the DON JONES INDEX…
	GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED 9/18/25... 14,910.78 9/11/25... 14,830.68 6/27/13... 15,000.00
(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 9/18/25... 46,018.32; 9/11/25... 45,490.92; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)

LESSON for SEPTEMBER 18th, 2025 – “ICE CAPADES”

All month, those ramblin’ gamblin’ men (and a few women, too) have been laying their money down on the question of which side in the ongoing American alien migrant debate will be first to use lethal violence against their enemies.

Well, the result is a split decision.

On Friday, ICE (and DHS confederates) stopped Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, described by his family as a “devoted father, cherished friend and kind soul,” on a Franklin Park street in what the Chicago Sun Times (9/12, ATTACHMENT ONE) called a “targeted law enforcement activity”.

Seńor V-G attempted to escape, driving off with the ICEman still clinging to the door and bouncing off the pavement, leading to serious injury. The officer opened fire and shot the driver, who was taken to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The officer was also taken to a hospital with “severe injuries.” His condition has stabilized, according to the statement.

“We are praying for the speedy recovery of our law enforcement officer,” a DHS spokesperson said, calling V-G an “illegal criminal alien”. “He followed his training, used appropriate force, and properly enforced the law to protect the public and law enforcement.”

That was the first known ICE-created (as opposed to -instigated fatality, as below... perhaps justified, perhaps not) of the ICE blitzkrieg bop, with its many tentacles and Cassandras...

The Resurrection Project, a community advocacy group, said that the “horrific incident in Franklin Park shows us the real danger that militarized enforcement creates in our neighborhoods.

“A community member is dead, and an officer was injured,” Erendira Rendón, a leader with the group, said in a statement. “These are outcomes that serve no public safety purpose and leave entire communities traumatized. Safe neighborhoods depend on trust, not fear. When federal agents conduct unaccountable operations in our communities, everyone becomes less safe.”

“Never in a million years did I think something like this would happen outside of my home,” said Franklin Park resident Emilio Alvarez,

The man killed by the ICE officer was known to keep to himself and was preoccupied with work and his family, his next-door neighbor said.

“He was a real quiet guy. I would just see him come from work and play with his kids,” said the neighbor, who requested his name not be published out of a fear that his Latino family would be targeted.

USA Today (ATTACHMENT TWO) cited U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials who said that the man they were attempting to arrest “ignored commands from federal agents and drove his car into an officer attempting to arrest him. The agent suffered multiple injuries and is in stable condition,” according to an agency statement. 

“We are praying for the speedy recovery of our law enforcement officer,” a DHS spokesperson said. “He followed his training, used appropriate force, and properly enforced the law to protect the public and law enforcement.”

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin condemned "(v)iral social media videos and activists” who encourage illegal aliens to resist law enforcement and not only spread misinformation, but also “undermine public safety, as well as the safety of our officers and those being apprehended."

Villegas-Gonzalez’s known criminal background included four traffic violations between 2010 and 2019—his offenses included speeding, an expired driver's license, not having insurance and not having a child restraint seat.

Manuel Antonio Cardenas, a Chicago-area attorney who represented Villegas-Gonzalez in his traffic cases, is calling for a full investigation into the fatal shooting.

Cardenas told the Chicago Sun Times: "They are vilifying him, they're making him look up to be like some monster, which he wasn't. He was just a working man. Probably got startled.

"His charges were all driving related; they were not violent crimes," Cardenas told USA TODAY.

Newsweek (9/14 ATTACHMENT THREE) reported that Villegas-Gonzalez died "shortly after he dropped off his sons at school".

The Villegas-Gonzalez family has since started a GoFundMe page, where they said: "It is cruel what ICE agents did to him shortly after he dropped off his sons at school."

Cardenas also told CBS that Villegas-Gonzalez was respectful, hardworking and willing to comply with what the court required. (ATTACHMENT FOUR)

"If he had to go to court he would go to court. If he had to pay a fine or he had to do anything the court required, he was very compliant," said Cardenas.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat believed to have Presidential ambitions in ’28, called for more "transparency" (Fox, ATTACHMENT FIVE) to which ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan pushed back on Pritzker’s comments, accusing Democrats of siding with illegal migrants over law enforcement.

"They obviously continue to take the sides of these criminal illegal aliens who put our people in harm's way," said Sheahan Tuesday on "Fox & Friends."

The dispute came as ICE expanded "Operation Midway Blitz" across Chicago and Illinois. “The effort is aimed at arresting illegal immigrants with criminal histories,” Fox reported. 

However, Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have strongly resisted the operation. 

Earlier this month, Johnson wrote on X: "Chicago doesn't want to see reckless, unconstitutional, militarized immigration enforcement in our city."

Sheahan responded that anti-ICE rhetoric makes officers’ jobs more dangerous. 

"And with the leadership of President Donald Trump and Secretary Kristi Noem, we'll continue to do this throughout the country."

While the Chicago-area killing was the first known case of an alien being murdered by ICE or other policing agencies, there have been previous deaths – declared accidental – attributed to immigration raids.

Earlier last month, the Los Angeles Times (8/15, ATTACHMENT SIX) reported on the death, Thursday. of a man hit and killed on the 210 Freeway as he tried to flee Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during a raid at a Home Depot in Monrovia.

Although Carlos Roberto Montoya, a Guatemalan national, per the vice Guatemalan consulate in Los Angeles died in traffic, not by a gunshot, the immigrant and immigrant rights community expressed “grief and outrage”.

Robert Chao Romero, a UCLA professor of Chicano studies and Monrovia resident, told the Times: “It just breaks my heart because it’s just so inhumane. These horrible, unjust ICE policies led to someone dying.”

Alien day laborers often congregate around and about lawn, garden and home improvement retailers – “police received reports at 9:43 a.m. of immigration agents approaching the Home Depot, according to Monrovia City Manager Dylan Feik, who said an officer saw possible Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the site.

“Video footage viewed by The Times showed masked men in tactical gear detaining day laborers at the home improvement store parking lot and taking them away in unmarked vehicles. The masked agents did not stay on the scene after the day laborer was struck by the vehicle on the freeway, according to a witness who spoke to The Times anonymously for fear of retaliation from his employer.”

As workers scrambled away from the agents, Montoya jumped a concrete wall and entered the eastbound 210 Freeway. “The man ran north across the freeway and was struck by a gray Ford Expedition, traveling about 50 to 60 mph in the fast lane, according to the CHP.

ICE agents “think that [Home Depot] is a good place where they can come to arrest as many people as they can and comply with their quotas, the quotas that the president, [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller are imposing on them,” said Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Earlier in July, the Times reported that Jaime Alanís Garcia, 57, was killed during an immigration raid at a farm in Ventura County while fleeing immigration agents at the Glass House Farms cannabis operation in Camarillo when he climbed atop a greenhouse and accidentally fell 30 feet, suffering catastrophic injury.

Across America, the Church Police seized upon another opportunity to proclaim that marijuana kills; and that semi-, demi- and overt legalization should be repealed with the tough Rockefeller-era penalties of decades in prison being brought back.

To the south, Harjit Kaur, a 73-year-old undocumented grandmother from El Sobrante, showed up to a regular immigration appointment this week in San Francisco, and ICE would not let her go. (September 13, ATTACHMENT SEVEN)

“(W)e didn't hear from her for hours and when we did hear from her, she was crying and begging us for help," said Sukhmeet Sandhu, her granddaughter.

In the border states from California east to Texas, ICE... bolstered by greenlighting from Federal courts, including SCOTUS... have mounted raids against schools, workplaces, government offices and, according to the liberal Guardian U.K. – hospitals.

GUK (Tuesday, ATTACHMENT EIGHT) reported that Dianne Sposito, a 69-year-old ER nurse, in Southern California was blocked from treating an immigrant “who was screaming just a few feet in front of her in the hospital.”

An Iceman – “wearing a mask, sunglasses and hat without any clear identification – brought a woman already in custody to the hospital. The patient was screaming and trying to get off the gurney, and when Sposito tried to assess her, the agent blocked her and told her not to touch the patient.”

Since the Trump administration has stepped up its arrest of immigrants at the start of the summer, nurses are seeing an increase in Ice presence at hospitals, with agents bringing in patients to facilities, said Mary Turner, president of National Nurses United, the largest organization of registered nurses in the country.

“The presence of Ice agents is very disruptive and creates an unsafe and fearful environment for patients, nurses and other staff,” Turner said.

“The federal government has aggressively responded to healthcare workers challenging the presence of immigration agents at medical facilities,” GUK reported. “The federal government has aggressively responded to healthcare workers challenging the presence of immigration agents at medical facilities. In August the US Department of Justice charged two staff members at the Ontario Advanced Surgical center in San Bernardino county in California, accusing them of assaulting federal agents while abetting the attempt of an illegal alien from Honduras to escape from migrant hunters. They go to trial October 6^th.

In Albuquerque, probation officers are being accused of colluding with ICE despite the legislature having made such practices illegal (Source New Mexico, ATTACHMENT NINE) and “luring” three probationers (two drunk drivers and a Santa Fe man who pled guilty to “battery upon a peace officer”) to state offices under false pretenses, “according to a new lawsuit from the state Ethics Commission.”

Effective July first, this year, New Mexico’s legislature passed the Nondisclosure of Sensitive Personal Information Act, which prohibits state employees from providing immigration or other sensitive personal information to anyone outside of the agency except in limited circumstances.  Probation officers have been accused of contacting ICE agents to remove “problem probationers,” which means they “committed serious criminal offenses or … are otherwise difficult to supervise.”

According to the ICE website (ATTACHMENT TEN), the 2003 Homeland Security Act “set into motion what would be the single-largest government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense” as a reaction to the Nine Eleven terror bombings two years earlier.

“One of the agencies in the new Department of Homeland Security was the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, now known as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which was subdivided into three operational directorates – “Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA). A fourth directorate – Management and Administration – supports the three operational branches to advance the ICE mission.”

In a promotional graphic on X, ICE said they enforced over 400 federal laws to “ensure public safety and national security,” with the picture showing ICE will stop the crossings of people, money, products — and ideas. The post directed people to visit the ICE website. It came a day after the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, announced it would be surveilling the social media of foreign students and immigrants applying for permanent status or other immigration benefits to the United States for alleged antisemitic activity, in a push to “protect the homeland from extremists” and “terrorist sympathizers.”

ICE told POLITICO (April 10^th, this year, ATTACHMENT ELEVEN) that the post was put up in error, and that it was drafting a new post that will include “intellectual property” — not ideas.

“We regret any confusion that this error may have caused,” ICE spokesperson Mike Alvarez said.

Before the correction, President Donald Trump and the White House repeatedly called his administration the most “transparent” in history and touted their free speech values, with the president raging at what he described as “government-sanctioned censorship during the Biden administration. But the administration has also sought to punish perceived enemies for their speech...” clashing with press and First Amendment groups, and barring The Associated Press from covering some events at the White House due to the news wire’s refusal to use the name “Gulf of America.”

And now, despite the alleged “correction”, Trump pressured CBS to cancel the often-critical Steven Colbert latenight talk/comedy show and, yesterday, raised the stakes by ordering ABC to immediately cancel competitor Jimmy Kimmel or face revocation of its license by his handpicked FCC loyalists.

While not yet subjected to criminal charges, the two clowns (as well as Trump-designated “losers” Seth Myers and the patently innocuous Jimmy Fallon), Politico also reported that he’d ordered the Department of Justice to investigate two administration aides from his first term who had been sharply critical of him. His memorandum for one of those aides, Christopher Krebs, alleges Krebs engaged in the “the censorship of disfavored speech.”

As ICE’s post gained thousands of reposts online, Democratic lawmakers started “calling out” the post.

“ICE now policing ‘ideas’ that ‘cross the border illegally,’” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) wrote on X.

Also on X, the National Coalition Against Censorship (which Politico called “a banner organization that includes groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and several labor organizations” responded that the ICE post “subverts everything our constitution stands for.

“It is breathtakingly absurd and outrageous to even suggest that ideas need to be policed.”

Researching and investigating the US government’s “chaotic mass deportation effort, including exclusive analysis of deportation flights during the first months of the (second) Trump administration,” the Guardian U.K. detailed “over 1,700 flights and passenger lists encompassing more than 44,000 people that were anonymously leaked to the Guardian in May 2025, following a hack of Global Crossing, the charter airline that provides deportation flights across and outside the US... “ the hacking group Anonymous claiming to be responsible for the breach.

“On 5 May, GlobalX confirmed in a letter to the SEC that it had learned of recent “unauthorized activity within its computer networks and systems supporting portions of its business applications”, which it determined was the result of a “cybersecurity incident”.

DHS said that immigrants in custody are informed about their transfers and allowed to contact their families throughout. “Claims that transfers of detainees are being ‘weaponized’ or ‘hidden’ are also categorically false,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs.

Through stories of individual detainees captured in the first months of Trump 2.0 – when “everything started to go topsy-turvy” and the emergence of the notoriously brutal CECOT prison in El Salvador as the final resting place of migrants from repressive governments, as in China or Venezuela, failed states (like Haiti) or unrelenting war, poverty and starvation, as in Gaza.

Deportation defenders within and without Team Trump’s orbit have countered that most of the detainees and deportees are dangerous, violent criminals.

Fox (September 13^th, ATTACHMENT TWELVE) cited a Cuban alien previously arrested for child sexual abuse, grand theft auto, false imprisonment and carjacking, and ordered sent back to Cuba – but released in the last days of the Biden administration - who then, used a machete to decapitate a man in Dallas in front of his wife and children; thereafter kicking the head around “like a soccer ball.”

DHS Assistant Sec. McLaughlin, above, said that: "This gruesome, savage slaying of a victim at a motel by Yordanis Cobos-Martinez was completely preventable if this criminal illegal alien was not released into our country by the Biden administration.

“President Trump and Secretary Noem are no longer allowing barbaric criminals to indefinitely remain in America. If you come to our country illegally, you could end up in Eswatini, Uganda, South Sudan or CECOT." 

McLaughlin spotlighted more Fox felonies – such as the June 20 shooting death of 48-year-old Santiago Lopez Morales at a Motel 6 in Garland by three illegal migrants, according to DHS taking special note that the three “depraved criminal illegal aliens from Venezuela (had been) released into the U.S. under the Biden administration and (were) now facing capital murder and robbery charges for shooting and killing a man at a motel in Dallas," (August 4^th, ATTACHMENT THIRTEEN) during a spree of murder and mayhem including a rape and robbery at a Deluxe Inn “located about a mile away from the Motel 6” as well as many as 25 other robberies... many against prostitutes, less likely to inform the police.

And a dispatch from the DHS Website (Yesterday, ATTACHMENT FOURTEEN) reported that ICE was only snatching up the “worst of the worst” such as “alien pedophiles convicted of horrific crimes against children” and spotlighting culprits from Mexico and Guatemala – arrested in Texas, Massachusetts, California, New York and North Carolina... with McLaughlin specifically pointing out that ICE “... will continue to prioritize the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes, ensuring our children are protected and justice is served.”

Differing views (ATTACHMENT FOURTEEN, “A” and “B”) on whether the majority of those detained by ICE had crossed the border to rob, rape and kill, or just find jobs, homes, maybe raise families, were set forth by the Center for Immigration Studies who demanded that the “libertarians and progressives who created and purveyed the citizen-versus-illegals crime-rate comparison debate” should be called out and, perhaps, themselves prosecuted as opposed to a genuine libertarian peanut from CATO who denounced a MAGAnut’s contention that “brushed aside” empirical evidence on alien criminality when he blamed the “elite press” riding to Biden's defense – contending that the poster was “still imagining a migrant crime spree.”

Newsweek, following the latter path (yesterday, ATTACHMENT FIFTEEN), profiled a home alone Guatemalan migrant teenager – set to graduate from Roosevelt High School in Long Island last June (at taxpayer expense, deport advocates will note) but detained by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and transferred to Texas before the ceremony, local news station WABC reported.

“Valesquez, who does not have a criminal record, agreed to self-deport during a virtual hearing on Tuesday, according to WABC.”

His attorney, Pallvi Babbar, told the station that while he entered the country unlawfully, he went through the courts and was granted deferred action.

"He wasn't doing anything wrong. He was in the car with his guardian, going back from the grocery store," Babbar said.

McLaughlin wrote in a statement to Newsweek that: "Alvaro Castro-Velasquez is an illegal alien from Guatemala who illegally crossed the southern border and was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol May 6, 2022. Castro was released into our country by the Biden administration.ICE arrested Castro June 1 pursuant to a warrant of arrest. He is in ICE custody and undergoing removal proceedings.

"Secretary Noem is reversing Biden's catch and release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets. This Administration is once again implementing the rule of law."

Jessica Harrison, who taught social studies at Roosevelt High School, told WABC: "He was so wonderful. He was the student that every teacher would dream to have."

And, also yesterday, the financial journal Forbes reported that those awful alien adventurers will be facing a new chunk of ICE... a robot capable of opening doors, climbing stairs, navigating obstacles, opening doors with its “rotating claw arm” that also contains a camera and chemical grenade launcher. and firing off smoke bombs during house raids.

And it’s not even Made in America! “The deal is with Ottawa, Canada-based company Icor Technology, which was founded in 2005 and was acquired last year by public safety-focused Cadre Holdings for $38 million, after securing contracts with police departments and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and at least 40 other countries, according to local reports.” (ATTACHMENT SIXTEEN)

Forbes also noted other hi-tech devices with which ICE, police and private perpetrators can purchase and direct against their enemies.

“This is what happens when Congress writes ICE a blank check, they waste even more money on these Orwellian gadgets,” said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.

“The idea of human agents breaking down our doors is terrifying enough, but adding this army of robot ICE agents will only make a creepy nightmare even worse.”

Once rounded up by men, machines or cyborgs, most of the unwanted migrants not deported to CECOT, Somalia or Eswatini are being “shuttled around the US in irregular and unprecedented ways,” according to the findings of a Guardian U.K. investigation, in effect vanishing people into a “purgatory” that – say the liberals – denies them “constitutionally-protected rights.” (September 10^th, ATTACHMENT SEVENTEEN)

GUK observed that, during more than 1,700 deportation flights described as often “long, with multiple legs and layovers, the airline “transported nearly 1,000 children, including nearly 500 children under the age of 10, and 22 infants.”

Along their journeys, immigrants said that they were “repeatedly kept in the dark about where they were going.” Some said they were threatened by immigration agents with long-distance transfers and separation from their families if they did not accept voluntary deportation.

“It just seems so fundamentally inhumane,” said Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, a non-profit legal advocacy group. “The administration is using the system to make it as prohibitively cruel as it possibly can for the people going through.”

“GlobalX, a Miami-based charter airline, has become a crucial tool of the US deportation machine – operating more than half of Ice deportation flights in 2024 and 2025. The company, which had initially marketed itself to sports teams and rock bands seeking to travel in luxury, now earns most of its revenue from its Ice contract...” and is clearly saving money on the splendiferousness.

The ICE migrant hunt has been a great success – so successful that, as Politico reported (Sept. 12, ATTACHMENT NINETEEN), the gumment is running out of detention beds (or, in some cases, floor spaces).

“We’re almost at capacity,” White House border czar Tom Homan told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. But “we got beds coming online every day.”

While ICE continues to fall short of the White House’s goal of 3,000 daily immigration-related arrests, “...we don’t have the bed space to support all the arrests,” said an administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

As of late August, there were more than 61,000 people in long-term detention. The government has fewer than 65,000 beds, according to the administration official.

ICE was holding around 39,000 detainees in the final days of the Biden administration.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the agency, “in mere weeks” has “greatly expanded detention space by working with our state partners” — pointing to “Louisiana Lockup” and “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot” in Florida. Still, DHS is having to scrounge around for soft-sided tent facilities and use vacant and local prisons to hold detainees.

So DHS is hoping that enough illegal aliens will “self- deport” that existing prison space can accommodate the migrants.

The problem is that so many of the countries from which people are escaping are dangerous to life, limb and, of course, stomach.

For at least three years, Haiti's capital city of Port-au-Prince... for example... has been overrun by armed gangs, and political turmoil has extended into many of the Caribbean nation's villages and towns. United Nations officials said in July that the country "nears collapse" and Haitians face a national humanitarian crisis.

More than 500,000 Haitians in the United States are living and working legally in offices, hospitals, nursing homes, hotels and factories under a Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, that is soon to disappear.

The U.S. State Department still warns American citizens to stay away from Haiti, "due to kidnapping, crime, terrorist activity, civil unrest, and limited health care."

But the Trump administration said the situation has improved enough in Haiti that the temporary program is no longer necessary.

“What are they going home to?" asks Yolette Williams, executive director of The Haitian American Alliance of New York, a nonprofit volunteer organization.

“Folks are not doing well,” she said.

Some Haitians living under TPS aren’t leaving their homes, afraid to go to work, church and school, activists said. Families are weighing their limited options. Some are considering moving to Canada, which has an asylum process for Haitian refugees.

“People are doing a lot of praying,” Williams said. “People are looking for a miracle.”

In America, local economies are facing troubles... a shortage of workers in key industries as the Trump administration “has increasingly targeted worksites for immigration raids, picking up delivery drivers, street vendors, farmworkers, meatpackers, and others working in industries across the country,” according to the American Immigration Council (ATTACHMENT TWENTY ONE)

Reporting on business bustups from meatpackers in Iowa and Nebraska to retailers in Florida and California to a warehouse in New Jersey and dairy farm in New Mexico, AIC contends that enterprises are hurting and some are going out of business.

“Should these operations continue unabated over the next three and a half years,” stated AIC, “the situation could become far worse for the nation as a whole.”

