Embedded Files
Next Meeting: 11/10/25, 7 PM, Ozark-Dale Library
Focus On Border Security And Immigration (Post 2024 Election):
Video: Hakeem Jeffries Asked About ICE Restructuring, Potential Swap With CBP Officials - October 29, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBubMKAlnbI
Video: How Greg Bovino became a rising star in Trump’s immigration efforts - October 29, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2E92wJTGEU
Stephen Miller Claims ICE Agents Have Immunity. Is That True?
https://time.com/7329034/stephen-miller-ice-immunity-pritzker/
Comment: "Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff and architect of some of President Donald Trump’s harshest immigration policies, has claimed that federal agents carrying out arrests and deportations are immune from prosecution."
Comment: "Miller also announced in a message to agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency: 'You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop or obstruct you is committing a felony.' ”
Comment: "Agents from those agencies have been accused of using increasingly aggressive tactics to meet ambitious arrest targets set by Miller and the Trump Administration, which has sparked protests and opposition across the country."
"Several high-profile incidents have highlighted those tactics. ICE agents joined with Border Patrol to conduct what Pritzker described as a 'military-style' raid at a Chicago apartment building earlier this month. One ICE officer in New York was removed from duty after he forcibly threw a woman to the floor at an immigration court, only to return a week later. Another ICE agent fatally shot a Mexican immigrant in Illinois during an arrest attempt, and incidents between ICE, protesters and journalists outside of an ICE facility in Chicago created the basis for the case against the Administration for alleged violations of First and Fourth Amendment rights, which led to a judge granting a temporary restraining order blocking federal agencies from using forceful tactics to stop protesters or journalists."
"Those incidents have prompted some District Attorneys to say they would seek prosecutions of ICE agents who break the law in their jurisdictions."
Comment: " 'The federal government absolutely retains the ability to prosecute federal law enforcement officers who break the law, even in the course of carrying out their duties,' Vladeck writes in a newsletter published Monday."
"Vladeck argues that while these agents are protected by an immunity doctrine, that doctrine is not as absolute as Miller makes it out to be."
"Miller is relying on the doctrine known as 'Supremacy Clause immunity.' This immunity protects federal officers from state criminal prosecution when they are carrying out their official duties under federal law, provided their actions were 'necessary and proper'."
Comment: " 'ICE’s own policy makes clear agents cannot assert civil immigration enforcement authority over U.S. citizens,' Goldman wrote to Tisch. 'Yet, under the Trump administration, there have been dozens of credible reports—some recorded on video—showing the agency doing exactly that, with violence and impunity.' "
"Several other District Attorneys and lawmakers claim that their offices would file charges against ICE agents breaking the law. For example, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said her office would review any 'clear, excessive use of force'by federal agents and file charges if warranted."
There’s a Right To Record ICE Raids–and There’s No Blanket Immunity for Raiders
https://www.cato.org/blog/lawmakers-all-citizens-have-right-report-ice-raids
Comment: "On October 24, influential White House adviser Stephen Miller appeared on Fox News when the issue of whether authorities in Illinois could prosecute misbehaving federal immigration agents under state law arose. Miller responded, 'To all ICE officers: you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop or obstruct you is committing a felony.' ”
"Whatever that is, it is not an accurate description of the state of the law. As Professor Steve Vladeck explains in this brief write-up, the actual rules are more complicated. There is indeed a zone of so-called Supremacy Clause immunity that will apply when '(1) the federal officer was performing an act that he was authorized to do by federal law; and (2) in performing the authorized act, the federal officer did no more than what was necessary and proper.' When either condition is not satisfied—when the agent is taking an unauthorized action or is acting under authorization but in a manner that exceeds what is necessary and proper—the immunity based on federal supremacy ends."
"As Vladeck notes, the prevailing rule in this category of immunity was formulated by Judge Michael McConnell, a conservative hero, and it does indeed allow state prosecutors to use state law to pursue instances of misbehavior by ICE agents."
"Here’s another instance: in a piece at The Dispatch earlier this month, I tell how high administration officials, including Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, have repeatedly spoken as if citizens have no right to photograph or video record ICE raids or identify the officers by name. McLaughlin said, 'Videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents,' and added, 'We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.” Noem went even further, describing 'violence' against DHS agents as 'anything that threatens them and their safety, so it is doxing them. It is videotaping them where they’re at.' "
"In point of fact, however, the courts: aren’t on board with that sort of nonsense. While the Supreme Court itself hasn’t yet faced the issue squarely, the seven federal circuits that have done so—the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 10th and 11th—all agree that the First Amendment protects the right to record police performing their duties in public.* Those circuits cover such populous states as California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, and Pennsylvania."
Disclaimer: The article excerpts presented here do no constitute legal advice dispensed by the Dale Democratic party, especially here in rural Alabama.
Man deported to Laos despite US court order blocking his removal, attorneys say
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/28/ice-deportation-alabama-laos
Comment: "Immigration officials have deported a father living in Alabama to Laos despite a federal court order blocking his removal from the US on the grounds he has a claim to citizenship, the man’s attorneys said on Tuesday."
"US district judge Shelly Dick last week ordered US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to keep Chanthila “Shawn” Souvannarath, 44, in the United States while he presented what the judge called his 'substantial claim of US citizenship', court records show. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand but was granted lawful permanent residence in the US before his first birthday, according to court filings."
Comment: "The ACLU of Louisiana, which is representing Souvannarath, called the deportation a 'stunning violation of a federal court order'. Before his deportation, Souvannarath had been detained at a newly opened ICE facility at the Louisiana state penitentiary at Angola."
" 'ICE just ignored a federal court order and tore yet another family apart,' said Alanah Odoms, executive director for the ACLU of Louisiana, in a statement. “This administration has shown it will ignore the courts, ignore the Constitution and ignore the law to pursue its mass deportation agenda, even if it means destroying the lives of American citizens.”
Video: Border Patrol commander defends himself to Chicago judge - October 28, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VExexsC39cA
ICE Barbie’s Boyfriend Fires Rivals in MAGA Night of Long Knives
Comment: "Kristi Noem’s enforcer and rumored lover Corey Lewandowski is driving a purge inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement—tightening the DHS chief’s grip to accelerate a nationwide deportation blitz."
Comment: Leave it to the Daily Beast to come up with such a "colorful" headline, using an historical reference to a Nazi Party purge in 1934 (Night of the Long Knives)
Comment: "The Trump administration is planning to replace some regional leaders at Immigration and Customs Enforcement with Border Patrol officials in an attempt to intensify its mass deportations effort amid growing frustration with the pace of daily arrests, according to two Homeland Security Department officials, one former DHS official and one federal law enforcement official."
"President Donald Trump’s top aides have welcomed Border Patrol’s more aggressive tactics to secure arrests, such as rappelling into apartment buildings from Black Hawk helicopters and jumping out of rental trucks in Home Depot parking lots, as they’ve become disappointed with ICE, the officials said."
" '“The mentality is CBP does what they’re told, and the administration thinks ICE isn’t getting the job done,' one of the DHS officials said. 'So CBP will do it.' "
"The White House has signed off on a list of at least a dozen directors of ICE field officers who are set to be reassigned in coming days, the two DHS officials, the former DHS official and the federal law enforcement official said. They said that at least half of them would be replaced with Border Patrol officials. ICE has 25 field offices around the country, so the move could replace nearly half of the agency’s leaders."
Comment: "The administration’s shift to leaning more heavily on Border Patrol marks a potential new phase in Trump’s deportation efforts. While ICE has come under criticism for its raids, the agency’s broad approach has been to make targeted arrests of immigrants known to be in the country illegally. Border Patrol’s approach to recent arrests in major U.S. cities has been more aggressive, making large sweeps that have sparked some of the sharpest backlash from protesters and prompted lawsuits."
Border Patrol agents under fire for allegedly disrupting children's Halloween parade in Chicago
Comment: "The U.S. Border Patrol is coming under criticism from Chicago residents who claim federal agents disrupted a children's Halloween parade over the weekend, allegedly with aggressive tactics and tear gas during an immigration enforcement incident."
"The latest clash between federal agents and residents came as Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, who is leading the 'Operation Midway Blitz' immigration enforcement in Chicago, is scheduled to appear before a federal judge on Tuesday."
"Judge Sara Ellis of the U.S. District Court for the Northern Illinois has ordered Bovino to appear before her following allegations that he had personally deployed tear gas on a crowd of demonstrators 'without justification' last week, according to court filings in a lawsuit against the federal government."
"Ellis indicated in a hearing earlier this month that she was 'profoundly concerned' over the tactics used by federal agents in a series of clashes with protesters. She issued a temporary restraining order on Oct. 9, restricting federal agents from using aggressive tactics to quell protests, including the deployment of tear gas without advanced warning."
Hyundai hoped to return skilled South Korean workers to the US after the ICE raid. Trump just opened the door | CNN Business
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/27/business/hyundai-trump-ice
Looking to speed up building network of migrant detention centers, Trump administration turns to the US Navy | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/navy-building-ice-detention-facilities
Comment: Is the entire U.S. government going to be consumed with the capture, detention, and deportation of immigrants, at the expense of other important governmental functions?
DHS Wants a Fleet of AI-Powered Surveillance Trucks
https://www.wired.com/story/dhs-wants-a-fleet-of-ai-powered-surveillance-trucks/
Comment: "US border patrol is asking companies to submit plans to turn standard 4x4 trucks into AI-powered watchtowers—combining radar, cameras, and autonomous tracking to extend surveillance on demand."
"THE US DEPARTMENT of Homeland Security is seeking to develop a new mobile surveillance platform that fuses artificial intelligence, radar, high-powered cameras, and wireless networking into a single system, according to federal contracting records reviewed by WIRED. The technology would mount on 4x4 vehicles capable of reaching remote areas and transforming into rolling, autonomous observation towers, extending the reach of border surveillance far beyond its current fixed sites."
"Congress boosted DHS’s discretionary budget authority to roughly $65 billion. The GOP’s 'One Big Beautiful Bill' allocates over $160 billion for immigration enforcement and border measures—most of it directed to DHS—with the funds scheduled to be distributed over multiple years. The administration has sought to increase DHS funding by roughly 65 percent, proposing the largest expansion in the agency’s history to fund new border enforcement, detention capacity, and immigration surveillance initiatives."
Comment: Is this how you want your tax money spent, buying very expensive CBP toys to chase illegal border crossers? That's what happens when you give Kristi Noem and Tom Homan a huge discretionary budget. Remember the luxury jets Noem recently bought to fly herself around in.
DOJ hires immigration judges after months of layoffs
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/g-s1-95027/doj-hires-immigration-judges
Comment: "The Justice Department has hired 36 immigration judges, including 25 temporary ones, for its Executive Office for Immigration Review, marking the first class to join the immigration courts after months of cuts to the workforce."
Comment: "The temporary immigration judges include military lawyers from the Marines, Navy, Army and Air Force. Earlier this summer, the Pentagon authorized about 600 military lawyers to work for the DOJ. The DOJ changed who could qualify as a temporary immigration judge — effectively lowering the requirements and removing the need to have prior immigration law experience."
Comment: "Over the past 10 months, EOIR has lost more than 125 judges to firings and voluntary resignations, down from about 700 judges at the start of the year. The loss has resulted in immigration cases being delayed as far out as 2029, NPR previously reported, as vacancies increase despite open job postings to fill roles in those courts."
Comment: Let's see. First the Trump administration loses 125 judges due to "firings and voluntary resignations." Then the Justice Department hires 36 immigration lawyers, but 25 of them are temporary. Standards for the temporary judges were lowered, "removing the need to have prior immigration law experience." The temporary immigration judges include military lawyers. Hmmm?
Comment: Are the future careers of the military judges subject to the discretion of the Secretary of War (Defense) and the Commander in Chief: Trump? Are lawyers who are trained to operate in the military justice system appropriate for the immigration justice system? We are not running a military tribunal, at least one hopes not.
Senators demand Linda McMahon ask DHS to stop immigration enforcement near schools
Comment: "The letter says that “if society can agree that alcohol, tobacco and drugs should be kept at least 1,000 feet away from our schools,” then “violent DHS tools and tactics also belong on that list.”
Revealed: police across US spread false rumors about Venezuelan gang threats | US news | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/23/venezuela-tren-de-aragua-gang-police
Comment "An unverified rumor that Venezuelan gang members were preparing to kill police officers spread like wildfire through US law enforcement agencies last year, internal records reveal, only for federal officials to later quietly acknowledge the claim was mistaken."
"The intelligence report, which appears to have first been disseminated by a local New Mexico police department in July 2024, suggested that the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang had directed its members to 'fire on or attack' law enforcement. The vague assertion quickly traveled among law enforcement agencies. It even made its way into a formal proclamation by the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, and was repeated by Republican Congress members as evidence of the dangers of Venezuelan immigrants and Democrats’ border policies."
"Months later, however, the Federal Bureau of Investigation wrote in an internal report that claims of a TdA 'directive to actively target US law enforcement' were inaccurate."
"There has been no public acknowledgment of misstatements."
Some new ICE recruits have shown up to training without full vetting
Comment: "The recruits have had criminal backgrounds or failed drug tests or were unable to meet physical or academic standards, raising concerns about the agency’s rush to hire immigration officers, sources told NBC News."
Video: ICE 'already overtaxed', now some recruits are failing basic fitness tests - October 22, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWkQjNpYpws
NBC News: Pregnant women describe miscarrying and bleeding out while in ICE custody, advocates say
Ethics Watchdog Group Seeks Investigation Into Border Czar and Contracts Following ProPublica Report
Comment: "The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center has called on the Homeland Security inspector general to investigate potential conflicts of interest and ethics violations by border czar Tom Homan and his senior adviser Mark Hall."
ICE windfall from Trump megabill fuels surveillance juggernaut
https://www.axios.com/2025/10/21/ice-surveillance-trump-deportations
Joint Congressional Investigation Launched in Response to ProPublica’s Revelations on Detained Americans
DHS Responds to Report ICE Recruits Are Failing Fitness Tests
https://www.newsweek.com/dhs-responds-report-ice-recruits-failing-fitness-tests-10913979
Comment: "DHS has launched a nationwide recruitment campaign to expand the ranks of ICE, citing a growing need for personnel to support enforcement and deportation operations as the Trump administration pushes to deport millions of migrants. ICE has received more than 175,000 applications so far, according to DHS. To attract candidates, the agency is offering a range of incentives, including signing bonuses of up to $50,000 and student loan repayment programs."
Comment: "In an effort to increase the number of potential recruits, DHS has removed the age cap for new applicants, allowing individuals as young as 18 to apply. Previously, applicants were required to be between 21 and 37 or 40 years old, depending on the position."
Comment: "The 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' signed into law on July 4, 2025, provides a major funding boost for border and homeland security operations. The measure allocates about $170 billion for enforcement and infrastructure, with substantial portions directed to the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The funding is aimed at expanding detention capacity, improving transportation and technology systems, and supporting large-scale hiring across the agencies."
Comment: "John Sandweg, who served as acting director of ICE under former President Barack Obama, from August 2013 to February 2014, told Politico: 'But the concern here would be, to the extent to which the administration wants to get these people deployed quickly, do they cut corners? I worry that if you start cutting corners on standards or background checks or training, that it’s only a recipe for problems down the line.' "
Comment: As ICE rapidly recruits officers, should we be worried about more about mental, emotional, and psychological fitness than physical fitness?
ICE is hiring dozens of health workers as lawsuits, deaths in custody mount
Comment: "The Trump administration is expanding its ranks of health care providers who work in immigration detention centers around the country as deaths in custody mount and federal oversight is weakened by layoffs."
"The push by the Department of Homeland Security to hire more than 40 doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, pharmacists and health administrators follows the revelation that nearly as many immigrants have died in custody so far this year than over the course of the Biden administration, according to government records."
AP News: ICE would need more money to expand use of bodycams in Chicago crackdown, official says
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-crackdown-chicago-bodycam-9aea34c3a48bc63cfb9d128159c5fdc9
Comment: "Many federal officers assigned to immigration enforcement in the Chicago area have body cameras but Congress would have to allocate more funds to expand their use, officials testified Monday at a hearing about the tactics agents are using in Trump administration’s crackdown, which has produced more than 1,000 arrests."
"U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis last week ordered uniformed agents to wear cameras, if available, and turn them on when engaged in arrests, frisks and building searches or when being deployed to protests. She held a hearing Monday at which she questioned a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official and a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement official about the operation and complaints that agents are increasingly using combative tactics."
"Kyle Harvick, deputy incident commander with CBP, said Border Patrol agents who are part of Operation Midway Blitz have cameras. He said 201 are in the Chicago area."
"But Shawn Byers, deputy field office director for ICE, said more money from Congress would be needed to expand camera use beyond two of that agency’s field offices. He said no cameras have been worn by ICE agents working at a building in Broadview, outside Chicago, where immigrants pass through before being detained elsewhere. It’s been the site of protests that at times have been tumultuous."
Comment: Maybe DHS head Kristi Noem could redirect the $175M she spent on her 2 new luxury jets to pay for the bodycams.
CBS News: Chicago judge hears testimony from ICE, Border Patrol on body cams, use of force in Operation Midway Blitz
Video: Attorney detained by ICE describes his experience: 'Fueled by what I saw' - October 19, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycocweb-rBo
CNN: In immigration crackdown, DHS statements on arrests face a problem of credibility
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/18/us/dhs-credibility-chicago-immigration-ice
CBS News: Judge tells Homeland Security that Chicago agents wearing body cameras was "not a suggestion"
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/judge-homeland-security-federal-agents-chicago-body-cameras/
'Profoundly concerned': Judge orders ICE official to testify after Chicago tear-gassing incident
Comment: "A federal judge on Thursday said she is 'profoundly concerned' with the apparent violations by federal agents of a temporary restraining order she issued last week imposing restrictions on the use of tear gas and other riot control weapons against journalists and protestors in Chicago."
