones, trying to dig out from the debris and not really thinking that there’s an election coming up here in three weeks or so,” Edwards said. 

CATEGORY 3 MILTON BEARS DOWN ON FLORIDA

“So, what I’m encouraging everyone to do is to start thinking about that now, to request an absentee ballot if you don’t think you’re going to be able to get to a poll or to plan to vote early.”

The North Carolina state legislature is already moving to mitigate possible issues. 

State lawmakers approved $5 million in emergency funding for the State Board of Elections to deal with the storm’s effects, and they also expanded emergency measures put in place by the election board that allow counties to modify early voting days and locations.

On the federal level, Edwards said he would give the government’s response a “C-minus.”

“This storm was over about 10 a.m. on Friday, and it was into Tuesday before we saw the first boots on the ground from FEMA, before we saw the first helicopters with food and water,” he said.

Asked about outreach from U.S. leaders, Edwards said President Biden called him earlier on Friday but left a voicemail. He did not indicate whether he’d return the call.

“It was maybe a 10-second clip going, ‘Attaboy. Keep up the good work. We’re thinking about you,’” Edwards said.

The campaign for former President Trump has asked the White House for enhanced Secret Service security amid safety concerns in the final stages of the election, citing threats from Iran, Fox News has learned.

On Friday, President Biden was asked about the request by the GOP nominee for enhanced security protocols. 

“As long as you don’t ask for F-15s. Well, look, I’ve told them to give him every, every single thing he needs as if he were a sitting president,” Biden said. “If it’s within that category. That’s fine.”

The Trump campaign cited serious threats from Iran for extra protection. It asked for temporary airspace restrictions on the campaign trail, motorcade drivers with tactical experience and vehicles like the “Beast”, the bullet-proof vehicle used by for Biden. 

TRUMP BRIEFED ON ‘REAL AND SPECIFIC THREATS’ FROM IRAN TO ASSASSINATE HIM, CAMPAIGN SAYS

U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Acting U.S. Secret Service Director Rowe warning that Iran was actively trying to kill Trump. 

Waltz asked that various aircraft, including military aircraft with defense capabilities, be provided for Trump in case of a missile attack, as well as a C-17 or C-40. 

The requests came following two failed assassination attempts on Trump within weeks of each other. 

IRAN’S LEADER TO ADDRESS UN AMID THREATS OF ASSASSINATIONS AGAINST US POLITICIANS, ELECTION INTERFERENCE

Last month, Trump talked of a potential Iranian assassination threat against him. 

Tehran’s potential assassination plot was detailed in FBI documents that Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, showing other potential targets included Biden and former presidential candidate Nikki Haley, along with other “politicians, military people or bureaucrats.”

At one point, Trump was briefed about “real and specific threats” from Iran to assassinate him, the campaign said last month. 

Iran’s aim to assassinate Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, is part of the Islamic Republic’s efforts to “destabilize and sow chaos in the United States,” Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in a press release at the time. 

Fox News Digital’s Stephen Sorace contributed to this report. 

U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., said the Biden administration has blocked the FBI from fulfilling her request for a briefing on the arrest of an Afghan man charged with plotting a terror attack on Election Day. 

In a letter dated Friday to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Bice said the FBI was fully supportive of her request until the Justice Department stepped in. 

“When my office requested additional information and a briefing from the Department of Justice on this matter, my request was denied by the administration,” she wrote. “What does the Biden-Harris Department of Justice have to hide here?

AFGHAN MAN IN OKLAHOMA PLOTTED ELECTION DAY TERROR ATTACK IN US ON BEHALF OF ISIS, JUSTICE DEPT SAYS

“As a life-long resident of Oklahoma City, our community still vividly recalls the bitter memory of April 19, 1995,” Bice added, referring to the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City that killed 168 people, including 19 children. 

She is asking for a briefing as “expeditiously” as possible. Fox News Digital has reached out to Bice’s office and the White House.

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, an Oklahoma resident, was arrested this week for an alleged terror plot on behalf of the Islamic State. He entered the United States a month after U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) humanitarian parole, rather than on a special immigrant visa, as the Justice Department initially said. 

The mechanism through which Tawhedi entered the country is especially sensitive because the DHS inspector general raised concerns about Operation Allies Welcome, the program through which the agency paroled Afghan refugees into the country, circumventing the lengthier and more strenuous vetting process of the State Department-run special immigrant visa, or SIV, program.

DHS OIG FAULTS AFGHAN VETTING, WARNS NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS MAY HAVE ENTERED US

In 2022, the DHS inspector general’s office released a report that said it found officials “did not always have critical data to properly screen, vet, or inspect the evacuees.” 