The official ICE website, contending that conditions (if not specifics) have existed for “more than 200 years” (without mentioning Native American concerns about untrammeled immigration), dates Modern Ice to the March 2003, when the Homeland Security Act set into motion what would be the single-largest government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense. (ATTACHMENT TWENTY TWO)

A potential economic boom has gone bust after the raid on the Hyundai factory in Georgia, K-Popped planned SoKo investments in the U.S.A.

“This is going to give us minimum two to three months delay, because now all these people want to get back [to South Korea],” Hyundai CEO José Muñoz told reporters (including Elizabeth Crisp of The Hill on nine eleven: ATTACHMENT TWENTY THREE).

More than 300 South Korean hostages were released from U.S. custody and are expected to arrive back in their home country on Friday, according to the nation’s foreign ministry.

“I’m really worried about that incident and we’re really glad they’re returning home safely,” he said. “Our government and the U.S. government are working closely, and the visa regulation is very complicated. I hope we can make it, together, a better system.”

“Nobody is going to stay and work when it’s like this,” South Korean engineer Jang Young-seol told Reuters as picked up by Time (Sept. 15^th, ATTACHMENT TWENTY FOUR)

Experts told TIME that Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown was butting heads with his push to attract foreign investment and bring manufacturing back to the U.S. The Hyundai-LG battery plant, expected to create thousands of American jobs, faces a startup delay of at least two to three months as a result of the raid and the locked-up workers have complained of “being kept in cramped and unsanitary conditions while being given little explanation for their detentions.”

Workers were initially kept in five temporary 72-person cells, according to an anonymous diary, “that were so cold that the detainees wrapped themselves in towels. The facility reportedly did not have a clock, and the mattresses were moldy.” The SoKo daily newspaper Hankyoreh “reported that the detainees’ waists and hands were tied, which forced them to bend down and lick in order to drink water. Toilets were reportedly not covered, so the workers had to use a small sheet to cover themselves. Workers told the newspaper there was just a fist-sized hole for sunlight to come through.”

“We’re in an age of new normal in dealing with the United States,” Presidential Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik told reporters. “The standard changes every time and constantly there has to be deal-making.”

“I don’t want to frighten off or disincentivize Investment into America by outside Countries or Companies,” Trump subsequently excused himself.

“This issue could have a considerable impact on foreign direct investment in the US,” warned SoKo President Lee Jae Myung, “We are urging the US side to normalize the visa process,” (CNN, ATTACHMENT TWENTY FIVE)

“It was like ‘a slap in the face’ moment,” Choi Jong Kun, South Korea’s former First Vice Foreign Minister, told CNN.

American workers and job seekers are also on the firing line from coast to coast.

The ICE storm continues in and around Washington, where agents chased immigrants into the CIA compound... “attempting to scale fences around the spy agency’s headquarters,” according to NBC (Sept. 10^th, ATTACHMENT TWENTY SIX)

During one of many traffic stops conducted by the migrant hungers, two cars were stoped and “the occupants panicked at the sight of law enforcement presence and fled onto CIA property,” a DHS statement said.

“As a precaution, the CIA temporarily shut down access to the agency to check whether the perimeter of the campus was secure. The people who tried to scale the fences did not breach headquarters security or pose any threat,” but the incident “caused a traffic jam outside its complex in Langley, Virginia,”

President Trump imposed a thirty day takeover period for Washington D.C. and, although crime went down, the results did not satisfy him – so he extended it. (Independent U.K., Monday, ATTACHMENT TWENTY SEVEN)

“Taking to Truth Social, the president claimed his recent deployment of the National Guard had led to “virtually no crime” in Washington, according to Sam Rkaina of IUK..

But he warned that pushing back against ICE anti-immigration raids in D.C. would see crime “roaring back” and attacked Mayor Muriel Bowser in a new social media post.

Trump’s 30-day emergency declaration to federalize the district’s police force expired last week, with the administration celebrating it as a success.

Bowser, reading the numbers (violent crime dropping 39% during the surge, homicides 53% and carjackings 87%) called the surge “important to us” even as the corollary ICE crackdown was reportedly driving child care workers (immigrants comprising forty percent) underground – leaving working parents, mostly middle and upper income and many employed by now-strained Federal agencies – stranded.

Where childcare workers do report to work, many cannot take the kids outside for fear of ICE (19^th News, September 11^th, ATTACHMENT TWENTY EIGHT).

The Multicultural Spanish Speaking Providers Association in D.C., which works with Latina child care providers, has seen this panic first hand for the past couple of weeks as more and more Latinas in child care have stopped coming into work.

“There is a shortage — and now even more,” said program coordinator Blanca Huezo. “There are many centers where nearly 99 percent of teachers are of Hispanic origin.” 

Washington, D.C., has been a sanctuary city since 2020, where law enforcement cooperation with immigration officials was broadly prohibited. Earlier this year, however, Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed repealing that law and, in mid-August, Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department Police Chief Pamela Smith gave officers leeway to share information with ICE about individuals they arrested or stopped. 

“Child care centers are also no longer off limits for ICE raids. The centers were previously protected under a “sensitive locations” directive that advised ICE to not conduct enforcement in places like schools and day cares. But Trump removed that protection on his first day in office. While reports have not yet surfaced of raids in day cares, ICE presence near child care care centers, including in D.C., has been reported.” 

“Thalia”, a teacher at a day care, said her coworkers have stopped coming to wor or riding the Metro because ICE agents, their faces covered, are often at the exits.

“They are hunting us,” she said.

Slowely swelling out of the nation’s capital (which, being under Federal, as opposed to state law, poses less of a legal challenge to the authorities)

About 872,000 immigrants live in Virginia, which ranks among the top ten for immigration arrests per capita, with roughly 490 arrests for every 100,000 documented and undocumented immigrants from January through July.

“ICE has, in some cases, arrested lawful permanent residents and even some U.S. citizens who were later released.” (Virginia Public Media, September 11^th, ATTACHMENT TWENTY NINE)

“Most immigrants arrested in Virginia have not been convicted of any crimes and do not have pending criminal charges,” VPM reported. “About 29% of all those arrested by ICE in the state between January and July had convictions, and less than 16% had pending criminal charges.

Stories of stalking, arrests and deportations abound.

In border state Texas, KXAN News reported that a dog handler in the capital, Austin, was among those snatched up by ICE during a routine check-in, according to his attorney. (September 15, ATTACHMENT THIRTY)

Seyre ‘Mussa’ Traore, a native of Mauritania in West Africa who has no criminal history and had a work permit as he awaited date in court next year had entered the country illegally, but had legal documentation to stay in the country, as an asylum seeker.

While fewer citizens accused of aiding and abetting criminal migrants are being prosecuted, some report being persecuted. Maricopa County Republican chairwoman Lisa Everett, after visiting Arizona’s Eloy Detention Center, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement “stashes people for deportation” (Phoenix New Times, September 15^th, ATTACHMENT THIRTY ONE), on behalf of Kelly Yu, owner of Kawaii Sushi and Asian Cuisine diners in Glendale and Peoria. Yu, who fled China as a pregnant 18-year-old before settling in Arizona, has been in ICE custody since May... her daughter is a U.S. citizen and she is married to another. Despite that, she has a standing removal order and could be deported to China any day.

“I am all for getting the worst-of-the-worst out of here,” the (presumably former Trump supporter) said, quoting Donald Trump’s often-used pledge. “I am not in favor of separating good people from their family.”

Outraged, the Maricopa County Republican Committee censured her for advocating for Yu’s release... on Sept. 2, the MCRC approved the censure by a 23-6 vote for defying the Trump administration’s immigration policy, “bring(ing) scrutiny and criticism on the party” and called for her resignation, which Everett “has no intention of providing” despite ongoing harassment, even “escalating into physical assault”.

“I’m not understanding how deporting Kelly Yu is going to help America. I only see it hurting America,” she said. “I’m not going to step down.

“I am going to stand up for what is right,” Everett told New Times. “Even when it’s hard.”

Everett’s categorization of Eloy as “a place designed to strip humanity away” resonates in California – where the Fresno Bee’s Melissa Montalvo said the state’s largest ICE detention facility with 500 detainees is in its own state of “total chaos.” (September 15^th, ATTACHMENT THIRTY TWO)

Immigration advocates and lawyers say Tennessee-based private prison operator CoreCivic flouted state laws and California City municipal code in its rapid pursuit to open the 2,560 bed, 70-acre detention center

“California City Mayor Marquette Hawkins has repeatedly said there isn’t much the city can do to stop the project,” Montalvo wrote, adding that the project “is also expected to bring hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue to the city.”

“From what I saw,” Hawkins said, “the conditions look humane.” Community groups painted a different picture – citing a staffing shortage compelling jailors to work “16 to 18 hour shifts per day”, a chaotic opening with unexpected transfers from other Kern County detention facilities and delays in fulfilling detainees’ medications to treate inmate ills – including “high blood pressure and psychiatric conditions.”

After pacifying Washington, President Trump, ICE, DHS, the National Guard and partisan political spin doctors had planned to pacify Chicago through “Operation Midway Blitz” in honor of slain Katie Abraham – but more complications ensued.

The mission (honoring Abraham, who was killed in a drunk-driving hit-and-run car wreck caused by criminal illegal immigrant Julio Cucul-Bol began promisingly... “several” dangerous criminal illegal immigrants in the sanctuary city of Chicago being arrested for “heinous crimes such as sexually assaulting a child family member, rape, armed robbery and domestic battery.” 

"In just the last few days in Chicago, ICE has arrested pedophiles, rapists, abusers, armed robbers, and other violent thugs," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. "These are the criminal illegal aliens Governor Pritzker, Mayor Johnson, and their fellow sanctuary politicians protect over the law-abiding American citizens." (Fox, September 11^th, ATTACHMENT THIRTY THREE)

Decrying the “sanctuary city” policies in blue states, McLaughlin stated that: "President Trump and Secretary Noem have a clear message: no city is a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens. If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return." 

Fox then doubled down on sanctuary city idiocy – recounting the story of a maximum security prison outside Chicago that declined to honor a federal detainer. (September 16^th, ATTACHMENT THIRTY FOUR)

Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, Illinois, released Aldo Salazar Bahena in line with Illinois sanctuary policies, and it took three days for ICE to find and arrest him themselves.

The convict, “jailed in connection with the 2005 murder of Fernando Diaz Jr., who was accused of making disparaging comments about Salazar Bahena’s "Larazo" gang” had been locked up for about 20 years “but was released despite a 2016 order of removal signed by an immigration judge from the Justice Department.”

Aiding ICE’s Operation Midway Blitz, resources from Border Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino’s Operation At-Large... utilized in Los Angeles in August... released a video of their vehicles rolling northbound on the Barack Obama Expressway (I-55) toward the Windy City.

"Well, Chicago, we’ve arrived," Bovino said. "We are already going hard this morning!!! Many arrests," he told Fox News,

Residents of suburban Elgin were awoken just before 6 a.m. Tuesday as helicopters buzzed overhead and federal agents entered a home in the 900 block of Chippewa Drive.

“This helicopter kept circling over and over again, spotlight shining down on a certain area,” witness Nick Hurst said. “My natural reaction was ‘alright, at this point this is probably some high-profile case, maybe they caught a serial killer.’”

Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem posted a video on her social media feeds of the raid Tuesday morning, with three men, all of whom were allegedly undocumented immigrants, taken into custody from the rental property in the neighborhood. (NBC, ATTACHMENT THIRTY FIVE)

Ismael Cordova-Clough, an advocate for Casa DuPage, responded to the scene of the enforcement action.

“I see the door broken, and I hear them screaming in Spanish, telling them to ‘get out, otherwise they will come in with deadly force,’ things like that,” Cordova-Clough said. “Then I see them come out, one by one.”

Newsweek (ATTACHMENT THIRTY SIX) cited a CBS report that two of those arrested in Elgin turned out to be U.S. citizens... which report DHS denied, insisting that: "No U.S. citizen was arrested, they were briefly held for their and officers' safety while the operation in the house was under way. This is standard protocol."

The HomeSecSec reminded America of the deadly incident in Franklin Park (above) where Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was killed by “a brave ICE officer was dragged many yards by a car after a criminal illegal alien resisted arrest. His life was put at risk and he sustained serious injuries. President Trump has been clear: if politicians will not put the safety of their citizens first, this administration will. I was on the ground in Chicago today to make clear we are not backing down. Just this morning, DHS took violent offenders off the streets with arrests for assault, DUI, and felony stalking. Our work is only beginning."

“Noem's presence on an early morning enforcement action underscores the heightened federal focus on immigration enforcement in the Chicago metropolitan area and the political salience of those operations,” Newsweek’s Martha McHardy reported. “The homeland security secretary has become the face of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, making numerous public appearances and frequently attending ICE raids around the country.”

Illinois State Sen. Cristina Castro expressed anger that Noem’s presence for the raid, saying that Homeland Security officials are sowing fear within communities without just cause.

“She can go to hell,” she said. “Don’t come to my community. Go to hell.”

Gov. Pritzker (above) said that Trump’s inconsistent invasion policies make it “hard to believe anything he says... adding: “I think he might be suffering from some dementia, you know?"

“President Trump has been clear: if politicians will not put the safety of their citizens first, this administration will,” Noem responded. “I was on the ground in Chicago today to make clear we are not backing down.”

Well – perhaps not backing down but, certainly (in the realm of public releations), backing off.

Fed up with the bothersome Bowser and prickly Pritzkin, the President chose not to Kimmel the popular pols in their own back yard and, instead, deploy some of his resources elsewhere... notably Memphis (with the support of Tennessee Governor Bill Lee).

Trump said he “would have preferred” sending federal law enforcement into Chicago, something he had mused about for weeks. But city and state officials there had aggressively pushed back, raising the prospect of a drawn-out legal battle over a National Guard deployment.

“We’re going to Memphis. Memphis is deeply troubled,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends.”

“And the mayor is happy. He’s a Democrat mayor. The mayor is happy. And the governor, Tennessee, the governor is happy,” Trump added.

Actually, reported the Hill (September 12, ATTACHMENT THIRTY SEVEN) Memphis Mayor Paul Young (D) simply said that he was “...committed to working to ensure any efforts to strengthen our community and build on our progress.”

Speaking to Fox and Friends, Trump recalled a conversation with “the head of a big big railroad,” who had allegedly told him that there was trouble in Memphis. “I asked him ‘So what do you think? where should we go next as a city?’ because we’re gonna do one, two, three, then maybe we’ll do a few at a time but we’re gonna straighten out the crime in these cities,” he said.

“He said ‘Sir, Memphis would be good… when I walk one block from my hotel they won’t allow me to do it. They put me in an armored vehicle with bulletproof glass to take me one block, it’s so terrible.’” (Independent U.K., ATTACHMENT THIRTY EIGHT)

In a statement to The Independent, Tennessee Governor Lee said that he had been in close and constant communication with the Trump administration “for months” and was “grateful for the President’s unwavering support and commitment to providing every resource necessary to serve Memphians.”

Lee’s statement added that he was working to develop a “multi-phased, strategic plan to combat crime in Memphis, leveraging the full extent of both federal and state resources,” which would include the involvement of the state National Guard, FBI, Tennessee Highway Patrol and Memphis Police Department.

“As one of America’s world-class cities, Memphis remains on a path to greatness, and we are not going to let anything hold them back,” the statement said.

The president’s announcement comes less than a week after Trump back-pedaled on a bizarre Truth Social post, in which he seemed to suggest that his administration was going to war with Chicago. “‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning…’ Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” the post read.

Trump later downplayed the language he had used, telling reporters: “We’re not going to war. We’re going to clean up our cities.”

That other U.K. weekly, GUK, (ATTACHMENT THIRTY NINE) cited the President’s assertion that “law enforcement agents from agencies including the FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE and Homeland Security will join the National Guard in Memphis.”

Contra the Hill, Time reported that... after Trump indicated his plans to send the National Guard to the city last week... that he was “certainly not happy” about the deployment and that his administration would “do all that we can to make sure that it has limited impact on our community.” (September 15, ATTACHMENT FORTY)

As for Chicago, the President insisted that he would escalate his efforts once all the legal folderol had been resolved... even if it went to his own pet SCOTUS.

“We’re going to be doing Chicago, probably next,” Trump promised in the Oval Office on Monday, adding “we’re going to go big.” He later stated that “we’ll get to St. Louis.”

”We’re not going to let this savagery destroy our county any more,” Trump said, after reciting statistics about crime in Memphis. 

Another blue state endeavor reaped much the same response as Chicago... litigation and protests as ICE-haters and authorities squared off in Portland, Oregon where “what appeared to be pepper balls” rained down on the protest people “from officers posted on the building's roof.” (IUK, September 12, ATTACHMENT FORTY ONE)

Last week, Trump described living in Portland as “like living in hell” and said he was considering sending in federal troops, as he has recently threatened to do to combat crime in other cities, including Chicago and Baltimore.

The nighttime protests peaked in June after the nationwide “No Kings” marches, when Portland police declared one demonstration a riot. Since then, at least 26 protesters have been charged with federal offenses tied to the ICE building, including assaulting federal officers, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon.

“Like other mayors across the country, I have not asked for – and do not need – federal intervention," Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement following Trump's threat. The city has protected freedom of expression while “addressing occasional violence and property destruction,” he said.

“There’s a propaganda campaign to make it look like Portland is a hellscape,” said Casey Leger, 61, who often sits outside the ICE building trying to observe immigration detainee transfers. “Two blocks away you can just go to the river and sit and sip a soda and watch the birds.”

In another blue sanctuary city, 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.

Just north of Boston, the city of Everett canceled its annual Hispanic Heritage Month festival after its mayor said it wouldn't be right to "hold a celebration at a time when community members may not feel safe attending.” (ABC, September 16, ATTACHMENT FORTY TWO)

While New Hampshire Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed legislation this year banning sanctuary city policies in her state, vowing not to let New Hampshire “go the way of Massachusetts," Elizabeth Sweet, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said that the raids were “...really increasing the fear in communities, which is already incredibly high.”

Now, ICE has launched an operation it called “Patriot 2.0" on the heels of a May crackdown where nearly 1,500 immigrants were detained in Massachusetts. Its latest operation came days before a preliminary mayoral election, where incumbent Michelle Wu won easily. “The mayor has become a frequent target over her defense of the city and its so-called sanctuary policies,” ABC reported, and added that the U.S. Department of Justice on Sept. 4 filed a lawsuit against Wu, the city of Boston and its police department over its sanctuary city policies, claiming that they were “interfering with immigration enforcement.”

In response, Wu accused Trump of “attacking cities to hide his administration’s failures.”

“Sanctuary policies like those pushed by Mayor Wu not only attract and harbor criminals but protect them at the peril of law-abiding American citizens," said McLaughlin (above) in a press release early last week, “which detailed the arrest of seven individuals by ICE, including a 38-year-old man from Guatemala who had previously been arrested on assault-related charges.”

"We stand ready to charge individuals who violate all federal laws, including those who enter our country without authorization after being deported and those who assault federal law enforcement officers or impede or interfere with federal officers doing their jobs," she said in a statement to the AP.

In Milford, on Boston’s southern border, ICE has been rounding up teenagers – including an 18-year-old in May and a 16-year-old earlier in September.

Friends of the detained teenager shared their distress over the incident.

“He told me that he was really scared and that he was crying,” Andrey Defreitas told Boston 25 News. (ATTACHMENT FORTY THREE)

“He’s scared to even go on the streets now cause he’s scared that ICE might get him, so I think ICE should not even get near kids at all,” Thiago Fernandes added.

And Connie Paige, a Milford resident, expressed her concerns, saying: “I’m very disturbed by these ICE raids. I think that they have been targeting anyone that doesn’t look white like me.”

“I just think it’s despicable and I think it’s unconstitutional and I wish the federal government would change its policies,” said Paige.

Even in red states, ethnic, cultural and partisan political complications are endemic – heightened even more in New Orleans, where Bobbi-Jean Misick of Verite News published stories from migrants and their supporters in the Big Easy (ATTACHMENT FORTY FOUR) – many of whom came in search of construction jobs in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

“Olga” an undocumented immigrant from Veracruz, Mexico who asked that her full name not be published — arrived in New Orleans in January 2006 hoping to find work. There was plenty to be found... “Olga found jobs clearing out rotting furniture, deceased pets and damaged memories from people’s homes. She also worked on demolitions.”

“Hispanic residents represent one area of growth in an otherwise shrinking region,” Verite reported. “In the past two decades, the Hispanic population in the metro area grew by about 80,000 — going from 5% of the area population in 2000 to about 14% as of last year — adding to the local labor force, boosting local entrepreneurship and contributing to local tax revenues.”

Despite poor living and working conditions and fighting for proper compensation, Olga said she never considered leaving New Orleans. She was determined to create opportunities for her family in Mexico. “She said her work has paid for her children’s education. Her eldest daughter is now a biologist. Her other daughter is a sommelier, and her son earned a law degree before joining his mother in the U.S. She also paid for a house in Mexico, where her daughter and grandchildren live.”

Other migrants Verite interviewed came from Honduras, Argentina and “Olga” admonished President Trump, DHS and ICE: “Don’t treat us as criminals. We are essential workers. We are hardworking people. We try and help the community rebuild, develop and flourish,” Olga said. “We’ve been here for you through all of this. … Help us to at least be able to live with certitude that will be able to make it home safely without being hunted down.”

Many of those migrants hunted down and captured by ICE and other gumment agencies wind up in the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile and many of these are housed in tiny solitary placement cells that, migrant advocaty groups contend, are harmful to their physical and mental health.

From December 2024 to the end of August, the number of people who spent at least a day in solitary increased by 41%, according to an analysis by The Marshall Project and Univision. (ATTACHMENT FORTY FIVE). “August was the peak, with over 1,100 placements in segregation that month.”