Comment: "Ellis said she is also expanding her temporary restraining order to include a requirement for federal agents equipped with body-worn cameras to wear them and keep them on during 'law enforcement activities' in Chicago."
Comment: Includes video from nightly news broadcast
ProPublica: We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days.
https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-citizens-arrested-detained-against-will
Newsweek: Former ICE Chief Warns Problems Might Be About to Escalate
https://www.newsweek.com/former-ice-chief-warns-problems-might-escalate-10889849
Comment: "A former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is warning against the agency’s rapid recruitment push, saying that fast-tracking the deployment of new officers may carry serious risks if oversight, training, or vetting procedures are relaxed."
Comment: "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun a nationwide recruitment campaign to expand the ranks of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, citing a growing need for personnel to handle enforcement and deportation operations. According to DHS, ICE has already received more than 150,000 applications from prospective recruits and extended roughly 18,000 tentative job offers. To attract qualified candidates, the agency is offering several incentives, including signing bonuses of up to $50,000 and student loan repayment programs."
Comment: "Some critics worry that in an environment of political urgency, oversight may be deprioritized. The former ICE leader’s remarks capture that tension: a balance between meeting enforcement goals and preserving institutional integrity."
Comment: "Both ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol have several allegations of misconduct. Reports have cited instances of excessive force, mistreatment of migrants in detention facilities, and allegations of civil rights violations. While both agencies have said they investigate credible complaints and have taken steps to strengthen accountability and oversight, critics argue that disciplinary measures are often inconsistent and that systemic problems persist within the culture of enforcement. The renewed focus on expanding immigration operations has revived concerns about whether internal reforms can keep pace with the agencies’ growing size and authority."
CNN: Judge orders DOJ to return key evidence to Chicago for trial of woman shot by CBP agent after car ramming
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/16/us/chicago-car-ramming-case-ice-protests
Comment: The evidence is necessary to help resolve differences between statements from ICE and the statements from the woman shot. The statements from ICE were used to help justify the shooting.
Family farm in Idaho faces worker shortage as Trump administration immigration raids escalate
Comment: "The U.S. Labor Department is warning of a potential food crisis linked to President Trump’s immigration raids – and one family-owned farm is caught in the middle."
" 'The near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens combined with the lack of an available legal workforce, results in significant disruptions to production costs and threatening the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S consumers,' according to a Department of Labor report submitted earlier in October."
Comment: "According to Myers, these seasonal workers – some from Mexico, some from South Africa and other countries – are granted a visa for up to nine months after being interviewed to determine whether they qualify. Owyhee then provides their travel to the farm, and their housing – 'everything, really, when they're here except for food and clothing. That's part of the requirements,' said Myers."
Comment: " 'We would love to hire people from here. The reality is that we can't find the numbers of people here,' Myers told ABC News. 'We're in a rural area, number one. Number two: This is hard work. It is difficult work, and there are lots of people that are not willing to do it.' "
"Mauricio Sol, a seasonal worker at Owyhee, said 90% of the workforce at the farm is from Mexico, but it is becoming more difficult to find seasonal agricultural workers due to increased concerns about possible ICE raids."
" 'We all come on the H-2A visa program, so we come all here legally by the season, just for the season, and then we go back to Mexico,' Sol told ABC News. 'We usually get a lot of applications. We're not getting that many now because people is afraid of that even when they are legally here, they're getting arrested for no reason.' "
Axios: Trump's immigration crackdown sparks fear and alarm at hospitals
https://www.axios.com/2025/10/14/trump-immigration-policy-hospitals-emergency
Comment: "The Trump administration's rollback of a policy that prohibited immigration enforcement in hospitals is sparking fear and confusion in exam rooms and emergency departments amid a surge in ICE arrests."
Comment: "Health care workers say stepped-up enforcement is interfering with care in some instances, and lawyers say it has created enough privacy concerns that some are erasing whiteboards on patient floors and concealing medical records."
Fortune: Beth Ford says 'we need more legal immigration' to help American farmers because a lack of labor could trigger a 'black swan event'
Comment: "At the Fortune Most Powerful Women (MPW) Summit Tuesday morning, LandO'Lakes CEO Beth Ford warned that American farmers face a critical labor shortage that could lead to a 'black swan event' if the U.S. doesn’t institute more pathways for legal immigration. 'While there might be some discussion on undocumented, et cetera, this is critical for the health of the economy,' she said."
Comment: "The term 'black swan event,' for those unfamiliar, refers to an unpredictable occurrence with severe consequences that appears obvious only in hindsight. In agriculture, such events can include natural disasters, disease outbreaks, or severe labor disruptions that threaten food production systems."
"Ford’s comments underscore the precarious position of American farmers who depend heavily on immigrant workers. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as of 2022, only 32% of crop farmworkers were actually born in the U.S. The vast majority of farmworkers (~42%) are born outside the U.S. and have no work authorization. Only a small percentage of workers (~7%) are immigrants who obtained U.S. citizenship, while about 19% are authorized immigrants (permanent residents or green-card holders). In the dairy industry, which Ford’s company, Land O’Lakes, serves, the dependency on foreign-born labor is even more pronounced: The National Milk Producers Federation says immigrant workers account for 51% of all dairy labor."
AP News: ICE's use of full-body restraints during deportations raises concerns over inhumane treatment
Comment: "The Nigerian man described being roused with other detainees in September in the middle of the night. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers clasped shackles on their hands and feet, he said, and told them they were being sent to Ghana, even though none of them was from there."
"When they asked to speak to their attorney, he said, the officers refused and straitjacketed the already-shackled men in full-body restraint suits called the WRAP, then loaded them onto a plane for the 16-hour-flight to West Africa."
"Referred to as 'the burrito' or 'the bag,' the WRAP has become a harrowing part of deportations for some immigrants."
Comment: "The AP identified multiple examples of ICE using the black-and-yellow full-body restraint device, the WRAP, in deportations. Its use was described to the AP by five people who said they were restrained in the device, sometimes for hours, on ICE deportation flights dating to 2020. And witnesses and family members in four countries told the AP about its use on at least seven other people this year."
Parents of teen tossed to ground, detained by apparent federal agent demand answers
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/teen-tossed-to-ground-by-ice/
Comment: Teen was an American citizen.
Trump says immigrants are driving violent crime in Illinois, but ICE can’t find many who are
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/trump-immigrants-violent-crime-chicago-illinois-ice-rcna237272
Comment: Trump philosophy: Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Comment: Includes video.
NPR: Tackles, projectiles and gunfire: Many fear ICE tactics are growing more violent
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/13/nx-s1-5566785/ice-dhs-immigration-tactics-more-violent
Comment: "A majority of Americans do not approve of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement tactics, according to a recent survey from The New York Times and Siena University. Yet in Chicago, immigrant advocate groups say federal immigration officers are escalating those tactics and becoming more violent."
" 'This administration overall seems more interested in heightening the tensions instead of trying to ramp them down,' Tsao says."
Comment: The linked article provides numerous examples showing that ICE tactics are becoming more violent, often unnecessarily.
He was wrongfully imprisoned for 43 years. Moments after being released, ICE took him
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article312442984.html
Comment: Now know why they call it ICE. That's about as COLD as it gets!
The Chicago raids send a worrying signal about ideal ICE agents in Trump's America
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-chicago-ice-raids-south-side-apartments-rcna236549
Comment: "As federal agents swarm American cities on the orders of Donald Trump, it’s getting harder and harder to tell “law enforcement” from the criminals they claim to protect us from. In just the past two weeks, in Chicago alone, it’s all too easy to find accounts and videos of federal immigration authorities committing wanton violence rather than serving the public."
"On the city’s South Side, an apartment building was stormed in a late-night, military-style raid, with dozens of residents dragged indiscriminately from their beds and homes. Witnesses said they saw children separated from their parents and restrained by zip ties. (Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin denied this, calling it 'a shameful and disgusting lie.')"
"At Humboldt Park Hospital, Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes was manhandled and handcuffed by federal agents in civilian clothing for the 'crime' of asking them to produce a judicial warrant. Video of the incident clearly shows that Fuentes remained calm, neither touching nor hampering the agents."
"In Brighton Park, immigration agents opened fire on a woman who had been filming them from her car. The Department of Homeland Security the woman had been trying to run them down in her vehicle — an account her attorney says is contradicted by the agents' own body camera footage."
"This list is, alas, illustrative rather than exhaustive, and it’s not hard to see why such incidents are not only becoming commonplace, but likely to get worse."
Comment: "In short, the Trump administration has engaged in a campaign that is attracting the worst possible people for roles in immigration enforcement, shown little interest in legal niceties and professional standards, and pursued policies likely to generate conflict between enforcement officers and the communities they purport to serve. Little surprise that, on the pretext of rounding up dangerous gangsters, Trump has created one more dangerous armed gang."
Indian immigrant fights deportation after police mistake perfume labeled 'Opium' for the narcotic
Comment: Now do you understand why immigrants need due process also?
Missouri Independent: Federal judge rules against ICE in the warrantless arrests of 11 KC-area workers
Comment: "The warrantless arrests of 11 immigrant restaurant workers in Liberty earlier this year violated a 2022 consent decree, a federal judge ruled."
"The arrests of the workers at El Potro Mexican Café in February were among the first in the Kansas City area to draw widespread media attention."
Comment: "The case did not question the government’s right to make arrests on immigration violations. But it questioned whether it had violated the prior consent agreement by making warrantless arrests."
"On Oct. 7, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, ruled in favor of the immigrat workers."
"Judge Jeffrey I. Cummings ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to lift any conditions on the release of 22 immigrants, including 11 people who had been detained after the Liberty raid."
"The other 11 people were detained in Chicago through warrantless arrests in their neighborhood or vehicles, according to the National Immigrant Justice Center, which helped bring the case."
"The decision has far-reaching implications and is a huge win for due process, said Rekha Sharma-Crawford, a Kansas City-based immigration attorney representing the Liberty workers."
Comment: "In addition to Missouri and Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Kentucky are also under the consent decree, known for the name of one of the original plaintiffs, Margarito Castañon Nava."
"Cummings also ordered the Department of Homeland Security to reissue its warrantless arrest policy nationwide and certify that any officers who violated the consent decree were retrained."
"Also, ICE will need to report to the court the names and arrest documents for anyone else who had been arrested without a warrant on immigration violations since June in the Northern District of Illinois, and to continue making similar reports monthly."
"In some of the cases, federal officials were accused of creating warrants after they had already arrested the individuals on the civil violations of being without lawful immigration or citizenship status."
"Cummings also extended the consent decree to Feb. 2, 2026."
OregonLive.com: ICE arrests US citizen in Oregon. Attorney decries ‘illegal abduction’
Comment: "Last month, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for ICE to use race as a factor when deciding who to stop."
AL.com: Most detained Alabama immigrant ‘criminals’ have low-level offenses
Why ICE agents are suffering far more assaults under Trump's leadership
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/ice-agents-assaults-deportations-trump-biden-rcna236023
Comment: "Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s targets don’t know why they’re being approached or what their rights are. The result is chaos."
Mother Jones: Inside the Hell of Alligator Alcatraz
Comment: You may wish to contrast the conditions at Alligator Alcatraz to those at the "club fed" facility where convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell is now held.
NBC 5 Chicago: Immigration agency on thin ice following two Chicago legal cases
Comment: "This has been a bad week so far for ICE in Chicago as the federal agency faces multiple legal challenges."
"This week, a judge has ordered the embattled immigration and border control agency to dial back arrest tactics in Chicago, coming on the heels of a grand jury refusing to indict a Chicago couple arrested by ICE agents."
"Both of these legal items are putting the immigration agency on thin ice during operations in Chicago. A federal court judge has found that ICE is breaking arrest rules that they agreed to three years ago, and is reigning in warrantless arrests of individuals without probable cause."
"Secondly, well-publicized ICE arrests last month will result in no federal charges after a grand jury on Wednesday refused to hand up indictments."
Comment: " 'There's an old adage that a good prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich,' said the couples’ attorney Richard Kling. 'In my case, obviously, they didn't even have enough for a ham sandwich.' "
"According to Kling, a veteran Chicago criminal defense attorney and legal scholar, such a snubbing by a grand jury is 'very rare.' He noted that the decision not to return indictments is made by citizens from the community."
" 'So there's no party lines by which grand juries are drawn,' Kling said. 'I'm assuming the grand jury consisted of Democrats and Republicans from Chicago who I think have had enough of what's going on in the streets.' "
"And so has U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey Cummings. In a blistering ruling on Tuesday Cummings said ICE has been repeatedly violating a court agreement made in 2022 in which the agency agreed to not make warrantless arrests without probable cause."
"Judge Cummings ordered that stop and ICE to lift all bond conditions for 22 arrestees. With hundreds of others who could also be freed because they were illegally arrested"
"In the 52-page ruling, Cummings found ICE repeatedly violated the three-year-old enforcement agreement by making dozens of warrantless arrests during the well-publicized federal operation known as 'Midway Blitz'."
Newsweek: Border Patrol Called Anti-ICE Protester ‘B****’ Before Shooting Her: Lawyer
https://www.newsweek.com/border-patrol-called-anti-ice-protester-b-before-shooting-lawyer-10838997
Comment: "Federal prosecutors in Chicago have revised key details in the case of Marimar Martinez, the 30-year-old anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protester who was shot seven times by a U.S. Border Patrol agent during a confrontation on the city’s Southwest Side."
Comment: "Officials initially said Martinez was armed and rammed her car into federal agents; prosecutors now acknowledge she did not point or display a weapon."
Comment: "Federal prosecutors’ retreat from their early claims—combined with defense assertions that body-camera footage shows it was the agents, not the protester, who initiated the collision—has turned a high-profile immigration enforcement incident into a test of federal accountability."
Comment: Let's summarize. ICE agent calls protester a B*****. Shoots her 7 times. Agents claim she was armed, but it turns out she wasn't. Agents claimed she rammed her car into federal agents, but defense lawyers claim body-camera footage show ICE agents initiated the collision. Who are the real criminals? Hopefully, we'll find out, if there is a trial.
The Hill: More immigration detentions, more deaths in custody from overcrowding
Comment: "Since January 2025 at least 16 people have died in ICE detention centers — the highest number since 2020, when the pandemic exposed the system’s weaknesses."
"At the same time the number of migrants in custody passed 60,000 in August, double the number last year. The expansion of detention centers correlates with the rise in deaths, showing that conditions are not ready for the pressure. Official reporting about 'safe oversight' does not match reality, pointing to a gap between the number of arrests and the ability of centers and staff to provide even basic care."
Comment: "The main problem is clear: overcrowding. According to DHS, many centers are designed for 400 to 600 people but hold several times more. Recent TRAC data show that about 25 percent of facilities are operating above planned capacity, which in practice means not enough space, staff, or timely medical care."
NPR: Civil rights jobs have been cut. Those ex-workers warn of ICE detention violations
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/06/g-s1-91947/trump-ice-detention-civil-rights
Comment: "The hummingbird floated on the tablets of case managers working for the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, one of three oversight offices at the Homeland Security Department."
"Along with those from the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, these government employees were supposed to help immigration advocates like Whitlock handle the immediate needs of people in detention. That could be making sure detainees got their necessary medication or a culturally appropriate diet. Or it could be handling complaints about the use of solitary detention, sexual assault or issues with infants in detention."
"The Trump administration earlier cut hundreds of staff in these congressionally mandated offices in order to save money and because DHS argued they were 'internal adversaries that slow down operations'."
"This included federal employees who conducted regular visits to detention centers, reviewed and investigated complaints about detention conditions, and prepared reports due to Congress."
" 'You don't have anyone to turn to,' said Whitlock, now senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center, a legal advocacy group. Without the offices, immigration advocates are turning to members of Congress to address problems on behalf of their clients."
AP News: Using helicopters and chemical agents, immigration agents become increasingly aggressive in Chicago
Pope Leo, after Trump critique, urges Catholics to help immigrants
Comment: "Pope Leo urged the world's 1.4 billion Catholics on Sunday to care for immigrants, pressing ahead with a message of welcome for migrants days after criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump's hard-line anti-immigration policies."
"Leo, the first U.S. pope, told thousands of pilgrims celebrating Mass in St. Peter's Square that immigrants should not be treated with 'the coldness of indifference or the stigma of discrimination'."
"The pope, who did not single out any country for its treatment of migrants, called on Catholics to 'open our arms and hearts to them, welcoming them as brothers and sisters, and being for them a presence of consolation and hope'."
Time Magazine: ‘Military-Style’ ICE Raid On Chicago Apartment Building Shows Escalation in Trump’s Crackdown
https://time.com/7323334/ice-raid-chicago-pritzker-trump/
Reuters: US Border Patrol raid sweeps in citizens, families as Chicago crackdown intensifies
CNN: 37 people arrested and American kids separated from parents after ICE raid at Chicago apartments
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/03/us/chicago-apartment-ice-raid
CBS News: Chicago alderwoman arrested by ICE agents while checking on detainee at hospital in Humboldt Park
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/ald-jessie-fuentes-arrested-ice-agents-humboldt-park-hospital/
Comment: "Fuentes said she had gone to the hospital to check on a man who suffered a broken leg after ICE agents chased him."
" 'I asked them if they have a signed judicial warrant to be in the emergency room and have him detained, and they refused to respond,' she said. 'Not only do they refuse to respond, but they respond with violence by shoving me in the emergency room, and then I continue to ask if they have a signed judicial warrant, and then they handcuff me and threaten arrest, and they threaten arrest because I'm exercising my constitutional right to ask a question.' "
A US citizen construction worker was detained by ICE. Twice. Now he's suing.