As a result, “DHS may have admitted or paroled individuals into the U.S. who pose a risk to national security and the safety of local communities,” the report said. Tawhedi worked for the CIA as a security guard in Afghanistan. 

Investigators said they believe Tawhedi became radicalized after arriving in the U.S. 

While he entered the U.S. on humanitarian parole, he later applied for an SIV and was approved, a senior Biden administration official told Fox News. 

The administration maintains Tawhedi was subjected to multiple rounds of vetting and that no red flags were raised.

“The unsealed criminal complaint against Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi raises continued concerns about the aftermath of the Administration’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan and inadequate vetting of evacuees,” Bice wrote. 

The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Virginia, alleging that the commonwealth removed noncitizens from its voter rolls too close to Election Day.

The complaint alleges that the state Board of Elections and Virginia Commissioner of Elections Susan Beals violated the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which mandates that states must complete their maintenance program no later than 90 days before an election under a clause known as the Quiet Period Provision.

The agency alleges that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin violated the NVRA when announcing and subsequently carrying out an executive order which required the election commissioner to regularly update the state’s voter lists to remove individuals who have been “identified as noncitizens,” and had not responded to a request to verify their citizenship in 14 days. 

Under Youngkin’s executive order, Virginia has removed 6,303 individuals.

“The Executive Order formalized the Program and announced that 6,303 individuals had been removed from the rolls pursuant to the same process between January 2022 and July 2024,” the complaint said.

DOJ SUES ALABAMA, STATE’S TOP ELECTION OFFICIAL FOR ALLEGEDLY PURGING NONCITIZEN VOTERS TOO CLOSE TO ELECTION

The complaint notes that voters were identified as possible noncitizens if they responded “no” to questions about their citizenship status on certain forms submitted to the state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

“This systematic voter removal program, which the State is conducting within 90 days of the upcoming federal election, violates the Quiet Period Provision,” the DOJ said.

In a statement, Yougkin pushed back on the Justice Department’s lawsuit, saying the lawsuit was “politically motivated.”

“With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine that requires Virginia to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls – a process that starts with someone declaring themselves a non-citizen and then registering to vote,” Youngkins said.

“Virginians – and Americans – will see this for exactly what it is: a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American Democracy,” he said.

Younkin vowed to “defend these commonsense steps” and promised that the state’s election would be “secure and fair.”

YOUNGKIN MANDATES ALL PAPER BALLOTS FOR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN VIRGINIA

“With the support of our Attorney General, we will defend these commonsense steps, that we are legally required to take, with every resource available to us,” he said. “Virginia’s election will be secure and fair, and I will not stand idly by as this politically motivated action tries to interfere in our elections, period.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wrote on X that the DOJ lawsuit is “election interference.”

THOUSANDS OF NONCITIZENS REMOVED FROM VOTER ROLLS, DOZENS OF LAWMAKERS WANT ANSWERS FROM GARLANDc

“The Biden-Harris administration is engaging in election interference,” he wrote. “They’re harassing states that are trying to make sure that noncitizens can’t vote. This is a lawless abuse of power.”

The Justice Department lawsuit against Virginia comes after the agency sued Alabama and its Republican Secretary of State Wes Allen over the state’s voter purge program that targeted noncitizen voters. 

The Justice Department seeks injunctive relief that “would restore the ability of impacted eligible voters to vote unimpeded on Election Day,” and “would prohibit future quiet period violations,” the DOJ said in a statement.

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“The department also seeks remedial mailings to educate eligible voters concerning the restoration of their rights and adequate training of local officials and poll workers to address confusion and distrust among eligible voters accused of being noncitizens,” the agency said.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Youngkin for comment.

New York City reportedly wants 14,000 hotel rooms to house migrants through next year as the sanctuary city continues to spend billions on the fallout from the border crisis.

The New York Post reported the city’s use of hotels to house migrants will continue despite a significant drop in migrant encounters at the southern border, and the Department of Homeless Services is seeking a contract with hotels to provide a total of 14,000 rooms to shelter migrants. 

The Post reported that spending on housing over a three-year period will surpass $2.3 billion, with most of that spent on rent for hotels. Spending on the migrant crisis is expected exceed $5 billion, and Mayor Eric Adams has previously said costs could balloon to over $10 billion by the end of next fiscal year. Previous estimates had put that number even higher.