Through a series of charts and graphs (see here), Marshall tracked the prison population in ICE detention – which increased 56% from December 29, 2024 to August 24 – “speaking with 10 people held in solitary confinement in ICE centers in Florida, Louisiana, Arizona and Washington, or their relatives and others representing them. Some people said they were held in isolation for protesting against their detention, arguing with officers or refusing to have their blood drawn. They also included a person recovering from surgery who was taken to solitary instead of a medical unit for hours on a weekly basis. One was detained with a second person in the segregation cell.”

“Solitary confinement is perhaps the most punitive practice that exists in carceral settings, and it’s being used in immigration detention in very similar ways,” said Caitlin Patler, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley who has studied ICE’s use of isolation.

Faviola Salinas Zaraté still has nightmares about the Louisiana detention center where she said she was locked in a windowless isolation cell with a broken toilet for almost two months. In her dreams, the lights go out and no one saves her, even as she screams “Help!”

Salinas, a mother of three from Oaxaca, Mexico, said she was suffering from postpartum depression when she was detained in February, three months after the birth of her youngest child.

Salinas described her isolation cell to Marshall as a roughly 20-square-foot space with no windows. “The bed — a metal slab with a mattress — sat next to a stainless steel toilet and sink. The toilet didn’t work, Salinas said, so her waste piled up in the bowl. She began urinating into a drain in the floor. When that filled up, she would use her uniform to mop the floor, then rinse it in the sink.”

The temperature inside the cell also wore her down. “Sometimes they gave me blankets, sometimes they didn’t,” she said. “It was so cold I tore open the mattress and crawled inside it like a blanket.” After that, Salinas said guards took the mattress away. For the next week, she slept on the bare metal slab.

Daniel López, a Mexican immigrant, said he was punished with a month in segregation, including about 20 days with a cellmate, at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington — for speaking out against his and other detainees’ detention and submitting petitions on their behalf. López said he and others were calling for ICE to release them to continue their immigration cases outside detention, and for the agency to address the prolonged detention of some people awaiting deportation.

“It’s not right to punish people just because we’re immigrants, and we raised our voices,” López said in Spanish during an August phone call from the detention center.

Even in deep, deep red Alabama ICE-trocities are engendering protests!

Residents of Huntsville... touted as the Rocket City and, soon, headquarters of the Space Force which President Trump has pulled away from Democratic Colorado... staged a protest on the steps of City Hall on last week, with many of the participants later addressing the Huntsville City Council. (AL.com, ATTACHMENT FORTY SIX)

They asked council members to pass a resolution barring the city from any agreement that would grant federal civil immigration enforcement authority to police officers or detain or facilitate the detention of immigrants for federal immigration enforcement purposes.

“This administration promised they would be picking up the worst of the worst,” Meg Hereford said in response to stories such as the one about Solano. “That is not what is happening. We all know that. We all see that. I want our city officials to not let Huntsville fall into that trap. We’re a good, peaceful law-abiding city and county. I don’t want to see us going down that road.”

“These are not criminals,” added retired teacher Donna Payne. “Of course, we don’t want criminals loose. These are hardworking people, trying to make a living. They care for their families. It’s outrageous. But the worst of it all is people who are picked up when they are going to their appointments for their hearings. They’re trying to do the right thing. I just don’t understand it. We’re not treating people humanely.”

“We essentially now have secret police,” Larisa Thomason told AL.com. “That’s not due process. That’s not the Bill of Rights. It’s wrong. I’m an old white lady. I can come out and hold my sign without somebody asking ‘show me your papers.’ ”

Google’s AI Overview of ICE protests (ATTACHMENT FORTY SEVEN) contends that demonstrations “have seen both peaceful marches and violent clashes with federal and local law enforcement.”

They referenced the Hyundai incident (above) and a Guardian U.K. study of migrants consigned to solitary confinement that concurs with the Marshall findings (also above). “ICE placed over 10,000 individuals in solitary confinement in the year leading up to September 2025. This practice, particularly for vulnerable people, has been condemned by human rights groups.”

Google’s newsbots also took note of the legal issues – including Federal judges ruling against ICE... some of which were overturned by SCOTUS earlier this month.

One yet to be resolved... after President Trump engineered the cancellation of Steven Colbert but before the firing of Jimmy Kimmel... concerns media lawsuits filed against the Los Angeles Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security over officers' treatment of journalists.

U.S. District Judge Hernan D. Vera's preliminary injunctions bar, among other actions, the police department from arresting journalists for failing to disperse or otherwise interfering with journalists' ability to cover Los Angeles protests. The DHS officers are also barred from "dispersing, threatening, or assaulting" journalists who haven't "committed a crime unrelated to failing to obey a dispersal order."

Vera wrote that federal officers "indiscriminate use of force ... will undoubtedly chill the media's efforts" to cover protests and that the police department violated both state and federal law.

In granting the motion in the DHS case, Vera said federal officers “unleashed crowd control weapons indiscriminately and with surprising savagery” during the protests.

“Specifically, the Court concludes that federal agents’ indiscriminate use of force ... will undoubtedly chill the media’s efforts to cover these public events and protestors seeking to express peacefully their views on national policies,” Vera wrote. (USA Today, ATTACHMENT FORTY EIGHT)

He went on to condemn individuals who engaged in violent action during such protests, but said “the actions of a relative few does not give DHS carte blanche to unleash near-lethal force on crowds of third parties in the vicinity.”

"There's an old line in policing: We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way,” Adam Rose, press rights chair of the Los Angeles Press Club, said in a news release following the rulings that reverse-mirrored anticipated threats against FCC broadcast licenses issued yesterday.

Another issue probably headed to the Supremes is the California legislation that would bar most law enforcement officers from covering their faces while interacting with the public, “a direct response to immigration raids by masked agents who have been difficult to identify.” (New York Times, ATTACHMENT FORTY NINE)

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsome said he was still researching the legality of the legislation, saying that officers may need masks to protect their safety in limited circumstances, but that he thought it was “insane” how widespread the practice had become. The governor has until Oct. 12 to act on the legislation.

“We are in a truly disaster of a situation where we have secret police, effectively, on our streets,” said Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator from San Francisco who wrote the bill.

Opponents of the California bill, including numerous law enforcement agencies, argued that officers must have the choice to cover their faces to protect themselves and their families from retaliation. Limiting the ways officers can keep themselves safe will make it harder to recruit people to work in law enforcement, they said.

“Bad guys wear masks because they don’t want to get caught. Good guys wear masks because they don’t want to get killed,” said Kelly Seyarto, a Republican state senator from Riverside County. “It’s that simple.”

Supporters of the bill said on Thursday that the ban was even more urgent in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this week that allowed federal agents to resume immigration stops based on factors including ethnicity and if someone is speaking Spanish.

A panel discussion on NPR’s “All Things Considered” (September 13^th, ATTACHMENT FIFTY)

“If a United States citizen who's Latino in Los Angeles is walking down the street,” asked host Scott Detrow, “does he feel like he has to carry his passport with him at this point?”

“Certainly,” answered NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd. “People who I have been speaking to are already doing that. You know, people have been doing that in Los Angeles for months now.”

Garsd added that she spoke to one family in Washington, D.C. who had just stopped going to work. “They've been here for about 25 years, and they're just not going out anymore. And they are going to self-deport, which is kind of, you know, one of the pillars of this administration's policy.”

Citing ICE raids in Chicago, Boston, Maryland and Virginia, she also said that that has been really alarming is short-term disappearances – “I mean, people who are detained and that nobody can find them in the system for three or four days,” and the man noted above who said one thing that really stuck with me was... “America is for white people now.”

Immigration protest has seeped into the culture now with statements of support from celebrities and the announcement by Bad Bunny who... despite personal protection from the blitzkriegs owing to the status of Puerto Rico’s designation as American... is cancelling his U.S. tour due to concerns that “...like, f------ ICE could be outside (my concert). And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.” (NBC, ATTACHMENT FIFTY ONE)

The AI overview on international reaction to the raids and deportations included listings of statements from human rights groups (Amnesty Internation and the International Refugee Assistance Project), international students, foreign advocates from Venezuela, El Salvador, Canada and various threats to “global stability”. (ATTACHMENT FIFTY TWO)

The Overview also reported on Trump giving ICE "total authorization" to protect themselves and (direct) arrests against protesters and accusing the media and critics of "demonization" (below) and of using racist narratives against ICE agents but also... under pressure from the business community (particularly in the agricultural and hospitality industries) pivoting to pause most raids on farms, hotels, and restaurants.

Not protected are immigrants in "sensitive locations" like churches, schools and hospitals, and in so-called "sanctuary cities".

They/it called the Hyundai incident reflective of the “broader and often inconsistent nature of Trump's foreign and immigration policies.” While SoKo has not yet pulled its investment plans, aggressive immigration enforcement “creates uncertainty and risk for foreign firms, particularly those relying on foreign workers.” 

A DHS dispatch on demonization (September 17, ATTACHMENT FIFTY THREE) escalated against its campaign against the media and far left to “stop the hateful rhetoric directed at President Trump, those who support him, and our brave DHS law enforcement,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “This demonization is inspiring violence across the country. Our ICE officers are facing a more than 1000% increase in assaults against them. We have to turn down the temperature before someone else is killed. This violence must end.”

The DHS “non-exhaustive” directory of violent words hurled at law enforcement included comparisons of ICE to “slave patrols”, the “Gestapo” and “secret police”; designation of agents as “deranged”, “vigilantes”, “thugs”, “kidnappers” and perpetrators of ”nefarious purposes” at Alligator Alcatraz (prior to its closing).

“This rhetoric is contributing to threats and a more than 1000% increase in assaults against DHS law enforcement.” Another non-exhaustive list included victimization of the still unidentified ICEMAN who shot Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez in Chicago; anti-ICE rioters using rocks and pepper spray against federal agents and displaying a guillotine in Portland, Oregon; and writing nasty letters – one including a mysterious white powder, others making bomb and gun threats. Several agents have been injured by gunfire, rocks and fireworks and an illegal alien from Honduras threatened federal officers and agents with a box cutter.

On the other hand, a Fox and Friends newscast, hours before the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah last week, featured Brian Kilmeade’s “kill the homeless” proposal – since withdrawn (A.P., ATTACHMENT FIFTY FOUR)

After a homeless and mentally ill man, Decarlos Brown Jr., was arrested for murdering Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, Kilmeade proposed prison, “or involuntary lethal injection, or something... (j)ust kill ‘em.”

When host Ashley Earhardt interjected, “Why did it have to get to this point?” Kilmeade replied, “I will say this, we're not voting for the right people.”

DJI asks: Since the he/she as shot Charlie Kirk in Utah faces death by firing squad if convicted, would Charlies “dear friend” Donald J. Trump volunteer to be one of the designated shooters? It would certainly help many Joneses to decide who the “right people” are next go-round.

	IN the NEWS: SEPTEMBER 11^th to 18^th, 2025
Thursday, September 11, 2025 Dow: 46,108.00	On the 24^th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center, world and national trade impacted by the new inflation rates released – retailers fear that higher prices may depress consumer spending but also motivate the Fed to cut interest rates... sending the Dow up over the 46,000 mark. Charlie Kirk assassin still at large. Police are seeing an “experienced” shooter with a quality firearm; two persons of interest are questioned and released. Bipartisan expressions of condemnations at another political assassination and support for Kirk’s widow and children. White House calls it a “death in the family. House majority leader Steve Scalise (R-La), shot playing baseball, says that Kirk wanted to “debate, not eliminate” people he disagreed with. Later that day, MSNBC fires Matthew Dowd for negative Kirk obit. Cops, studying video of thooter on a rooftop near Utah site, say he seems to have been “college aged”. President Trump says he will award Kirk a Medal of Freedom. In Colorado, near Columbine school shooting site, another gunman kills self after wounding two students, one critically (name, age and motive not released).
Friday, September 12, 2025 Dow: 45,834.22	At 8:15 PM, it is announced that a suspect is in custody. Typer Robinson, 22, arrested after his father rats him out. Trump blames the cancer of liberalism. Gov. Spencer Cox (R-Ut) blames social media, saying that “words are not violence, violence is violence.” Violence manifests in Chicago where ICE agents shoot and kill an alien driver trying to escape road stop and dragging an officer with his car. (See above) Words also manifest as the Colorado school shooting motivates “swatters” (people calling in fake crises out of revenge or just for fun). Rover spacecraft discovers what cosmologists believe may be evidence of life on Mars. On Earth, an executive of the Mars Candy Company is accused of embezzling $28M from the “Milky Way” makers and. presumably, is no longer snickering. Earlier in the day, the FBI had appealed to the public to catch the killer; 7,000 tips poured in and a reward of $100,000 was posted. (It was not mentioned whether the money would go to Dad.) More video footage of the escaping suspect was aired and it was announced the murder gun had been found.
Saturday, September 13, 2025 Dow: Closed	Friends, neighbors, supporters and skeptics remember Charlie Kirk and Tyler Robinson. Tributes to Kirk keep pouring in. Kirk’s wife says “he loved children and he loved me”. (The Guardian U.K. published quotes from past speeches expressing no love for “prowling blacks”, “gender-affirming clinic doctors” and Muslins – “incompatible with Western civilization” – see Attachment “A”. Grieving and golfing in Bedminster, NJ, President Trump promises a purge of leftists from government (and, perhaps, America) which Republicans... while mostly counseling bipartisanship... excuse as due to his anger over Kirk, a personal friend and political supporter. Robinson neighbors remember him as a boy in love with guns while Inside Edition reported he’d sing along to extreme left “Bella Ciao Ciao Ciao” anthem and “fell down the rabbit hole” of liberal conspiracy theorists. – joking his “doppelganger” did the deed. Violence and weirdness return elsewhere as the hi-tech “Zizians” are accused of four murders. Led by a transgender vegan called “Ziz” (nee Jack LaSota) who railed against puberty as “evil”, the cultists... based in a San Francisco suburb... killed their landlord with samurai swords. In Dallas, a motel worker beheaded his employer while a Queens, NY home invader invades elderly couple’s home, stabs them repeatedly and then burns them alive. Globally, Russia... snickering at how Putin played Trump at their meetings and conferences to the extent that he still denied their attack on Poland was deliberate... sent drones to attack another NATO member, Romania. In the MidEast, SecState Rubio went to Israel to defend PM Netanyahu’s bombing of U.S. ally Qatar, even tho’ no Hamasites were killed in the raid. As with Ukraine, more buildings were blown up and civilians killed in Gaza. Trump, perhaps seeking a war of distraction, sank a Venezuelan boat and killed 11 accused drug smugglers and raided another boat, full of fishermen and tuna.
Sunday, September 14, 2025 Dow: Closed	Still defending Putin on Poland, TACO on sanctions (now contingent on the EU ceaseing purchse of Russian oil and goes to the U.K. to ask Starmer to pressure China to stop buying too... even as thousands of neo-Nazi protesters march to keep Britain white. On the talkshows, ABC’s Martha Raddatz cites a “truly horrific week” while other talking heads speak of “watersheds” and “turning points” (coincidentally, Charlie Kirk groupies’ group). Gov. Cox (R-Ut) says that Robinson is not talking, but his transgender boyfriend is spilling the garbanzos; “we’re in an evil place,” Cox admits, “but we have choices”. Gov. Polis (D-Co) says his state’s school shooter was influenced by neo-Nazi propaganda, understand’s Trump’s anger but says both shootings were the acts of “individuals”. Sen/Rep John Curtis (R-Ut) says Kirk is “not replaceable, but others will fill his shoes,” and that “there are important things that we have to pay attention to.” Times were better ten years ago, and everybody blames the plague. On the roundtable, former DNC Brazile says she went to YAF meetings as a student “to see what they had to say” and blames money in politics. Former RNC Reince says division is profitable, “unity is a loser” as a full third of Americans support violence as political strategy while Alex Burns (Politico) says the temperature is not coming down and the range of violence is spreading... from politicians to influencers to ordinary Joneses. Speaker Mike on “Face the Nation” says “...my good friend Charlie would not let us be consumed by despair.” People need to see leaders “speaking truth.”
Monday, September 15, 2025 Dow: 45,514.95	On the 40^th anniversary of “Golden Girls”, the Emmys called “TV’s golden night.” Winners include Seth Rogan as actor and director of “Studio” and Noah Wylie finally wins after numerous ER failures. At the box office, statisticians disagree whether K-Pop’s “Demon Slayer” repared as #1 in a weak week before the big superhero sequels arrive, or whether it was overtaken by “Weapons”. President Trump sends fighter jets to Puerto Rico, perhaps preparing for invasion of Venezuela as Maduro mobilizes civilian vigilantes to fight the Americans. He blows up another Venezuelan boat, killing three might or might not be drug smugglers and warns: “...if I were a fisherman, I wouldn’t go fishing.” He also promises a purge of liberals, Democrats and, as Veep Vance says, sitting in on Charlie Kirk’s podcast, violent radical leftists. But there remains a smidgen of bipartisanship in Congress as the clock ticks down towards shutdown and Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct) conjoin to call out Meta’s exploitation of pedophiles, bullies and being accessories to teen suicides; AIsters are joined by the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) as defending free speech. On a busy football weekend featuring Superbowl finalists, the Eagles repeat defeat Kansas City as Travis Kelce comes dressed in a suit with shorts, then... say analysts... “falls short” by fumbling away several easy passes. In the NCAA Top 25, Ohio State remains #1. (See list as Attachment @, below)
Tuesday, September 16, 2025 Dow: 45,757.90	It’s National Cream Donut day Cops, influencers, media and partisans debate Charlie Kirk killing. TVshrinks say that Tyler Robinson hated his father for hating his transgender boyfriend – adding fuel to the partisan fire slowly spreading about whether GLBQTs are evil and have to be collectively punished. The murder inspires AyGee Pam Bondi to say that the DoJ will be hunting violent extemests... including the right wing sort as killed the Minnesota legislators. Robinson is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow. Also in court – Luigi Mangione (with fangirls screaming and fainting outside) wins, getting his terrorism charges dropped, the Menendez brothers lose as another appeal is rejected and George Santos’ lawsuit against Jimmy Kimmel is thrown out. President Trump sues the New York Times for $15M... or is it B? And then he’s off to England to sip tea with King Charles. Also overseas, Israel is officially declared a genocide sponsor by the U.N. PM Bibi calls the allegations “lies” and says he’ll meet with Trump to collect more weapons of mass destruction. In another blow to Utah, famed actor and creator of the Sundance Filmfest Robert Redford passes. His many admirers and co-stars offer up tributes.
Wednesday, September 17, 2025 Dow: 46,018.32	With a new Trumpy Commissioner and another facing Trump’s firing line, the Fed votes to lower interest rates, but only by a quarter point. Nonetheless, it’s viewed as a boon to (some) homebuyers, as interest rates are starting to fall... even as prices rise (see below). Coincidentially, inflation is up, wages down so credit scores are dropping faster than a rotten apple from the tree. But the Fed’s decision cause the Dow to hop back over 46,000 Fired CDC director Menaro testifies in Congress, saying she was fired for “holding the line” on science and opposing RFK Junior’s vaxxing conspiracy theorists. Utah announces that Robinson will face the death penalty by firing squad if convicted – which begs the question: Since President Trump reiterated that Charlie was such a good friend (as well as supporter) – would he want to be one of the executioners? Also facing the firing squad: democracy. With CBS cancelling Steve Colbert after his contract expires in 2026, ABC, under extreme pressure, cancels Jimmy Kimmel... immediately. President Trump congratulates them and says his next target will be NBC, being squeezed to get rid of snarky Seth Myers and even the hapless, helpless Jimmy Fallon. And another purge – Jerry Greenfield quits his ice cream baby with Ben (Cohen) after Unilever orders him to promote the MAGA line. Boycotts and litigation loom.