Comment: "Alabama man among a growing number of US citizens detained for hours by ICE. He alleges racial profiling."
Comment: "An Alabama man is suing the Trump administration after immigration agents arrested him twice in three weeks despite having a valid REAL ID and U.S. citizenship."
"The new lawsuit alleges that masked immigration agents are targeting people based on their race, ethnicity or occupation and terrorizing U.S. citizens who fit a certain profile."
Comment: "Reports of Americans being detained in President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown are rising, from the Iraq War veteran held for three days in Southern California to the citizens whose apartments were ransacked in a recent Chicago raid."
NBC News: U.S. to allow South Koreans to work at sites under temp visas, but a clear solution is elusive
Comment: "A working group was set up after the massive immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia, where hundreds of South Korean workers were arrested."
WBEZ Chicago: Transcript: Gregory Bovino says arrestees in downtown Chicago chosen partly based on ‘how they look’
State leaders say Hispanic builders are leaving the area, causing labor problems
Comment: "Labor shortages have been affecting Alabama home builders since the pandemic. Now, state leaders in the construction industry say federal immigration policies have been making an even deeper cut at those numbers."
" 'So many of them have left the area,' Executive Vice President of the Alabama Home Builders Association, Russell Davis, said."
"With ICE job site raids happening across the state, like the one in Mobile in June, many Hispanic builders are just leaving. Davis says it’s caused a dramatic change after 20 years of growth in the state’s Hispanic workforce."
"WAFF spoke with a home builder who’s in charge of many new constructions here in Huntsville, and although he doesn’t want to go on camera, he did tell WAFF that over the past couple of months, he’s lost many subcontracted workers who are here in this country legally. And he says he’s not just losing laborers, he’s losing workers with very specific skills."
" 'We’ve got some artisan craftsmen who are now fantastic brick masons and tile setters,' Davis said. 'Let’s say a brick mason who is one of our members and is here perfectly legal, but he has a crew, and two or three of them may not be legal. Sometimes they’re kin to them. So they all leave.' ”
Immigrants with no criminal record now largest group in Ice detention
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/26/immigrants-criminal-record-ice-detention
Comment: "Immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in US immigration detention, according to data released by the government. The number of people with no criminal history arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and detained by the Trump administration has now surpassed the number of those charged with crimes."
Comment: "The numbers released by Ice mark the first time under the second Trump administration that the total number of immigrants with no criminal history in detention has surpassed that of people convicted of a crime or with pending charges."
"The agency’s data also contradicts Trump administration officials’ repeated narrative that the chief focus of the White House’s agenda and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) dragnet is dangerous criminals."
" 'These are hardworking people. These are not criminals,' said a former homeland security civil rights official when asked about the increase in the arrests of immigrants with no criminal history. The official requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. 'I’m sure the Trump administration is defining ‘criminal’ really widely to say that if they are here undocumented, then they are a ‘criminal’. But these are not bad people.' ”
"Being undocumented in the US is not a crime. Rather, it is a civil infraction."
ICE officer 'relieved of current duties' after violent confrontation caught on camera
Comment: Be sure to watch the video.
Comment: An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent seen on video pushing a woman at a federal courthouse in New York City on Thursday has been relieved of his current duties as the Department of Homeland Security investigates the incident, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told ABC News."
"In the video reviewed by ABC News, a woman can be heard pleading with the agent as her husband is being detained, saying "you don't care about anything." The agent can be heard repeatedly saying "Adios" before suddenly shoving the woman up against a wall and causing them to fall to the ground. The agent can then be seen standing over her as her crying children surround the woman."
" 'The officer's conduct in this video is unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE. Our ICE law enforcement are held to the highest professional standards and this officer is being relieved of current duties as we conduct a full investigation,' McLaughlin said.
Comment: One wonders if the ICE agent would have been "relieved of current duties" if the assault had not been "caught on camera?" The agent will have the benefit of a full investigation, which is probably more due process than most detained immigrants get.
Comment: "NYC Comptroller Brad Lander who was at the federal building Thursday but did not personally witness the incident posted on X, saying the woman's husband had been detained by ICE agents just moments before she was pushed to the ground."
" 'Seconds earlier, her husband had been abducted by masked ICE agents who did not identify themselves, did not present a warrant, did not give any lawful grounds for his detention,' Lander posted."
Update: ICE officer seen on video pushing woman to ground has returned to duty - CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-officer-pushed-woman-video-returns-to-duty/
Comment: "An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who was initially relieved of his duties after being captured on video pushing a woman to the ground outside an immigration court in New York City has been returned to duty, two U.S. officials familiar with the matter told CBS News."
"The officials, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal move that has not been publicly announced, said the ICE officer was placed back on duty after a preliminary review of the incident."
"The move is a striking about-face, just a few days after the Department of Homeland Security released a statement denouncing the officer's conduct as 'unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE'."
LA car wash owner sues for $50m after being slammed and detained in Ice raid
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/26/los-angeles-car-wash-owner-ice-raid-lawsuit
Comment: "Rafie Ollah Shouhed, 79, a US citizen, was held for 12 hours after sustaining broken ribs and a traumatic brain injury"
Comment: Article includes video of incident, which should be watched.
Grandma in US Over 30 Years Deported After ‘Barbaric’ ICE Detention—Lawyer
ACLU files lawsuit against Department of Homeland Security on behalf of DC residents - WTOP News
Comment: "The American Civil Liberties Union of D.C. is suing the Department of Homeland Security, its director and other federal agencies charging that federal agents are illegally and indiscriminately arresting people in D.C. who are perceived to be Latino."
Comment: "The lawsuit charges that for the past month and a half, plain clothes, masked and armed federal agents have been indiscriminately arresting District residents who are perceived to be Latino without probable cause or warrants."
" 'The crux of our case is to stop the government from making unlawful immigration arrests in D.C.,' Aditi Shah, a staff attorney with the D.C. ACLU, said. 'What we are really concerned about is the rise in these mass immigration arrests where the requirements, under the law, in order to make these arrests are not being followed.' ”
NBC News: Indian students say H-1B visa changes are causing them to rethink studying in U.S.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/indian-students-h-1b-visa-changes-studying-us-rcna233693
Comment: "Paridhi Upadhaya was packing her bags after securing a computer science scholarship in the U.S. until headlines of President Donald Trump’s H-1B visa crackdown last week prompted her family in Lucknow, India to scrap the plan."
" 'Trump’s unending onslaught against immigrants is forcing us to consider other destinations for her,' the 18-year-old’s father Rudar Pratap said."
"Upadhaya is among thousands of Indians for whom the American dream of world-class education, lucrative careers, better quality of life and social mobility, is turning sour due to rising U.S. visa restrictions and policy unpredictability."
Alabama builders rethink deportations as raids wipe out ‘God-fearing, family-oriented’ workers | Fortune
Comment: "On construction sites across Baldwin County, Ala., workers are vanishing mid-shift. Not because they quit, but because immigration agents hauled them away—the 'God-fearing, family-oriented' laborers who braved blistering summer heat on rooftops to support their families."
"Now, contractors warn the raids are deepening a labor shortage that already threatens the state’s economic prosperity: Even in Alabama, where 65% of voters backed President Donald Trump with immigration as a top campaign issue."
Comment: " 'For years, the U.S. construction industry has faced skills and labor shortages, even with significant participation from undocumented migrants,' Basu said. 'This enforcement push is an economic shock: It drives up costs, delays investment, and leaves us with a lower-grade built environment.' ”
Comment: "Still, he argued, the common claim immigrant workers 'take jobs' from Americans doesn’t reflect reality."
" 'Look at who’s on the roofs of American homes—mostly immigrants,' Basu said. 'It’s dangerous, unpleasant work in the Alabama heat. The idea that an immigrant ‘takes a job’ is a zero-sum mistake.' ”
Comment: "Industry leaders aren’t asking for complete amnesty for their undocumented workers, particularly those who aren’t law abiding, but they’re asking for precision—and fast. After a summer of raids and vanishing crews, Davis said builders are rethinking blanket deportations in favor of targeted removals, plus a legal work channel for long-tenured, tax-paying workers. The ask: a renewable, employer-backed visa so vetted crews can stay on the job while non-law-abiding workers are removed."
Comment: "The economic stakes are immediate. Davis puts it bluntly: Alabama’s builders are running out of time—and out of workers—unless Washington moves from broad sweeps to a practical, legal path that keeps reliable crews on the job."
CBS News: Americans detained during immigration enforcement speak out about treatment by federal agents
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-citizens-arrested-immigration-enforcement-treatment-agents/
Georgia senators demand answers on more than a dozen deaths in immigration detention
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/23/nx-s1-5549411/ossoff-warnock-noem-immigration-detention-death
Comment: "Georgia's Democratic senators are asking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to provide more information on recent deaths in immigration detention centers, including the conditions of detainees."
"Since President Trump took office, 15 people have died in immigration detention, 10 of those deaths occurred between January and June, Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock wrote in a letter shared exclusively with NPR. The senators say that is the highest rate in the first six months of any year publicly available."
" 'Whatever our views on border enforcement, immigration enforcement, immigration policy, I think the overwhelming majority of the American people does not want detainees abused while they're in U.S. custody,' Ossoff told NPR in an interview."
Trump administration fires more immigration judges
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/23/nx-s1-5550915/trump-immigration-judges
Comment: "Nearly 20 immigration judges received emails this month informing them that they are being let go, NPR has learned, adding to the over 80 judges that have already been cut by President Trump so far this year."
Comment: "The firings are seemingly at odds with the Trump administration's goals of immigration enforcement, advocates say. The administration counters that immigration judges have not managed their mounting caseloads effectively, and that it has taken steps to streamline the process involved in adjudicating cases. The dispute provides a window into just how complicated the Trump administration's efforts to lower illegal immigration and deport millions of undocumented people are."
Comment: "Union leaders had been bracing for large cuts this month since it marked the end of the two-year probationary period for many immigration judges. The increased firings come as the Trump administration is trying to increase the number of deportations. Immigration judges, who are more like civil servants, can approve or deny a final order of deportation. Still, immigration advocates argue the high priority on immigration law enforcement is reducing the limited due process that immigrants receive because the dismissed judges are either replaced with adjudicators with no experience or are not replaced at all."
Comment: " 'The dismissal of more immigration judges is an illogical and costly setback for the nation's immigration courts,' said IFPTE President Matt Biggs in a statement to NPR. 'At a time when the backlog has reached historic levels and the administration has made immigration enforcement a central issue, the removal of experienced judges is hypocritical, undermines the law, wastes taxpayer dollars, and further delays justice for citizens and immigrants alike.' "
Comment: "The latest sets of terminations landed after Congress approved a mega-spending bill that allocated over $3 billion to the Justice Department for immigration-related activities, including hiring more immigration judges. The funding and additional personnel are aimed at alleviating the growing case backlog, which stands at nearly 4 million. Hiring and training new judges can take more than a year."
"In recent months, EOIR leadership has criticized judges for not efficiently managing their caseloads, and has encouraged adjudicators to streamline asylum reviews and give oral, as opposed to written, decisions on case dismissals."
"Earlier this month, about 600 military lawyers were authorized to work for the Justice Department as temporary immigration judges. And the DOJ made changes to who could qualify as a temporary immigration judge — effectively lowering the requirements and removing the need to have prior immigration experience."
CBS News: Louisville factory lays off workers after their legal immigration status was revoked
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/louisville-kentucky-factory-lays-off-immigrants-legal-status-revoked/
Comment: "At a GE Appliances plant in Louisville, Kentucky, 5,000 workers craft kitchen essentials, including 2 million dishwashers per year, according to the company."
"But back in May, nearly 150 workers, mostly Cuban immigrants, were laid off after the Trump administration abruptly changed their legal immigration status."
"The Biden-era parole program, known as CHNV, temporarily protected roughly 532,000 Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans from the risk of deportation. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem moved to terminate the program back in March. After a lower court temporarily halted the end of the program, the Supreme Court in May allowed the administration to move forward with its plan to terminate the program while the rest of the legal battle plays out."
Hiring of military lawyers as immigration judges alarms law experts | Trump administration | The Guardian
Comment: "The Trump administration has started recruiting hundreds of military lawyers to sit as immigration judges, presiding over what are often life-and-death federal decisions for immigrants in the US, as experts warn the White House strategy is high-risk and arguably unlawful."
"The judgeships are temporary, but renewable, and the government’s goal is to fill an acute need for more immigration judges amid Donald Trump’s mass deportation mission – which is now happening even as experienced immigration judges seemingly deemed to have fallen foul of the president’s agenda are being purged from the courts."
"Active-duty armed forces officers and reservists, part of the military’s justice arm known as the Judge Advocate General’s (Jag) corps, which has given rise to the lawyers there being nickname ‘Jags’, are getting messages asking them to volunteer for the high-stakes immigration roles."
"But experts warn that military lawyers do not have the specialized knowledge to perform the duties of an immigration judge and may only have gotten an hour or two of immigration law training – if that - during JAG school, while, further, their appointments would likely break the law."
Comment: "According to the White House and the Pentagon, military attorneys could double the ranks of immigration judges and tackle the overwhelming backlog of 3.75m cases. But their use for civilian immigration enforcement would appear to violate Congress's laws, namely the Posse Comitatus Act, and the executive branch’s own regulations, experts say."
"In fact, in a resurfaced Reagan-era memo, even Samuel Alito, now one of the most conservative justices on the US Supreme Court, recognized that 'if military lawyers functioning under the usual military chain-of-command were assigned on a part-time basis to perform civilian law enforcement functions along with their regularly assigned military duties', it would pose 'serious questions' legally."
"He strongly advised against such attorneys making a personal appearance in court."
Trump’s new detention policy targets millions of immigrants. Judges keep saying it’s illegal. - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/20/ice-detention-immigration-policy-00573850
Comment: "The Trump administration is systematically locking up immigrants while they contest the government’s attempts to deport them, even if they’ve lived in the United States for decades and have no criminal record."
"This indiscriminate mass detention — a dramatic shift in immigration enforcement policy that began on July 8 — has been declared illegal by dozens of federal judges, who have described it as a flagrant perversion of long-standing law, policy and common sense."
"But the administration says its reinterpretation of the law is both legal and a key prong of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation strategy. They say no matter how long someone has resided illegally in the country — “for 25 minutes or 25 years” — the law doesn’t just allow, it requires, their detention while awaiting deportation. And they hope this interpretation encourages many to depart the country voluntarily."
"The result has been hundreds of frantic lawsuits by immigrants who have been arrested without warning at work, at routine check-ins with immigration authorities or after immigration court proceedings. Immigration lawyers and advocates contend they’re being sent to overcrowded and unsanitary detention facilities."
Comment: "Immigrant advocates say the goal is clear: make the process so excruciating that people give up and accept deportation — even if they have meritorious asylum claims or pathways to legal status."
How Trump has turned the legal system ‘on its head’ to meet deportation goals | Trump administration | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/sep/19/trump-immigration-cuba-asylum-seeker
‘It hurts all of us’: Mass deportations ensnare immigrant service members, veterans and families | AP News
https://apnews.com/article/trump-veterans-mass-deportation-5aa133955c5d378ac59da991b4ff5693
Comment: "During his first term in office, Trump enacted immigration policies aimed at a group normally safe from scrutiny: noncitizens who serve in the U.S. military. His administration sought to restrict avenues for immigrant service members to obtain citizenship and make it harder for green card holders to enlist -– actions that were unsuccessful."
"Now, military experts and veterans say service members are once again targets of the president’s immigration policies."
" 'President Trump campaigned on a promise of mass deportations, and he didn’t exempt military members, veterans and their families,' said retired Lt. Col. Margaret Stock, a lawyer who helps veterans facing deportation. 'It harms military recruiting, military readiness and the national security of our country.' ”
ICE crackdowns intensify across Boston as sanctuary cities face Trump’s latest operation
apnews.com/article/immigrants-boston-ice-trump-sanctuary-cities-ee2a10f0300029da49fcbd45365e031a https://share.google/0hMSXTq9h6CLSSawk
Comment: "Immigrants are being detained while going to work, outside courthouses, and at store parking lots in Metro Boston as President Donald Trump targets so-called sanctuary cities in his effort to ramp up immigration enforcement."
"As families hole up in homes — afraid to leave and risk detainment — advocates are reporting an increased presence of unmarked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles sitting in parking lots and other public areas throughout immigrant communities, where agents appeared to target work vans. One man captured a video of three landscapers who were working on the Saugus Town Hall property being arrested after agents smashed their truck window."
Comment: Are these the folks the Trump administration calls the "worst of the worst?"
Ice threatens federal assault charges against anyone who attacks its officers | Ice (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/16/assault-ice-officer-federal-crime
Comment: "US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) warned on Tuesday that assaulting its officers constitutes a federal crime punishable by felony charges."
" 'Anyone – regardless of immigration status – who assaults an ICE officer WILL face federal felony assault charges and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law,' the agency posted on X. Embedded in the post was an image that read 'think before you resist' with a clenched fist."
"The post represents a direct public threat of prosecution, and the broad language could allow prosecutors to pursue federal assault charges for actions that would traditionally be classified as resisting arrest or even protest activities."
"But the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expanded its definition of threats to include filming Ice operations. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, defined 'violence' in July as 'anything that threatens [DHS agents] and their safety. It is doxing them. It is videotaping them where they’re at.' ”
"One example of that has been the case of the Spanish-language, Georgia-based journalist Mario Guevara, who was detained for more than two months after he filmed enforcement operations, despite his attorneys saying he had legal work authorization."
