Good morning.
New Jersey officials and a state contractor are pointing fingers over how thousands of self-identified noncitizens ended up on the voter rolls, a French model recruiter with longstanding ties to Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead outside Paris, and a federal appeals court has handed the Trump administration a significant victory in its effort to detain illegal immigrants while their removal cases proceed.
Vendor Disputes New Jersey’s Explanation for Noncitizen Registrations
The technology company blamed by New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill for mistakenly registering 6,600 noncitizens says state officials had all the information needed to prevent the error—and approved the system anyway.
IDEMIA, a French identity technology company that worked with New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission, confirmed that the affected applicants answered “yes” when asked whether they wanted to register to vote and “no” when asked whether they were United States citizens.
Those answers should have made them ineligible.
The company disputes Sherrill’s claim that a software glitch incorrectly identified the applicants as citizens. IDEMIA spokesperson Lisa Shoemaker said the records contained accurate information, were transmitted according to specifications established by the state, and never listed any noncitizen as an American citizen.
She also emphasized that IDEMIA does not control voter enrollment, suggesting the ultimate decision to process the applications occurred elsewhere in state government.
New Jersey officials reject that explanation. One state representative argued that any record containing a “no” response to the citizenship question should never have been sent to the Division of Elections in the first place.
The disputed registrations occurred between June 2023 and June 2024 under former Gov. Phil Murphy. State officials say roughly 400 of the improperly registered individuals cast ballots.
The Justice Department is now demanding detailed information about the registrants, including names, addresses, nationalities and voting histories. New Jersey has characterized the federal investigation as politically motivated, while the White House and state Republicans say the episode demonstrates the need for stricter voter-registration safeguards.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, has also called for a federal audit of government contracts with IDEMIA, arguing that the dispute raises concerns extending beyond the state’s election system.
Epstein-Linked French Model Recruiter Found Dead
A French model recruiter accused of introducing young women to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead at his home near Paris.
Daniel Siad, 69, was discovered Monday evening at his residence in Colombes. French prosecutors have opened an investigation into the circumstances of his death, and an autopsy is underway.
Authorities have not announced a cause of death.
Siad’s name reportedly appeared nearly 2,000 times in Justice Department records released earlier this year. French investigators had been examining allegations that he helped recruit women who later became victims of Epstein’s trafficking and abuse network.
Siad denied knowingly participating in any abuse. He maintained that he believed Epstein was a legitimate figure in the modeling industry with connections to Victoria’s Secret and the MC2 modeling agency.
Messages attributed to Siad, however, show that he regularly sent Epstein photographs and descriptions of young women he believed Epstein might want to meet. In one 2014 message, he compared his recruiting efforts to fishing—sometimes catching someone quickly and sometimes coming up empty.
Siad insisted that none of the women he introduced to Epstein ever returned to him with allegations of mistreatment.
His lawyer said Siad had not been formally placed under judicial investigation and continued to deny wrongdoing until his death.
Siad is now the second French modeling figure publicly tied to Epstein to die while facing scrutiny. Jean-Luc Brunel, another agent accused of procuring young women for Epstein, was found hanged in a Paris jail cell in 2022 while awaiting trial. Brunel had also denied the allegations against him.
French prosecutors have cautioned that Siad’s death remains under investigation and that no conclusions have yet been reached.
Appeals Court Allows ICE Detention During Removal Proceedings
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that illegal immigrants do not have a constitutional right to be released from federal custody while their removal cases are pending.
The decision temporarily overturns lower-court orders that granted bond hearings and release to three immigrants held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The lead case followed Ignacio Sosnava Rodriguez, who had lived in Texas for 22 years before being arrested during a traffic stop in 2025. Rodriguez argued that holding him without a bond hearing violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process.
A federal district court agreed and granted his habeas corpus petition. The appeals court, however, concluded that the lower court had applied the wrong legal analysis and placed its ruling on hold while the broader appeal proceeds.
The Fifth Circuit issued similar stays in the cases of Alejandro Villegas Angel and Miguel Angel Gomez.
Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate described the ruling as an important precedent establishing that illegal immigrants may be detained throughout removal proceedings without receiving the type of bond hearing ordered by the lower court.
The ruling does not represent the final resolution of the cases, but it allows ICE to keep the three men in custody while the appeals continue.
It also strengthens the administration’s hand in similar detention disputes throughout the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
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