THE DON JONES INDEX

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

Gains in indices as improved are noted in GREEN. Negative/harmful indices in RED as are their designation. (Note – some of the indices where the total went up created a realm where their value went down... and vice versa.) See a further explanation of categories HERE

ECONOMIC INDICES		(60%)
CATEGORY	VALUE	BASE	RESULTS by PERCENTAGE			SCORE		OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS
INCOME	(24%)	6/17/13 revised 1/1/22	LAST	CHANGE	NEXT	LAST WEEK	THIS WEEK	THE WEEK’S CLOSING STATS...
Wages (hrly. Per cap)	9%	1350 points	8/28/25	+0.38%	9/25	1,589.97	1,589.97	https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages   31.46
Median Inc. (yearly)	4%	600	8/28/25	+10.20%	9/11/25	751.16	827.82	http://www.usdebtclock.org/   44,106 48.607
Unempl. (BLS – in mi)	4%	600	8/28/25	+2.33%	9/25	530.25	530.25	http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000/ 4.3
Official (DC – in mi)	2%	300	8/28/25	+0.04%	9/11/25	215.83	215.74	http://www.usdebtclock.org/      7,264 267
Unofficl. (DC – in mi)	2%	300	8/28/25	+0.29%	9/11/25	236.36	234.68	http://www.usdebtclock.org/     14,580 622
Workforce Participation Number Percent	2%	300	8/28/25	+0.073% -0.014%	9/11/25	297.21	297.17	In 163,332 368 Out 103,816 876 Total: 267,148 244 61.139 131
WP % (ycharts)*	1%	150	8/28/25	-0.16%	9/25	150.71	150.71	https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 62.30
OUTGO	(15%)
Total Inflation	7%	1050	8/28/25	+0.4%	9/25	927.45	927.45	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.4
Food	2%	300	8/28/25	+0.5%	9/25	262.59	262.59	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.5
Gasoline	2%	300	8/28/25	+1.9%	9/25	255.11	255.11	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm    +1.9
Medical Costs	2%	300	8/28/25	-0.1%	9/25	274.20	274.20	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     -0.1
Shelter	2%	300	8/28/25	+0.4%	9/25	250.63	250.63	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.4
WEALTH
Dow Jones Index	2%	300	8/28/25	+1.16%	9/11/25	346.47	350.49	https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/ 45,490.92 46.018.32
Home (Sales) (Valuation)	1% 1%	150 150	8/28/25	+2.04% -2.96%	9/25	123.91 277.56	123.91 277.56	https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics Sales (M):  4.01 Valuations (K):  422.4
Millionaires (New Category)	1%	150	8/28/25	+0.055%	9/11/25	133.67	133.74	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    23,729 742
Paupers (New Category)	1%	150	8/28/25	+0.027%	9/11/25	133.13	133.17	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    37,213 314
GOVERNMENT	(10%)
Revenue (trilns.)	2%	300	8/28/25	+0.22%	9/11/25	466.09	467.11	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    5,470 482
Expenditures (tr.)	2%	300	8/28/25	+0.14%	9/11/25	280.21	279.83	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    7,375 385
National Debt tr.)	3%	450	8/28/25	+0.09%	9/11/25	358.80	358.49	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    37,469 501
Aggregate Debt (tr.)	3%	450	8/28/25	+0.10%	9/11/25	380.44	380.05	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    104,412 518
TRADE	(5%)
Foreign Debt (tr.)	2%	300	8/28/25	+0.18%	9/11/25	258.23	257.76	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    9,383 400
Exports (in billions)	1%	150	8/28/25	+1,15%	9/25	174.76	174.76	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 280.5
Imports (in billions))	1%	150	8/28/25	-5.94%	9/25	151.56	151.56	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 358.8
Trade Surplus/Deficit (blns.)	1%	150	8/28/25	-23.12%	9/25	253.88	253.88	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 78.3
SOCIAL INDICES		(40%)
ACTS of MAN	(12%)							7845
World Affairs	3%	450	8/28/25	+0.1%	9/11/25	470.53	471.00	Trump heads to England amidst massive neo-Nazi demonstrations that target immigrants. Makes him feel warm. He takes credit for ending the Azeri/Albanian war... but oops up: the other combatant was Armenia, “Diplomacy is good,” says targeted Seth Myers, “but competency is better.” Mummies found in China called older than Egyptians.
War and terrorism	2%	300	8/28/25	-0.4%	9/11/25	287.23	286.08	Add to old Ukraine and Gaza wars new Russian strikes on Poland and Romania (TACO for NATO) and Israeli attack on Qatar; PM Bibi proclaims “there will NEVER be a Palestinian state as enemies gather. Mobilization of fighter jets in Puerto Rico called prelude to attack on Venezuela (after another tuna boat is sunk); dictator Maduro mobilizes vigilantes to fight America.
Politics	3%	450	8/28/25	nc	9/11/25	460.70	460.70	Charlie’s assassination denounced by almost everyone – and the few who don’t are drowned in piss and vomit. U.S. church police seeking to criminalize Laughing Gas. Fed, fighting off Trump, lowers interest rate by conservative 0.25%
Economics	3%	450	8/28/25	+0.1%	9/11/25	428.36	428.79	As Oracle’s Larry Ellison* displaces Musk as World’s Richest, they cut a deal with Open AI on cloud computing and sets sights at Tik Tok. In other takeovers, Race Trac Gas devours Potbelly Sandwiches, and Paramount/Skydance romancing Warner Bros. TV-con-mystics have help for Joneses: buy Xmas gifts now to beat tariffs, and gold hits record high due to “economic insecurities.”
Crime	1%	150	8/28/25	-0.1%	9/11/25	211.16	210.95	Cults back en vogue: Zizians (above) as also a flock of fiends defrauding veterans in Augusta, Ga. Ordinary and extraordinary street violence in American cities. Burglar steals Beyonce’s new unreleased album. Scuba-suited thief robs Disney restaurant and then swims away.
ACTS of GOD	(6%)
Environment/Weather	3%	450	8/28/25	nc	9/11/25	349.04	349.04	Lack of Atlantic hurricans blamed on Sahara dust, but there’s plenty of rain in Florida, none in the dry West – raising new wildfire fears while “dozens” of tornadoes strike the northern plains. Late summer heat will last for the rest of September and there will be no tropical storms.
Disasters	3%	450	8/28/25	+0.1%	9/11/25	412.73	413.14	WSJ report accuses Airbus of sickening passengers and crew with toxic “fumes”. Speaking on the Kirk shooting, Gov. Spencer Cox (R-Ut) says; “We are in a dark place, but we have choices,” and adds that Trump is “a human being.”
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX		(15%)
Science, Tech, Education	4%	600	8/28/25	+0.1%	9/11/25	615.84	616.46	Critics denounce AI as abetting pornography and sex crimes while foes like EFF defend the First Amendment. SecTreas Bessant hints a Tik Tok deal with China may soon appear as President Trump says he’ll go to Spanish AI conference, then China when he finishes nuke talks with PM Starmer in London
Equality (econ/social)	4%	600	8/28/25	-0.1%	9/11/25	665.07	664.40	At the Emmys, Tramel Tillman becomes the first black supporting actor winner for “Severance” while fifteen year old Owen Cooper becomes the youngest winner for “Adolescence”. Black student hanged from tree in MississippiMummified DoE redirects 500M from Latin to black education. Uber sued: discrimination against the disabled and their service animals.
Health	4%	600	8/28/25	-0.1%	9/11/25	421.76	421.34	Amidst MWAAHAA’s war on vaxes, measles kills child in Los Angeles and polls say one in six Joneses are vaxxing denialists. Septic Dermarik hand soap recalled as is vegan mac n’ cheese that fails to notify allergics that it contains... milk. (That’s not vegan!) Costco recalles exploding bottles of wine.
Freedom and Justice	3%	450	8/28/25	+0.1%	9/11/25	485.47	485.96	Former Brazilian President Bolsonaro gets 21 years for coup attempt (in U.S., Trump gets re-elected); Wannabee Trump assassin Routh amazes and amuses with bizarre testimony; “thousands” allegedly fired for free (but negative) speaking about Charlie as some actual radical leftists dredge up comparisons to Mangione.
CULTURAL and MISCELLANEOUS INCIDENTS			(6%)
Cultural incidents	3%	450	8/28/25	+0.2%	9/11/25	571.13	572.27	Celebrities and Catholics celebrate Pope Leo’s 70^th with Vatican concert featuring Bocelli/Jelly Rolli duet, Pharrell Williams, dronal fireworks. K-Pop “Demon” overhangs hangover “Conjuring” as box office #1 (see complete list here) while NCAA top 25 (AP list here) returns Ohio State to Number One and NFL Superbowl rematch faors Eagles again. On Emmy’s “Golden Night”, Seth Rogan sweeps while Noah Wylie finally wins his Oscar and host Nate Barghatze fines guests who talk too long. See complete winners’ list here. RIP: Robert (“Sundance”) Redford, boxing champ Ricky Hatton, “Monkees” songwriter Bobby Hart,
Miscellaneous incidents	4%	450	8/28/25	+0.1%	9/11/25	541.24	541.78	Prince Harry meets King Charles, peacefully, but brother Will still radiates the hate. Sean Astin elected to lead SAG.
* @ellison

The Don Jones Index for the week of September 11^th through September 17^th, 2025 was UP 80.10 points

The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator. The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.

Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.

ATTACHMENT ONE – FROM CHICAGO SUN TIMES

ICE OFFICER FATALLY SHOOTS MAN DURING TRAFFIC STOP IN CHICAGO SUBURB, AUTHORITIES SAY

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were conducting “targeted law enforcement activity” in Franklin Park when they stopped the vehicle, according to a statement from the agency.

By Sophie Sherry, Cindy Hernandez and Emmanuel Camarillo Updated Sept 12, 2025, 3:17pm EDT

Federal immigration agents fatally shot a man Friday morning in the Northwest suburbs after he allegedly attempted to flee a traffic stop and struck an officer with his car, officials said.

The shooting comes days after President Donald Trump’s long-promised immigration enforcement campaign launched in the Chicago area earlier this week, generating widespread fear in the city’s and suburbs’ immigrant communities.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were conducting “targeted law enforcement activity” in Franklin Park when they stopped the vehicle, according to a statement from the agency.

During the stop, a man allegedly resisted arrest and attempted to drive his car into officers, dragging one officer, according to the statement.

The officer opened fire and shot the man, the statement said. The man was taken to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead, the statement said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has identified the man as Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez. The Cook County medical examiner’s office has not yet identified him.

The officer was also taken to a hospital with “severe injuries.” His condition has stabilized, according to the statement.

“We are praying for the speedy recovery of our law enforcement officer,” a DHS spokesperson said. “He followed his training, used appropriate force, and properly enforced the law to protect the public and law enforcement.”

FBI agents were at the scene Friday assisting in the response, the agency confirmed. The FBI hasn’t provided any additional information on its investigation.

Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement that he was “aware of the troubling incident that has unfolded in Franklin Park.

“This is a developing situation and the people of Illinois deserve a full, factual accounting of what’s happened today to ensure transparency and accountability,” Pritzker said.

The Resurrection Project, a community advocacy group, said the “horrific incident in Franklin Park shows us the real danger that militarized enforcement creates in our neighborhoods.

“A community member is dead, and an officer was injured,” Erendira Rendón, a leader with the group, said in a statement. “These are outcomes that serve no public safety purpose and leave entire communities traumatized. Safe neighborhoods depend on trust, not fear. When federal agents conduct unaccountable operations in our communities, everyone becomes less safe.”

There have been reports of traffic stops by immigration authorities this week in the suburbs. Legal experts say ICE officers generally don’t have the authority to stop a vehicle unless they have specific reasonable suspicion that the person in the car has violated immigration law.

Officials and advocates in the Los Angeles area said federal immigration officers there were targeting people in vehicles there. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer fired his gun during a traffic stop in San Bernardino, Calif., last month, and the family in that case said officers didn’t identify themselves before breaking their car windows.

Related

· What to know about immigration enforcement in Chicago: Explainers and resources

· Feds tout ‘worst of the worst’ arrested in Chicago immigration blitz, but some were caught out of state

· President Trump launches long-promised Chicago deportation campaign, dubbed ‘Operation Midway Blitz’

Franklin Park resident Emilio Alvarez, 63, said he was inside his home when he heard three loud pops outside.

Alvarez stepped out and saw a federal agent on the ground and a man getting out of a semi truck. The man stopped by ICE had allegedly crashed his vehicle, a silver car, into a semi-truck that was traveling on Grand Avenue.

“Never in a million years did I think something like this would happen outside of my home,” Alvarez said.

He and his children sat outside their home Friday afternoon watching as police and FBI agents worked the scene. Alvarez said he felt ICE agents were disrupting their communities.

“Instead of fixing problems, they’re bringing problems,” said Alvarez. “Just look at all this.”

The semi-truck remained on the street later Friday afternoon with the silver car smashed into its side. Streaks of blood were smeared against the side of the car, and shattered glass littered the ground.

Ricardo De Blas, owner of nearby DBO Auto in Franklin Park, said several vehicles with agents dressed in military fatigues arrived on Grand Avenue moments before the shooting and crash happened.

“They got out of the trucks and started covering their faces,” he said.

De Blas said the agents were looking towards him and his employees and said he thought they were going to approach them to ask about their immigration status.

“This is not okay,” he said as he looked at the wreckage. “This never should have happened.”

The man killed by the ICE officer was known to keep to himself and was preoccupied with work and his family, his next-door neighbor said.

“He was a real quiet guy. I would just see him come from work and play with his kids,” said the neighbor, who requested his name not be published out of a fear that his Latino family would be targeted.

“Hes not someone that likes to, you know, throw parties, has people over, none of that stuff,” the neighbor said. “He’s just a family guy.”

The neighbor suspects the man was scared when confronted by officers because he wasn’t a fluent English speaker, and their community has been anxious about ICE’s presence.

“The impact that it’s gonna have is more undocumented people are going to be scared, and racism is going to be woken up,” the neighbor said. “They are going to try and paint a bad picture of us.”

Attorney Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, said people have certain rights when approached by law enforcement while in a vehicle.

“It is illegal for an ICE agent to forcibly enter private property without a judicial warrant,” said Perez. “Individuals who are asked for permission to enter private properties, including a vehicle, should not consent.”

Perez said absent that warrant, federal authorities need reasonable suspicion to stop a car and probable cause to search it. He said a person can ask why they’ve been stopped and remain silent.

“There is no benefit to answering the questions of an ICE or federal official, especially one who is masked and who has not identified themselves as such,” Perez said. “But even if they do identify themselves, the Constitution gives you the right to remain silent.”

Perez also cautioned that staying calm is important.

“Take stock of the situation that you are in and act accordingly,” he said. “Anything that you do can escalate the situation, and it’s important to be careful about your actions in those moments.”

One week in, the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” seems to have resulted in few actual arrests despite widespread sightings of immigration authorities reported in the Chicago area.

Federal officials released a list Wednesday of the “worst of the worst offenders” they’ve arrested during the deportation campaign. DHS claimed the 13 men “flocked to Illinois because sanctuary policies allow them to roam free and terrorize innocent Americans without consequence.”

But a Chicago Sun-Times investigation found at least two of the men, and apparently a third, were arrested outside of Illinois.

It’s unclear whether federal authorities have reported all the arrests linked to the ongoing campaign. Pritzker has warned that more ICE enforcement could be on the way, telling reporters Wednesday, “They clearly have not gone out full force yet.”

Pritzker has previously suggested the stepped-up enforcement was timed to coincide with Mexican Independence Day festivities, which begin this weekend.

ATTACHMENT TWO – FROM USA TODAY

ICE AGENT FATALLY SHOOTS IMMIGRANT WHO HIT HIM WITH CAR IN CHICAGO SUBURB: DHS

Homeland Security officials said Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez resisted arrest and dragged an officer in his car. The agent is in stable condition. Villegas-Gonzalez had a history of reckless driving.

By Michael Loria

CHICAGO – Federal immigration agents fatally shot a man in the city’s Northwest suburbs who they say was resisting arrest and dragged an agent with his car, officials said on Sep. 12.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said that the man they were attempting to arrest ignored commands from federal agents and drove his car into an officer attempting to arrest him. The agent suffered multiple injuries and is in stable condition, according to an agency statement. 

DHS said in a statement that the situation arose from an "enforcement operation targeting a criminal illegal alien" and that agents had "conducted a vehicle stop to arrest" the man.

"We are praying for the speedy recovery of our law enforcement officer. He followed his training, used appropriate force, and properly enforced the law to protect the public and law enforcement," said Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. "Viral social media videos and activists encouraging illegal aliens to resist law enforcement not only spread misinformation, but also undermine public safety, as well as the safety of our officers and those being apprehended."

The fatal shooting of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez comes about a week into Operation Midway Blitz, a crackdown on immigration enforcement in the Chicago area ordered by President Donald Trump. The White House has said a crackdown is aimed at "the worst of the worst" criminal immigrants.

Villegas-Gonzalez’s known criminal background included a history of reckless driving, immigration officials said. Immigration officials said it was unclear how long he had been in the country.

Manuel Antonio Cardenas, a Chicago-area attorney who represented Villegas-Gonzalez in his traffic cases, is calling for a full investigation into the fatal shooting.

"His charges were all driving related; they were not violent crimes," Cardenas told USA TODAY. "There should be a full investigation. The tactics that are being used by ICE are leading to situations that can result in the loss of life and injury to people."

Cook County court records show Villegas-Gonzalez had traffic violations in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2019. Charges against him included driving nearly 40 mph over the speed limit, operating an uninsured vehicle and driving on the left side of the road.

Cardenas said that when he last represented Villegas-Gonzalez in 2019 his client worked in construction.

What’s going on with the Midway Blitz?

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began arresting Chicago-area immigrants on Sept. 7 as part of Trump’s Midway Blitz crackdown.

Agency representatives did not respond to requests for information about the latest number of people arrested in connection with the Chicago-area operation.

On Sept. 9, three days into the crackdown, an agency spokesperson shared that at least 12 people had been arrested by immigration agents. Charges against them, according to the agency, included strong-arm rape and sexual abuse of a minor. Agency officials did not respond to requests for further information about charges against immigrants taken into custody.

Local immigration activists at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights suggested at a news conference called in response to the fatal shooting that the actual number of people arrested by immigration agents was higher than what had been shared publicly.

"Our big takeaway from this week is that the Trump deportation machine is out of control," said Executive Director Lawrence Benito.

Federal immigration agents and Chicago-area protesters clashed outside a U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement facility in the city’s western suburbs on Sep. 12, according to videos shared with USA TODAY.

Videos of the protest show immigration agents firing pepper balls at protesters outside the facility in Broadview, Illinois, that serves as a processing center for immigrants headed to agency locations outside Illinois.

At least one demonstrator was hospitalized in connection with the clash, according to protesters.

The site about 12 miles west of Chicago has become the focus of local protesters looking to slow down immigration authorities’ efforts to remove immigrants from the state. 

"They call it a 'processing center' like they’re processing meat. It shows you how inhumane this machine is," Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss told USA TODAY. The mayor of the suburb north of Chicago was among the protesters at the center early on Sep. 12. "I’m here to be a part of the resistance against these outrageous, cruel, un-American acts… to grow a protest movement that’s going to be the only way to save this country and our democracy."

ATTACHMENT THREE – FROM NEWSWEEK

DAD KILLED BY ICE AFTER HITTING AGENT WITH CAR HAD JUST DROPPED KIDS AT SCHOOL

Published Sep 14, 2025 at 8:27 AM EDTUpdated Sep 14, 2025 at 12:01 PM EDT

By Jordan King

Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was shot dead in the Chicago suburb of Franklin Park on Friday after he "resisted arrest, attempted to flee the scene and dragged an ICE officer a significant distance with his car," the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement.

His family have since revealed that Villegas-Gonzalez died "shortly after he dropped off his sons at school" in a GoFundMe fundraising page.

Newsweek has contacted DHS, ICE and Villegas-Gonzalez's attorney, Manuel Cardenas, for comment.

Why It Matters

The incident came just days into the Trump administration's ramping up of immigration enforcement efforts in Chicago under Operation Midway Blitz. Thousands marched in Chicago on 6 September to protest against the administration's plans to send National Guard troops and immigration agents to the so-called "sanctuary city."

What To Know

Villegas-Gonzalez, who DHS called a "criminal illegal alien," was approached by ICE agents during a vehicle stop on Friday morning, the department said.

"He refused to follow law enforcement's commands and drove his car at law enforcement officers," DHS said. "One of the ICE officers was hit by the car and dragged a significant distance. Fearing for his own life, the officer fired his weapon."

The Villegas-Gonzalez family has since started a GoFundMe page, where they said: "It is cruel what ICE agents did to him shortly after he dropped off his sons at school."

Illinois U.S. Representative Delia Ramirez, a Democrat, also spoke at a news conference on Saturday about how Villegas-Gonzalez had just dropped his children off at school before he was shot, according to the Chicago Sun Times.

ICE Agent Run Over During Traffic Stop, Suspect Shot Dead

· Congressman Blasts 'Outrageous' Detention of Green Card Holder

· California Lawmakers Move To Ban ICE Agents From Wearing Masks

· Mom in Green Card Process Blocked From Returning to US for Months—Lawyer

DHS said that ICE was targeting "a criminal illegal alien with a history of reckless driving" who "entered the country at an unknown date and time."

CBS News Chicago revealed that Villegas-Gonzalez had four traffic violations between 2010 and 2019—his offenses included speeding, an expired driver's license, not having insurance and not having a child restraint seat.

Cardenas, who had represented Villegas-Gonzalez in two of these cases, said they were both resolved "favorably" and "neither of them involved criminal violence."

The ICE agent involved was injured in the incident, having sustained multiple injuries, but was in stable condition as of Sunday, DHS said.

What People Are Saying

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: "We are praying for the speedy recovery of our law enforcement officer. He followed his training, used appropriate force, and properly enforced the law to protect the public and law enforcement.

"Viral social media videos and activists encouraging illegal aliens to resist law enforcement not only spread misinformation, but also undermine public safety, as well as the safety of our officers and those being apprehended."

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said he is aware of the shooting and demanded "a full, factual accounting of what's happened today to ensure transparency and accountability."

Attorney Manuel Cardenas told the Chicago Sun Times: "They are vilifying him, they're making him look up to be like some monster, which he wasn't. He was just a working man. Probably got startled.

"There was no indication from when I met with him that he was a violent man or that he was interested in hurting anybody."

Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez's family said in their fundraising message: "Silverio passed away after ICE agents shot him fatally, leaving behind not only loving family and friends, but also a legacy of warmth, resilience, and deep compassion. He was someone who always extended a helping hand, shared his smile freely, and showed up for those he loved—no matter the circumstances."

What Happens Next

Federal authorities, including the FBI, are investigating the shooting and will review available evidence, including any surveillance or body-worn camera footage if it exists; not all federal agents are required to wear body cameras. Local lawmakers and advocates have called for the release of all footage and for an independent review of the use of force.

ATTACHMENT FOUR – FROM CBS

UNDOCUMENTED FATHER KILLED BY ICE AGENT IN FRANKLIN PARK SHOOTING HAD NO CRIMINAL BACKGROUND, LAWYER SAYS

By Marissa Sulek Updated on: September 13, 2025 / 7:24 PM CDT / CBS Chicago

The undocumented father shot and killed by an ICE agent in Franklin Park, Illinois, only had a history of minor traffic violations, not a criminal record, according to his attorney.