"The message also follows the DHS’s claims in August that attacks on Ice officers have increased by 1000%, though when pressed for examples, officials told the Prospect that incidents included trash dumped on an agent’s lawn and a profanity-laden sign targeting an agent by name. In one notable case, the FBI put out a $50,000 reward for someone who 'appears to fire a pistol' at Ice during a raid on a farm in California."
CBS News: U.S. citizen tased and detained during ICE operation in Des Plaines, Illinois
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/u-s-citizen-tased-detained-during-ice-operation-des-plaines/
The Guardian: South Korea to review possible human rights violations in US raid on workers
Comment: "South Korea’s government has said it will launch an investigation into whether human rights violations were committed when hundreds of its citizens were detained in a US immigration raid."
"About 475 people, mostly South Korean nationals, were arrested at the construction site of an electric vehicle battery factory in the US state of Georgia on 4 September."
What immigration lawyers want you to know about ICE and criminal warrants
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/14/us/criminal-civil-ice-warrant-explained
Appeals Court Overturns Ruling That Blocked Deportation of 500,000 Migrants
Comment: "An appeals court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration can begin deporting around 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela."
Comment: "DHS ordered half a million migrants to self-deport, issuing termination notices to nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who had entered the country under 'humanitarian parole' programs that started under the administration of former President Joe Biden."
"This marked the first mass revocation of humanitarian parole, according to the Associated Press (AP)."
With Hyundai raid, Trump’s immigration crackdown runs into his push for foreign investment
Comment: "President Donald Trump’s push to revitalize American manufacturing by luring foreign investment into the U.S. has run smack into one of his other priorities: cracking down on illegal immigration."
"Hardly a week after immigration authorities raided a sprawling Hyundai battery plant in Georgia, detained more than 300 South Korean workers and showed video of some of them shackled in chains, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung warned that the country’s other companies may be reluctant to take up Trump’s invitation to pour money into the United States."
The Guardian: Irish woman with green card faces US deportation over $25 bad cheque
Comment: "An Irish grandmother who has lived in the US for most of her life and holds a green card is facing deportation because she wrote a bad cheque for $25 in 2015."
"Donna Hughes-Brown, 58, was detained in July after landing in Chicago on a flight from Dublin and is being held in isolation in a detention centre in Kentucky. She has lived in the US since 1977, has five children and grandchildren, and ran a horse farm in Troy, Missouri."
"Her husband, Jim Brown, a US citizen and military veteran, told reporters his wife was not a criminal and that he '100%' regretted voting for Donald Trump as president."
"He said she had been detained on a misdemeanour relating to a $25 cheque she signed a decade ago and for which she made restitution and received probation."
Comment: Do you believe that ICE is going after the "worst of the worst."
Attorney says detained Korean Hyundai workers had special skills for short-term jobs
https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-us-georgia-raid-hyundai-24d990562f5ac20e7d3e983a77a4f7ff
Comment: "A lawyer for several workers detained at a Hyundai factory in Georgia says many of the South Koreans rounded up in the immigration raid are engineers and equipment installers brought in for the highly specialized work of getting an electric battery plant online."
"Atlanta immigration attorney Charles Kuck, who represents four of the detained South Korean nationals, told The Associated Press on Monday that many were doing work that is authorized under the B-1 business visitor visa program. They had planned to be in the U.S. for just a couple of weeks and 'never longer than 75 days,' he said."
" 'The vast majority of the individuals that were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that were South Korean were either there as engineers or were involved in after-sales service and installation,' Kuck said."
Comment: If one assumes the lawyer's statements are true, do you think ICE's action at the Hyundai plant might discourage future foreign investment in the U.S.?
Reuters: US to target more businesses after Hyundai raid, top official says
The Hill: What happened to Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ wall?
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5486806-unfinished-wall-trump-presidency/
Comment: "Trump promised a 'big, beautiful wall' stretching along the 1,954 miles of the southern U.S. border, which he once claimed Mexico would pay for. What he delivered in his first term was about 450 miles of fencing, the majority of it replacing existing structures. The vision of a continuous wall was never realized."
Comment: "The result is a half-finished wall that perfectly symbolizes Trump’s tenure: loud, polarizing, and poorly executed in the end."
"This is the political genius of Trump and also his greatest weakness. He lights so many fires at once that it becomes nearly impossible to track them all. For a campaigner, that creates constant motion, endless headlines and the feeling of momentum. For a president, it guarantees that nothing is ever fully completed."
NBC Boston: ‘It's just insane. It's not normal': Healey responds to new ICE enforcement effort
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/ice-immigration-enforcement-in-boston-massachusetts/3804305/
Comment: ICE targets Boston and the governor responds.
Comment: "Gov. Maura Healey lashed out against the Trump administration in an appearance on MSNBC on Sunday, saying expanded ICE activity in Massachusetts and other states 'insane,' and 'not right'."
"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is conducting a follow-up to a surge in May called Operation Patriot 2.0, a senior spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which ICE is a part of, told NBC10 Boston on Saturday. The May operation, Operation Patriot, resulted in nearly 1,500 people being arrested, officials said at the time."
Comment: " 'I'm a former prosecutor, a former attorney general. I've said many, many times, including to Trump, that I support as attorney general, and now as governor, everything we can do on public safety,' she said. 'But what we have seen from ICE and the administration isn't about public safety, it's about political theater, about a political power grab and an attempt to intimidate.' "
" 'We've seen construction workers, nannies, landscapers, healthcare aids -- these are the people being taken in huge numbers, taken away from their families. It is not the kind of effort Donald Trump has said it was about.' "
" 'But again, this is about show, it's a show of force, it's political theater. The same reason you see the National Guard on streets in cities in America. It's just not right. It's not helpful to public safety. It undermines the efforts of local law enforcement and it's taking guardspeople with really important missions away from those missions, all to be part of some political theater... It's just not right what's happening across America right now.' "
CNN: Trump administration launches immigration enforcement surge in Massachusetts
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/07/politics/immigration-enforcement-surge-in-massachusetts
Politico: Immigration appeals court expands mandatory detention for millions
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/05/immigration-mandatory-detention-00548660
Comment: "A powerful Justice Department appeals panel has declared that anyone in deportation proceedings who entered the U.S. without legal authorization is not entitled to be considered for release on bond by an immigration judge."
"The ruling upends a decadeslong understanding of federal law and could subject millions of immigrants to mandatory detention — a loss of liberty that advocates say could cause many to voluntarily leave the country even if they have meritorious cases to remain."
"It also conflicts with recent federal court rulings finding the administration’s efforts to expand immigration detention violate the law and due process."
"Previously, foreigners who entered illegally but could show they had been living in the U.S. for more than two years could ask an immigration judge for release on bond. But decision Friday from the Board of Immigration Appeals concludes that detention is mandatory for anyone in deportation proceedings who entered the U.S. 'without inspection'.”
Comment: Note that this ruling is from an appeals panel that answers to the Justice Department and Pam Bondi. We wonder what a real judge, one who has to consider the U.S. Constitution, has to say about mandatory detention and universal denial of bond.
Video: Judge blocks Trump from ending TPS for Venezuelans and Haitians - September 5, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM-TjXGXSO0
NBC News: Migrants and Democrats are skeptical of Noem's $200 million 'self-deportation' TV ad campaign
Comment: "Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem praised a new Trump administration effort to persuade undocumented immigrants to return to their homelands on their own. She said a new two-year, $200 million television ad campaign, a $1,000 cash stipend to pay for plane tickets home and a new 'CBP Home' app were prompting undocumented people to self-deport."
" 'If they wait until we arrest them and we remove them, they’ll never get the chance to come back to the United States,' Noem said when she was asked about the program at a news conference. 'We know thousands and thousands of people have used the app.' ”
"Migrants and Democrats, though, question the effectiveness of the campaign, which remains unclear six months after its launch. Noem, who promised last month to release the exact number of people who have self-deported using the app, hasn’t done so."
"The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to repeated requests for the figures."
"Democrats question the cost of the TV ads, as well. And undocumented migrants and advocates told NBC News they don’t trust Noem, her ads and Customs and Border Protection’s new CBP Home app."
ABC News: Many parents of Guatemalan minors nearly deported from US did not want children returned: Memo
Comment: "Many parents of the dozens of Guatemalan minors who were set to be deported over the weekend by the Trump administration before a last-minute halt said they did not request their children’s return to their home country, according to a memo from the government of Guatemala."
"One parent told officials that if her daughter was returned, she 'would do everything possible to get her out of the country again because she had received death threats and could not live in Guatemala,' according to the memo."
"The removal of the unaccompanied minors was temporarily blocked on Sunday by a federal judge -- a move that came as the children were sitting on planes."
"At a hearing over the weekend, a Department of Justice attorney argued that the Trump administration was removing the children in accordance with the law and at the request of the Guatemalan government and the legal guardians of the children."
"Attorneys representing the children moved to file a preliminary injunction on Wednesday, arguing that the minors remain at risk of being sent to Guatemala without a final order from an immigration judge."
Video: Trump's use of Alien Enemies Act for deportations likely heading to Supreme Court - September 3, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fCcgXaqDWk
Politico: DHS ends temporary protected status for some 200,000 Venezuelans in the US
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/03/dhs-ends-protected-status-venezuelans-us-00543039
Comment: The Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday that it will terminate “temporary protected status” for Venezuelans, removing a designation that has allowed more than 200,000 Venezuelan citizens to reside in the U.S. because of the turmoil in their home country."
"The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it will allow temporary protected status to expire on Sept. 10. It argued that preserving the designation 'directly undermines the Trump administration’s efforts to secure our southern border and manage migration effectively' given the large number of Venezuelans who entered the United States without the proper legal procedures."
Comment: "The decision also coincides with mounting worries that the United States may launch military operations against Venezuela in the name of combating drug trafficking and potentially overthrowing the government of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. has deployed ships and soldiers to waters near Venezuela and on Tuesday struck a drug boat leaving Venezuela. It is unclear if the moves are linked."
NBC News: Why a court order barring ICE from targeting people based on their race isn't being enforced
CNN: They left Cuba seeking the American Dream. ICE sent them home in shackles
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/02/americas/cuba-deportees-us-ice-intl-latam
Comment: Wonder how this ICE action is perceived in some neighborhoods of Miami Florida?
Comment: Marco Rubio's parents were immigrants from Cuba.
The Guardian: ‘Trump’s private army’: inside the push to recruit 10,000 immigration officers
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/02/immigration-hiring-push-trump-private-army
Video: President's Trump crackdown on immigration causing concern about ICE agents visiting DC schools - September 2, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doHAtSSxkl0
Hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children can stay in the U.S. for now, judge says
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/31/nx-s1-5524312/federal-judge-block-guatemalan-children-deportation
Comment: "A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from expelling hundreds of Guatemalan children who crossed the U.S. border alone. Although the government had not obtained legal permission to remove the children, some of their lawyers said, Guatemalan children were already loaded on planes on a tarmac while the judge conducted a hearing about the situation on Sunday, a U.S. attorney confirmed."
Comment: "The children the U.S. intended to remove were under the care of the Department of Health and Human Service's Office of Refugee Resettlement. Since 2002, the Department of Health and Human Services has been required by federal law to shelter and care for children who enter the U.S. without parents or guardians."
"After HHS assumes care of unaccompanied children, following their apprehension by other agencies at the border, the minors are typically not allowed to be deported without receiving the benefit of full immigration proceedings. Even in some circumstances where it is possible for unaccompanied children to be reunited with guardians in their home countries, they must still first undergo a legal process that allows the children to defend themselves and the U.S. government to confirm that the return would be in the best interest of the children, said Becky Wolozin, a senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, a nonprofit that has been working on the case with other groups."
" But this weekend, 'no one had advance notice that this was happening,' Wolozin said, referring to the plan by the U.S. government to deport hundreds of Guatemalan children with little warning."
" 'On just a baseline, you want the person on the other end to know when to pick them up,' Wolozin said. 'This was an enormously rushed, middle-of-the-night operation.' "
Video: New massive ICE detention center in Texas - August 29, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQHxkAr1l0M
The Guardian: DC eateries suffer as workers terrified of Ice stay home: ‘You don’t want to go outside’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/29/trump-ice-washington-dc-restaurants
AP News: Mystery surrounds $1.2 billion Army contract to build huge detention tent camp in Texas desert
Comment: "When President Donald Trump's administration awarded a contract worth up to $1.2 billion to build and operate what it says will become the nation's largest immigration detention complex, it didn’t turn to a large government contractor or even a firm that specializes in private prisons."
"Instead, it handed the project on a military base to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small business that has no listed experience running a correction facility and had never won a federal contract worth more than $16 million. The company also lacks a functioning website and lists as its address a modest home in suburban Virginia owned by a 77-year-old retired Navy flight officer."
"The mystery over the award only deepened last week as the new facility began to accept its first detainees. The Pentagon has refused to release the contract or explain why it selected Acquisition Logistics over a dozen other bidders to build the massive tent camp at Fort Bliss in West Texas. At least one competitor has filed a complaint."
"The secretive — and brisk — contracting process is emblematic, experts said, of the government’s broader rush to fulfill the Republican president's pledge to arrest and deport an estimated 10 million migrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal status. As part of that push, the government is turning increasingly to the military to handle tasks that had traditionally been left to civilian agencies."
"A member of Congress who recently toured the camp said she was concerned that such a small and inexperienced firm had been entrusted to build and run a facility expected to house up to 5,000 migrants."
" 'It’s far too easy for standards to slip,' said Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes Fort Bliss. 'Private facilities far too frequently operate with a profit margin in mind as opposed to a governmental facility.' ”
Comment: Does this sound fishy to you?
The Guardian: Democrats seek ‘immediate answers’ after reported arrests of firefighters by US border agents
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/28/washington-firefighters-arrests-detention-border
Comment: Patty Murray, the Washington senator, has called for the Trump administration to provide 'immediate answers' about reports that two firefighters were detained by border agents as they were responding to a wildfire in the state."
"Federal immigration authorities on Wednesday staged an operation on the scene of the Bear Gulch fire, a nearly 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) blaze in the Olympic national forest, where they arrested two people who were part of a contract firefighting crew, the Seattle Times first reported. The fire is the largest currently burning in the state."
Comment: Arrests of firefighters at a wildfire blaze? Really? Do you think that perhaps some folks need to get their priorities straight?
Border Patrol agents arrest fire crew members at Washington wildfire
CNN: Trump administration plans big immigration enforcement operation in Chicago as soon as next week
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/28/politics/immigration-enforcement-chicago-national-guard
ABC News: After failing to get felony indictment, feds charge DC sandwich thrower with a misdemeanor
Comment: "Federal prosecutors have charged the man accused of throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Patrol agent in Washington, D.C., earlier this month with a misdemeanor after a grand jury refused to indict him on a more serious felony assault charge on Wednesday, according to court records filed Thursday."
Comment: A felony assault charge for throwing a sandwich? Really? Sounds like the grand jury had a little sense in this crazy world we live in now.
Government Executive: Trump freezes most training for non-ICE federal law enforcement
Comment: "The federal government's primary training center will only accommodate immigration enforcement hires through the end of the year."
Comment: "The Trump administration is pausing training at the federal government's primary law enforcement academies for anyone not related to immigration enforcement, saying the change is necessary to meet the president’s 'immediate priorities.' ”
Comment: "More than 75 law enforcement federal law enforcement agencies train at FLETC, which maintains its primary campus in Glynco, Georgia. Those agencies range from other Homeland Security Department components like Border Patrol and the Transportation Security Administration to the National Park Service, military police and inspectors general offices across government."
Comment: Please note the impact to other law enforcement agencies, as Trump compulsively focuses on immigration enforcement. What will be the consequences for these other agencies and to the citizens they protect?
NBC News: Trump eases rules for hiring temporary immigration judges
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/trump-eases-rules-hiring-temporary-immigration-judges-rcna227711
Comment: "The Justice Department can now hire attorneys without immigration law experience to help reduce case backlogs; critics cite concerns over inexperience and possible 'political bias.' "
Government Executive: DOJ to grant itself authority to tap any attorney to serve as an immigration judge
Comment: "The Trump administration will on Thursday grant itself new permission to hire any attorney to serve as an immigration judge on a temporary basis, eschewing longstanding restrictions on who could serve in those roles."
"The change gives Attorney General Pam Bondi wide latitude in selecting officials to oversee asylum and other cases pending before the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency that runs the nation’s immigration courts. That authority could provide President Trump with additional power to withhold legal status from immigrants and expedite his mass deportation efforts."
Comment: "Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, said the Trump administration was putting the integrity of the nation’s immigration courts in jeopardy."
" 'There is an attempt here to more quickly address the backlog of the immigration court and prioritize speed over justice,' Orozco said, adding the administration wants 'more immigration judges on the bench and probably more immigration judges that align with [its] ideologies.' ”
"Because the judges will be up for renewal every six months, he added, the TIJs will have an added incentive to ensure they are 'meeting the expectations of leadership.' ”
AP News: US deportation flights hit record highs as carriers try to hide the planes, advocates say
https://apnews.com/article/ice-deportation-immigration-flights-f61941d31adf43a6a01cccc720f3bb01
Comment: "Immigration advocates gather like clockwork outside Seattle’s King County International Airport to witness deportation flights and spread word of where they are going and how many people are aboard. Until recently, they could keep track of the flights using publicly accessible websites."
"But the monitors and others say airlines are now using dummy call signs for deportation flights and are blocking the planes’ tail numbers from tracking websites, even as the number of deportation flights hits record highs under President Donald Trump. The changes forced them to find other ways to follow the flights, including by sharing information with other groups and using data from an open-source exchange that tracks aircraft transmissions."
