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April 15, 2026

3 entries on this date.

ICE deported Colombian man shielded from return to Colombia to DR Congo under third-country removal deal

On April 15, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed Jorge Andres Cubillos, a Colombian man who had lived in St. Cloud, Florida with his wife and four children since 2018, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, despite a 2022 immigration judge's grant of withholding of removal that barred his return to Colombia. Cubillos was flagged after ICE lodged a detainer following his arrest on a domestic battery charge, and he was sent to the DRC as part of the first group of Latin American migrants deported there under a new U.S. third-country arrangement. He arrived to be held in a hotel near Kinshasa, separated from his family and reporting deteriorating health while authorities decided his fate.

JTF Southern Spear killed three aboard suspected narcotics vessel in eastern Pacific; 52nd strike, ~178 campaign deaths

On April 15, 2026, U.S. Southern Command said Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a "lethal kinetic strike" on a vessel it alleged was operated by designated terrorist organizations in the eastern Pacific, killing three men it described as "narco-terrorists." It was the fifth lethal U.S. boat strike in five days and raised the reported death toll from Operation Southern Spear to at least 178 across roughly 53 targeted vessels since September 2025. The Pentagon released an unclassified video but offered no evidence the boat carried drugs, and no arrest, charge, or judicial process preceded the killings.

DNI Gabbard sent DOJ a criminal referral targeting the 2019 impeachment whistleblower and IG who validated the complaint

On April 15, 2026, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's office confirmed it had sent the Justice Department a criminal referral seeking investigation of the anonymous whistleblower whose 2019 complaint about President Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy triggered Trump's first impeachment, along with then-Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who reviewed and forwarded that complaint to Congress. The referral followed Gabbard's release, days earlier, of declassified documents she said exposed a "conspiracy used by Congress to impeach President Trump." Trump fired Atkinson in April 2020.