The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Friday their agents were targeting Silvero Villegas-Gonzalez for arrest Friday. They said he was a criminal who was in the country illegally, but his attorney Manuel Carednas said that's not entirely true.

Villegas-Gonzalez's family shared a photo of him to a GoFundMe page after his death on Friday, saying he had just dropped his two sons at school that morning. DHS says an ICE agent was trying to arrest him when he resisted and attempted to drive his car into agents. That's when DHS said an agent fatally shot Villegas-Gonzalez.

"When I realized it was our client, first of all I was upset," Cardenas sad. "It didn't seem to fit the person that I knew."

CBS News Chicago Investigators found the 38-year-old father had four traffic violations between 2010 and 2019 for offenses including speeding, an expired driver's license, not having insurance, and not having a child restraint seat.

Cardenas said he represented Villegas-Gonzales in two of those cases.

"Both of them were resolved favorably, neither of them involved criminal violence," he said.

Homeland Security said Villegas-Gonzalez had a criminal history of reckless driving, and said he entered the U.S. at an unknown date and time. President Trump says anyone in the U.S. illegally is a criminal.

Cardenas disagrees.

"He was undocumented but he was complying with every single law. He was working," the attorney said.

Cardenas said Villegas-Gonzalez was respectful, hardworking and willing to comply with what the court required.

"If he had to go to court he would go to court. If he had to pay a fine or he had to do anything the court required, he was very compliant," said Cardenas.

Cardenas said he wants to see a full investigation into what happened in Franklin Park to prevent another person from dying over a traffic stop.

Not all federal agents are required to wear body cameras and it's unclear if there is any body camera video of this incident.

The FBI's Chicago Field Office confirmed it has been informed of the situation and is helping with the investigation. 

ATTACHMENT FIVE – FROM FOX

ICE RIPS PRITZKER FOR ‘SIDING WITH CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN’ AFTER OFFICER DRAGGED, SUSPECT SHOT DEAD

ICE deputy director tells ‘Fox & Friends’ the deadly Illinois encounter remains under investigation

By Madison Colombo Published September 16, 2025 3:00pm EDT

ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan joined 'Fox & Friends' to discuss the latest on the investigation into an attack on ICE agents that left one migrant dead, California's passage of a mask ban for agents and more.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is calling for more "transparency" after an ICE officer was seriously injured during an encounter with an undocumented immigrant outside Chicago. The suspect was shot and killed after allegedly dragging the officer for a significant distance with his car. 

ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan pushed back on Pritzker’s comments, accusing Democrats of siding with illegal migrants over law enforcement.

"They obviously continue to take the sides of these criminal illegal aliens who put our people in harm's way," said Sheahan Tuesday on "Fox & Friends."

ICE ARRESTS 'PEDOPHILES, RAPISTS, ABUSERS' IN CHICAGO SANCTUARY CITY CRACKDOWN OPERATION

"Not just officers, it's the people of Chicago, people of these communities that these Democrats and Governor Pritzker continue to choose to protect."

The Department of Homeland Security identified the suspect as Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez and said he resisted arrest and attempted to flee during a traffic stop. Sheahan said Villegas-Gonzalez, who entered the United States at an unknown date, had a record of reckless driving and a final order of removal. 

When officers tried to detain him, he allegedly drove toward them, striking and dragging one agent. The officer then opened fire. Villegas-Gonzalez was taken to a hospital where he later died. 

Sheahan said the ICE agent was put "in critical condition," but has since returned home. 

GRIEVING ILLINOIS FATHER BLAMES SANCTUARY POLICIES AS ICE ISSUES CRACKDOWN IN DAUGHTER'S HONOR

On Monday, Pritzker said he has requested more details about how the failed arrest unfolded, but has received few details.

"We need more information. We've asked ICE for all of the information around it. They have given very little," he said. 

"ICE is unwilling to provide the transparency that I think the American public and the public here deserves."

Sheahan rejected the governor’s scrutiny. 

"It is under investigation and we're [going to] continue to make sure we are transparent. The claims that we're not is just false," she said. 

EX-POLICE CHIEF WARNS CHICAGO COPS WILL GET HURT BECAUSE MAYOR JOHNSON WON’T HELP ICE

The dispute comes as ICE expands "Operation Midway Blitz" across Chicago and Illinois. The effort is aimed at arresting illegal immigrants with criminal histories. 

However, Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have strongly resisted the operation. 

Earlier this month, Johnson wrote on X: "Chicago doesn't want to see reckless, unconstitutional, militarized immigration enforcement in our city."

Sheahan has noted that anti-ICE rhetoric makes officers’ jobs more dangerous. 

CHICAGO MAYOR CONCLUDES COUNCIL-DEMANDED PROBE OF CITY POLICE’S ROLE DURING RECENT ICE RAID

"We're already at over a thousand percent increase year over year of the dangers that our officers are in because of the rhetoric that we're seeing online, the dangers of what elected officials continue to say," she said. 

Despite the pushback, Sheahan said ICE will continue its mission with the backing from the White House.  “Law enforcement officers overwhelmingly want to work with ICE to keep their [communities] safe," she said.

"And with the leadership of President Donald Trump and Secretary Kristi Noem, we'll continue to do this throughout the country."

ATTACHMENT SIX – FROM LA TIMES (ABOVE)

‘IT JUST BREAKS MY HEART.’ DEATH OF MAN FLEEING IMMIGRATION RAID AT HOME DEPOT SPARKS ANGER, GRIEF

A memorial is placed on an offramp next to a Home Depot in Monrovia where a man was killed on the 210 Freeway as he fled federal agents raiding the business.

By Nathan Solis, Jenny Jarvie, Karen Garcia, Jasmine Mendez and Clara Harter

Published Aug. 14, 2025 Updated Aug. 15, 2025 1:42 PM PT

Southern California’s immigrant rights community is expressing grief and outrage over the death Thursday of a man hit and killed on the 210 Freeway as he tried to flee Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during a raid at a Home Depot in Monrovia.

“It just breaks my heart because it’s just so inhumane,” said Robert Chao Romero, a UCLA professor of Chicano studies and Monrovia resident. “These horrible, unjust ICE policies led to someone dying.”

The man was identified as Carlos Roberto Montoya, a Guatemalan national, per the vice Guatemalan consulate in Los Angeles.

His death at a hospital was confirmed Thursday afternoon by Monrovia City Manager Dylan Feik. The circumstances surrounding the fatal accident are under investigation by the California Highway Patrol.

Monrovia police received reports at 9:43 a.m. of immigration agents approaching the Home Depot, according to Feik, who said an officer saw possible Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the site.

In a emailed statement to The Times, the Department of Homeland Security said that “the individual was not being pursued by any DHS law enforcement” and that the agency was not aware of his death on the freeway until hours after operations in the area had concluded.

Video footage viewed by The Times showed masked men in tactical gear detaining day laborers at the home improvement store parking lot and taking them away in unmarked vehicles. The masked agents did not stay on the scene after the day laborer was struck by the vehicle on the freeway, according to a witness who spoke to The Times anonymously for fear of retaliation from his employer.

A day laborer who asked that his name not be used, citing safety concerns, said he goes to the Monrovia Home Depot every day around 8 a.m. in search of work.

This morning started like any other, he said, until he heard people start to yell, “La migra, corre.” (“Immigration, run!”)

He took out his phone and started to record.

Although he avoided detention, he said, he “felt powerless” that he couldn’t help his friends.

“It feels horrible — I couldn’t do anything for them other than record what was happening,” he said.

As workers scrambled away from the agents, one person jumped a concrete wall and entered the eastbound 210 Freeway. The man ran north across the freeway and was struck by a gray Ford Expedition, traveling about 50 to 60 mph in the fast lane, according to the CHP.

Minutes later, Monrovia Fire & Rescue responded to a call of a vehicle collision with a pedestrian.

A motorist, Vincent Enriquez, said he saw the man still alive soon after he was struck.

“By the time I was passing by ... he must’ve been struck no more than a few minutes prior,” he said. “He was still moving.”

An ambulance took the victim, Montoya, to a hospital. He was a day laborer originally from Guatemala, according to the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which added that his family is aware of his death.

Monrovia resident Karen Suarez said she rushed to the Home Depot as soon as she heard about the raid and met a woman who identified herself as the daughter of the man who was hit by a car.

“She was visibly very upset, and she was going to go to the hospital and try to find out about her dad,” Suarez said. “I feel so bad for her. I feel so bad for the families. These are people trying to escape whatever horrible atrocities they came from for a better life.”

Consulate officials said they haven’t been able to contact the man’s family.

At 6 p.m., a crowd of about 50 people rallied in front of the Home Depot, waving Mexican flags, carrying signs that read “ICE out of L.A.” and chanting, “When Trump says get back, we say fight back.”

A bouquet of flowers and two prayer candles were placed opposite the 210 Freeway as a memorial for the man who was killed.

CHP officers were asking for surveillance camera video from businesses as part of their investigation.

Feik said in a statement that the city had not received any communication or information from ICE.

Palmira Figueroa, director of communications for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said 13 people were detained in the raid.

Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the network, said another day laborer was struck by what he believed was an immigration agent in a vehicle.

“His leg is very swollen, and he doesn’t want to go to the doctor because he’s afraid of going to the hospital right now,” he said.

Alvarado said it wasn’t clear whether the immigration agents identified themselves or presented warrants.

“They think that [Home Depot] is a good place where they can come to arrest as many people as they can and comply with their quotas, the quotas that the president, [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller are imposing on them,” he said.

A spokesperson for Home Depot referred all questions about the raid to the federal government and said the hardware store is not notified about immigration raids, nor was the company involved in the operation in Monrovia.

He crossed the border for a better life. He returned to Mexico in a casket

Romero, the UCLA professor, said the Home Depot operation appeared to be in violation of the federal court order barring the government from carrying out these types of raids. Last month, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing federal agents from carrying out indiscriminate immigration arrests based on a person’s race, language, vocation or location.

Immigrant rights advocates voiced their anger after Thursday’s death.

“We hold the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security and the Home Depot responsible for his death, and they must be held accountable,” said Ron Gochez, a member of Unión del Barrio, an immigrant rights group that patrols neighborhoods to alert residents of immigration sweeps.

“This is a painful reminder for us that we must continue to boycott the Home Depot due to their complicity to the ICE raids at their stores,” he said. “The Home Depot and the agents that chased the man have blood on their hands.”

In July, Jaime Alanís Garcia, 57, was killed during an immigration raid at a farm in Ventura County. The circumstances of his death are still not fully clear, but it sparked concern among immigration advocates.

Alanís’ family said he was fleeing immigration agents at the Glass House Farms cannabis operation in Camarillo when he climbed atop a greenhouse and accidentally fell 30 feet, suffering catastrophic injury.

But the Department of Homeland Security said that Alanís was not among those being pursued and that federal agents called in a medevac for him.

Home Depots, where immigrant laborers gather in search of work, have been the scene of numerous immigration raids across the region beginning this year.

ATTACHMENT SEVEN – FROM ABC NEWS SF

BAY AREA GRANDMA DETAINED BY ICE, HELD IN BAKERSFIELD DESPITE COMPLIANCE WITH IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS

"When we did hear from her, she was crying and begging us for help."

By Tara Campbell  Saturday, September 13, 2025 8:40PM

An undocumented grandmother from El Sobrante showed up to a regular immigration appointment in San Francisco, and ICE would not let her go.

EL SOBRANTE, Calif. (KGO) -- People gathered on Friday to protest the detention of a longtime East Bay resident.

Harjit Kaur, a 73-year-old undocumented grandmother from El Sobrante, showed up to a regular immigration appointment this week in San Francisco, and ICE would not let her go.

"It's been a total nightmare to find out she's been detained. We didn't expect it. She's been doing ICE check-ins for 13 years," said Manjit Kaur, her daughter-in-law.

"They just said we are detaining your grandma and didn't give me any other information, didn't let me see her. And after that, we didn't hear from her for hours and when we did hear from her, she was crying and begging us for help," said Sukhmeet Sandhu, her granddaughter.

Should ICE be allowed in healthcare facilities? Rally held for detained woman at Stanford Hospital

Manjit said, "She was a mess when she called us. We just waited until we heard something from her. We were just shocked and devastated."

"We are making sure that she is released, and if she wants to self-deport, she will have that opportunity," said Hapreet Sandhu, Richmond office representative for Congressman John Garamendi.

Congressman John Garamendi's office is getting involved, demanding for the grandmother's release.

Harjit Kaur is currently being held hours away in Bakersfield.

TARA CAMPBELL: "Have you been able to contact or have any communication with ICE?"

HAPREET SANDHU: "The first process is to file the letter, which we did on behalf of the family this (Friday) morning, so we are hoping for communication to come back and then follow through after that point."

Protesters clash with federal agents detaining people at immigration hearings in East Bay

In the meantime, the Indian community is getting behind the family.

"We've known Harjit for 25 - 30 years of our lives. My parents own a store in Berkeley, she's worked there all her life as a tailor, and it's women like her who come to work, and work hard everyday that women like me can exist," said Puga Thakkar, a family friend. "It's on the back of women like her that I'm able to be a doctor."

"When we got news of this, we were horrified. How can the federal government be taking a 73-year-old woman who has medical issues into custody when she's been doing everything that's been required of her for the past 13 years," said Chris Mathias, a protester.

ABC7 News reached out to ICE for more details and are waiting to hear back.

ATTACHMENT EIGHT – FROM GUK

CALIFORNIA NURSES DECRY ICE PRESENCE AT HOSPITALS: ‘INTERFERING WITH PATIENT CARE’

Caregiving staff say agents are bringing in patients, often denying them visitors and speaking on their behalf to staff

Coral Murphy Marcos Tue 16 Sep 2025 08.00 EDT

Dianne Sposito, a 69-year-old nurse, is laser-focused on providing care to anyone who enters the UCLA emergency room in southern California, where she works.

That task was made difficult though one week in June, she said, when a federal immigration agent blocked her from treating an immigrant who was screaming just a few feet in front of her in the hospital.

Sposito, a nurse with more than 40 years of experience, said her hospital is among many that have faced hostile encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents amid the Trump administration’s escalating immigration crackdown.

The nurse said that the Ice agent – wearing a mask, sunglasses and hat without any clear identification – brought a woman already in custody to the hospital. The patient was screaming and trying to get off the gurney, and when Sposito tried to assess her, the agent blocked her and told her not to touch the patient.

“I’ve worked with police officers for years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Sposito said. “It was very frightful because the person behind him is screaming, yelling, and I don’t know what’s going on with her.”

The man confirmed he was an Ice agent, and when Sposito asked for his name, badge, and warrant, he refused to give her his identification and insisted he didn’t need a warrant. The situation escalated until the charge nurse called hospital administration, who stepped in to handle it.

“They’re interfering with patient care,” Sposito said.

After the incident, Sposito said that hospital administration held a meeting and clarified that Ice agents are only allowed in public areas, not ER rooms and that staff should call hospital administration immediately if agents are present.

But for Sposito, the guidelines fall short, as the hostility is unlike anything she has seen in over two decades as a nurse, she said..

“[The agent] would not show me anything. You don’t know who these people are. I found it extremely harrowing, and the fact that they were blocking me from a patient – that patient could be dying.”

Since the Trump administration has stepped up its arrest of immigrants at the start of the summer, nurses are seeing an increase in Ice presence at hospitals, with agents bringing in patients to facilities, said Mary Turner, president of National Nurses United, the largest organization of registered nurses in the country.

“The presence of Ice agents is very disruptive and creates an unsafe and fearful environment for patients, nurses and other staff,” Turner said. “Immigrants are our patients and our colleagues.”

While there’s no national data tracking Ice activity in hospitals, several regional unions have said they’ve seen an increase.

“We’ve heard from members recently about Ice agents or Ice contractors being inside hospitals, which never occurred prior to this year, ,” said Sal Rosselli, president emeritus of the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

Turner said nurses have reported that agents sometimes prevent patients from contacting family or friends and that Ice agents have listened in on conversations between patients and healthcare workers, actions that violate HIPAA, the federal law protecting patient privacy.

In addition, Turner said, nurses have reported concerns that patients taken away by Ice will not receive the care they need. “Hospitals are supposed to discharge a patient with instructions for the patient and/or whoever will be caring for them as they convalesce,” Turner said.

The increased presence of immigration agents at hospitals comes after Donald Trump issued an executive order overturning the long-standing status of hospitals, healthcare facilities and schools as “sensitive locations”, where immigration enforcement was limited.

Nurses, in California and other states across the nation, said they fear the new policy, in addition to deterring care at medical facilities, will deter sick people from seeking care when they need it.

“Allowing Ice undue access to hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and other healthcare institutions is both deeply immoral and contrary to public health,” said George Gresham, president of the 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, and Patricia Kane, the executive director of the New York State Nurses Association in a statement. “We must never be put into positions where we are expected to assist, or be disrupted by, federal agents as they sweep into our institutions and attempt to detain patients or their loved ones.”

Policies on immigration enforcement vary across healthcare facilities. In California, county-run public healthcare systems are required to adopt the policies laid out by the state’s attorney general, which limit information sharing with immigration authorities, require facilities to inform patients of their rights and set protocols for staff to register, document and report immigration officers’ visits. However, other healthcare entities are only encouraged to do so. Each facility develops its own policies based on relevant state or federal laws and regulations.

Among the most high-profile cases of Ice presence in hospitals in California occurred outside of Los Angeles in July. Ming Tanigawa-Lau, a staff attorney at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, represents Milagro Solis Portillo, a 36-year-old Salvadorian woman who was detained by Ice outside her home in Sherman Oaks and hospitalized that same day at Glendale Memorial, where detention officers kept watch in the lobby around the clock.

.

Solis Portillo was then forcibly removed from Glendale Memorial against her doctor’s orders and transferred to Anaheim Global Medical center, another regional hospital, according to her lawyer. Once there, Ice agents barred her from receiving visitors, denied her access to family and her attorney, prevented private conversations with doctors and interrupted a monitored phone call with Tanigawa-Lau.

“I repeatedly asked Ice to tell me which law or which policy they were referring to that allowed them to deny visits, and especially access to her attorney, and they never responded to me,” Tanigawa-Lau said.

Ice officers sat by Solis Portillo’s bed and often spoke directly to medical staff on her behalf, according to Tanigawa-Lau. This level of surveillance violated both patient confidentiality and detainee rights, interfering with her care and traumatizing her, Tanigawa-Lau said.

Since then, Solis Portillo was moved between facilities, from the Los Angeles processing center to a federal prison and eventually out of state to a jail in Clark county, Indiana.

In a statement, Glendale Memorial said “the hospital cannot legally restrict law enforcement or security personnel from being present in public areas which include the hospital lobby/waiting area”.

“Ice does not conduct enforcement operations at hospitals nor interfere with medical care of any illegal alien,” said DHS assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin. “It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters Ice custody. This includes access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.”

The federal government has aggressively responded to healthcare workers challenging the presence of immigration agents at medical facilities. In August the US Department of Justice charged two staff members at the Ontario Advanced Surgical center in San Bernardino county in California, accusing them of assaulting federal agents.

The charges stem from events on 8 July, when Ice agents chased three men at the facility. One of the men, an immigrant from Honduras, fled on foot to evade law enforcement and was briefly captured in the center’s parking lot, and then he broke free and ran inside, according to the indictment. There, the government said, two employees at the center, tried to protect the man and remove federal agents from the building.

“The staff attempted to obstruct the arrest by locking the door, blocking law enforcement vehicles from moving, and even called the cops claiming there was a ‘kidnapping’,” said McLaughlin. The Department of Justice referred questions about the case to DHS.

The immigrant was eventually taken into custody, and the The federal government has aggressively responded to healthcare workers challenging the presence of immigration agents at medical facilities. In August the US Department of Justice charged two staff members at the Ontario Advanced Surgical center in San Bernardino county in California, accusing them of assaulting federal agents.

Oliver Cleary, who represents Davila, said a video shows that Ice’s claim that Davila assaulted the agent is false.

“They’re saying that because she placed her body in between them, that that qualifies as a strike,” Cleary said. “The case law clearly requires it to be a physical force strike, and that you can tell that didn’t happen.”

The trial is slated to start on 6 October.

ATTACHMENT NINE – FROM SOURCE NEW MEXICO

NEW MEXICO PROBATION OFFICERS ACCUSED OF REFERRING ‘PROBLEM’ PROBATIONERS TO ICE FOR DEPORTATION

Three named immigrants say they were lured to state probation offices under false pretenses

By: Patrick Lohmann -September 16, 202512:00 pm

New Mexico probation officers repeatedly provided immigration status information to federal immigration authorities, including after the Legislature made such a practice illegal this year, according to a new lawsuit from the state Ethics Commission.

The lawsuit filed Friday and announced Tuesday alleges that the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained three men with the help of state probation officers, who allegedly lured the probationers to state offices under false pretenses. 

Two of them remain in ICE custody, and one was deported to his unspecified home country, according to the lawsuit, causing “hardships to their New Mexican and American family members.” 

The lawsuit names those three men and alleges that the practice of ICE referrals is somewhat common and ongoing since at least 2024. However, it does not estimate how many people have been detained or deported with state probation officers’ help. 

As one piece of evidence, the lawsuit contains a screenshot of a December 2024 email from a state probation officer who typed a probationer’s name and date of birth into the subject line and asks: “Are you able to tell me anything on this guy?” 

It also alleges that probation officers began contacting ICE agents to remove “problem probationers,” which means they “committed serious criminal offenses or … are otherwise difficult to supervise.”

That practice has “more recently extended” to “any individual who certain probation officers suspected of having an unlawful presence in the United States,” according to the lawsuit.