"Their work helps people locate loved ones who are deported in the absence of information from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which rarely discloses flights. News organizations have used such flight tracking in reporting."
"Tom Cartwright, a retired J.P. Morgan financial officer turned immigration advocate, tracked 1,214 deportation-related flights in July — the highest level since he started watching in January 2020. About 80% are operated by three airlines: GlobalX, Eastern Air Express and Avelo Airlines. They carry immigrants to other airports to be transferred to overseas flights or take them across the border, mostly to Central American countries and Mexico."
Comment: Do you think the families would like some idea of where their loved ones are being deported to? How would you feel if your family member was "disappeared?"
U.S. Customs and Border Protection accessed Illinois license plate data - Axios Chicago
Comment: "The U.S. Customs and Border Protection accessed data collected from Illinois license plate readers, a violation of state law."
Comment: "ALPR camera operator Flock Safety gave CBP access to Illinois license plate camera data, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced this week."
"Illinois' cameras were among 80,000 cameras that the immigration agency tapped into, according to 404 Media."
Comment: "Giannoulias' office initiated an audit in June after reports found that Texas law enforcement accessed Flock data from police departments across the country to look into a woman who left the state to get an abortion."
Comment: "What they're saying: 'While it is true that Flock does not presently have a contractual relationship with any U.S. Department of Homeland Security agencies, we have engaged in limited pilots with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to assist those agencies in combatting human trafficking and fentanyl distribution,' company CEO Garrett Langley said in a statement."
" 'As of last week, all ongoing federal pilots have been paused,' the statement added."
"What's next: Giannoulias has asked local police departments to re-examine their agreements with Flock and whether they've violated the Illinois Trust Act, which bars local police from collaborating with federal authorities on immigration enforcement without a court warrant."
Comment: Customs and Border Protection acting indiscriminately without a warrant? Does this sound OK to you?
AP News: Feds fight to keep ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ open amid legal battle as 3rd challenge is filed
https://apnews.com/article/florida-immigration-ice-detention-center-0ab308d83d59d86fe18a802100a19fe3
AP News: What to know: Four ways ICE is training new agents and scaling up
Experts explain your rights – as an immigrant or a bystander – if you’re caught up in an ICE raid | CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/23/us/immigrant-bystander-rights-ice-raid
Abrego Garcia's attorneys say government trying to coerce him to accept guilty plea or face deportation to Uganda
Comment: We can't speak to the question of guilt or innocence. That should be left up to a jury. However, if Garcia's lawyers' claims are true, threats of deportation to Uganda seem like prosecutional misconduct. The government should prove its case in a court of law, not coerce a guilty plea by threatening deportation to Uganda.
NPR: She's cared for America's elderly for decades. Trump wants her gone by Sept. 8
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/22/nx-s1-5502439/trump-immigration-tps-health-care
CBS News: DeSantis appeals judge's order blocking expansion of Florida's '"Alligator Alcatraz" detention site
Comment: "Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration quickly appealed a federal judge's ruling Thursday that sided with environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe, requiring operations to wind down at a controversial immigrant detention facility in the Everglades."
Video: Florida must stop expanding Alligator Alcatraz immigration center, judge says - August 21, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rigIT3_FAQ
Video: Immigration courts lose judges amid ICE arrests - August 21, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN2xCi89WWQ
Pentagon asks civilian employees to join ‘volunteer force’ to aid Ice deportations | Trump administration | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/21/trump-hegseth-pentagon-ice
Comment: "The Pentagon is recruiting civilian employees to join Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign and asking staff to sign up for deployments to immigration enforcement facilities across the United States."
"The defense department has posted a job listing requesting volunteers for civilian federal employees apply to join a “volunteer force” supporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operations. On Wednesday, the department reportedly emailed civilian employees asking them to take up this opportunity."
Comment: Kristi Noem's Department of Homeland Security has been given a budget of $170B for immigration enforcement and border protection, and the Pentagon has been asked to provide "volunteers". Really? Is the entire U.S. government going to be tasked with eliminating foreigners, at the expense of other important government functions, like national security?
Trump administration to review all 55m US visa holders for potential rule violations
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/21/trump-administration-visa-vetting
Comment: "State department says all people who hold valid US visas are subject to ‘continuous vetting’, including of social media"
Comment: "US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which handles requests to stay in the US or become a citizen, said it would expand vetting of the social media postings of applicants and that 'reviews for anti-American activity will be added to that vetting'."
Comment: "Historically, the notion of anti-Americanism has primarily focused on communism. But since taking office in January, the Trump administration has moved aggressively to deny or rescind short-term visas for people deemed to go against US foreign policy interests, especially regarding Israel."
"Indeed, the latest guidance on immigration decisions said that authorities will look at whether applicants 'promote antisemitic ideologies'."
"The Trump administration has accused students and universities of antisemitism and support for terrorism over participation in protests in support of Palestinian rights and against Israel’s military assault on Gaza, charges denied by the activists."
AP News: Trump administration is reviewing all 55 million foreigners with US visas for any violations
https://apnews.com/article/trump-visas-deportations-068ad6cd5724e7248577f17592327ca4
Comment: "The Trump administration said Thursday it is reviewing more than 55 million people who have valid U.S. visas for any violations that could lead to deportation, part of a growing crackdown on foreigners who are permitted to be in the United States."
"In a written answer to a question from The Associated Press, the State Department said all U.S. visa holders, which can include tourists from many countries, are subject to “continuous vetting,” with an eye toward any indication they could be ineligible for permission to enter or stay in the United States."
"Should such information be found, the visa will be revoked, and if the visa holder is in the United States, he or she would be subject to deportation."
"Since President Donald Trump took office, his administration has focused on deporting migrants illegally in the United States as well as holders of student and visitor exchange visas. The State Department’s new language suggests that the continual vetting process, which officials acknowledge is time-consuming, is far more widespread and could mean even those approved to be in the U.S. could abruptly see those permissions revoked."
Comment: Wonder how this new policy will impact international tourism and international business relationships?
CBS News: U.S. broadens search for deportation agreements, striking deals with Honduras and Uganda, documents show
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-deportation-agreements-honduras-uganda/
Comment: "Internal government documents obtained by CBS News show the Trump administration has expanded its campaign to persuade countries around the world to aid its crackdown on illegal immigration by accepting deportations of migrants who are not their own citizens."
"The documents indicate Uganda in East Africa recently agreed to accept deportees from the U.S. who hail from other countries on the continent, as long as they don't have criminal histories. It's unclear how many deportees Uganda would ultimately accept under the arrangement with the U.S. government."
"Honduras' government has also agreed to receive deportees from other Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, including families traveling with children, the documents show. The government of Honduras agreed to a relatively small number of deportations — just several hundred over two years — but the documents indicate it could decide to accept more."
Comment: Since the third party countries have refused to accept criminals, it's clear that these deportees are not criminals and are certainly not the "worst of the worst" as the Trump administration likes to tout.
NPR: Some Florida farmers reduce crops as deportation fears drive workers away
Comment: "In a typical year, about half his workforce is without legal status. The other half usually come through an agricultural visa called the H2A. But this year, F. is taking no risks: He's not hiring any strawberry pickers who are in the U.S. illegally."
"But he says he can't afford to hire more H2A visa workers — the costs have been going up for years. 'I'm drastically cutting down production next year,' he says, 'to 35% of what I usually do.' "
"Economists have warned that Trump's ongoing deportation campaign will hurt the U.S. economy, especially sectors that rely on migrant labor. Just in the last four months, agricultural employment has fallen by 155,000 workers, the biggest dip in nearly a decade."
Video: U.S. to probe "anti-American" views of people applying for immigration benefits - August 20, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo84zIOGrxI
DHS Secretary Noem says entire southern border wall will be painted black to stop people from climbing it - CBS News
Comment: "Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Tuesday that the entire wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is going to be painted black to make it hotter and deter illegal immigration — an idea she said was 'specifically at the request' of President Trump."
"Noem spoke during a visit to a portion of the wall in New Mexico, where she also picked up a roller brush to help out with the painting."
"She touted the height of the wall as well as its depth as ways to deter people seeking to go over or under the walls. And Noem said Homeland Security was going to be trying black paint to make the metal hotter."
Comment: Do you think Trump and DHS have considered that migrants might just wait to climb in the early morning before the sun heats up the metal? Although gloves might make it a little more difficult to climb, that's another way to beat the heat of the metal fence. And the painting of the wall will cost how much extra?
Miami Herald: ‘Psychological warfare’: Internal data shows true nature of Alligator Alcatraz
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article311718011.html
Federal agents open fire at San Bernardino family during enforcement operation, DHS says | CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/18/us/federal-agents-open-fire-san-bernardino-enforcement-hnk
The Bulwark: My Career Opportunities With ICE - by Bill Lueders
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/my-career-opportunities-with-ice
Comment: Sometimes, sarcasm is the best way to illustrate a point.
Video: The number of ICE flights is skyrocketing — but the planes are harder than ever to track - August 14, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlRypvEB76Q
Trump administration hits hurdles as it builds a key immigrant detention facility
Comment: "Later this week, the Trump administration is set to open a sprawling new immigration detention facility at Fort Bliss in Texas that is slated to eventually become the largest in the nation."
"The opening comes after months of setbacks, including two investigations into possible improper bidding, two canceled contracts and, most recently, a death on the construction site."
"The facility, which will open with capacity to hold 1,000 people, is a key part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s moves to more than double the space it has nationwide to detain immigrants as the Trump administration pushes for more arrests and the agency prepares for a historic influx of cash."
Comment: Do you think this is the best use of your tax dollars?
Video: DACA recipient with no criminal record detained by ICE - August 13, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmjzb5ebcpQ
The Guardian: ‘Petri dish for disease’: attorney raises alarm of possible Covid outbreak at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/12/attorney-covid-outbreak-alligator-alcatraz
Comment: "An outbreak of a respiratory disease, possibly Covid-19, is running rampant through the remote Florida immigration jail known as 'Alligator Alcatraz', according to the attorney of an infected detainee removed from the camp last week."
"Eric Lee said he was told by his client Luis Manuel Rivas Velásquez that conditions at the facility had deteriorated significantly since Thursday as more migrants held there by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency experienced symptoms."
Comment: "Protesters at the gates of the jail in the heart of the Florida Everglades have recorded a number of instances of ambulances arriving and leaving."
"Lee said the hastily erected tented camp, which Democratic lawmakers have decried for holding thousands of undocumented detainees in cages as they await deportation, is a 'petri dish for disease'."
Politico: Judge orders ICE to stop forcing detainees to sleep on dirty concrete floors
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/12/ice-manahttan-detention-conditions-ruling-00505986
Comment: "A federal judge ordered the Trump Administration Tuesday to improve the conditions for ICE detainees in Manhattan after a lawsuit filed by a Peruvian immigrant complained of cramped and unsanitary holding cells."
Comment: "The judge’s order comes amid broader national concerns about the conditions ICE detainees have been subjected to amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation and pressure to ramp up arrests. Facilities meant for short-term detention have become overcrowded and used for more prolonged confinement, with strains on supplies and access to attorneys. A federal judge in California ruled last month that conditions at a temporary facility in Los Angeles were similarly deficient, requiring ICE officials to provide for more robust access to detainees’ lawyers."
Axios: These industries are the most reliant on noncitizen workers
https://www.axios.com/2025/08/12/noncitizen-foreign-workers-industries
Comment: "The U.S. construction, agriculture/mining and accommodation/food services industries have the greatest shares of foreign-born noncitizen workers, per census data."
"Why it matters: President Trump earlier this summer acknowledged that his massive immigration crackdown is 'taking very good, long time workers away from' the farming and hotel industries, and promised changes."
"Yet there's still no major policy decision from the White House, which must balance economic realities with MAGA demands to deport as many people as possible."
By the numbers: Foreign-born noncitizens — including those who are legal residents or have work visas — make up 8.3% of the country's civilian workforce age 16 and older, based on a 2019-2023 average of U.S. Census Bureau estimates."
Comment: "Zoom in: Around 40% of crop farmworkers lack work authorization, per USDA estimates."
"The latest: Farmers 'are getting frustrated with the delays' on a big White House plan for undocumented workers, Politico reports, while some farm workers say they're being 'hunted like animals' in immigration raids, per The Guardian."
Comment: "The bottom line: Both undocumented workers and the industries relying on them are still largely in limbo."
Tampa Bay Times: To dodge federal rule, some immigrants are shuffled in and out of Florida jails
Comment: "This directionless odyssey — similar to what some other detainees across Florida have faced in recent months — happened because of rules limiting the number of days an undocumented immigrant can be held in a local facility before federal officials must take custody."
"With the Trump administration’s push for 'mass deportation' filling federal detention beds, detainees are being transferred from facility to facility because the switch restarts the clock and gives federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents more time to pick them up."
"Multiple immigration attorneys described the shuffle to the Orlando Sentinel, and law enforcement leaders in Orange and Pinellas counties confirmed the practice."
"But the attorneys say it’s a maddening tactic that often leaves them struggling to locate the immigrants and denies detainees access to family members and due process."
Comment: Rules? What rules? If ICE is willing to ignore habeas corpus and due process, do you think they are worried about this particular "rule"?
NPR: Asylum-seekers thought they were following the rules. Now some are told to start over
Comment: "The Trump administration is stripping protections of some asylum applicants who filed as far back as 2019."
Comment: "The reason, according to the letters: These asylum-seekers, many of whom entered between 2019 and 2022, did not receive a mandatory screening, known as a "credible fear" interview, at the border."
"The interview is conducted by an asylum officer once someone has been detained or has arrived in the United States. It is meant as an opportunity for a person to describe any fear of persecution they may face if they are returned to their home country."
"The U.S. didn't have enough asylum officers to do credible fear interviews for every person crossing the border, given the huge influx of border-crossers starting with the COVID-19 pandemic, at the end of the first Trump administration and during the Biden administration, experts told NPR. Now it appears that the new Trump administration is dismissing applications, effectively making people start over on a process they began years ago."
"This round of asylum case dismissals is the latest effort by the Trump administration to strip protections from those who have been in the U.S. for years. In the past few months, the administration has limited the ways in which people can seek asylum, has made the process more expensive and is now reviewing already filed claims and dismissing them if parts of the complex application are missing. But as officials expand the scope of whom they are arresting, detaining and deporting, lawyers fear their clients who have been waiting years for their asylum interviews may get caught up in the effort to conduct mass deportations."
NBC News: ICE is leaning hard on recruitment, but immigration experts say that could come at a price
Comment: "The agency enforcing President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations is promising new recruits maximum $50,000 signing bonuses over three years, up to $60,000 in federal student loan repayments and retirement benefits. ICE announced this week it is waiving age requirements ...."
Comment: "The possibility of monetary benefits and the celebrity endorsement have experts concerned. They fear the recruitment push could endanger public safety if it takes local police away from their communities, removes important personnel from other critical missions or cuts corners in the rush to hire."
"Immigration and law enforcement experts also said the hiring push does not reflect the public safety threat posed by unauthorized immigrants, as recent data shows many people who have been arrested by ICE during the Trump administration do not have criminal histories. One in 5 people ICE apprehended in street arrests was a Latino with no criminal history or removal orders, according to an analysis of new ICE data by the Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy think tank."
AP News: Homeland Security removes age limits for ICE recruits to boost hiring for Trump deportations
Comment: "In an interview with Fox & Friends, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said applicants could be as young as 18."
Comment: "As part of that campaign the agency is offering an eye-catching bonus of up to $50,000 for new recruits as well as other benefits like student loan forgiveness and abundant overtime for deportation officers."
Comment: What human rights violations do you think an economically desperate 18 year old might consider to justify a $50,000 bonus, especially when hidden by a mask? The military conducts psychological testing of its enlistees. Will ICE require psychological testing of its enlistees, before turning them loose on our streets?
ABC News: 'Operation Trojan Horse' immigration raid involving Penske rental truck draws pushback
Comment: "Los Angeles officials said they are considering 'all legal options' after federal agents were seen jumping out of a Penske rental truck during a controversial immigration raid."
Comment: "More than a dozen undocumented immigrants were arrested near a Home Depot in Westlake on Wednesday, federal officials said, in what was dubbed 'Operation Trojan Horse.' "
"The operation came days after a federal appeals court upheld a temporary restraining order against indiscriminate federal immigration stops and arrests in seven Southern California counties, including Los Angeles."
"Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the city is 'considering all legal options' following the raid, which she claimed 'looks like the exact same thing that we were seeing' before the temporary restraining order was issued."
" 'It's hard for me to believe that that raid was consistent with the court order that said you cannot racially profile, you cannot racially discriminate,' the mayor said during a press conference Wednesday."
NPR: Federal judge halts construction at Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz'
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/07/nx-s1-5495636/judge-halts-construction-alligator-alcatraz-florida
Video: Border Patrol told to stop deporting migrants under Trump asylum ban - August 5, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWXe5bNAKSw
Comment: Watch all of this video, and then decide if you are you as confused about details of this ruling as some are?
Trump teases new policy for migrant farm labor - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/05/trump-teases-new-policy-for-migrant-farm-labor-00493683
Politico: DOJ is walking back the White House’s goal to arrest 3,000 immigrants per day
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/03/white-house-doj-immigration-quota-mismatch-00490406
Comment: "It’s another discrepancy between what White House advisers say and the administration’s legal posture."
Comment: "Stephen Miller was unequivocal: Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would seek to arrest 3,000 or more immigrants per day, a staggering target that he said was necessary to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda."
Comment: "But when federal judges pressed for details about that figure last week, the administration denied any such quota existed. The contradiction came in a lawsuit that alleged the intense pressure to rack up arrests had led ICE to conduct illegal sweeps in Los Angeles."