NEW YORK CITY MIGRANT CRISIS COSTS EXPECTED TO EXCEED $5B IN TWO-YEAR PERIOD – DOUBLE TO $10B BY 2025

At an average of $352 per night for at least 36,939 households, the city has previously projected it will spend $4.75 billion providing shelter, food, health care and education to the influx of migrants during the 2025 fiscal year, according to the current forecast by the city’s online asylum seeker funding tracker. 

In August, the city announced two new contracts totaling $40 million for contractors to service migrants at hotels used as emergency shelters. 

As numbers surged at the border in 2021 and 2022, tens of thousands of migrants traveled to major blue cities like New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia. They were aided in 2022 when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began bussing migrants straight to those cities as a way to relieve the pressure on the border state. He chose sanctuary cities — cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement — because he said they encouraged the crisis.

There were scenes of hundreds of migrants camped outside the Roosevelt Hotel during the height of the crisis. New York City officials now say over 218,000 migrants have received services in NYC since 2022.

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Officials say they have helped complete more than 72,000 applications for work permits, temporary protected status and asylum. The city has also bought 47,000 tickets to help migrants go to other parts of the country. 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE

At the peak of the crisis, the city was taking in an average of 4,000 migrants per week. But that dropped into the hundreds in recent months as the crisis at the border abated after a presidential proclamation from President Biden that limited asylum claims. The Post reported more than 700 new migrants arrived in the city last week.

This week, the city announced it would be closing a massive tent shelter on Randall’s Island. Officials said the number of asylum seekers in city shelters has dropped for 14 straight weeks and now is at the lowest point in over a year.

Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., criticized Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Friday, calling him “the ultimate hypocrite” in response to a new report in which Raskin stopped short of committing to certify a potential 2024 presidential win for former President Trump.

“Ranking member Raskin is the ultimate hypocrite,” Comer told Fox News Digital. “He talks a big game about ‘saving democracy’ yet actively undermines it by sowing seeds of doubt in America’s free and fair elections when it benefits him to do so.”

Comer slammed Raskin as “a two-time election denier,” saying Raskin “suggested the 2000 election was illegitimate and didn’t certify election results when Trump won the White House in 2016.”

“Now ranking member Raskin is signaling he’d do the same if Trump wins again in November. Raskin doesn’t care at all about democracy. He only cares about putting a Democrat in the White House whatever the cost,” Comer said. 

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Raskin, the top Democrat on the committee and a former Jan. 6 committee member, told Axios in a report published Thursday if former President Trump “won a free, fair and honest election, then we would obviously accept it.” The report continued to say that Raskin said he “definitely” does not assume the former president will employ “free, fair and honest means” to win the Oval Office.

Trump “is doing whatever he can to try to interfere with the process, whether we’re talking about manipulating electoral college counts in Nebraska or manipulating the vote count in Georgia or imposing other kinds of impediments,” Raskin told Axios. 

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Several other Democratic members of Congress shared Raskin’s sentiments, including Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern. McGovern told Axios Democrats will certify a Trump win “assuming everything goes the way we expect it to.” 

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., also called the Democrats’ statements “the most predictable hypocrisy in politics.”

“After years of the radical left’s stenographers in the mainstream media, corporate special interest groups and radical Democrats viciously smearing President Trump and Republicans for standing up for election integrity, now 24 days until Election Day, far left Democrats are claiming that a President Trump victory would be illegitimate, and the mainstream media remains silent,” Stefanik told Fox News Digital.

Raskin responded to the criticism in a statement to Fox News Digital, saying, “The Democratic Party is a party of democracy and the rule of law. We stand by both.

“Trump and his followers have tried to use fraud, deceit, lies, coercion, trickery, voter suppression and mass insurrectionary violence to seize power against the rules of our constitutional order,” Raskin said. “I will never back down from defending American constitutional democracy against their big lies, political coups and violent insurrections. And I certainly won’t get into the mud with Chairman Comer and call him a hypocrite because that would imply he has some principles and ideals to betray.”

Top Democrats criticized House Speaker Mike Johnson last month after he was asked if he’d commit to observing regular order in certifying the election results if Vice President Kamala Harris were to win. 

“Well, of course — if we have a free, fair and safe election, we’re going to follow the Constitution. Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely,” Johnson said.

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Election certification was also touched upon during the vice presidential debate a few weeks ago, when Sen. JD Vance was pressed on past comments saying he would not have voted to certify the 2020 election results in January 2021. 

Vance fired back at the proposition that Trump could prove to be a “threat to democracy,” saying he believes “we actually do have a threat to democracy in this country” in the form of censorship. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz circled back to the 2021 exchange, blasting Trump and Republicans for denying the events that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building.