Brittany Roembach, a spokesperson for the Corrections Department, declined to comment on those allegations in an email to Source New Mexico on Tuesday morning. She said the department has not yet been served with the lawsuit, which names Secretary Alisha Tafoya Lucero as the defendant. 

The three men the lawsuit identifies are Juan Lamas Aguilar, Moises Llaguno and Melvin Escobar-Arauz. 

Aguilar and Llaguno, who are engaged or married with children and have each lived in New Mexico for more than 15 years, allege that ICE agents picked them up July 10 at a probation office in downtown Albuquerque. Both were on probation for driving under the influence. 

Llaguno was deported four days after being detained, according to the lawsuit. 

Escobar-Arauz, who has a wife and young daughter in Pecos, N.M., said that ICE detained him Aug. 18 at the Santa Fe probation office. He alleges that ICE also detained other New Mexico probationers who showed up that day, but he does not specify how many. 

Escobar-Arauz was sentenced to three years probation in June 2025 after pleading guilty to three counts of battery upon a peace officer, according to the lawsuit. 

In all three cases, the detainees accuse their probation officers of requiring them to show up to the probation officers under “false pretenses,” including to provide a urine sample or complete paperwork. 

Escobar-Arauz and Aguilar are both being held at an ICE detention center in El Paso, according to the lawsuit. Aguilar is from Mexico, and Escobar-Arauz is from Guatemala. 

The lawsuit seeks a judge’s signoff on the commission moving forward with a separate legal action against the Corrections Department alleging that the probation officers’ behavior violates  new state law that went into effect July 1. 

The Legislature during the legislative session this year passed the Nondisclosure of Sensitive Personal Information Act, which prohibits state employees from providing immigration or other sensitive personal information to anyone outside of the agency except in limited circumstances. 

The law also empowers the Ethics Commission to file lawsuits if violations of that law occur or or are about to occur. But, before it files the lawsuit, the commission wants a judge to rule that federal statutes do not conflict. 

In a news release about the lawsuit, Ethics Commission director Jeremy Farris said a judicial ruling in the commission’s favor would free up the commission to enforce the state law.

“Seeking a declaratory order at this stage ensures that any future actions by the Commission to enforce NSPIA are fully compliant with both state and federal law,” he said. 

It’s not clear from court filings when a judge might weigh in on the lawsuit. 

ATTACHMENT TEN – FROM POLITICO
ICE SAYS ITS JOB IS TO STOP ILLEGAL ‘IDEAS’ CROSSING THE BORDER IN SINCE-DELETED X POST

The agency said the post was put up in error.

By Ali Bianco 04/10/2025 04:29 PM EDT

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s job is to stop illegal ideas from crossing the U.S. border, according to a now-deleted social media post from the agency that drew condemnation on Thursday.

In a promotional graphic on X, ICE said they enforce over 400 federal laws to “ensure public safety and national security,” with the picture showing ICE will stop the crossings of people, money, products — and ideas. The post directs people to visit the ICE website.

The post by ICE comes a day after the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, announced it would be surveilling the social media of foreign students and immigrants applying for permanent status or other immigration benefits to the United States for alleged antisemitic activity, in a push to “protect the homeland from extremists” and “terrorist sympathizers.”

ICE told POLITICO that the post was put up in error, and that it is drafting a new post that will include “intellectual property” — not ideas.

“We regret any confusion that this error may have caused,” ICE spokesperson Mike Alvarez said. “Our number one goal is to provide accurate information to the public.”

President Donald Trump and the White House have repeatedly called his administration the most “transparent” in history and touted their free speech values, and the president has raged at what he described as government-sanctioned censorship during the Biden administration. But the administration has also sought to punish perceived enemies for their speech.

Trump has clashed with press and First Amendment groups, and has barred The Associated Press from covering some events at the White House due to the news wire’s refusal to use the name “Gulf of America.” The administration has also revoked visas for pro-Palestinian activists from college campuses across the country.

On Wednesday, Trump ordered the Department of Justice to investigate two administration aides from his first term who have been sharply critical of him. His memorandum for one of those aides, Christopher Krebs, alleges Krebs engaged in the “the censorship of disfavored speech.”

Krebs had pushed back against false narratives about the 2020 election.

As ICE’s post gained thousands of reposts online, Democratic lawmakers started calling out the post.

“ICE now policing ‘ideas’ that ‘cross the border illegally,’” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) wrote on X.

Free speech and censorship groups denounced ICE’s actions, saying that doing so would constitute a violation of the Constitution.

“It is breathtakingly absurd and outrageous to even suggest that ideas need to be policed,” the National Coalition Against Censorship — a banner organization that includes groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and several labor organizations — wrote on X. “This post subverts everything our constitution stands for.”

ATTACHMENT ELEVEN – FROM GUK

HOW THE GUARDIAN REPORTED ON LEAKED GLOBALX FLIGHT DATA

Infants sent overseas. People shuttled to different detention centers across the country five, 10, 15 times over a period of a few weeks. Lawyers desperate to find their clients. Detention centers exceed capacity as people wait for their deportation flights. A Guardian US investigation has revealed new details about the US government’s chaotic mass deportation effort, including exclusive analysis of deportation flights during the first months of the Trump administration.

Our reporting relied in part on details of over 1,700 flights and passenger lists encompassing more than 44,000 people that were anonymously leaked to the Guardian in May 2025, following a hack of Global Crossing, the charter airline that provides deportation flights across and outside the US. The hacking group Anonymous claimed to be responsible for the breach.

The leaked information included passenger names, personally identifying information for those passengers, flight numbers, flight details, and other data for deportation flights that occurred in the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency, between January and May. The data was leaked to a number of media outlets, including the Guardian, unprompted.

On 5 May, GlobalX confirmed in a letter to the SEC that it had learned of recent “unauthorized activity within its computer networks and systems supporting portions of its business applications”, which it determined was the result of a “cybersecurity incident”.

Reporters verified the authenticity of the data in a few different ways, using public and previously unreported deportations, as well as public flight info and file metadata.

We verified the deportation journeys of every person interviewed for the series, like Andry José Hernández Romero, and checked to make sure that their journeys matched the data in the leaked manifests. Each person’s recollection of their deportations match the origins, destinations and times listed in the leaked data.

Reporters also located individuals whose names and stories were not public, and confirmed that the flight patterns described in the data were accurate. In one case, the details of which have never been made public, reporters looked up the flights of a person deported to Colombia after being apprehended at the northern border and matched the person by name and birthday within the GlobalX data. Reporters then verified each step of the individual’s deportation journey in the leaked data.

The Guardian also found other details that supported the authenticity of the data. An analysis of file metadata found that the files were created at various points in time between 3 May and 4 May, matching the approximate time frame GlobalX said its records were breached. We also verified that flights labeled with “CANCEL” or “CANCELED” in the messages field were canceled by comparing the tail numbers of flights in FlightAware with flights in our data. Flight details in our data match publicly available flight data.

In addition to the manifests and flight logs from GlobalX, the Guardian’s reporting relied on additional data from the Deportation Data Project, a group of academics and lawyers using records requests to obtain and release anonymized immigration enforcement data to support our findings. The data was used to calculate daily populations at different detention facilities and to analyze the frequency of transfers between detention centers, which helped support other findings of the Guardian’s investigation.

GlobalX did not respond to a request for comment.

Was this helpful?

The US has always moved immigrants around – most commonly, when a detention center reaches capacity, officials transfer detainees to facilities with more available beds. But the Trump administration is now shuffling immigrants around more frequently than before.

In some cases, lawyers believe that the government is deliberately moving their clients to jurisdictions where immigration judges are less likely to grant asylum, or where legal injunctions blocking Trump immigration policies do not apply.

The DHS said that immigrants in custody are informed about their transfers and allowed to contact their families throughout. “Claims that transfers of detainees are being ‘weaponized’ or ‘hidden’ are also categorically false,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs.

“Despite a historic number of injunctions, DHS is working rapidly and overtime to remove these aliens from detention centers to their final destination – home,” McLaughlin said. “All transfers are made in accordance with strict guidelines.”

According to protocols established in 2012, Ice is supposed to minimize long-distance transfers and generally avoid moving detainees away from their immediate family and attorneys. The American Immigration Council and Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) have filed a lawsuit to determine whether Ice is adhering to those policies, or whether transfer rules have been changed.

For immigrants in the system, these chaotic transfers can feel like a punishment, designed to wear people down, said Faisal Al-Juburi, head of external affairs at the legal aid group Raíces.

“You end up in a continuous state of unknown for an indefinite period of time,” he said. “Families are being put into a purgatorial state.”

The plane made a stop, but he never knew where

Andry José Hernández Romero, one of 252 Venezuelan men that the US expelled to El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison, is still trying to make sense of why and how he ended up where he did.

He had come to the US southern border in August 2024, arriving just after his 31st birthday. After an initial screening, US officials determined that Hernández Romero, a queer makeup artist who had faced discrimination in his home country, could have a valid claim to asylum. They placed him at a detention center near San Diego, California, while he awaited a hearing to decide his case.

About a month into the second Trump administration, everything started to go topsy-turvy. At the crack of dawn on 8 March, an official told him to get ready – he was being moved. When he asked where he was going, an official responded: “To a much better place.”

He was given no specifics.

He was first moved to Phoenix, and then loaded on to a GlobalX plane. Leaked records show that flight stopped – unbeknown to his lawyers – in Phoenix, then Las Vegas, then Seattle and finally Harlingen, Texas.

None of this made sense. Hernández Romero was due to appear in immigration court, in California, the following week.

Lindsay Toczylowski, the co-founder of Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef) and Hernández Romero’s lawyer, thought it was strange. She figured the government would fly him back to San Diego for his court appointment. But the appointment came, and Hernández Romero wasn’t there. “This is highly unusual, but again, at the time, Ice didn’t seem to have any information,” she said.

She believed it was a bureaucratic mix-up. It was a Friday, and she assumed the government would reschedule his hearing for the upcoming Monday.

And yet, something seemed off.

That weekend, lawyers from ImmDef called the detention center to which Hernández Romero had been transferred, and they were told he was no longer there. “They actually said to us it might be that he has just left for a little while and is coming back,” said Toczylowski. “We had no idea what to make of it.”

Hernández Romero, meanwhile, came to suspect that the officials around him were lying. Many of his compatriots – others who had been shuttled to the same Texas detention center – were starting to get suspicious as well.

José Manuel Ramos Bastidas was worried he would be sent to the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba – where the US government had already sent a group of Venezuelan men accused of criminal violations and gang membership.

Bastidas had first arrived in the US in March 2024. In February of 2025 – after months of being detained at the Stewart detention center in Lumpkin, Georgia – he was transferred to an Ice facility in El Paso, Texas. From there, he called his wife, and told her to record his message, to share with the public should anything happen to him. “They detained me simply because of my tattoos. I am not a criminal. I have been here for 10 months,” he said. “This is simply in case something happens to me … if they keep transferring me to another detention center.”

A few weeks later, he was moved to a facility in Raymondville, Texas. Officials initially told him he would be going to Mexico. “At the end they said we were going to make a stop in Honduras and then go on to Venezuela,” he said.

He felt a moment of hope then – maybe, finally, he would see his two-year-old son, his wife, his mother.

On board the plane – an Airbus A320 with 179 seats – staff told the shackled detainees not to open any of the shades. “But we thought, it’s fine, we’re going to Venezuela – that was the goal,” he said. At least, that’s what he and the others kept saying to each other, almost, in a way, to reassure one another.

The plane made a stop, but he never knew where.

It refueled, took off again, and finally landed. “We opened the window [shades], and there we saw blue letters that said El Salvador. And we saw many, many police and soldiers, and tanks, helicopters, drones. That’s when the terror began.”

For the next four months, Hernández Ramos, Ramos Bastidas and 250 other Venezuelan men were cut off from the outside world. The US government never released a full list of all the men it had condemned to Cecot – leaving dozens of families to guess at whether their loved ones had been sent there.

“The government has never done something like this before, taking an asylum seeker and disappearing them – putting them on a plane to a third country,” said Toczylowski. “I had never seen that happen. So it wasn’t something we were anticipating.”

Human rights and legal aid groups, in the meantime, were noticing it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of many of their other clients. “It really is very strange, you get someone who’s picked up, they go to a hold cell, they stay there for seven days – which is completely outrageous. They then get moved to Florida. From there, they get taken to Arizona, then they end up in Texas,” said Shebaya of the National Immigration Project. “It’s like this wild goose chase, trying to follow where the person is and what the reasons are even for moving them.”

For lawyers, hours spent searching for clients

People in Ice detention have always been transferred between facilities, but transfers increased in frequency after Trump took office. A Guardian analysis of anonymized detention data from the Deportation Data Project, a group of academics and lawyers focused on immigration enforcement data, has found that the people who entered Ice detention between September 2023 and January 2025 – during the Biden administration – were transferred twice, on average. Immigrants that were booked into Ice detention since the start of the second Trump administration have been transferred more frequently, an average of three times per person.

It has become routine for immigration attorneys to spend hours each day trying to find their clients. Increasingly, they said, searches in Ice’s online detainee locator system – which is meant to provide real-time updates on where migrants are being held – were proving futile.

Often, the system was wrong, or out of date.

At one point, it logged that a number of people were being held in Washington DC – which does not have any Ice detention centers. “At some point we realized that some of them had been sent to Guantánamo Bay,” Shebaya said.

During the militarized immigration raids in Los Angelesin June, lawyers from ImmDef and other groups compiled a list of about 1,200 people arrested. They have been unable to find about 400 of them, said Toczylowski.

“We have an entire team that is just looking every single day to try to locate people, so then we can communicate with them, offer them representation, and try and get them help,” she said.

At times, attorneys said, the government has moved clients to states and locations where immigration judges tend to grant asylum at lower rates, or where petitions for a writ of habeas corpus challenging detentions are harder to obtain.

In some cases, when the administration has tried to use unconventional or obscure procedures to expel immigrants, attorneys have filed legal complaints accusing the DHS of moving people to judicial districts that were more likely to side with the Trump administration. In March, the administration used a cold war-era provision to arrest pro-Palestinian student activists – and swiftly shuttled them to detention centers in Louisiana and Texas, triggering a series of legal battles about which judges should oversee the students’ cases.

In April, a federal judge in the southern district of Texas banned the government from using the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime law, to deport Venezuelans accused of gang membership. Ice soon moved two Venezuelan men from a south Texas detention center to a different one in northern Texas, where the ban did not apply. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union accused the DHS of “shipping” the men to a friendlier jurisdiction.

Previously, it was not uncommon for immigrants who arrived at the southern border to be moved to detention centers all over the US. But in June and July, the number of Ice chartered flights between US cities increased twofold compared with prior months, according to flight data compiled by Tom Cartwright, an immigration advocate who has been tracking Ice flights for nearly six years.

“There is a lot of movement, and it really has accelerated significantly,” Cartwright said.

The DHS has moved to arrest record numbers of immigrants and keep them detained rather than releasing people on bond. In the aftermath of ramped-up raids in cities across the US, immigration officials are scrambling to find space in the detention system to hold detainees.

“It’s hard to say how much of that is due to capacity issues at detention centers, and how much of that is for other reasons. But I don’t think the numbers lie at all,” Cartwright said.

A ‘particularly cruel’ fate

For immigrants inside the system – the chaos is punishing.

When LW, a 37-year-old mother who came to the US with her 10-year-old son in April seeking asylum, immigration agents told her she must either return to China with her kid – or the government would separate them.

She tried to explain to border patrol agents in San Diego that she had faced political persecution back home, that both she and her son could be killed if they ever went back. It was to no avail.

She and her son spent about a week at a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility, sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor. They weren’t able to make any calls. “No contact with the outside world. I was still not able to let my boyfriend know that we were alive,” she said in a sworn declaration in her immigration case, shared with her permission by her lawyers at Raíces.

Eventually, officials presented her with deportation documents. She refused to sign.

Two days later, at about 4am, LW said, agents forced her and her son into an unmarked blue car. They were driven to the airport.

“According to them, if I did not get on this plane, I would have to be taken on a military aircraft back to China,” she said. “My heart dropped.”

She was frantic – using all the English she could muster to plead her case. She said they grabbed both of her arms and began pulling her toward the terminal. “Desperate and terrified of what might happen, I dropped to the ground,” she said.

Eventually, she said, after conferring among themselves, the agents loaded LW and her son back into the blue car. By then, she said, both were crying – and the agents told them to shut up.

Two days later, LW and her son were moved to a family detention center in Dilley, Texas – where they were able to connect with lawyers at Raíces.

Two weeks after that, LW disappeared from Ice’s online detainee locator system.

Her lawyers scrambled to piece together what had happened. LW had been moved to an Ice detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, while her son was sent to a shelter for unaccompanied minors, managed by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The agents told her the only way she could see her son again was if she returned to China. “We cannot return to China. My life and my son’s life will be at risk,” LW said. “It took great sacrifices and risk to even be able to escape and get here.”

Before her lawyers were able to meet with her in New Jersey, LW was moved again – to El Paso, Texas. And then again, to Chaparral, New Mexico. It took LW’s legal team at Raíces 11 weeks to make contact with her. She and her son have now been separated for 16 weeks.

“Based upon everything that we can see, this is punishment… a punishment for not acquiescing,” said Al-Juburi of Raices. “The system is designed to make you, as an immigrant, give up, to make you more likely to self-deport.”

The DHS defended current practices.

“Parents, who are in the US illegally, can take control of their departure. Through the [Customs and Border Protection] Home App, the Trump administration is giving parents illegally in the country a chance to take full control of their departure and self-deport, with the potential ability to return the legal, right way and come back to live the American dream,” said McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary of public affairs.

She added: “Rather than separate families, Ice asks parents if they want to be removed with their children or if the child should be placed with someone safe the parent designates.”

Immigration attorneys across the US have reported that clients are given ultimatums, rather than a real choice. During the LA raids, at least four pregnant women were picked up and transferred to detention centers in Florida, said Toczylowski of ImmDef.

Another of her clients was arrested in LA, in front of his eight-year-old son and flown, almost immediately afterwards, to Tacoma, Washington. “I saw his son crying and devastated,” she said. The family has remained separated since then.

“It seems the goal is to make people desperate enough so they decide not to fight their case, so they decide that the quickest way to see their other children or make sure they don’t have to deliver their babies in shackles is to accept a voluntary deportation,” said Toczylowski. “It is particularly cruel.”

Additional reporting by Raima Amjad

ATTACHMENT TWELVE – FROM FOX

ICE DEMANDS REMOVAL OF CUBAN NATIONAL WHO ALLEGEDLY BEHEADED MERCHANT AFTER BIDEN ADMIN RELEASE

Yordanis Cobos-Martinez allegedly kicked victim's head 'around like a soccer ball'

By Sophia Compton Fox News

Published September 13, 2025 10:15pm EDT

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on Friday it lodged a detainer for the federal arrest and removal of an illegal immigrant after he allegedly used a machete to decapitate a Texas merchant.

Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, a Cuban national, was arrested on Wednesday by Dallas police on homicide charges after he allegedly used a machete to behead a merchant during an argument in front of the victim's family, according to a news release from ICE.

He then allegedly proceeded to kick the victim's head "around like a soccer ball," the release said.

ICE LODGES DETAINERS AGAINST 3 VENEZUELANS CHARGED WITH CAPITAL MURDER IN TEXAS

Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, a Cuban national, was arrested on Wednesday by Dallas police on homicide charges.

Cobos-Martinez is being held at the Dallas County Jail. He has a lengthy criminal history, including crimes of child sexual abuse, grand theft auto, false imprisonment and carjacking, according to ICE.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT FACING ATTEMPTED MURDER CHARGES FOR STABBING VICTIM MULTIPLE TIMES AT SOCCER GAME

He has a prior final order of removal to Cuba and was most recently held in ICE Dallas custody before being released on an order of supervision on January 13, 2025, during the Biden administration, as noted in the release.

The release of Cobos-Martinez occurred because Cuba declined to accept his return due to his criminal record, according to ICE.

ICE ARRESTS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ACCUSED OF DECAPITATING ILLINOIS WOMAN AFTER JUDGE SET HIM FREE

"This vile monster beheaded this man in front of his wife and child and proceeded to kick the victims’ head on the ground," Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. "This gruesome, savage slaying of a victim at a motel by Yordanis Cobos-Martinez was completely preventable if this criminal illegal alien was not released into our country by the Biden administration since Cuba would not take him back.

"This is exactly why we are removing criminal illegal aliens to third countries. President Trump and Secretary Noem are no longer allowing barbaric criminals to indefinitely remain in America. If you come to our country illegally, you could end up in Eswatini, Uganda, South Sudan or CECOT." 

ICE and the Dallas Police Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

ATTACHMENT THIRTEEN – FROM FOX

ICE LODGES DETAINERS AGAINST 3 VENEZUELANS CHARGED WITH CAPITAL MURDER IN TEXAS

Yosguar Aponte-Jimenez, Jose Trivino-Cruz and Jesus Bellorin-Guzman face charges following Garland shooting

By Greg Norman and Brooke Taylor

Published August 4, 2025 11:58am EDT | Updated August 4, 2025 1:40pm EDT

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged detainers against three migrants from Venezuela who have been charged with capital murder in Texas.

Yosguar Aponte Jimenez, Jose Trivino-Cruz and Jesus Bellorin-Guzman allegedly were involved in the June 20 shooting death of 48-year-old Santiago Lopez Morales at a Motel 6 in Garland, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

"Three depraved criminal illegal aliens from Venezuela were released into the U.S. under the Biden administration and are now facing capital murder and robbery charges for shooting and killing a man at a motel in Dallas County, Texas," Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement provided to Fox News.

"Thanks to the brave men and women of ICE law enforcement, these criminal illegal aliens' crime spree is OVER. These vicious criminals have no place in the U.S. ICE has lodged a detainer to ensure they are removed from our country after they face justice for their heinous crimes," she added.

ICE LODGES DETAINER AGAINST ILLEGAL MIGRANT CHARGED WITH KIDNAPPING, SEXUALLY ASSAULTING NEIGHBOR IN TEXAS

The DHS, citing local media reports, said investigators linked the June 20 shooting to an aggravated robbery at a Deluxe Inn located about a mile away from the Motel 6.

In that incident, the victim said two Hispanic males were banging on her door and when she opened it, they forced their way inside at gunpoint, made her undress and assaulted her before stealing jewelry, cash and an ID, KDFW reported, citing a police report.

The station added that the suspects later allegedly admitted to Garland detectives that they would arrange meetings with prostitutes to rob them of their money and valuables, with Jimenez allegedly claiming they performed more than 25 robberies.

REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR GREENLIGHTS STATE TROOPERS TO JOIN ICE IN IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN

ICE also recently lodged a detainer on previously deported illegal migrant Jose Maldonado-Zavala, who was charged with kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman in his apartment complex in Pasadena, Texas.  

Jimenez also allegedly said the group targeted prostitutes because they were less likely to head to police to report their alleged crimes, according to KDFW.

Bonds for Jimenez, Bellorin-Guzman and Trivino-Cruz were set at $1.5 million, $2.25 million and $3.25 million, respectively, the station also reported.

Homeland Security said Jimenez "crossed the southern border illegally on May 3, 2023, and was released into the U.S. by the Biden administration."

"Jose Trivino-Cruz entered the U.S. illegally unvetted via the CBP One app on October 9, 2024, and was released into the country by the Biden administration," the department added.

"Jesus Bellorin-Guzman illegally entered the U.S. unvetted via the CBP One app on January 6, 2025, and was released into the country by the Biden administration," DHS also said.

ATTACHMENT FOURTEEN – FROM DHS WEBSITE

ICE ARRESTS WORST OF THE WORST CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN PEDOPHILES CONVICTED OF HORRIFIC CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN

Release Date: September 17, 2025

WASHINGTON – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested multiple criminal illegal aliens across the country convicted of horrific sexual crimes against children. These arrests highlight the agency’s unrelenting commitment to removing predators who endanger the most vulnerable members of our communities.

“Criminal illegal aliens who sexually abuse children represent the very worst of humanity,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “These disgusting predators are convicted of sexually abusing a child under 14, lewd and lascivious acts with a child, and endangering the welfare of a child related to sex abuse. These criminals preyed on our innocent children, but thanks to our brave ICE law enforcement officers, they’re off our streets and will never be allowed again to prey on American children.”

Yesterday’s arrests include:

· Jose Mario Cervantes-Luna, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, convicted of sexual assault of a child under 14, in Harris County, Texas.

· Javier Zuniga, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, convicted of rape of a child with a ten-year age difference and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

· Hector Perez-Urias, a criminal illegal alien from Guatemala, convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child, in San Bernardino, California.

· Gilberto Ramos-Agustine, a criminal illegal alien from Guatemala, convicted of endangering the welfare of a child related to sex abuse in Kent, New York.

· Hermilo Martinez, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, convicted of sexual battery in Franklin County, North Carolina.

ICE will continue to prioritize the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes, ensuring our children are protected and justice is served.

See their mugshots here

Partisan arguments compared

“A” From: Center for Immigration Studies

While Illegal Aliens Kill and Rape, Bogus Crime Comparisons Still Blunt Solutions...

By Todd Bensman

Jul 17, 2024 — The libertarians and progressives who created and purveyed the citizen-versus-illegals crime-rate comparison debate should be called out. See more here.

“B” From Cato Institute

Yes, You're Still Imagining a Migrant Crime Spree

FROM: Cato Institute

Oct 22, 2024 — A Cato Peanut Gallery reply to a post by one Steven Malanga, who “brushed aside the best empirical evidence on illegal immigrant criminality when he wrote: The elite press rode to Biden's defense.”

ATTACHMENT FIFTEEN – FROM NEWSWEEK

TEEN TO SELF-DEPORT AFTER ICE DETAINED HIM WEEKS BEFORE GRADUATION

By Andrew Stanton Published Sep 17, 2025 at 5:23 PM EDT

A teenager has decided to self-deport from the United States after being detained by federal immigration agents weeks before his high school graduation.

Newsweek reached out to his attorney and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment via email.

Why It Matters

President Donald Trump campaigned on mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, specifically targeting those with violent criminal records, and his administration ramped up immigration enforcement since his return to office in January. However, many Americans have been critical of his immigration policy, as individuals with misdemeanors, decades-old infractions, or, in some cases, no criminal records at all have been swept up in the heightened enforcement.

What to Know

Alvaro Velasquez, 18, traveled to the United States from Guatemala when he was 16 years old and settled on Long Island. His mother had died prior to his move to the U.S., and he does not have contact with his father, reported local news station WABC.

He was set to graduate from Roosevelt High School in June, but was detained by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and transferred to Texas before the ceremony, the station reported.

Valesquez, who does not have a criminal record, agreed to self-deport during a virtual hearing on Tuesday, according to WABC.

His attorney, Pallvi Babbar, told the station that while he entered the country unlawfully, he went through the courts and was granted deferred action.

"He wasn't doing anything wrong. He was in the car with his guardian, going back from the grocery store," Babbar said.

ICE Detains Green Card Holder Dad with Tumor After 30 Years in US—Attorney

Husband With Approved Green Card Self-Deports After Months in ICE Detention

Dad Killed by ICE After Hitting Agent With Car Had Just Dropped Kids at School

Babbar told Newsday that he was "frustrated" and "done with being isolated in the facility."

She said she is concerned he does not recognize "what hardships he's about to face" back in Guatemala, where he does not have any relatives to return to.

What People Are Saying

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of Homeland Security, wrote in a statement to Newsweek: "Alvaro Castro-Velasquez is an illegal alien from Guatemala who illegally crossed the southern border and was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol May 6, 2022. Castro was released into our country by the Biden administration.ICE arrested Castro June 1 pursuant to a warrant of arrest. He is in ICE custody and undergoing removal proceedings.

"Secretary Noem is reversing Biden's catch and release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets. This Administration is once again implementing the rule of law."

Jessica Harrison, who taught social studies at Roosevelt High School, told WABC: "He was so wonderful. He was the student that every teacher would dream to have."

ATTACHMENT SIXTEEN – FROM FORBES

ICE JUST BOUGHT A ROBOT THAT CAN CLIMB STAIRS AND OPEN DOORS

ICE can now deploy a robot capable of letting off smoke grenades and navigating obstacles in its raids.

By Thomas Brewster, Sep 17, 2025, 12:01pm EDT

This month, ICE has been ramping up its purchases of tactical gear, guns and surveillance kits. On Tuesday, contract records show it spent $78,000 on a robot capable of opening doors, climbing stairs and firing off smoke bombs during house raids.

The deal is with Ottawa, Canada-based company Icor Technology, which was founded in 2005 and was acquired last year by public safety-focused Cadre Holdings for $38 million, after securing contracts with police departments and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and at least 40 other countries, according to local reports. Per the company’s website and promotional videos, its robot is dexterous enough with its rotating claw arm that it can latch onto door knobs and turn them, and is capable of traversing difficult obstacles like stairs. Its claw also comes with a wide-angle camera. Buyers can also choose to equip the device with “chemical grenades,” designed to stop targets seeing officers entering.

Along with purchases of AI-powered facial recognition and drones, the contracts have raised concerns about ICE’s spending on surveillance and arms that could be used to target the immigrant population.

“This is what happens when Congress writes ICE a blank check, they waste even more money on these Orwellian gadgets,” said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.

“The idea of human agents breaking down our doors is terrifying enough, but adding this army of robot ICE agents will only make a creepy nightmare even worse.”

Neither ICE nor Icor had provided comment at the time of publication.

While federal contract records show the Icor machine is the most expensive robot ICE has bought, it’s not the first one. Most notably, ICE has bought devices from Recon Robotics, which makes small, two-wheeled devices that can be quickly deployed for surveillance inside tight spaces, including its flagship product the Throwbot. Last year, it also bought a ground robot from police tech giant Axon for $15,000. These robots are largely designed to be used in property raids where sending in a human agent is deemed overly risky.

Earlier this month, Forbes reported that the immigration agency had been buying fresh armor, drones and guns as it prepares for an imminent agent hiring surge, following purchases of surveillance tools known as Stingrays, which pose as mobile cell towers to locate target devices Much of that tech was being bought through an intermediary supplier called Atlantic Diving Supply (ADS).

Contract records show ICE continuing to buy from ADS this week, including a $515,000 order on Monday for some small unmanned aircraft systems. Though ADS has sold numerous models from $2 billion-valued Silicon Valley manufacturer Skydio, the records didn’t show which models ICE was buying.

Forbes LA Residents Are Foiling ICE Raids Using Amazon Ring’s Neighborhood WatchBy Thomas Brewster

ATTACHMENT SEVENTEEN – FROM GUK

PLANE TO PURGATORY: HOW TRUMP’S DEPORTATION PROGRAM SHUTTLES IMMIGRANTS INTO LAWLESS LIMBO

44,000 immigrants, 1,700 flights, 100 days: a Guardian investigation of leaked flight data and government detention data reveals the inhumane journey of immigrants shuttled around and outside the US

By Maanvi Singh and Will Craft Wed 10 Sep 2025 07.00 EDTe

The Trump administration is shuttling immigrants around the US in irregular and unprecedented ways, according to the findings of a Guardian investigation, in effect vanishing people into a “purgatory” that denies them constitutionally – protected rights.

A review of leaked flight records and passenger manifests from Global Crossing Airlines (GlobalX), the charter company that operates the majority of deportation flights for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), has provided a rare look at the winding journeys of more than 44,000 immigrants detained or deported by the Trump administration.

The leaked data was provided to the Guardian, which has verified its authenticity. It encompasses about 100 days from late January to early May.

GlobalX Ice flights

Alexandria

El Paso

Harlingen

United States

DomesticFlight routes scaled by
number of passengers

International

Honduras

Guatemala

El Salvador

Mexico

Peru

Brazil

Note: About 370 flight routes from 19 January 2025 to 2 May 2025.

The Guardian reviewed GlobalX deportation flights as well as government detention data and interviewed attorneys, advocates, former officials and immigrants who have been through the system. The analysis has revealed that:

· GlobalX carried out more than 1,700 flights for Ice, the vast majority of them between domestic US airports. The airline transported nearly 1,000 children, including nearly 500 children under the age of 10, and 22 infants.

· For many immigrants, the flight paths were long, with multiple legs and layovers. Nearly 3,600 people were moved around repeatedly, forced to board five or more GlobalX flights.

· Immigrants were also moved between detention facilities more than before. The average number of transfers per person has markedly increased in the past six months, and some detained immigrants have been moved as many as 10 or 20 times.

· Detainees were moved around the US without notice, to locations far from their families, communities and legal counsel – leading to apparent violations of constitutional due process rights.

· Along their journeys, immigrants say they were repeatedly kept in the dark about where they were going. Some say they were threatened by immigration agents with long-distance transfers and separation from their families if they did not accept voluntary deportation.

“It just seems so fundamentally inhumane,” said Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, a non-profit legal advocacy group. “The administration is using the system to make it as prohibitively cruel as it possibly can for the people going through.”

Immigrants are being moved around via chartered flights operated by various private contractors, as well as by commercial airlines, buses and cars.

But perhaps more so than any other transportation company, GlobalX, a Miami-based charter airline, has become a crucial tool of the US deportation machine – operating more than half of Ice deportation flights in 2024 and 2025. The company, which had initially marketed itself to sports teams and rock bands seeking to travel in luxury, now earns most of its revenue from its Ice contract.

It was the airline the Trump administration tapped to move hundreds of Venezuelan men to El Salvador, despite a judicial order blocking the flight. It was also the operator of a now infamous deportation flight to Brazil during which multiple passengers fainted from heat exhaustion.

GlobalX did not respond to a request for comment.

The leaked GlobalX flight manifests provide one of the most detailed views available of the scale and scope of Trump’s mass deportation scheme.

ATTACHMENT EIGHTEEN – FROM the LA TIMES

‘I AM NOT THE SAME PERSON.’ PASADENA MAN RECOUNTS 13 DAYS IN ICE’S ‘BASEMENT’

A man who stayed at a downtown Los Angeles ICE facility described being sick, hungry, sleep-deprived and terrified of what might come next.

By Jasmine Mendez Sept. 11, 2025 11:16 AM PT

· Rami Othmane recalls sharing an open toilet and sleeping on a concrete floor.

· He said his wife, chief of medical staff at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, received death threats and racist comments while he was detained.

Rami Othmane was driving to the supermarket to pick up ingredients to make dinner when he noticed a car following closely behind.

“I thought [the driver] was just being aggressive, but a few moments after, they blocked my way,” Othmane said. “They ordered me to leave my car. But I kept asking them — who are you?”

Othmane is a 36-year-old Pasadena resident from Tunisia, and his wife is Dr. Wafaa Alrashid, chief of medical staff at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, whom he was speaking with as federal agents descended.

“I was surrounded by like five or six masked people in unmarked cars,” Othmane told The Times. “I kept telling them I have my ID and I’m a green card applicant. … I was following the right procedure.”

Othmane spoke with The Times this month about his July 13 arrest and subsequent 13-day detention in harsh conditions while suffering from a brain tumor. The experience, he said, left him altered.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to The Times’ request for comment on Othmane’s case.

Othmane said that prior to the arrest he was in the process of obtaining an I-130 petition, which would allow him to stay in the country by qualifying his marriage to Alrashid — a U.S. citizen. The couple wed in March.

Othmane said he provided the agents with a receipt of his green card application but was ignored and ordered to get out of the car.

“They took my wallet,” he said. “They just took me.”

He was brought to the downtown Los Angeles ICE facility known as B-18, or “the basement,” a temporary immigration processing center. According to the Pasadena-based Barcena Law Offices, “this is where people go to be detained for less than 12 hours ... [and] are either released or deported.”

But Othmane’s stay was many times longer than that.

The Pasadena resident said he waited 12 hours just to be processed into the facility. This is despite a 2009 lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. The suit was brought to end “unsanitary conditions” in B-18, but in a settlement, it was agreed that ICE would not keep detainees for more than 12 hours on any given day or over a two-day period, with limited exceptions.

Further, ICE agreed to put a stop to “the practice of shuttling detainees back and forth to overcrowded local jails in an effort to avoid rules prohibiting long-term detention,” according to an ACLU news release.

‘It’s happening everywhere’: 1 in 3 ICE detainees held in overcrowded facilities, data show

“No longer can ICE stuff people into overcrowded cells or deny detainees their right to see a lawyer,” Karen Tumlin, then legal director at the National Immigration Law Center, said in 2009. “As this lawsuit shows, major national policy changes are desperately needed to safeguard against the terrible conditions that afflict so many immigrants held in detention centers across the country.”

After waiting hours to be booked, “the first person I spoke to didn’t understand why they arrested me,” Othmane said. “He said my application was legit.”

Othmane said he was later booked for overstaying his visa in 2015, although he’d since had that case dismissed by an immigration judge and had a green card application in process. He said he saw an ICE case manager the following day, who also questioned why he’d been booked.

Othmane said he sought to reassure the case manager. “This is how it is, you know, we’ll get through it and survive,” he said.

For 13 days, Othmane endured severe conditions. He lost sleep while sharing a cell and an open toilet with other men who would jockey at night for space to sleep on the cold concrete floor. (“The smell was horrible,” he said.) No bedding was provided. The facility is kept at 50 degrees, according to one Congress member who visited there.

He lost 15 pounds due to malnutrition. Meanwhile, he was fighting a growing tumor in his head.

“How many nights can you stay without sleep, or without proper food, without brushing your teeth,” Othmane said. “You can hurt your lungs in there because of the horrible AC; you feel like you’re in a freezer.”

Othmane said he was often fed the same finger-sized, wet bean burrito paired with chips and water. He began “to look forward to it,” though, as his quick weight loss began to worry him.

Dr. Wafaa Alrashid and Rami Othmane were married in March.

Days after her husband’s arrest, Alrashid and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network rallied outside B-18 to shed light on Othmane’s case.

“He does not have a bed to sleep on,” Alrashid said at the rally in July. “My husband is 6 foot 7 inches, for those of you who have met him. He’s a very kind, nice person. But he’s also very tall.”

Othmane said that, while he was detained, his wife received death threats and racist comments on her social media and work email and in letters in the mail.

“People were telling my wife to leave even though she was born here,” he said. “It’s sad to see that humanity is gone.”

Due to hunger and severe headaches — a side effect of the tumor — Othmane fainted and was taken to a hospital.

L.A. teen is moved to ICE detention center out of state without parents’ knowledge

“They gave me liters of IV, food and warm blankets,” he said. “It’s like if you got lost on an island alone for like two weeks or a month, but then they find you ... and try to bring you back to life.”

During the visit, his wrists and ankles were handcuffed, his chest tied down to the hospital bed.

Othmane returned to his cell on July 21. After almost two weeks, he was told he was being transferred to a facility in Arizona — prompting an emotional reaction as the uncertainty of his future in B-18 was coming to an end.

“I collapsed. I just started crying. It was the best news I ever heard,” he said. “The guards started hugging me; it was like a celebration.”

As Othmane’s transfer was underway, ICE was preparing for a scheduled tour of the facility. U.S. Reps. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) and Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) visited B-18 on Aug. 11, days after Othmane was moved.

Rep. Chu represents Pasadena, where Othmane lives. She said the facility was “wiped clean.”

“They let us into the area where the detainees come in. They come in on a van, they are handcuffed and they take them in through this little hallway, where they take their things,” Chu told The Times. “Then we went where the processing desks are, which are surrounded by nine cells capable of holding 336 detainees. But the strange thing is there were so few detainees there.”

Chu later visited the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, which holds about 2,000 people, and spoke with detainees.

“Some of them told me the conditions [in Adelanto] are better than B-18. At least there was a jug of water in the middle of the room. They can talk on the phone, and engage in board games,” the lawmaker said.

ICE agents told Chu that detainees in B-18 are held for no more than 12 hours, but that they have specific waivers that allow them to keep people for 72 hours.

ICE processing center is all but empty when California Congress members arrive to inspect

“As we can see,” Chu said, referring to Othmane’s case, “people are being held in B-18 for as long as 13 days. I’m searching if this has happened with others. But B-18 has been a mystery where few have been let in.”

Chu said that during her visit to the facility, she asked about the food and was shown the burritos Othmane was fed. “They told me people could just ask for more food or bottled water by tapping on the window,” she said.

Othmane said more food was provided “if you were lucky.”

As for hygiene in B-18, the Chu said, “there’s no change of clothes, no toothbrush, no toothpaste or soap. They said, well, they’re only here for 12 hours,” she said, although that is not always the case.

Othmane was removed from the chill of B-18 and driven seven hours inside a truck with no air conditioning to the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, according to Chu. He spent another 13 days in Eloy before being released on $20,000 bail. Alrashid drove to Arizona to pick him up.

“When I saw him, it was surreal, honestly,” Alrashid told Newsweek in an interview. “I couldn’t believe I finally could see him in front of me. I could touch him, I could hug him.”

He was released with an ankle monitor, which he said will be removed once he is a green card holder. While awaiting a court hearing in April, he is required to stay within a 70-mile radius of Los Angeles. He also is considering treatment options for his brain tumor.

For now, he remains shaken.

“I feel so bad for [my wife]. I’m not the same person,” Othmane said. “It’s traumatizing. I hope I go back to where I was, but it’s hard.”

Othmane, a classically trained singer, had a performance scheduled for Aug. 15, seven days after his release. Alrashid asked her husband if he was still up for it; he replied yes.

“I wanted to do it because it’s like therapy,” he said. “But it was one of the toughest performances I’ve ever had. I’m still weak, and I was sick, so I lost my voice.”

Despite his experience at B-18, Othmane said he is trying to stay positive — and is willing to accept deportation if that’s what it comes down to.

ATTACHMENT NINETEEN – FROM POLITICO

WHITE HOUSE’S IMMIGRATION BLITZ RUNS UP AGAINST ICE BED CAPACITY

The megalaw gave ICE billions to build detention capacity. But it might not come online fast enough for the White House’s immigration surge.

By Myah Ward 09/12/2025 10:26 AM EDT

White House border czar Tom Homan is warning of an immigration enforcement blitz in sanctuary cities, as the administration launched enforcement operations in Boston and Chicago this week.

The planned surge is running up against a limited number of detention beds.

“We’re almost at capacity,” Homan told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. But “we got beds coming online every day.”

His comments underscore an ongoing tension in President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda: The mismatch between the White House’s appetite for increased enforcement and the logistical hurdles of rapidly deploying unprecedented resources and deporting people from the U.S., according to administration officials and policy experts. ICE continues to fall short of the White House’s goal of 3,000 daily immigration-related arrests.

Trump has talked of surging law enforcement resources in a number of sanctuary cities to clampdown on crime and immigration, including New Orleans and Portland, in addition to Boston and Chicago. Immigration arrests in Washington also increased with Trump’s deployment of the National Guard.

“It’s interesting timing because we don’t have the bed space to support all the arrests,” said an administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

As of late August, there were more than 61,000 people in long-term detention. The government has fewer than 65,000 beds, according to the administration official.

The number of people in detention since Trump took office has increased by more than 50 percent, as ICE was holding around 39,000 detainees in the final days of the Biden administration. Reports in recent months have documented concerns about conditions inside of facilities, including overcrowding and lengthy stays in temporary holding rooms.