"It’s not the only case that has featured the 3,000-arrest-per-day target as a crucial piece of evidence that the administration’s single-minded drive to rack up arrests may have prompted immigration authorities to cut corners or break the law."
Court limits Trump's asylum crackdown at the U.S.-Mexico border
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/court-limits-trump-asylum-crackdown-us-mexico-border/
Comment: "A panel of federal judges on Friday limited President Trump's effort to close the U.S. asylum system at the southern border, saying his administration can't unilaterally suspend laws that bar the U.S. from deporting migrants to places where they would face persecution or torture."
"The ruling centers on a proclamation issued by Mr. Trump just hours after he returned to the White House in January, ordering the closure of the asylum system. U.S. border officials have relied on the order to summarily expel those entering the country illegally, without allowing them to request asylum. Mr. Trump justified the sweeping measure on the grounds that the country is facing an 'invasion' of migrants."
Video: 'Traumatizing': Security camera captures ICE detainment at North Charleston home - July 31, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PARub7b0zsI
Judge blocks expedited deportations of those who entered the U.S. legally, possibly curtailing ICE courthouse arrests - CBS News
Comment: "U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb of Washington, D.C., barred federal immigration officials from using two Trump administration directives to apply a fast-track deportation process known as expedited removal on migrants who were granted immigration parole to enter the U.S. at an official port of entry. Parole is an immigration authority that allows federal officials to admit foreigners on humanitarian grounds, and lets them live and work in the U.S. legally on a temporary basis."
"If left in place, Cobb's ruling could significantly hinder the Trump administration's aggressive efforts to ramp up its mass deportation campaign by targeting migrants allowed into the U.S. under the Biden administration through the parole authority. The Justice Department is expected to appeal her order."
"One operation in particular that could be curtailed by Cobb's ruling is a Trump administration effort to convince immigration judges to dismiss the court cases of certain migrants, so that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can arrest them after their hearings and place them in expedited removal."
Video: New analysis shows where most immigration arrests are happening - July 31, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpnetutYMwM
Judge rips Noem’s latest termination of immigrant protections: ‘Color is neither a poison nor a crime’ - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/31/temporary-protected-status-kristi-noem-ruling-00488161
Comment: "A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s bid to cancel deportation protections and work permits for more than 63,000 Nicaraguan, Honduran and Nepali immigrants, saying the decision by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appeared rooted in racism."
" 'Color is neither a poison nor a crime,' U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson said in a 37-page ruling Thursday, which postponed a Sept. 8 deadline Noem had imposed for those 63,000 immigrants to leave the country or lose Temporary Protected Status, better known as TPS."
DHS' new ICE recruitment strategy: 50K signing bonuses, student loan forgiveness and Trump posters - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/30/ice-recruitment-donald-trump-00484885
Comment: "The Department of Homeland Security is offering new Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruits signing bonuses of up to $50,000 and student loan forgiveness, as the agency — suddenly flush with cash — seeks to meet President Donald Trump’s goal of hiring 10,000 new ICE agents and deporting a million people a year."
"With the help of major funding from the megabill Trump signed into law this month, DHS on Tuesday launched a new ICE campaign titled “Defend the Homeland,” with recruitment posters featuring Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, along with pay benefits aimed at drawing 'the next generation of law enforcement professionals to find, arrest, and remove criminal illegal aliens,' the agency said in a press statement announcing the effort."
Orlando Sentinel: Florida AG: Orange County must transport detainees to ICE facilities, or else
Comment: "Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is threatening to have Orange County commissioners and Mayor Jerry Demings removed from office if they don’t back down from their refusal to let corrections officers transport immigrants to federal detention facilities."
Comment: "Orange County Commissioner Nicole Wilson, who urged her colleagues to fight against efforts to force the county to work with ICE, said the county should 'push back' despite the attorney general’s threat."
Comment: "Wilson said the jail is already facing steep shortages of corrections officers, with a report earlier this year finding the jail had about a 25% vacancy rate among employees."
" 'This is commandeering our local corrections officials to run state and federal errands, at the same time they’re scrutinizing our budget that we used to pay for those officers,' she said."
Comment: " 'Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, who had urged commissioners to reject the ICE transport proposal at the July 15 meeting alongside more than 30 speakers, said Tuesday that complying now would be falling into the governor and attorney general’s 'bullying pulpit.' ”
Comment: "At the meeting, Demings contended that having corrections officers — who are county employees — transport detainees to facilities like Alligator Alcatraz, about 240 miles south of the jail, is a bridge too far."
“ 'That’s not our responsibility. That is the federal government’s responsibility, not ours,' Demings said. 'I will not agree for our corrections staff to transport federal inmates to other facilities.' ”
"Among the complaints of commissioners were that the addendum would require the county to pay for transportation, at a time when the county is already arguing ICE is shortchanging it for housing inmates. It costs roughly $145 per day to detain someone, and the county is reimbursed $88."
Miami Herald: Florida has no formal hurricane plan for Alligator Alcatraz
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article311504616.html
Comment: "After weeks of requests from politicians and media, the state of Florida said it has no formal, completed plan for how to handle a hurricane at Alligator Alcatraz, the new immigrant detention site in the heart of the Everglades."
Comment: "The governor has repeatedly said the tents and trailers at the site are equipped to handle hurricane winds to Category 2 strength — up to 110 mph — and that people onsite would have to be evacuated if more intense winds were expected. The facility already relies on generators for on-site power."
"Neither Guthrie nor the governor mentioned anythign about flood risks at the site, which already had water seeping into the air conditioned tents where detainees are housed after a particularly heavy rainstorm on opening day."
US workers say Trump’s immigration crackdown is causing labor shortages: ‘A strain on everybody’
Comment: "Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration is piling pressure on US factories, according to employees and union leaders, as veteran workers from overseas are forced to leave their jobs."
"As economists warn the administration’s full-scale deportation ambitions could ultimately cost millions of jobs, workers at two sites – in Michigan and Kentucky – told the Guardian that industrial giants are grappling with labor shortages."
"The US president has moved to strip more than a million immigrants of their legal status in the US, including by shutting down the Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans (CHNV) Parole Program, which allowed hundreds of thousands to work legally in the country. It has meanwhile ramped up immigration arrest operations with prospective daily quotas of 3,000 arrests per day."
NBC News: FEMA to send states $608 million to build migrant detention centers
Comment: "The Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing to send $608 million to states to construct immigrant detention centers as part of the Trump administration’s push to expand capacity to hold migrants."
Comment: "FEMA is starting a 'detention support grant program' to cover the cost of states building temporary facilities, according to an agency announcement. States have until August 8 to apply for the funds, according to the post."
Comment: Please refer to another article:
‘A more vulnerable nation’: FEMA memos lay out risks of plan to cut $1B in disaster and security grants | CNN Politics https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/25/politics/fema-propose-cuts-disaster-security-grants
Meanwhile, FEMA is proposing to cut $1 billion for grants to communities and first responders to prepare for disasters and improve security against terrorists and cyber attacks. Where would you rather FEMA spend its money, migrant detention centers or disaster help for Americans and our security?
apnews.com: Photos of the US troop deployment at new militarized zones on the border with Mexico
Comment: While the photos are impressive, do you realize that the border costs are being borne by American taxpayers that are facing massive federal deficits and safety net program cuts? Does Trump's "emergency declaration" really justify all these military actions and their associated costs?
The Guardian: Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: ‘You’ve got no rights.’ He secretly recorded his brutal arrest
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/25/florida-teen-immigration-arrest
The Guardian: Afghan translator who worked for US military detained by Ice in Connecticut
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/23/afghanistan-war-translator-ice-connecticut
Comment: "An Afghan wartime translator granted a US immigration visa after risking his life to help US troops has been detained by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents, in the latest sign that the Trump administration is willing to flout legal agreements and promises to allies in pursuit of its unprecedented immigration crackdown."
CNN: 2,000 National Guard troops expected to be called up to assist at ICE detention facilities, sources say
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/22/politics/2000-national-guard-troops-assist-ice-detention
Comment: In addition to numerous other issues, there is the question of who will pay for these troops. Will the cost come out of the ICE budget, individual state budgets, or the DoD budget?
Stephen Miller Called Out for ‘Completely Made-Up’ ICE Figures
https://www.yahoo.com/news/stephen-miller-called-completely-made-233901036.html
Comment: "Stephen Miller’s figures that one million immigrants have already self-deported are false, according to a senior fellow from a pro-immigrant nonprofit organization."
"Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, from American Immigration Council, called Miller’s claims 'a completely made-up figure' in an interview with Slate’s podcast Amicus."
Video: Inside ICE's expanded operations amid record funding and rising concerns - July 21, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aGMD-vh25c
ICE head says agents will arrest anyone found in the U.S. illegally, crack down on employers of unauthorized workers - CBS News
Comment: "In an exclusive interview with CBS News, the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said his agents will arrest anyone they find in the country illegally, even if they lack a criminal record, while also cracking down on companies hiring unauthorized workers."
"Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, said his agency will prioritize its 'limited resources' on arresting and deporting 'the worst of the worst,' such as those in the U.S. unlawfully who also have serious criminal histories."
"But Lyons said non-criminals living in the U.S. without authorization will also be taken into custody during arrest operations, arguing that states and cities with 'sanctuary' policies that limit cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement are forcing his agents to go into communities by not turning over noncitizen inmates."
Comment: Does it seem to you that ICE is focusing more on meeting Stephen Miller's arrest quotas than arresting 'the worst of the worst'? Even in cities without 'sanctuary policies,' since when is local law enforcement responsible for federal immigration enforcement?
RECENT REPORTING MAKES THE ACCURACY OF THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE QUESTIONABLE
The Daily Beast: ICE Secretly Deported Grandpa, 82, Over Lost Green Card
Please also see:
theguardian.com: Homeland security denies reports that Ice ‘secretly deported’ Pennsylvania grandfather
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/22/luis-leon-ice-pennsylvania-grandfather
AL.com: Arrests of Alabama immigrants soar as local deputies become ‘mini-immigration officers’
Additional Military Bases in New Jersey, Indiana Set to Host Migrant Detention Camps | Military.com
Comment: "The Department of Homeland Security is planning to house migrants at two new military installations as the Trump administration increasingly turns to the armed forces to bolster its aggressive immigration crackdown."
Comment: "The move is part of a broader pattern of the administration militarizing its immigration enforcement. In recent weeks, California National Guard troops and Marines have assisted federal agents in immigration raids, operations that have swept up U.S. citizens."
Comment: ICE just received a massive increase in funding, yet the military is also being tasked to address Trump's immigrant detention and deportation efforts. Do you think that the military and it's resources should be focused on national defense instead?
Video: ICE director explains Medicaid data use and agency's efforts "to gain intelligence" - July 18, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCNk14g4zYo
AP News: Border Patrol hiring spree offers lessons as another immigration agency embarks on massive growth
https://apnews.com/article/border-patrol-ice-hiring-9e23d677bb47d581dabbb4a1f8c5aa32
Comment: "With Immigration and Customs Enforcement now preparing to add 10,000 employees within five years to assist with President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts, the Border Patrol’s torrid expansion in the early 2000s serves as a cautionary tale. Hiring and training standards were changed and arrests for employee misconduct rose. Pressure to turbo-charge growth can also lead to attrition."
" 'If they don’t uphold pretty rigorous standards and background checks, you can end up hiring the wrong people, and then you pay a huge price in how the public perceives them,' said Gil Kerlikowske, who was commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol’s parent agency, from 2014 to 2017."
Lawmakers tried to lock down money meant to improve troops' lives so it can't go to immigration and border ops. It didn't work.
Stephen Miller faces pushback after weird claims about immigrant crime in Minneapolis
Comment: "As crime rates fall, why are Trump administration officials pretending that public safety is getting worse? Because of the twisted politics of fear."
Comment: "There’s no great mystery here: The Trump administration wants people to be afraid, because the more Americans are scared, the more they’re likely to endorse a mass-deportation campaign."
"For the White House, in other words, the politics of fear is overriding every other consideration, including the temptation to brag about — and perhaps even try to take credit for — a heartening national trend."
DeSantis under fire for using disaster funds to build migrant detention jail
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/17/ron-desantis-disaster-funds-alligator-alcatraz
Comment: "Officials in Florida diverted crucial disaster preparedness and response resources to support the hasty construction of the so-called Alligator Alcatraz migrant detention jail by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, a newly published report has claimed."
"Some of the $20m in contracts analyzed by Talking Points Memo (TPM) before they inexplicably disappeared from the Florida department of financial services website went to donors or political allies of DeSantis, the report said."
Opinion: Immigration whiplash is hurting American businesses during a labor crisis
https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-immigration-whiplash-hurting-american-193000538.html
Comment: "Over the last month, American businesses have faced a destabilizing whiplash of immigration enforcement proposals. What began as a reported pause on raids targeting farms, hotels and other industries quickly reverted to aggressive action — with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents returning to fields and factory floors just days later."
"These shifts are more than policy tweaks — they are actively undermining the ability of American employers to operate, staff, and grow during a severe labor shortage that is on track to become much worse."
Homan hints Trump farmworker policy is coming
https://www.yahoo.com/news/homan-hints-trump-farm-worker-030202894.html
Comment: "White House border czar Tom Homan said Wednesday that the Trump administration is considering possible changes to its immigration enforcement policy as it relates to farm and hospitality workers."
Politico: Trump launches next round of third country deportations with new flight to Eswatini
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/16/trump-third-country-deportations-eswatini-00455757
Comment: "The Trump administration deported five migrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba and Yemen to the small Southern African nation of Eswatini on Tuesday, continuing 'third country deportations' after the Supreme Court allowed the administration to maintain the practice last month."
Comment: "While previous administrations have also used third country removals as a deportation mechanism, the Trump administration’s practice of sending deportees to places like El Salvador, notorious for its CECOT mega-prison, and conflict-ridden South Sudan, has drawn scrutiny from immigration lawyers and advocates who have warned of the potential dangers of sending deportees to countries with known human rights violations."
Axios: Bill would prevent ICE from detaining or deporting U.S. citizens
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/16/ice-us-citizens-detention-racial-profiling
Comment: "A new proposal in Congress would stop federal immigration agents from detaining and possibly deporting U.S. citizens."
"Why it matters: U.S. citizens aren't supposed to be arrested or detained unless agents allege they're breaking laws. But reports of citizens of Latino descent being detained — or stopped and asked to prove citizenship — are rippling through Latino communities nationwide."
"Critics say reports of ICE detaining citizens are instances of racial profiling and overzealous policing — something the U.S. Department of Homeland Security angrily denies."
Comment: "An Axios review of news reports, social media videos and claims by advocacy groups about raids since President Trump took office found several instances in which U.S. citizens alleged they were wrongfully detained."
Comment: " 'The fact that Democrats ... feel the need to even introduce an amendment that says ICE cannot deport U.S. citizens is bats**t crazy,' Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said on the House floor."
Video: Inside the app that shows if ICE agents are nearby - July 15, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsKwThTZdzU
The Guardian: Irish tourist jailed by Ice for months after overstaying US visit by three days: ‘Nobody is safe’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/15/irish-tourist-ice-detention
Comment: "He had planned to return to Ireland in December, but was briefly unable to fly due to a health issue, his medical records show. He was only three days overdue to leave the US when an encounter with police landed him in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody."
ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos: Millions of undocumented immigrants will no longer be eligible for bond hearings, according to ICE memo
NPR: More immigration judges are being fired amid Trump's efforts to speed up deportations
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/14/nx-s1-5467343/immigration-judges-doj-trump-enforcement
Comment: "The terminations landed after Congress approved a mega-spending bill that allocated over $3 billion to the Justice Department for immigration-related activities, including hiring more immigration judges. The funding and additional personnel are aimed at alleviating the growing case backlog, which is nearly 4 million cases. Hiring and training new judges can take more than a year."
Comment: " 'It's outrageous and against the public interest that at a time when the Congress has authorized 800 immigration judges, we are firing large numbers of immigration judges without cause,' said Matt Biggs, president of the IFPTE union. 'This is hypocritical — you can't enforce immigration laws when you fire the enforcers.' "
Comment: Do you think that perhaps the Trump administration is not as interested in enforcing immigration law as it is in implementing Trump administration immigration related objectives?
CNN: Trump’s mass deportation is backfiring
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/13/politics/deportations-backfiring-trump-analysis
Comment: "The nearly monthlong survey conducted in June found Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of immigration by a wide margin: 62% to 35%. And more than twice as many Americans strongly disapproved (45%) as strongly approved (21%)."
Comment: "And all told, Trump’s second term has actually led to the most sympathy for migrants on record in the 21st century, per Gallup. Fully 79% of Americans now say immigration is a 'good thing,' compared with 64% last year."
Trump admin to appeal order barring race-based immigration arrests alleged in LA area
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/12/trump-immigration-race-based-order-california-arrests
Comment: "The White House says it plans to appeal a federal order requiring the Trump administration to stop immigration arrests without probable cause after a suit alleged it targeted California residents based on race, language and work."
Comment: Does this mean that the Trump administration thinks that racial profiling and arrests without probable cause are OK?
Judge orders Trump administration to stop immigration arrests without probable cause in Southern California | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/11/politics/california-immigration-arrests-probable-cause
Comment: "A federal judge on Friday found that the Department of Homeland Security has been making stops and arrests in Los Angeles immigration raids without probable cause and ordered the department to stop detaining individuals based solely on race, spoken language or occupation."
Comment: Do you think the judge's decision might have been made easier by very recent comments from border czar, Tom Homan?
