The Trump administration has set its eyes on a new target: Palestinians, who under a new directive will now be subject to heightened scrutiny when applying for asylum, according to leaked documents obtained by the Washington Post.

The outlet obtained an internal email from the Department of Homeland Security that advised staff within the agency’s asylum office to “be on the lookout for Palestinian cases,” regardless of whether applicants actually reside in Palestine, so long as they “otherwise affirmatively [identify] as Palestinian.” Those cases would then be “diverted for an additional review to the quality-assurance office,” the Washington Post found and reported on Saturday.

Lawyers who spoke with the Washington Post said the new directive was unprecedented, particularly given its broad application to an entire ethnic group.

“As a lawyer and a former asylum officer, I have never seen this applied to a nationality or a people group in this manner,” said Brian Manning, founder of Political Asylum Lawyers and a former asylum officer, speaking with the Washington Post. “It’s a big deal because this has never happened before for a specific identity group or nationality.”

The Homeland Security email reviewed by the Washington Post was dated Aug. 14, which would coincide with State Department’s halting of all Visas for people from Gaza, a move announced through social media, and after pressure from a highly-influential right-wing influencer.

The influencer was Laura Loomer, who wields a “breathtaking influence” over the Trump administration, despite not holding any form of public office. Loomer, a self-described “proud Islamophobe,” raged online after learning that a nonprofit organization was assisting injured Gazans visit the United States to seek emergency medical care.

“Why are any Islamic invaders coming into the US under the Trump admin?” she wrote in a social media post on X on Aug. 15. Just hours after Loomer’s posts criticizing the State Department, the agency announced its pausing of all Visas for Gazans, an announcement that led to Loomer taking credit for having “saved so many American citizens from being killed by pro-Hamas jihadis."

Now, with all Palestinians seeking asylum being subject to additional review by the State Department, immigration lawyers are crying foul.

“[A] blanket policy on sending anyone who is ethnically Palestinian to a quality assurance offices appears to be another attack on Palestinian identity and voices,” said Marty Rosenbluth, a Georgia-based immigration lawyer, speaking with the Washington Post.

Ban Al-Wardi, another immigration lawyer based in California, said that “at minimum,” the new directive would impose additional delays for Palestinians seeking escape from Israel’s ongoing siege on Gaza, which has killed a minimum of 65,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them women and children, though some estimates have put the death toll as high as 680,000, such as one recent study from Australian academics Richard Hil and Gideon Polya.

“If DHS is sending all asylum cases of Palestinians for further processing, solely based on their identity, then this is disparate treatment,” Al-Wardi said. “We don’t know what the directive means yet but at the minimum it will mean more delays for Palestinian asylum seekers.”

As the initial dust settles over the “indefinite” suspension of comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show over comments he made about MAGA fans' reaction of the shooting of far-right extremist Charlie Kirk, the onus now falls on Disney/ABC for the next move.

According to a report from NBC News, the execs at the media conglomerate are feeling the pinch, both in public relations and economically, with one insider who believed Kimmel would never be brought back now changing his mind.

As the report notes, pressure is mounting on the company which is facing, “ ...protests outside its studios, celebrities threatening to break ties and political pressure from Republicans and Democrats.”

A big blow to the suspension came late Friday when Michael Eisner, the ex-CEO of Disney, went public when he posted online, “Where has all the leadership gone? If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners, and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies, who then will step up for the first amendment?” and added the whole situation is “...yet another example of out-of-control intimidation.”

NBC News is also reporting more alarming news for the conglomerate.

“A number of celebrities, including NSYNC band member Lance Bass and ‘Transparent’ star Amy Landecker, have shared screenshots to social media that show their cancellations of their Disney-affiliated subscriptions,” NBC is reporting before adding, “As the message gained traction over the last day across social media sites, Google Trends showed an uptick of searches for the terms ‘cancel Disney Plus’ and ‘boycott Disney,’ as posters declared they were leaving the streaming platforms behind.”

That led popular podcaster Bill Simmons, who was doubtful about Kimmel’s ABC future to have second thoughts.

“What changed over the last 24 plus hours is there was such a groundswell,” he explained. “This just felt like this became the moment. If we stand by and let something like this happen, what’s next? Where do we go?”

You can read more here.

Scientists at one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s research offices have been ordered to stop publishing studies, and with no timeline or reason for the demand afforded staff, according to two agency employees who spoke with the Washington Post in a report published Saturday.

“This represents millions of dollars of research, potentially, that’s now being stopped,” one of the agency employees told the outlet, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “[Americans] aren’t going to benefit from the release of this science.”

According to the employees, staff at the EPA’s Office of Water – which researches and implements methods to ensure drinking water is safe – were instructed to halt nearly all publications of research until further notice, instructions issued, they said, by ‘political appointees.’

More specifically, the employees said they were told not to publish research papers unless they had already been vetted through a peer review and acceptance process, the final step before a research paper’s publication, and that their research papers would also be subjected to a new review process ahead of any potential publication.

The Trump administration has acted antagonistically against the EPA, with President Donald Trump moving to roll back dozens of environmental regulations established during the Biden administration. Staff at the EPA have not taken kindly to Trump’s regulatory roll backs, having often written letters of dissent to the administration, which in turn have been followed by well over 100 EPA employees being placed on administrative leave.

The two EPA employees who spoke with the Washington Post said the order to stop publishing research papers was ‘unprecedented.’ Kyle Bennet, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, suggested the order was one rooted in a political motive, and not a scientific one.

““Science is not supposed to be political,” Bennett said, speaking with the Washington Post. “Science is supposed to transcend politics and inform decision-making at the EPA.”