COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A top ICE official resigned her job on Thursday in hopes of ousting the longest-serving woman in Congress, Democrat Marcy Kaptur, this fall.
In a video launching her campaign for Ohio's 9th Congressional District, former ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan said she had stopped more illegal immigration in her less than a year on the job than Kaptur had in her 43 years in Washington.
“In Washington, hypocrisy, excuses and failure can earn you a lifetime job,” she said. “But on my family farm, that would have put us out of business.”
The announcement comes as President Donald Trump is determined to maintain Republicans’ threadbare House majority this fall, so he can avoid a repeat of his first presidency, when Democrats won control of the chamber in midterm elections and went on to impeach him twice. His actions have included candidate recruitment and efforts to pressure states to redraw their congressional lines.
Sheahan, 28, a native of tiny Curtice, Ohio, near the shores of Lake Erie, labeled herself “a Trump conservative.” Before Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tapped her for the ICE position in March, Sheahan served as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and as Noem’s aide when she was governor of South Dakota.
In a resignation letter posted on the social media platform X, Sheahan thanked Noem and Trump for their “steadfast commitment” to the immigration agency and expressed pride in what ICE has accomplished.
In a statement Thursday, the Kaptur campaign said, “Voters are tired of the self-dealing corruption and culture of lawlessness they’ve seen over the last year. They want a leader focused on affordability and real results, and Marcy Kaptur consistently works across the aisle to deliver both.”
The 79-year-old incumbent is accustomed to steep challenges in a Lake Erie-hugging district centered on Toledo, which has been drawn and redrawn to increasingly favor the state's ruling Republicans. A bipartisan map approved last year resulted in boundaries that give Republicans a nearly 11-point advantage over Democrats for her seat, up from a roughly 9.5-point advantage in 2024.
In that year, Kaptur defeated Republican state Rep. Derek Merrin by such a close margin that The Associated Press did not call the race until official results were entered, more than two weeks after the election. The final result was 48.3% to 47.6%.
The Kaptur campaign's statement hinted at the possibility of another “messy primary” — like the one in 2024 — shaping up among Republicans seeking the chance to take her on in November.
Sheahan is the seventh Republican to announce a bid for the GOP nomination, a field that also includes Merrin. Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, considered a potentially top contender to defeat Kaptur, was removed as a contender last week when he was named Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's running mate.
David Gedert, a Toledo-area entrepreneur who The Blade of Toledo has reported is better known on stage as drag queen Sugar Vermonte, is running as a Libertarian.
FILE - U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, is interviewed Dec. 9, 2022, in Toledo, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)
FILE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Madison Sheahan speaks during a news conference with Florida ICE and law enforcement officials at the South Florida U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices, Nov. 13, 2025, in Miramar, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Several Middle Eastern allies of the United States have urged the Trump administration to hold off on strikes against Iran for the government's deadly crackdown on protesters, according to an Arab diplomat familiar with the matter.
Top officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have raised concerns in the last 48 hours that a U.S. military intervention would shake the global economy and destabilize an already volatile region, said the diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive conversations.
Oil prices fell on Thursday as the markets appeared to take note of President Donald Trump's shifting tone as a sign that he’s leaning away from attacking Iran after days of launching blistering threats at Tehran for its brutal crackdown.
Nevertheless, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday maintained that “all options remain on the table” for Trump as he deals with Iran.
“The truth is only President Trump knows what he’s going to do and a very, very small team of advisers are read into his thinking on that,” Leavitt said. She added, “He continues to closely monitor the situation on the ground in Iran.”
The nationwide protests challenging Iran’s theocracy appeared increasingly smothered Thursday, a week after authorities shut the country off from the world and escalated a bloody crackdown that activists say has killed at least 2,637 people.
The delicate diplomacy from Arab officials comes during a period of rhetorical whiplash from Trump.
Trump, in a matter of a day, went from offering assurances to Iranian citizens that “help is on its way” and urging them to take over their country's institutions to abruptly declaring on Wednesday that he had received information from “very important sources on the other side” that Iran had stopped killing protesters and was not going forward with executions.
The Arab officials also urged senior Iranian officials to quickly end the violent repression of protesters. They warned that any Iranian response to a U.S. action against the U.S. or other targets in the region would have significant repercussions for Iran, the diplomat said.
Asked about reports of allies asking Trump to hold off on the strikes at a White House briefing, Leavitt did not directly address the matter.
Ambassador Mike Waltz, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, said military action is an option that remains in play.
“President Trump is a man of action, not endless talk like we see at the United Nations,” said in remarks at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the Iran protests. “He has made it clear all options are on the table to stop the slaughter.”
But Trump himself appeared to send signals he could be backing away from a potential U.S. strike on Iran after days of threatening one was in the offing.
He took to social media to highlight a Fox News headline about the suspension of a death sentence for an Iranian shopkeeper, 26-year-old Erfan Soltani.
Iranian state media denied Soltani had been condemned to death. Iranian judicial authorities said Soltani was being held in a detention facility outside of the capital.
Alongside other protesters, he has been accused of “propaganda activities against the regime,” state media said.
“This is good news. Hopefully, it will continue!” Trump said in his post about the reported pause in the execution of the shopkeeper. The White House later asserted that Iran had halted 800 scheduled executions.
Trump has been known to purposefully display ambiguity about his intentions to maintain an element of surprise.
Last June, as Trump was weighing whether to follow Israel as it carried out strikes on Iran, Leavitt read a message to reporters that she said came “directly from the president” in which Trump said he would decide whether to strike Iran “within the next two weeks.”
Less than two days later, Trump ordered B-2 bombers to carry out strikes on critical Iranian nuclear sites.
Jeremy Shapiro, research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump may have decided to hold off on strikes because of concerns about the current U.S. force posture in the Middle East.
There are currently no U.S. aircraft carriers, considered a critical asset a significant military operation, in the region after the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group were deployed to the U.S. Southern Command region as the part of a massive counter-narcotics operation focused on Venezuela.
“It might be that they’re delaying things and using the time for getting that posture correct,” Shapiro said.
The Trump administration on Thursday also announced new sanction s against Iran.
Included in Thursday’s sanctions is the secretary of the Supreme Council for National Security, whom the Treasury Department accuses of being one of the first officials to call for violence against Iranian protesters.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also designated 18 people and companies that the U.S. says have participated in laundering money from sales of Iranian oil to foreign markets as part of a shadow banking network of sanctioned Iranian financial institutions Bank Melli and Shahr Bank.
Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein contributed reporting.
President Donald Trump waves during his arrival at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