White House border czar suggests ICE can detain people based on ‘physical appearance’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/maddow-blog-white-house-border-160020254.html
Comment: "In his latest Fox News appearance, Homan said: 'Look, people need to understand, ICE officers and Border Patrol don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them. They just need totality of the circumstances, right? They just go through the observation, get our typical facts — based on the location, the occupation, their physical appearance, their actions.' "
Comment: "What's more, Homan's on-air comments sparked quick pushback from Capitol Hill. Rep. Daniel Goldman said via Buesky that the border czar's assessment was 'patently false.'
"The New York Democrat added, 'DHS has authority to question and search people coming into the country at points of entry. But ICE may not detain and question anyone without reasonable suspicion — and certainly not based on their physical appearance alone. This lawlessness must stop.' "
Comment: Do you think Homan's comment that "physical appearance" can justify physical detainment and questioning constitutes racial profiling?
Politico: Americans have made a U-turn on immigration since 2024 election
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/11/trump-immigration-crackdown-poll-00448342
Comment: "New polling from Gallup shows record-high support for immigration, potentially complicating the president’s strongly anti-immigration policy."
The Guardian: US border czar says he doesn’t know fate of eight men deported to South Sudan
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/11/trump-immigration-tom-homan-south-sudan-deportees
Comment: "Men from Mexico, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar were removed from the US and flown to the war-torn country"
Comment "Tom Homan, the US border czar, has said he does not know what happened to the eight men deported to South Sudan after the Trump Administration resumed sending migrants to countries that are not their place of origin, known as third countries."
Axios: "Not Amnesty Lite": Trump's new plan for migrant worker visas
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/11/trump-immigration-farmworkers-visas
Comment: "Under pressure from worried farmers and hotel owners, the Trump administration is launching a program to streamline issuing visas for temporary, migrant workers to try to make sure fruits get picked, meat is packed and lodgings are cleaned."
"Why it matters: President Trump's immigration crackdown has put his administration between a MAGA rock and a special-interest hard place."
Comment: Doesn't this sound like a knee jerk reaction to a problem that should have been anticipated in advance of his unprecedented purge of hard working immigrants?
KTLA: Border Patrol agent accused of assaulting Long Beach police officer, entering women’s bathroom
Comment: "A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent appeared in a Los Angeles County courtroom Friday to face felony charges for assaulting a Long Beach police officer and resisting arrest while off-duty and armed with a department-issued handgun."
"According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, Hodgson was drunk inside a restaurant when he followed a woman into the women’s restroom. The woman alerted restaurant management and reported that Hodgson’s firearm and magazine were visible."
Video: ICE agents handcuff and detain 71-year-old U.S. citizen - July 10, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2eV8L9WYwI
NBC News: Trump's immigration enforcement record so far: High arrests, low deportations
Meet the new national police force
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/07/09/politics/ice-cbp-police-los-angeles-immigration
Comment: "The agency of mask-wearing officers who aren’t afraid to smash windows, detain lawmakers and pluck nonviolent undocumented immigrants off the street is about to become the best-funded federal police force."
Comment: "ICE will have more funding in the coming years than any other federal law enforcement agency, according to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at pro-immigrant American Immigration Council."
"The new law allocates $75 billion for ICE through 2029 to order as many as 10,000 new agents and to build detention facilities for more than 100,000 additional people."
" 'It makes ICE a higher-funded law enforcement agency than the entire FBI, ATF, DEA, US Marshals Service and Bureau of Prisons combined,' Reichlin-Melnick explained, after averaging that $75 billion across the next four years, more than doubling ICE’s budget in each of those years."
The Guardian: Ice is about to become the biggest police force in the US | Judith Levine
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/09/ice-immigration-police-trump-budget-bill
DHS used anonymous pro-Israel site to target activists for deportation, agency says in court
Comment: "Pro-Palestinian events attended by those in the database are often described on the site as 'anti-Israel' or 'pro-Hamas,' and the association said activists included on the site are often depicted as being in support of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas."
"The association also highlighted a video in which Canary Mission encouraged people to report those engaging in pro-Palestinian activism and threaten their job prospects. The video tells viewers, 'It is your duty to ensure that today’s radicals are not tomorrow’s employees.' ”
"Canary Mission has stirred up controversy even among pro-Israel advocates. In 2018, nine pro-Israel groups and over 100 students signed an open letter condemning it."
Pro-Israel website was used to find names of student protesters to investigate, senior ICE official says | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/politics/ice-homeland-security-canary-mission
Comment: " 'Most' of the names of student protesters Immigration and Customs Enforcement was asked to investigate earlier this year were plucked from a pro-Israel website that aims to blacklist pro-Palestinian students and academics, an agency official told a federal court Wednesday."
"The testimony from Peter Hatch, a senior official in ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, came during the third day in a trial in Boston over the Trump administration’s so-called ideological deportation policy, which a group of university professors say has chilled their protected political speech."
Iranian mother released from ICE detention after Republican House Majority Leader intervenes
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/08/us/iranian-woman-ice-custody-release-scalise-hnk
Comment: Do you think the result would have been the same if she hadn't had all the community support and special help from the Republican House Majority Leader? What about the other hard working immigrants who have lived here for many years and have contributed to our communities?
Axios: The states where many hospital workers are immigrants
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/08/hospital-workers-immigrants-states-map
Comment: "The nation's hospitals rely heavily on an immigrant workforce — in some states, more than a quarter of hospital workers are either naturalized citizens or noncitizen immigrants, per census data analyzed by KFF."
Comment: The immigrant hospital workforce is currently less in Alabama.
The Guardian: ‘Reality TV spectacle’: outrage as federal agents raid LA neighborhood with horses and armored cars
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/07/los-angeles-park-federal-officers-national-guard
Comment: "Dozens of federal officers in tactical gear and about 90 California national guard troops descended on a historic immigrant neighborhood in Los Angeles on Monday – mounting a sweeping show that local leaders denounced as a 'reality TV spectacle' and intimidation tactic.
"The troops were deployed to a mostly empty MacArthur Park in the neighborhood of the same name for about an hour, some on horseback and others in armored military vehicles. Agents were also operating an armored vehicle with a mounted rifle."
"It wasn’t immediately clear that any arrests were made. But the operation on Monday morning has drawn widespread criticism from city leaders, who have characterized the militarized immigration raid as an intimidation tactic."
NPR: Migrants deported from U.S. to Salvadoran prison remain under U.S. control
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/08/g-s1-76491/migrants-salvadoran-prison-under-u-s-control
Comment: "The government of El Salvador has acknowledged to United Nations investigators that the Trump administration maintains control of the Venezuelan men who were deported from the U.S. to a notorious Salvadoran prison, contradicting public statements by officials in both countries."
Migrants who were sent to CECOT are the responsibility of US, El Salvador tells UN - ABC News
https://abcnews.go.com/US/migrants-cecot-responsibility-us-el-salvador-tells/story?id=123551909
Comment: "The claims appears to contradict what U.S. officials have been saying."
Comment: " 'The government of El Salvador has confirmed what everyone already knew: the United States controls the fate of the Venezuelans sent to CECOT without due process,' Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the ACLU told ABC News in response to the U.N. report. 'Unbelievably, the U.S. government didn't provide this information to us or the court.' "
Reuters: Trump to end deportation protections for thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans
Comment: "The action, effective on September 6, will end Temporary Protected Status for an estimated 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans who have had access to the legal status since 1999, according to a pair of Federal Register notices."
How Trump's tax cut and policy bill aims to 'supercharge' immigration enforcement
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/03/g-s1-75609/big-beautiful-bill-ice-funding-immigration
Comment: "The massive package sets aside about $170 billion to support the Trump's administration's border and immigration goals, which includes detaining and deporting a record number of people from the U.S."
"Earlier this week, White House border czar Tom Homan told reporters that Congress needed to pass the bill in order for the federal government to buy more detention beds."
Comment: "The final bill allocates $45 billion for immigration detention centers, as well as about $30 billion to hire more ICE personnel, for transportation costs, and to maintain ICE facilities, among other spending. It comes as detention centers operate beyond their capacity."
"The American Immigration Council estimates that the new funding could expand detention capacity to 'at least 116,000 beds.' "
Comment: Since $170B works out to be about $500 for every man, woman, and child in this country ($170B/340M people), do you think this is the best use of our tax dollars?
Opinion: The worst ‘invaders’ in history. MAGA’s demonization of immigrants is preposterous.
https://share.newsbreak.com/dx1cdobc
Comment: "The justification for these actions started off as benignly as cracking down on illegal immigrants. Then it turned into criminals. And now everyone from Vice President JD Vance to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is using the term 'invader.' This preposterous descent from immigrant to invader shows just how afraid Republicans are of demographic changes in this country, even if those changes help this country thrive."
Comment: "These are the first invaders in history to actually make a country stronger and more profitable. It turns out that President Trump and company ran out of criminals to deport but still need photo ops to look like they are accomplishing something. The running out of criminals part is no joke. About 93 percent of the people arrested in these Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids don’t have any violent convictions."
"So in order to keep this narrative, the Trump administration has decided to reframe immigration at large. You see, coming to this country and working is now considered an invasion. That’s where the Republicans are. Not immigration reform. Not fixing a broken system. Not getting the backlog fixed. Not a Ronald Reagan-style amnesty. And surely not punishing the people that hire undocumented labor."
AP News: US expands militarized zones to 1/3 of southern border, stirring controversy
Comment: "The move places long stretches of the border under the supervision of nearby military bases, empowering U.S. troops to detain people who enter the country illegally and sidestep a law prohibiting military involvement in civilian law enforcement. It is done under the authority of the national emergency on the border declared by President Donald Trump on his first day in office."
Axios: Local officials grow wary of helping ICE detain immigrants
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/02/local-officials-ice-detain-immigrants-trump
Comment: "A growing number of local law enforcement officials are alarmed about their jails and prisons holding immigration detainees without warrants, saying it exposes their departments to legal risks."
ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos: Newlywed Palestinian woman released from ICE custody after months in detention
The Guardian: Ice raids leave crops unharvested at California farms: ‘We need the labor’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/01/ice-raids-crops-california-farms
AL.com: Alabama immigrants usually face deportation without a lawyer: ‘Huge problem’
Comment: " 'It’s a huge problem here that there aren’t enough attorneys,' said Allison Hamilton, who runs the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice. Hamilton said a lot of people are being put into expedited removal, don’t have access to due process and can’t adequately defend themselves."
"Taken together, she believes many Alabama immigrants without attorneys face an increased risk of unjust deportations."
ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos: Trump vowed to deport the 'worst of the worst' -- but new data shows a shift to also arresting non-criminals
https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-vowed-deport-worst-worst-new-data-shows/story?id=123287810
The Guardian: Two more Ice deaths put US on track for one of deadliest years in immigration detention
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/30/us-ice-detention-deaths
Comment: "Cuban person, 75, reportedly died in immigration detention last week, marking 13th migrant death in Ice jails in 2025"
Axios: Axios Explains: Inside ICE's superpowers
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/29/axios-explains-inside-ice-superpowers
Comment: "Since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created after the 9/11 attacks, its agents have operated with vastly more enforcement power, less transparency and fewer guardrails than local police."
Newsweek: Border Agents Blast Into Home With Children Inside During California Raid: Report
https://www.newsweek.com/border-agents-explosives-california-huntington-park-2092186
NPR: What is birthright citizenship and what happens after the Supreme Court ruling?
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/27/nx-s1-5448863/birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-ruling
Comment: "After the Supreme Court issued a ruling that limits the ability of federal judges to issue universal injunctions — but didn't rule on the legality of President Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship — immigrant rights groups are trying a new tactic by filing a national class action lawsuit."
"The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two immigrant rights organizations whose members include people without legal status in the U.S. who 'have had or will have children born in the United States after February 19, 2025,' according to court documents."
The Guardian: Iranian woman, who has lived in US for 47 years, taken by Ice while gardening
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/27/ice-detains-woman-iran-new-orleans
Comment: "Kashanian arrived in the US in 1978 on a student visa and later applied for asylum, citing fears of persecution due to her father’s ties to the US-backed Shah of Iran. Her asylum request was ultimately denied, but she was granted a stay of removal on the condition she comply with immigration requirements, a condition her family says she always met."
Reuters: Trump administration to end deportation relief for Haitian migrants
Largest Military Border Zone Yet to Be Created in Texas as Part of Air Force Base
Comment: "Another stretch of federal land along the Rio Grande River in South Texas is being transferred to the Air Force, creating the largest militarized border area to date as part of the Trump administration's efforts to issue harsher legal punishments to migrants who cross into the U.S."
"The new military zone is located in Cameron and Hidalgo Counties in Texas and will be transferred from land overseen by the International Boundary and Water Commission, an entity that settles boundary and water treaty issues between the U.S. and Mexico."
Comment: "Kavanagh told Military.com in an interview that she sees the expansion of the military zones as a dangerous precedent, which could pave the way for even non-federal lands to be militarized in the future."
Comment: The new military zone is quite a distance from the air force base it is supposed to be a part of. How do you feel about the military being given immigration enforcement authority in a larger portion of the United States?
Military eyes 100-mile defense zone near Yuma
https://www.azfamily.com/2025/06/27/military-eyes-100-mile-defense-zone-near-yuma/
Comment: "U.S. officials have confirmed to CNN that a 100-mile stretch of land near the Yuma border will be designated as a National Defense Area, effectively giving military personnel authority to detain migrants who cross into the zone temporarily."
Comment: How do you feel about the military being given immigration enforcement authority in a larger portion of the United States?
Florida National Guard to deploy 100 soldiers to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ to provide security - WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports | Fort Lauderdale
https://share.google/5xec3YrzNcvYz3rBH
New top Oversight Democrat: Stephen Miller ‘biggest piece of s‑‑‑’ in US
https://share.newsbreak.com/dt7n7fyr
Comment: "Rep. Robert Garcia (Calif.), the newly elected top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, laid into White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller Thursday over his support for President Trump’s robust immigration crackdown."
Stephen Miller owns stock in ICE contractor Palantir — a company powering deportations
https://share.newsbreak.com/dr39z345
Comment: "White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect of much of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda, owns up to $250,000 dollars in stock in government contractor Palantir, according to disclosures."
Comment: "In April, the firm won a $30 million Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract to deliver an operating system tracking and managing deportations, as well as granting 'near real-time visibility' on those who 'self-deport.' "
Video: Family members outraged as U.S. citizen detained by federal agents in downtown LA on way to work
https://share.newsbreak.com/dr39fyzy
The Hill: Behind the mask: What are ICE agents hiding?
https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/5366944-behind-the-mask-what-are-ice-agents-hiding/
The Guardian: The alarming rise of US officers hiding behind masks: ‘A police state’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/25/trump-administration-updates-today
NPR: What to know about 'Alligator Alcatraz,' Florida migrant detention center in progress
We asked experts whether ICE agents can arrest people without warrants or not. Here's what we learned
https://www.yahoo.com/news/asked-experts-whether-ice-agents-013000221.html
Cato Institute: 65 Percent of People Taken by ICE Had No Convictions, 93 Percent No Violent Convictions
https://www.cato.org/blog/65-people-taken-ice-had-no-convictions-93-no-violent-convictions
Comment: "ICE’s deportation agenda is not what is being advertised to the American public. ICE is not interested in prioritizing public safety, yet it constantly pretends that anyone who objects to its tactics and priorities is defending violent criminals. But violent criminals are not ICE’s primary focus. Indeed, it now has no focus altogether. That’s the essence of mass deportation: it is indiscriminate, unfocused, and chaotic."
Axios: Trump suggests farmers may get to keep undocumented workers after all
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/20/trump-immigration-raids-farms
Comment: The immigration whiplash continues. What will be the position tomorrow?
Axios: Trump's border czar: Immigration raids at farms, hotels to continue
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/trump-immigration-raids-farms-hotels-border-czar
Comment: "Following a week of immigration whiplash, President Trump's border czar Tom Homan confirmed Thursday that immigration raids will continue in the agriculture and hospitality industries."
Comment: Does anybody else think this policy will change once again, when Republican farmers and hotel owners start to complain louder about labor shortages?
Audio & Transcript: Afghan who helped U.S. military arrested by ICE after routine immigration hearing
npr.org/2025/06/19/nx-s1-5432808/afghan-who-helped-u-s-military-arrested-by-ice-after-routine-immigration-hearing https://share.google/dRvsjACfs4EanNTJn
Axios: The immigrants caring for the nation's elderly are losing their jobs
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/18/trump-immigration-nursing-homes
Comment: "The White House immigration crackdown is hitting the long-term healthcare industry, as nursing homes and care providers lose foreign-born employees and struggle to hire."
"Why it matters: These folks care for the disabled and for the country's fast-growing elderly population, and they're already in short supply."
CNN: DHS reverses course, allowing immigration raids to resume at farms, hotels, restaurants
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/17/politics/homeland-security-immigration-raids-resume
Mother Jones: Trump’s Medicaid Cuts Will Fund His Failed Border Wall
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/06/trump-medicaid-border-wall-spending-bill/
Axios: ICE is in a deep cash crisis amid the immigration crackdown
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/16/ice-cash-crisis-immigration-crackdown-trump
Comment: "President Trump's immigration crackdown is burning through cash so quickly that the agency charged with arresting, detaining and removing unauthorized immigrants could run out of money next month."
Comment: "Lawmakers say ICE's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is at risk of violating U.S. law if it continues to spend at its current pace."
"That's added urgency to calls for Congress to pass Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill,' which could direct an extra $75 billion or so to ICE over the next five years."
"It's also led some lawmakers to accuse DHS and ICE of wasting money. 'Trump's DHS is spending like drunken sailors,' said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the DHS appropriations subcommittee."
Takeaways from AP’s reporting on shuttered prisons, mass deportation push and no-bid contracts
Comment: "The Trump administration wants to increase its budgeted capacity of about 41,000 beds for detaining migrants to at least 100,000 beds and maybe — if private prison executives’ predictions are accurate — more than 150,000."
