U.S. authorities say a Guatemalan man has pleaded guilty in federal court to a felony offense stemming from the crash of human smugglers' truck in Mexico that killed more than 50 migrants in 2021. Authorities say that 42-year-old Daniel Zavala Ramos pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Laredo, Texas, and acknowledged his involvement in trying to smuggle migrants from Guatemala via Mexico to the U.S. He faces a possible life sentence. Authorities said at least 160 migrants were packed into the truck when it overturned in southern Mexico in December 2021, killing at least 53 people and injuring more than 100 others. Five other Guatemalans also are charged.

Environmental groups have asked a federal appellate court panel to lift its temporary halt on closing an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades. Known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” the center remains open due to arguments by Florida and the Trump administration. They claimed the state hadn't gotten federal reimbursement, so it wasn’t required to follow federal environmental law. On Tuesday, during a hearing in Miami, the judges questioned how much control the federal government had over the state-built facility. Florida was notified in late September of $608 million in federal funding approval. The environmental lawsuit was one of three federal challenges to the facility since it opened.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance says he is in Hungary to support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's reelection bid. Vance's visit to Budapest on Tuesday marks a clear endorsement from President Donald Trump's administration for Orbán, who is trailing in the polls ahead of Sunday's election. Orbán, a close Trump ally, is running for his fifth term against a strong center-right challenger. Despite Vance's support, he criticized the EU for interfering in Hungary's election. Orbán has been a controversial figure, known for his nationalist policies and opposition to immigration.

The Trump administration has revoked the green cards or U.S. visas of at least four Iranian nationals connected to the current or former Iranian government, including two who have been detained by immigration authorities and are to be deported. The arrests came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined they were no longer eligible for either lawful permanent resident status, or to enter the United States. In a statement the State Department said the niece and grand-niece of former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps chief Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike near the Baghdad airport in 2020, had been arrested late Friday by immigration agents

The funding lapse for the Department of Homeland Security will likely stretch into next week. The House is contemplating a Senate plan it had previously rejected to fund the bulk of the agency, but not its immigration enforcement operations. There was no resolution Thursday to the standoff, now in its 48th day, after both chambers met for just a few minutes in pro forma sessions. House Republicans are expected to hold a conference call later in the day to discuss the next steps. Still, the Republican leadership and President Donald Trump have coalesced around a plan to fully fund DHS as part of a two-step process.

Medical examiners have ruled that the death of a nearly blind refugee from Myanmar, five days after Border Patrol left him at a Buffalo, New York, doughnut shop, was a homicide. The finding from the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office was released Wednesday. The agency didn’t reach any conclusions about responsibility for Nurul Amin Shah Alam’s death. Medical examiners said it was caused by complications of a perforated duodenal ulcer, precipitated by hypothermia and dehydration. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says Shah Alam “showed no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance” when agents dropped him off Feb. 19 at a Tim Hortons restaurant.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have announced what they're calling a path forward to fully funding the Department of Homeland Security and ending a record partial government shutdown. According to the plan, most of the department could be funded through an agreement with Democratic senators, with the exception of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol. Republicans would then later try to fund those agencies through party-line budgeting legislation. Neither outcome is guaranteed, and the strategy certain to face opposition from Democrats, if not the GOP’s own ranks.

The Supreme Court is casting doubt on President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship in a consequential case that was magnified by Trump’s norm-breaking presence in the courtroom. Conservative and liberal justices on Wednesday questioned whether Trump’s order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens comports with either the Constitution or federal law. Trump heard Solicitor General D. John Sauer face one skeptical question after another. Justices asked about the legal basis for the order and voiced more practical concerns. The Republican president spent just over an hour inside the courtroom, staying only for arguments by the government’s lawyer.