DHS Is Paying Police Millions for Immigration Arrests

Treasury stabilize even as the bond route takes hold of major European economies. Plus, Homeland Security is paying local police forces millions for even just one immigration arrest. And spurning President Trump has given Mark Carney an unprecedented mandate to transform Canada's economy. One analyst that I spoke to said that he can't remember in his adult life a prime minister having this good of an 18 months. It's Friday, October 2nd. I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal filling in for Luke Vargas. And here's the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. A journal investigation has found local police forces are making big bucks by participating in the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. We are exclusively reporting that turning over just a single deportable immigrant qualifies as a criminal. It qualifies departments for $60,000 per officer annually, regardless of whether they make any additional arrests. And according to investigative reporter Brenna Smith, some departments are getting millions of dollars while making very few arrests. DHS is incentivizing local law enforcement to join a task force program that pays per officer enrolled, not necessarily by the number of arrests or by performance. Law enforcement agencies serving low immigrant workers are making big bucks by turning over just a single deportable immigrant qualifies as a criminal. A Trump administration official says DHS has distributed over $200 million to local partners since last year, with another $1 billion set aside by Congress. Congress for future payouts. Here's Brenna again to explain how the payment structure works. So more than 1,800 law enforcement agencies have signed up to join this task force programs, and this is across the country. After a single qualifying act, which in this case means an arrest, agencies enrolled in this specific task force program in the first quarter are eligible for a $100,000 vehicle stipend and $7,500 per officer. And then every quarter after that, even if they don't make another arrest, they are eligible for another $15,000 for every officer that they enroll. It's a lot of numbers, but basically what you need to take away from this is that after single arrest, agencies can continue to ask for reimbursement even if there are not subsequent major actions. When we spoke to DHS about this, they said that agencies are only eligible for a $100,000 vehicle stipend and $7,500 per officer. So they're eligible for reimbursement after there is an ICE-directed enforcement action and that there must show continued performance to continue receiving the quarterly funding. However, the journal has identified agencies that have only conducted a single arrest and have continued to submit for reimbursement in quarters where they have not continued to arrest at all. U.S. treasuries have stabilized this morning following yesterday's wild trades. But while safe havens may be enjoying some respite today, things got a bit crazier for indebted countries this morning. The spread between French and German 10-year government bond yields has hit its highest since 2012. And the widening is now spreading to countries like Italy, Belgium, and Greece. Finance editor Alex Frangos says that shift in the bond route is now dividing the world into winners and losers. U.S. bond yields have been going up partly because the U.S. economy is growing faster, and that's just what happens. That pulls up yields in the rest of the world, but if the rest of the world isn't growing as quickly, doesn't have this big of a impact, and there are a lot of countries that also have a lot of debt. And France is kind of at the center of the action. The government unveiled a budget yesterday that tries to rein in the debt a little bit, but it's still really high. It's like 5% of GDP. That's the kind of levels you'd normally have in a recession when you're trying to get the economy going. And as bond yields go up, it just makes it more expensive for countries to afford that debt. And what investors are worried about is that you're getting into kind of a spiral where the interest rate goes up, the debt goes up, and then you're getting into kind of a spiral where the interest rate goes up, the debt cost goes up, and then people worry that you can't pay back the debt. So the interest rate has to go up again. And that really came to bear this week when investors started selling French debt and instead going into the debt of other countries, including the U.S. and Germany that they see as like kind of safer bets. We're exclusively reporting that OpenAI has fired three researchers for alleged misconduct, including sharing confidential company information with a third-party AI safety organization. An OpenAI spokesperson said the three workers from the company's safety team mishandled sensitive information, breaking the trust essential to the company's work. The researchers didn't immediately comment. OpenAI has been under fire recently following a string of incidents where its AI agents hacked other companies and websites and has said it is working to investigate and address underlying safety issues. Amazon says it's putting transparency at the core of its data center expansion and is throwing in some cash to sweeten the deal for communities near where it builds. In a 3,000-word manifesto this morning, AWS CEO Matt Garman wrote that Amazon would invest more than $1 billion over the next five years into the communities beyond what has already been committed. He said the money will go toward things like education, job training, and water. Garman also pushed back on widespread concerns about the impact of data centers on the environment, energy rates, and doubts about job creation, and warned of rampant misinformation campaigns, calling the fight for AI dominance a "race the country can't afford to lose." And Nike is sizing down, or downsizing. After two straight quarters of falling revenue, the company said it expects sales to keep declining this fiscal year. In a memo to employees, CEO Elliot Hill said there would be job cuts, along with a move to shrink operations and merge regional businesses. Nike has been losing market share to the likes of Ahn and Hoka and continues to struggle in China, its second-biggest market. Nike shares are on pace for their worst year on record, down 47% so far this year. Coming up, Mark Carney is riding a wave of popularity to fast-track pipelines and infrastructure projects, but will Canada's pivot away from the U.S. pay off for the economy? That story after the break. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has been in the spotlight a lot recently, thanks to the rupture in U.S. relations that has the leader working to expand Canada's trade alliances globally. He's been busy at home, too, overhauling environmental reviews, announcing massive increases in military spending, and accelerating approvals of oil pipelines and mines. Overall, the Journal's Canada correspondent Amanda Colletta writes that he's been given a wide berth to forge ahead on these measures, which previously would have been unthinkable and unpopular. Amanda, give us a sense of just how much support Carney has right now. Amanda Colletta: Prime Minister Mark Carney is pretty popular, to put it mildly. A lot of opinion polls show that he has personal approval ratings in the high fifties and the high sixties. His Liberal Party has a commanding lead over its main opponent, the Federal Conservatives. If an election was held today, it would be forecasted to win a majority. There has been very little public comment. And I think it's very important that we push back to his agenda. His main opponents are struggling to land a punch. In fact, his main opponent, Pierre Polyev, has spent much of the summer fighting off criticism from members of his own party about his strategy. And so Carney is pretty much doing this all unchallenged and unopposed. It's October now, so there are new U.S. tariffs in place. And already, Carney is finding ways to bolster the economy. Just this week, we've seen the government designate a proposed pipeline from the country's oil. From the oil heartland of Alberta to the West Coast, a project of national interest, which will speed up the regulatory approval process. What else is Carney doing to backstop Canada's economy in the near term? A lot of what Prime Minister Carney is focused on to strengthen Canada's economy and to help get Canadian exports to non-U.S. markets. He set a goal of doubling Canada's non-U.S. exports by 2035. A lot of what he is focused on is on jetting around the world to build new trade and security partnerships with different countries. He is also focused on trying to build more infrastructure projects, like critical minerals mines, like pipelines, like ports to help get Canada's natural resources and other goods to different markets around the world. A lot of that is not something that can necessarily happen overnight. But since becoming Prime Minister, Carney has promised to build things at speeds not seen in generations. One of the things that he's been trying to do through legislation that's already passed and through a new bill that he proposed last month is to fast track the approval processes for many of these major infrastructure projects and to sort of streamline all of the environmental and other assessments that they must go through before shovels are put in the ground. Of course, there are critics of some of these measures. Environmental groups, for instance, are concerned that he's not getting the balance right between developing Canada's resources and protecting the environment. Under Canada's constitution, governments have an obligation to consult adequately with Indigenous people whose lands might be impacted by these projects. And some indigenous leaders are also concerned that the legislation and the proposed legislation don't do this. But broadly speaking, this type of agenda is popular with Canadians who are concerned about the fraying ties with the United States and eager to get products to markets around the world. How much runway will Canadians give Carney, though, to get these things done? Obviously, the economic stakes for moving away from the U.S. are massive. For now, Canadians seem willing to put up a fight and to bear the economic cost of rupturing ties with the United States. When Prime Minister Carney walked away from the negotiating table with the United States earlier this year, which allowed Trump to impose new tariffs on Canada, that decision was widely supported by Canadians. One poll showed that the United States was willing to put up a fight against the United States. 75% of Canadians backed Carney, even as they acknowledge that they have huge worries about the impact of tariffs on their livelihoods and the economy. It's hard to imagine another issue where 75% of Canadians from across the political spectrum and majorities in every province agree. And longer term, is there a sense in Canada now that this is a permanent rupture, or is there an expectation that things won't get so bad because future policies will change? I think there is some skepticism, at least on the trade front, that a future U.S. administration would roll back all of these tariffs on Canada. I know what has shaken Canadians is that Americans voted to make Donald Trump president not once but twice. And so that to them signals that there might be a more permanent reworking of the U.S. economy. And I think that's a very important U.S.-Canada relationship. That's Journal of Canada correspondent Amanda Coletta. Amanda, thank you so much for this. Thank you. And that's it for What's News for this Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Heidi Moyer. Our supervising producer is Sondra Kilhoff. And I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, have a great weekend and thanks for listening. Thank you.