Comment: And, who is going to pay for all this?
Trump orders Ice to expand deportation of migrants - BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crk2kpk817vo
Comment: "In a post on Truth Social, Trump called on federal agencies to 'do all in their power' to deliver 'the single largest mass deportation programme in history', naming Los Angeles, Chicago and New York as specific targets."
Comment: Why do you think Trump forgot about 'red state' targets like Miami and Houston?
NBC News: After Omaha, Nebraska largest worksite immigration raid, a community works to recover
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/omaha-immigration-workplace-raid-aftermath-rcna212931
Trump pauses ICE arrests at farms, hotels and other key industries | AP News
Comment: "The shift suggests Trump's promise of mass deportations has limits if it threatens industries that rely on workers in the country illegally. Trump posted on his Truth Social site Thursday that he disapproved of how farmers and hotels were being affected."
Ice arrests of migrants with no criminal history surging under Trump | US immigration | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/14/ice-arrests-migrants-trump-figures
Comment: "Guardian analysis sharply contradicts president’s claim that officials are targeting ‘criminals’ for deportation from US"
Trump gives data of immigrant Medicaid enrollees to deportation officials | AP News
https://apnews.com/article/medicaid-deportation-immigrants-trump-4e0f979e4290a4d10a067da0acca8e22
Comment: "President Donald Trump’s administration this week provided deportation officials with personal data -- including the immigration status -- on millions of Medicaid enrollees, a move that could make it easier to locate people as part of his sweeping immigration crackdown."
Hiding in the fields - farm workers fearing deportation stay in California's shadows - BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c989zrggn14o
Routine check-ins in Alabama lead to ICE detentions, Sen. Tuberville confirms
https://www.wvtm13.com/article/ice-roundups-in-alabama-leave-family-members-distraught/65050505
Comment: "Immigration organizations call this a concerning move that sends the wrong message to those who want to follow the law and are trying to immigrate the right way."
ICE ramps up immigrant arrests in courthouses across U.S.
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/12/ice-courthouse-arrests-trump
Comment: "Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — often dressed in plainclothes — are now arresting immigrants at courthouses nationwide, sometimes moments after their hearings end."
CNBC: Trump administration tells 500,000 immigrants to 'self-deport' after revoking protections
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/12/trump-immigrants-venezeula-cuba-dhs.html
Trump administration tells migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela that their legal status is terminated | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/12/politics/migrants-cuba-venezuela-haiti-nicaragua
Comment: "The termination notice was addressed to nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who came to the United States through a Biden-era parole program."
Comment: "The Biden administration announced in 2023 that it would grant parole to qualified migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who submitted to review by authorities rather than attempting to enter the country illegally. Applicants were required to have an American sponsor or US-based sponsor who’s lawfully present in the country and clear security vetting."
Cheap milk and immigration: A blunt farmer’s uncomfortable truth about NY’s dairy industry - syracuse.com
syracuse.com https://share.google/ZTbfGQe54wQiNiHDD
Troops begin detaining immigrants in national defense zone at border in escalation of military role | AP News
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-enforcement-military-892da97c4764f93cd746a15ec37b54ca
Comment: "U.S. troops have begun directly detaining immigrants accused of trespassing on a recently designated national defense zone along the southern U.S. border, in an escalation of the military’s enforcement role, authorities said Wednesday"
NBC News: Some Los Angeles officials fear Marines' 'rules of force'
Comment: "Police and elected officials say the troops and Marines sent by the Trump administration aren't properly trained to interact with civilians. A judge will decide whether to limit their duties."
ABC News: Photos show National Guard with rifles on ICE enforcement missions
Comment: "California is suing, saying troops are engaged in illegal law enforcement."
Trump admin tells immigration judges to dismiss cases in tactic to speed up arrests
Comment: "The judges, who work for the executive branch, have been instructed to grant dismissals quickly; ICE has been arresting people after their cases are dismissed."
Politico: House appropriators decry ‘egregious’ ICE funding mismanagement
Comment: "Republicans are urging the Trump administration not to spend money it doesn’t have to fund its immigration enforcement efforts."
You won’t beat ICE with violence
Comment: "As Trump flails for a justification to turn the force of the most powerful military in the world on its own citizenry, a tiny but disproportionately destructive element of the L.A. protests is essentially acting in service of Trump’s ambitions to crush dissent."
The Guardian: Los Angeles, city of immigrant protests: why it’s no surprise LA rose up against Trump
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/11/los-angeles-protest-history
The Hill: Terminating Temporary Protected Status for Afghans is an abomination
https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/5343684-us-dhs-afghan-refugees-tps/
What happened on June 9 and 10 during the L.A. immigration raid protests
https://www.latimes.com/california/live/los-angeles-protests-immigration-raid-updates
vox.com: Trump asks the Supreme Court to neutralize the Convention Against Torture, in DHS v. D.V.D.
https://www.vox.com/scotus/416163/trump-supreme-court-deport-immigration-convention-torture
Comment: "Trump’s lawyers claim they’ve found a loophole that will allow Trump to ship immigrants overseas to be tortured."
ProPublica: Local Police Join ICE Deportation Force in Record Numbers Despite Warnings Program Lacks Oversight
https://www.propublica.org/article/ice-deportation-police-287g-program-expansion
Comment: "Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, U.S. immigration officials have deputized a record number of local police to function as deportation agents, despite repeated warnings from government watchdogs since 2018 that the program does not adequately train and oversee officers."
What really happened outside the Paramount Home Depot? The reality on the ground vs. the rhetoric
Trump administration to send national guard to Los Angeles amid Ice protests | Los Angeles | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/07/immigration-raids-los-angeles
Comment: "California governor calls move ‘purposefully inflammatory’ and says it will ‘escalate tensions’ amid immigration crackdown "
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, newly returned to US, appears in court on charges of trafficking migrants
https://abcnews.go.com/US/mistakenly-deported-kilmar-abrego-garcia-back-us-face/story?id=121333122
Comment: "The decision to pursue the indictment against Abrego Garcia led to the abrupt departure of Ben Schrader, a high-ranking federal prosecutor in Tennessee, sources briefed on Schrader's decision told ABC News. Schrader's resignation was prompted by concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons, the sources said."
Comment: " 'They'll stop at nothing at all -- even some of the most preposterous charges imaginable -- just to avoid admitting that they made a mistake, which is what everyone knows happened in this case,' said attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg."
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, wrongly deported to El Salvador, brought back to U.S. to face human smuggling charges.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kilmar-abrego-garcia-indicted-us-el-salvador/
Comment: The U.S. Justice Department will get a chance to prove its charges in court (not in exaggerated public statements from Pam Bondi), and Abrego Garcia will get a chance to defend himself in court. If the Justice Department had evidence to support its charges, why didn't it prosecute the case to begin with, rather than deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador without due process?
NPR: DHS memo details how National Guard troops will be used for immigration enforcement
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/06/nx-s1-5425421/dhs-national-guard-immigration-enforcement
Comment: "DHS officials requested 20,000 National Guard troops three weeks ago, but this memo details what duties those troops will be asked to perform."
Comment: "Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told the committee that while the service is preparing to provide the forces, he had no details on what the troops would be doing, and said he would not deploy the Guard 'for any unlawful purposes.' There are a number of unanswered questions, officials say, including whether sending troops from one state to another is lawful."
CNN: Mahmoud Khalil responds to charges against him for the first time in new legal filings, and describes the ‘irreparable harm’ of his detention
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/05/us/mahmoud-khalil-columbia-case-charges
Comment: "The declaration from Khalil comes after a New Jersey federal judge ruled last month that the government’s use of an obscure immigration law to detain and deport him is 'likely unconstitutional.' ”
Comment: " 'Why should protesting this Israel government’s indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Palestinians result in the erosion of my constitutional rights?' "
NPR: In recorded calls, reports of overcrowding and lack of food at ICE detention centers
ICE arrests record number of immigrants in single day, including hundreds at scheduled appointments
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna210817
Comment: "Many of the people arrested at appointments had been released under a program for those deemed not to be threats to public safety."
NPR: Private prisons and local jails are ramping up as ICE detention exceeds capacity
Comment: "ICE Detention is currently funded at $3.4 billion, but lawmakers in Congress have proposed increasing that number by more than tenfold. The GOP megabill, which passed the House in late May, allocates $45 billion for ICE detention. It now heads to the Senate."
US immigration officers ordered to arrest more people even without warrants
Comment: "Exclusive: Ice officers told to get ‘creative’ with arrests, including of undocumented people encountered by chance"
A sweeping new ICE operation shows how Trump's focus on immigration is reshaping federal law enforcement
Comment: "Drawing those numbers from other law enforcement agencies, though, has been a source of tension among some officials, who feel they have been taken off other core national security missions, according to three additional law enforcement and military officials."
AP News: Supreme Court to hear private prison company appeal in suit over immigration detainee $1-a-day wages
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-immigration-private-prison-be916d5e11f5b08395439d978f1659ee
ICE Officials Don’t Know Who to Arrest, Thanks to Stephen Miller
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ice-officials-don-t-know-192934472.html
Comment: "The official told the conservative outlet that Miller didn’t want ICE to narrow its field to just undocumented immigrants with criminal records. 'Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. 'Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?' ' the official recalled."
"When one ICE official pushed back against Miller’s call to widen the deportation dragnet, citing border czar Tom Homan’s claims that ICE’s deportation efforts would target criminals, the deputy chief of staff seemed confused."
US immigration authorities collecting DNA information of children in criminal database
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/31/cbp-dna-collection-children-immigrants
VIDEO: ‘Billion dollar border industrial complex’ blossoms under Trump’s deportation program - May 31, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4pQ1rf007Q
CBS News: Supreme Court will let Trump administration end program protecting 500K Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans
Trump Administration Knew Vast Majority of Venezuelans Sent to Salvadoran Prison Had Not Been Convicted of U.S. Crimes
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-el-salvador-deportees-criminal-convictions-cecot-venezuela
Commented: "Homeland Security records reveal that officials knew that more than half of the 238 deportees were labeled as having no criminal record in the U.S. and had only violated immigration laws."
NBC News: ICE releases health worker arrested at airport despite living in the U.S. legally for 50 years
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/ice-releases-health-worker-us-legally-50-years-rcna209975
CNN: Exclusive: Kristi Noem said a migrant threatened to kill Trump. Investigators think he was set up
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/29/politics/kristi-noem-migrant-arrested-threatening-trump
Axios: ICE officials ousted amid demands for more immigrant arrests
https://www.axios.com/2025/05/29/ice-firings-immigrant-arrests
House budget bill cuts benefits, raises fees tied to immigration : NPR
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/28/nx-s1-5403815/congress-reconciliation-immigrants-benefits
Scoop: Stephen Miller, Noem tell ICE to supercharge immigrant arrests
https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/immigration-ice-deportations-stephen-miller
Stephen Miller Totally Lost it and Yelled at Immigration Officials for Not Making Enough Arrests
Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem demand ICE agents increase arrests to 3,000 per day: report
https://www.yahoo.com/news/stephen-miller-kristi-noem-demand-131916023.html
NPR: Rubio says U.S. will 'aggressively' revoke visas for many Chinese students
Pentagon Diverts $1 Billion from Army Barracks to Fund Border Mission | Military.com
Comment: "The Pentagon is shifting $1 billion meant for maintaining and renovating Army barracks to instead fund its surge of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, a move that coincides with the service's gradual deprioritization of quality-of-life initiatives for soldiers."
Ethics Watchdog Raises Flags Around Border Czar's Ties to Private Detention Giant
https://share.newsbreak.com/d9v4i4ab
The Guardian: Trump administration tells border shelters helping migrants may be illegal
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/25/trump-administration-immigrants-shelters
AL.com: Alabama worker says ICE dragged him from job despite being US citizen: ‘Color of our skin has become a crime’
Maryland father mistakenly deported to Salvadoran prison really did flee to avoid MS-13 gang, his teacher and a classmate said
https://www.yahoo.com/news/maryland-father-mistakenly-deported-salvadoran-211432915.html
U.S. citizen with REAL ID handcuffed and held in immigration raid before being released
https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-citizen-real-id-handcuffed-214202859.html
Federal judge blocks immigration authorities from revoking international students' legal status | AP News
NBC News: Judge orders Trump administration to allow attorneys access to Venezuelan man in Salvadoran prison
NBC News: Supreme Court allows Trump to revoke protected status for thousands of Venezuelans
NBC News: U.S. citizen children sent with deported parents face major hurdles trying to return, advocates say
USA Today: Donald Trump slams Supreme Court ruling blocking deportation without a court hearing
AP News: Judges dismiss national security charges against immigrants who enter new militarized zone at border
https://apnews.com/article/military-trespassing-cases-dismissed-6c4a83f4d1fd9674e5b49d4a23dc91be
Exclusive: DHS civil rights office opened investigation into Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest days before office was dissolved | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/15/politics/homeland-security-mahmoud-khalil-investigation
Comment: Coincidence?
NPR: DHS asks for 20,000 National Guard troops to assist in deportations
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/15/nx-s1-5399656/national-guard-immigration
Comment: Where will the funds to pay these troops come from? Which agency or state budget?
Federal judge dismisses trespassing charges against 98 people arrested in new military buffer zone along Southwest border - ABC News
Reuters: US military zones on Mexico border sow legal confusion
Heinrich pushes Defense Secretary Hegseth for answers on NM’s new military zone • Source New Mexico
NBC News: FBI field offices ordered to shift agents to immigration crackdown
Comment: "The shift will likely reduce federal law enforcement resources devoted to counterterrorism and counterintelligence. A separate effort will reduce white-collar crime probes."
AP News: ICE head recognizes Congress’ role in visiting detention facilities, even unannounced
Comment: Has that recognition been communicated to ICE enforcement officers blocking access to the NJ facility and to Kristi Noem who "said members of Congress should have requested a tour of an immigration detention facility?"
Reuters: US homeland chief says illegal immigration levels could warrant suspending habeas corpus
Noem's claim that Afghan refugees can safely return to their Taliban-ruled homeland is 'just absurd,' advocates say
Comment: "Lawmakers, including some Republicans, said the administration was jeopardizing the lives of those who had stood by the United States.
As white South Africans arrive, Trump admin. ends temporary protected status for Afghans
DoD shifts billions from personnel and facilities accounts to fund border mission
NBC News: Immigration agents break SUV window while detaining man after church on Mother's Day
Comment: "The man who recorded the footage told Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra that he heard the mother screaming, 'He has his papers, he has his license!' "
Pentagon spent at least $21 million on flights to Guantanamo, which currently holds 32 migrants
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna206187
Comment: "Democrats condemned the Guantanamo effort as a wasteful 'political stunt' by President Donald Trump and his allies."
NPR: Aggressive immigration enforcement makes musicians rethink U.S. tours
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/g-s1-65451/international-musicians-tours-visa-issues-border-patrol
DHS terminates temporary protected status program for Afghans - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/12/temporary-protected-status-afghans-00342250
The Trump administration is chartering a plane to bring the first white South Africans to the U.S. as refugees
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-chartering-plane-bring-001830982.html
Comment: Chartering a plane to bring in white South Africans, while flying Latin American deportees out?
The Guardian: US grants asylum to 54 white Afrikaner South Africans, reports say
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/09/us-grants-asylum-to-54-white-afrikaner-south-africans
Comment: MAWA? Make America White Again?
The Hill: Trump signs executive order launching self-deportation program
Trump asks Supreme Court to allow him to end humanitarian parole for 500,000 people from 4 countries
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-asks-supreme-court-allow-172424965.html
NPR: Many Afghans living in the U.S. fear being tortured or killed if they get deported
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/07/nx-s1-5366662/afghanistan-tps-immigration-asylum-seekers
U.S. intelligence agencies contradict Trump's Tren de Aragua claims
Comment: "A declassified memo says Venezuela's government isn't orchestrating the gang's operations in the U.S., undercutting Trump's rationale for deporting immigrants to El Salvador."
NPR: Trump expands military use at the southern border. Are there legal limits?
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/06/g-s1-63778/military-border-zone-posse-comitatus-explained
‘What Are They Doing Illegal?’ Officer Says Before Arresting Pro-Palestine Students
https://www.yahoo.com/news/doing-illegal-officer-says-arresting-173638766.html
NPR: Rwanda says it's in 'early stages' of talks with U.S. to take in deported migrants
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/05/nx-s1-5387506/rwanda-talks-us-deportation-migrants
Comment: How many of the deported migrants were originally from Rwanda? !!!
Comment: "Even without the expense, critics say Rwanda's abysmal rights record under President Paul Kagame means it's no place to resettle people."
Trump administration says it'll pay immigrants in the US illegally $1,000 to leave the country
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-says-pay-immigrants-145104484.html
Comment: Before applying or self deporting, do you think it might be wise to have an immigration lawyer take a look at any written documentation that describes this offer?
Forbes: Rubio Makes Immigration Threat To Revoke Student, H-1B And Other Visas
Afghans who helped the U.S. fight the Taliban should not be deported to Afghanistan
AP News: Iranian students at the University of Alabama say immigration crackdown echoes repression at home
For News Articles links from before May 1st, 2025, please go to:
https://sites.google.com/view/dem2oldnews/home/old2-immigration-border-security
There you will find a continuation of the news links & comments from the period prior to May 1, 2025 (Including article links prior to the November 2024 election, found by clicking a second google sites website link at the end of the site referenced immediately above). The article history can be viewed as follows:
www.dalecodemocrats.com (latest)
sites.google.com/view/dem2oldnews/home/ (Nov 2024 election - April 30, 2025)
sites.google.com/view/demoldnews/home/ (Prior to 2024 election)
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse