The recent seizure of an Afghan man by masked United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Connecticut threatens not only his life but also those of future generations of American soldiers, according to veterans fighting for his release.

Zia S., who served as a translator for the U.S. military during the war in Afghanistan, was granted a Chief of Mission Special Immigration Visa in 2024 and settled in Connecticut in 2025, according to his attorney, Lauren Petersen. The family of the 35-year-old husband and father of five does not want his full name shared publicly.

“The Trump administration is recategorizing legal immigrants to illegal,” said Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran and president of AfghanEvac, a veterans group that works to protect U.S. allies.

“They are targeting those who trusted us enough to stand by us, targeting the friends of U.S. service members. … This is about whether this country honors its word to those who risk everything. Zia worked with U.S. forces, his family was tortured by the Taliban because of that service, he entered the country legally … ,” VanDiver, who hosted a press call on the issue, said.

Zia has no criminal history, a pending green card application, a full-time job, and a wife and children in Connecticut. Zia was reporting for a routine biometrics appointment to have his fingerprints taken, Petersen said, when he was surrounded by six masked, armed ICE agents and thrown into a van. He was later taken to Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Massachusetts, where he is currently being held.

“My office was contacted last week by the family,” said U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5, on the call. “They simply had no idea even where Zia was being held.

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“We had someone who was here legally, who had no interaction with law enforcement, who did everything they were supposed to do, who was invited to this country, escorted into this country, to now be detained and the family had no idea where he was, it was incredibly overwhelming,” Hayes said.

None of the elected officials on the call, including Hayes, in whose Connecticut district Zia and his family live, Rep. Bill Keating, in whose district Zia is being held, and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who has worked for years to secure the evacuation and safety of U.S. allies in Afghanistan, had received an explanation from ICE for Zia’s arrest.

“ICE has not been engaging with me at any level of responsibility. We have reached out to them but they have been unresponsive,” Blumenthal said.

“When we tried to get answers from Homeland Security or the FBI or anyone involved, we were told, believe it or not, ‘We’re not giving you an answer,’” Keating said. “They literally said ‘We are not giving you an answer.’”

Keating said he had also reached out to Republican colleagues to ask if they were aware of what was happening with ICE. VanDiver said Zia was not the only Afghan who had aided U.S. troops to be detained by ICE.

Keating said ICE’s arrests, without explanation or due process, had been seemingly indiscriminate in his district.

“I had a person in New Bedford … that was in their automobile with their family. (ICE) smashed the windows, they pulled the person out, they were giving the name of another person. (The person arrested) said ‘That’s not me.’ It didn’t matter. They took him, they detained him, they held him,” Keating said.

Working to deliver President Donald Trump’s promise of the largest mass deportation program in history, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller in late May reportedly directed ICE agents to arrest 3,000 people a day.

Hayes said the quota has deprioritized arresting violent criminals in “an attempt to raise those numbers, to save face, to shift public perception and convince the people in our communities that anyone who immigrates or comes to this country from anywhere around the world poses a danger to us.”

The resulting actions are lawless and undermine national security, she said.

“There is a fundamental erosion of trust, erosion of credibility and really a question that will be lingering when we call on our allies and our friends for help,” Hayes said. “When we need to build relationships and community, when we need literally something as simple as translation in a foreign land, will people trust the United States and does our word mean anything?”

Hayes and Blumenthal said they were working to free Zia through every means available. Blumenthal mentioned amicus briefs and ongoing legal action, as well voicing his opposition in hearings and through appropriations votes. But he said he didn’t want to make public all of their efforts.

The Department of Homeland Security is now claiming Zia “is currently under investigation for a serious criminal allegation,” which came as a surprise to Petersen.

“We have seen DHS in numerous cases over and over and over again make things up, stretch the truth, outright lie to the American people,” VanDiver said. “Kristi Noem, the secretary of Homeland Security, said ‘Oh, things are great in Afghanistan, it’s perfectly safe to send people back.’ And this isn’t a partisan statement, it’s a factual statement: These people are full of s***. … They keep messing things up and we need ICE to stop trying to take the low-hanging fruit of any random brown person that they can see on the street.”

On July 18, a U.S. District Court issued a stay of removal in response to a habeas petition seeking Zia’s release. ICE is seeking extradited removal, initially claiming he was in the U.S. illegally without documents.

“The courts are our last firewall,” Petersen said. “A judge temporarily stayed his removal but he’s still in detention, he’s still hours from his family, incredibly hurt and confused about why he’s there and terrified, absolutely terrified that he’ll be sent back to Afghanistan. Zia must be released.

“His case needs to be adjudicated by the rules, the same rules that he has followed. We need Congress and all of the American public to see what’s happening before this continues happening to others.”

LAS VEGAS — Over eight seasons, Gophers football coach P.J. Fleck has rarely — if ever — talked about measurable goals such as win totals or broad postseason expectations.

Heading into Year 9, that has changed.

Fleck said Wednesday at Big Ten football media days that the Gophers need to be “delusional” heading into the 2025 season. “It means no cap on the jar, no limitations, dreaming big,” he said at the Mandalay Bay Resort.

“With the College Football Playoff where it is, as Indiana showed last year, anybody can get there,” Fleck said. “If we are delusional enough to know we can do that, we can get there.”

The Gophers went 8-5 overall and 5-4 in Big Ten play a year ago, with a 3-4 record in one-possession games.

Fleck pointed out a missed field goal that cost them in a 19-17 season-opening loss to North Carolina, as well as the controversial offsides call on an onside kick in the 27-24 defeat at Michigan and a failed fourth-down conversion in the 26-25 loss versus Penn State.

“How do you improve that?” Flecks said. “You’ve got to win situational football. You got to be better in two-minute (drill) and four-minute (situations). That is what we have been focusing on since January. If we can get a little bit more, and we can flip those just like we did in 2019 — 6-1 in one-possession games — that is how you win 11 games.”

Boosters along for trip

The Gophers brought key boosters along to Las Vegas this year, an important invite given the athletic department’s nearly $9 million budget shortfall amid the new $20.5 million expense in revenue sharing to players.

“Having our donors being able to come along with us was absolutely critical,” Fleck said.

The U was not bringing boosters along when media days were in Indianapolis in recent years. Fleck thanked the Big Ten for moving media days to one of his favorite cities, remarking, “Viva Las Vegas, baby!”

“We get to take our players to our favorite restrurant, Prime in Bellagio and with our favorite waiter, Howard, so we get to experience that Vegas with our players. … Nothing better than that.”

The Gophers’ contingent had dinner with former U center Greg Eslinger at Carversteak in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Eslinger will be will be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in December.

Briefly

The Gophers have no key injuries heading into the start of fall camp on Sunday. … Safety Koi Perich was one of 15 players named to the Big Ten Preseason Honors list on Monday. The sophomore from Esko, Minn., was all-Big Ten first team member with a conference-leading five interceptions in 2024.

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By STEPHEN GROVES and MATT BROWN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats launched a bid Wednesday to subpoena President Donald Trump’s Justice Department for files in the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, goading GOP lawmakers to defy Trump and Republican leadership to support the action.

Democrats on a subcommittee of the powerful House Committee on Oversight made a motion for the subpoena Wednesday afternoon, just hours before the House was scheduled to end its July work session and depart Washington for a monthlong break.

The subcommittee’s Republican chairman, Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, postponed a vote on the matter until the end of the meeting. While several Republicans on the panel are members of a right-wing faction and have called for the release of the files, it was not clear whether they would vote for the subpoena.

During a brief break in the meeting, Higgins told reporters he expected the motion for the subpoena to pass with some changes.

“If the Republican Party, if our colleagues on this committee don’t join us in this vote, then what they’re essentially doing is joining President Donald Trump in complicity,” Rep. Summer Lee, the Pennsylvania Democrat who made the motion for the subpoena, told reporters outside the hearing room.

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The move by Democrats showed how they were doing practically everything in their power to force Republicans to act on the Epstein files. House Speaker Mike Johnson — caught between demands from Trump and clamoring from his own members for the House to act — has resisted calls for action and prepared to send the House home a day early.

Johnson told reporters earlier Wednesday there was no need to vote on legislation calling for the release of the Epstein files this week because the Trump administration is “already doing everything within their power to release them.”

Yet Democrats have delighted this week in pressing Republicans to support the release of the files. Their efforts halted the GOP’s legislative agenda for the week and turned attention to an issue that Trump has unsuccessfully implored his supporters to forget about.

“They’re fleeing our work, our job and sending us back home because they don’t want to vote to release these files. This is something that they ran on. This is something that they talked about: the importance of transparency, holding pedophiles accountable,” Lee said.

Democratic leaders are hoping to make the issue about much more than just Epstein, who died in his New York jail cell six years ago while he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

“Why haven’t Republicans released the Epstein files to the American people? It’s reasonable to conclude that Republicans are continuing to protect the lifestyles of the rich and the shameless, even if that includes pedophiles,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries at a news conference. “So it’s all connected.”

It comes as both parties are gearing up to take their messaging to voters on Trump’s big multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts bill. For Republicans, it’s “beautiful” legislation that will spark economic growth; for Democrats, it’s an “ugly” gift mostly to the richest Americans that undermines health care for low-income people.

Yet as furor has grown on the right over the Trump administration’s reversal on promises related to Epstein, several Democrats have seized on the opportunity to divide Republicans on the issue.

“This goes to a fundamental sense of, ‘Is our government co-opted by rich and powerful people that isn’t looking out for ordinary Americans? Or can we have a government that looks out for ordinary Americans?’” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who has put forward a bipartisan bill meant to force release of the files.

Republican leaders accuse Democrats of caring about the issue purely for political gain. They point out that the Department of Justice held on to the Epstein investigation through the presidency of Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump’s Justice Department is also seeking the release of testimony from secret grand jury proceedings in the Epstein case, though that effort is unlikely to produce new revelations.

The House Oversight Committee, with support from Republicans, also advanced Tuesday a subpoena for Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, for a deposition.

However, those lawmakers who want Congress to take a stronger role in the Epstein files have cautioned that Maxwell, who is serving a prison sentence for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls, may be an unreliable witness.

“It’s a good idea, but it’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has pushed the bipartisan bill to pry the records from the Justice Department.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The former chairman of Walt Disney Television and head of 21st Century Fox has been hired to oversee the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and Paralympics.

LA28 organizers said Wednesday that Peter Rice will serve as head of ceremonies and content and be responsible for the creative vision and physical production of the LA28 Games, which run July 14-30, and the Paralympics, which run Aug. 15-27.

“Peter is one of the rare individuals whose expertise seamlessly combines creativity, operational insight and production excellence to deliver Ceremonies that will captivate audiences around the world,” said LA28 president and chairperson Casey Wasserman, who will supervise Rice. ”He’s been a leading figure in shaping the modern television and film landscape and is the perfect asset to reimagining the delivery of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the digital age, leaving a legacy well beyond the Games.”

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The opening ceremony be held July 14 at 8 p.m. ET, with events at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. The closing ceremony will be July 30 at 9 p.m. ET at the Coliseum.

“I look forward to delivering Ceremonies that honor the legacy of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and celebrate the cutting-edge future of the 2028 Stadium,” Rice said. “These venues have hosted some of the most legendary moments in sports history, and I’m thrilled to deliver a powerful artistic experience that adds a new chapter to LA’s Olympic and Paralympic story.”

Rice, a British-American, began his career at 20th Century Fox in 1989, rising through the ranks before being promoted to president of 21st Century Fox in 2017. Following Disney’s acquisition of the company, Rice became chairman of Walt Disney Television and chairman of General Entertainment for The Walt Disney Co.