The Department of Homeland Security is rushing to spend billions to expand detention capacity across the country and double its bed space by next year. The agency is tapping into $45 billion provided by the GOP’s policy and tax law for detention expansion, and has turned to GOP governors to form federal-state partnerships — part of an effort to build soft-sided tent facilities and use vacant and local prisons to hold detainees.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the agency, “in mere weeks” has “greatly expanded detention space by working with our state partners” — pointing to “Louisiana Lockup” and “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot” in Florida.

“The One Big Beautiful Bill provided historic funding to help us carry out this mandate, including $45 billion to support the expansion of detention space to maintain an average daily population of 100,000 illegal aliens and 80,000 new ICE beds,” McLaughlin said in a statement.

Detention capacity constraints will be more prevalent in regions where beds are scarce, said John Sandweg, former acting ICE director from 2013 to 2014. In Illinois, which has restricted both private detention facilities and local contracts with ICE, detainees from Chicago will likely be sent to Indiana, Missouri and other states in the region, which requires more resources for transfers. The agency will face a similar challenge in Boston, he said.

“The number of beds is dramatically up. I think nationwide, they’re OK,” Sandweg said. “But I think the challenge they’ll face is, how do they get the bodies — if they’re making a bunch of arrests in Chicago, how are they getting them into the system?”

It remains to be seen just how expansive Trump’s sanctuary city crackdown will be, and whether it will result in a sustained increase in ICE arrests nationwide. Homan’s warnings that ICE will “flood the zone” come a month after the Justice Department released a list of more than 30 sanctuary jurisdictions, with Attorney General Pam Bondi sending letters to local and state leaders, threatening to pull funding, dispatch law enforcement and criminally charge and prosecute local leaders they say haven’t done enough to assist with federal immigration enforcement.

“Shame on Gov. Healey and Mayor Wu,” Homan said Tuesday. “Shame on both of them. They should be calling the White House thanking Trump, thanking ICE for making the community safer.”

With the sanctuary city crackdown, it still appears that the administration’s enforcement resources are being deployed on an “operation by operation” basis instead of as a “high-volume” deportation pipeline, said a former Trump administration official who was also granted anonymity to speak about the challenges. Even as DHS works to build out its bed capacity, there are still a number of challenges in the removal process the agency is sorting through.

“Do they have enough transportation? Can they move people fast enough? There are all sorts of pieces to this pipeline, and if any one of them gets clogged, it slows everything down,” the official said. “From teeing up your deportable targets to your detention and transportation plan for them, to keep running it all at scale smoothly — that’s a big management and logistics challenge.”

These hurdles extend to the Trump administration’s battle in the courts. Since Trump took office, his aides have taken steps to speed the removal of undocumented immigrants — with a number of these efforts limited or blocked by the courts. Just last week, a federal judge halted the Trump administration’s efforts to expand a fast-track deportation process known as expedited removal.

“My perception is that the goal of all of this immigration detention is to facilitate mass deportations. It’s not that they want to be holding people for long periods of time. It’s that they’re trying to stage these removals,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an analyst and lawyer at the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank. “If they’re not able to use expanded expedited removal, at least not as much as they had, then that poses a significant detention challenge. Are you holding people for the duration of four-year long immigration court proceedings?”

ATTACHMENT TWENTY – FROM USA TODAY

HAITIANS FACING 'HARD SITUATION' AS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TRIES TO END LEGAL STATUS EARLY

Haitians on temporary status soon to expire face a tough choice: stay here illegally, go home to a perilous situation or start over in a new country.

What triggered the protests leading to these lawsuits?

L. got a call one recent Friday from a friend, desperate to talk and pleading to meet. She hesitated. She hardly ventures out anymore.

That evening, she risked it and, for two hours, shared slices of cheese pizza and worries. Both are Haitian immigrants whose temporary legal status in the United States is set to expire soon.

Like many Haitians living in America, neither L. nor her friend has decided yet what to do: Return to their tumultuous country, 700 miles from Miami, stay illegally in the United States, or relocate to another country altogether.

L., who asked to be identified only by her first initial because of her risk for early deportation, left the pizza shop angry, frustrated, and stressed.

“If my country was OK, we wouldn’t be in this situation,’’ she thought.

For at least three years, Haiti's capital city of Port-au-Prince has been overrun by armed gangs, and political turmoil has extended into many of the Caribbean nation's villages and towns. United Nations officials said in July that the country "nears collapse" and Haitians face a national humanitarian crisis.

L., who has been here for two years, is among the more than 500,000 Haitians in the United States living and working legally in offices, hospitals, nursing homes, hotels and factories under a Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, that is soon to disappear.

“I tell myself, ‘Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine,’ ” said the 32-year-old office worker. “We are living day by day … It’s a hard situation.”

What it means to have temporary status

The U.S. State Department still warns American citizens to stay away from Haiti, "due to kidnapping, crime, terrorist activity, civil unrest, and limited health care."

But the Trump administration said the situation has improved enough in Haiti that the temporary program is no longer necessary.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended Haitian TPS effective Sept. 2, though a District Court judge ruled the program has to remain in place until at least Feb. 3, 2026.

Noem said in a statement that allowing Haitians to stay temporarily “is contrary to the national interest” of the United States.

The TPS program provides work permits and protection from deportation for residents of countries in turmoil because of natural or man-made disasters. The program is typically valid for 18 months or two years at a time. DHS has often extended the protections.

Some Haitians enrolled in the program after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the island and killed hundreds of thousands of people. More recently, Haiti was hit by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in 2021, a month after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated.

Leaders of the House Haiti Caucus argue the situation in Haiti remains far from safe and that the program should be extended or permanent legal status granted to the families, many of whom have been in the United States for years and are now part of the fabric of the nation.

“What does it mean to have temporary status when you’ve been part of a community, shaped a community, made formidable contributions to culture, civic life and to our economy for 30 years,’’ said Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts and caucus co-chair. “What is temporary about that? These are neighbors, our co-workers, the people we live, work and worship with.”

New York Rep. Yvette Clarke, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, called changes to the program “extremely destabilizing.”

"To have mixed-status families in fear of their loved ones being ripped away and being targeted by ICE, it has really sent a chilling effect throughout our communities,” said Clarke, whose Brooklyn district has a significant Haitian population.

'Folks are not doing well'

Faith leaders and community activists in Brooklyn and elsewhere have been meeting to discuss how to help people decide what to do.

“What are they going home to?" asked Yolette Williams, executive director of The Haitian American Alliance of New York, a nonprofit volunteer organization.

Williams, also a clinical social worker, said people are turning to her organization for help and listeners are calling into a local radio program pleading for answers.

“Folks are not doing well,” she said.

In other Haitian communities across the country, activists have been lobbying lawmakers and holding news conferences and prayer vigils to garner support.

“We have to be able to make noise and speak out against this because it’s really dangerous" in Haiti, said Ruth Jeannoel, founder and director of Fanm Saj Inc., an organization in Florida that focuses on wellness and community support. "We have to reach the hearts and minds of people."

Haiti Caucus leaders said part of the challenge is getting communities of color to unite around the issue.

“This affects everybody,’’ said Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, adding that in her South Florida district, Hispanic and Black residents are often profiled by law enforcement officials. “We had Americans who had to give their papers … So this is a problem for all of us.”

Some Haitians living under TPS aren’t leaving their homes, afraid to go to work, church and school, activists said. Families are weighing their limited options. Some are considering moving to Canada, which has an asylum process for Haitian refugees.

“People are doing a lot of praying,” Williams said. “People are looking for a miracle.”

Weighing options as the clock runs out

L. doesn't want to stay in the United States if she can't live and work here legally.

She thought about returning to Haiti, but friends and family warned against it. Gangs have been spotted near her hometown.

She considered going north to Canada, but she would have to start all over and there is no guarantee she could secure legal status there.

It was hard enough to leave Haiti, where she still has family. But with the lack of opportunities and the violence there, relatives encouraged her to stay in the United States.

“It hasn’t been easy … It was hard to leave everything behind, but it was a good move,’’ she said.

L. hasn’t ruled out moving thousands of miles away to a small African country called Benin, which has been welcoming to people of the African diaspora. Benin had been on her list to visit, but she hadn’t planned to make it home.

Few at her job know her dilemma. She doesn’t talk about her status. It’s so stressful, she meditates daily to try to stay calm.

L. knew the program was temporary. But like others, she hoped it would be renewed because conditions in Haiti have only worsened. Now, she has a decision to make.

“I can’t just sit and hope they renew it," she said. “We just need some more time."

ATTACHMENT TWENTY ONE – FROM the AMERICAN IMMIGRATION COUNCIL

Local Economies – Here’s What the Data Says So Far

By Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Published: August 27, 2025

Seven months into President Trump’s term, immigration enforcement operations continue to ramp up, and the broader economic impacts are beginning to come into view. Rather than focus on the “worst of the worst,” the Trump administration has increasingly targeted worksites for immigration raids, picking up delivery drivers, street vendors, farmworkers, meatpackers, and others working in industries across the country. While it is too early to tell the full impact of the expanding mass deportation operations on the American economy and way of life, the warning signs are flashing red.

In California, analysis of the state’s workforce data reveals a substantial drop in workforce participation across all demographic groups, with the largest drop occurring among noncitizens. From May to June, after weeks of immigration worksite raids in Southern California and other parts of the state, the total workforce in California dropped by 3.1%, while the number of noncitizens showing up to work dropped by 7.2%. This reflects not only the direct impact of deportations, but the fears that immigration enforcement operations have created in communities, leading some people not to show up to work. According to the researchers, this represents the largest shrinking of the California workforce since the Great Recession.

Raids in California also led to significant drops in student attendance at schools. A June study that analyzed data on the first two months of school attendance in California’s Central Valley, the site of early raids led by Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino — who is now leading the Trump administration’s California raids — led to a 22% drop in school attendance throughout the region.

Beyond California, states around the country are seeing impacts on their workforces not only from the Trump administration’s raids but also from efforts to strip legal status from many people in the U.S. legally.  A new report from Economic Insights and Research Consulting found that deportations are already having an impact on the agricultural supply and on the construction industry. The 10 states with the highest concentration of undocumented immigrants in the construction industry saw a 0.1% drop in construction employment at a time when other states saw a 1.9% increase. The hospitality industry also showed a huge drop in growth, with the labor force rising just 0.2% in June 2025, compared to 1.5% in June 2024.

Similarly, according to the same report, the agricultural industry saw a total drop in employment of 155,000 workers from March 2025 to July 2025 — compared to a 2.2% increase in March 2024 to July 2024. While the researchers cautioned that it was too early to draw firm conclusions, they noted that the cost of fresh vegetables and meat (both beef and pork) rose by a similar rate over that period, suggesting upwards price pressures may be caused by labor force disruption due to Trump’s immigration operations.

Individual examples of businesses show that immigration raids and the stripping of legal status are having an impact around the country:

· In Ottumwa, Iowa, 200 workers at a meatpacking plant who had legal status under the Biden administration had to be terminated after Trump stripped their status.

· In Omaha, Nebraska, after a DHS raid in a meatpacking plant where half the employees were arrested, recruitment plummeted, and the plant had to cut back on production at a time when ground beef prices are already rising.

· In South Florida, one local grocery story serving the Latino community has seen a 20% drop in customer traffic and sales volume.

· In Los Angeles, food trucks and other businesses that cater to the immigrant population are seeing a major drop in customers.

· In Edison, New Jersey, a major commercial warehouse and shipping hub shuttered for days following an I-9 audit and a worksite raid.

· In Lovington, New Mexico, a raid at a dairy farm that led to the arrest of 11 employees caused the company to shut down temporarily.

Critically, when hiring their employees, many of the employers in this situation had used E-Verify—an internet-based system that compares information entered by an employee on an I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification form with U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) records.  These employers audited their workforce using E-Verify and believed that they were in compliance with immigration law. However, the White House recently stated that employers who rely on E-Verify and the I-9 process to check their employees for legal status are being “reckless.” This has left small businesses across the country with no clarity on the appropriate process to ensure compliance or how best to avoid being a target for DHS or ICE worksite enforcement actions.

As mass deportation enforcement actions continue and more data is reported, the broader impacts of Trump’s campaign of mass deportation will become clearer. For now, the early warning signs show a growing labor shortage, rising prices, terrified employees, and employers left in the lurch without any tools to ensure workforce stability.  Should these operations continue unabated over the next three and a half years, the situation could become far worse for the nation as a whole.

A22 ATTACHMENT TWENTY TWO – FROM ICE website

History of ICE

Despite U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s relatively young age, its functional history – encompassing the broad roles, responsibilities and federal statutes now carried out and enforced by the men and women of ICE – predates the modern birth of the agency by more than 200 years.

(Our) informative video (see here) describes the conditions that gave rise to legislation authorizing the collection of import taxes and customs fees first envisioned by founding father Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first secretary of the Treasury. It traces the remarkable development of the country throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including the essential role of immigration and the evolving laws and regulations that governed it through a period of rapid growth and expansion.  

In March 2003, the Homeland Security Act set into motion what would be the single-largest government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense. One of the agencies in the new Department of Homeland Security was the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, now known as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Congress granted ICE a unique combination of civil and criminal authorities to better protect national security and public safety in answer to the tragic events on 9/11. Leveraging those authorities, ICE's primary mission is to promote homeland security and public safety through the criminal and civil enforcement of federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration.

ICE now has more than 20,000 law enforcement and support personnel in more than 400 offices in the United States and around the world. The agency has an annual budget of approximately $8 billion, primarily devoted to three operational directorates – Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA). A fourth directorate – Management and Administration – supports the three operational branches to advance the ICE mission.

23 ATTACHMENT TWENTY THREE – FROM THE HILL

Hyundai plant’s completion in Georgia delayed months by ICE raid

by Elizabeth Crisp - 09/11/25 4:09 PM ET

The massive U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid at a Hyundai EV battery manufacturing plant in Georgia last week has likely set the facility’s opening back by several months, Hyundai CEO José Muñoz told reporters Thursday.

“This is going to give us minimum two to three months delay, because now all these people want to get back [to South Korea],” Muñoz said in Detroit, as reported by Bloomberg. “Then you need to see how can you fill those positions, and for the most part, those people are not in the U.S.”

When completed, the factory, jointly operated by Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, is expected to hire thousands of American workers. It was originally slated to come online later this year.

However, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) carried out its largest single-site enforcement operation ever on Sept. 4, detaining nearly 500 people — mostly Korean nationals working on the technical components of building out the factory.

More than 300 South Korean workers were released from U.S. custody and are expected to arrive back in their home country on Friday, according to the nation’s foreign ministry.

“For the construction phase of the plants, you need to get specialized people,” Muñoz said, per CNBC. “There are a lot of skills and equipment that you cannot find in the United States.”

That has thrown company officials into a rush to fill in the gaps, the automaker executive said.

During a speech Sunday marking his first 100 days in office, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called on the Trump administration to adjust visa rules for some skilled positions or risk losing future investments in the U.S.

“It’s not like these are long-term workers,” the South Korean leader said. “When you build a factory or install equipment at a factory, you need technicians, but the United States doesn’t have that workforce and yet they won’t issue visas to let our people stay and do the work.”

Hyundai Motor Group Chair Euisun Chung also called for visa reform at the Detroit event Thursday, per Bloomberg’s report.

“I’m really worried about that incident and we’re really glad they’re returning home safely,” he said. “Our government and the U.S. government are working closely, and the visa regulation is very complicated. I hope we can make it, together, a better system.”

ATTACHMENT TWENTY FOUR – FROM TIME

‘Nobody Is Going to Stay and Work When It’s Like This’: South Koreans Reluctant to Return After Harrowing ICE Detention

By Miranda Jeyaretnam Sep 15, 2025 6:00 AM ET

South Korean workers that experts have said are necessary for the speedy construction of large-scale manufacturing projects in the U.S. are questioning whether or not to return to the U.S. after a Sept. 4 Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at the site of an under-development Hyundai-LG battery plant in Ellabell, Ga., earlier this month detained 475 workers—317 South Koreans—in reportedly poor conditions.

One detainee secretly kept a diary of the dayslong detention on a folded up sheet of paper detailing their alleged mistreatment in the ICE facility, which was obtained by South Korean news agency Yonhap. Meanwhile, immigration lawyer Charles Kuck, who represents seven of the detained South Koreans, said his clients had entered and were working in the U.S. legally, and a leaked ICE document showed that at least one detainee had a valid visa, according to the Guardian.

President Donald Trump reportedly sought for the workers to stay in the U.S. and train American workers, a request that delayed their return to South Korea. But 330 detainees—316 Koreans and 14 other foreign nationals—opted to return to Seoul, where they were greeted with cheers on Friday. Just one South Korean worker chose to stay in the U.S.

“Nobody is going to stay and work when it’s like this,” Jang Young-seol, an engineer for an LGES subcontractor, told Reuters.

The detentions of the workers had caused an uproar in South Korea—a security ally and longtime friend of the U.S.—with lawmakers and diplomats criticizing the U.S.’s visa system. It has also led some South Korean firms to question their investments in the U.S. The raid came just weeks after South Korea had pledged to directly invest $350 billion in the U.S. as part of a trade deal. Experts have told TIME that Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown is butting heads with his push to attract foreign investment and bring manufacturing back to the U.S. The Hyundai-LG battery plant, which is expected to create thousands of American jobs, faces a startup delay of at least two to three months as a result of the raid.

Poor conditions in ICE detention facility

The diary obtained by Yonhap described the detained workers being kept in cramped and unsanitary conditions while being given little explanation for their detentions.

At around 10 a.m. on Sept. 4, ICE agents raided the plant, searching the workers who had been in hard hats and safety shoes and rounding them up, tying their wrists with cable ties, according to the diary. The diary writer was not allowed to get his ID or passport.

According to the diary, the workers were told to fill in paperwork for a foreign arrest warrant, without any explanation of the documents or the detainees’ legal rights. Some of the workers reportedly had limited knowledge of English.

“We handed in the papers thinking that we would be released after filling them out,” the worker reportedly wrote in the log. But after filling out the documents, the ICE agents confiscated the belongings of the workers and boarded the workers into police vans, the diary said, transporting some with chains around their waists, ankles, and wrists. The diary writer waited more than nine hours before being boarded onto a van with his wrists bound by zip ties.

The workers were initially kept in five temporary 72-person cells, according to the diary, that were so cold that the detainees wrapped themselves in towels. The facility reportedly did not have a clock, and the mattresses were moldy. Eventually, some detainees were moved to assigned cells.

South Korean

Cho Young-hee, a 44-year-old South Korean engineer who was in the U.S. on a B-1 visa, told the Wall Street Journal that he was assigned to a two-person room with a toilet and given a prison uniform.

It did not seem as though ICE agents knew why the workers had been detained, Cho said. “It felt like our basic human rights weren’t being guaranteed,” he said.

“Their initial attitude was very aggressive,” but “as time went on, it seemed like they realized we hadn’t committed any major illegal acts,” Cho said. Even the agents “gradually seemed to think, ‘Something’s not right here,’” he added.

Cho told the Journal that he was not sure what his legal status would be when returning to the U.S., although the Trump Administration has all but guaranteed that the workers can re-enter without issue. Cho’s wife, however, said, “I don’t want him to go back there.”

Workers detained despite holding valid visas

The diary writer had reportedly entered the U.S. on a legal short-term business visa. Workers were given “voluntary departure” forms describing them as being in the U.S. illegally and told to sign, according to the detention log.

One 40-year-old employee of an LGES subcontractor told Hankyoreh, “I didn’t even know I was under arrest. I thought it was a procedure to confirm my identity, but they asked me to sign some document.” Another 48-year-old employee said, “They saw the word ‘arrest’ on the document and whispered that they shouldn’t do it, but the agents were holding guns, so they ended up signing anyway.”

After three days of being confined, according to the worker’s diary, they were brought to an interview with ICE agents who took their fingerprints and examined their documents. The agents reportedly made jokes about “Rocket Man”—Trump’s nickname for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—after confirming that the worker was from South Korea.

“I was angry that they seemed to be making fun of me, but kept my temper because I was worried about what could happen to my documents,” the worker wrote. The worker informed the agents that they had entered the U.S. legally and asked why they were arrested, to which the agent reportedly said they didn’t know but that their higher-ups thought it was illegal.

On Sept. 7, the South Korean consulate and foreign ministry officials met with the detainees, reportedly telling them, “The most important thing is for everyone to go home first. You must sign whatever you are asked to sign here.”

The consulate officials reportedly told the workers that if there was a dispute, the workers could be detained for months or even years.

Trump Administration seeks to mend rift

“We’re in an age of new normal in dealing with the United States,” Presidential Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik told reporters at the airport. “The standard changes every time and constantly there has to be deal-making, not only on tariffs, but it’ll also be the case with security issues.”

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau expressed regret over the detentions in a meeting with South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo.

Trump too has tried to mollify the situation, after initially telling reporters that “ICE was doing right because they were here illegally” and urging foreign companies “to LEGALLY bring your very smart people.”

Trump posted on Sunday, “When Foreign Companies who are building extremely complex products, machines, and various other ‘things,’ come into the United States with massive Investments, I want them to bring their people of expertise for a period of time to teach and train our people how to make these very unique and complex products, as they phase out of our Country, and back into their land. If we didn’t do this, all of that massive Investment will never come in the first place — Chips, Semiconductors, Computers, Ships, Trains, and so many other products that we have to learn from others how to make, or, in many cases, relearn, because we used to be great at it, but not anymore.”

South Korean officials and businesses have complained that obtaining U.S. visas costs a significant amount of both time and money, an issue that has only worsened as the Trump Administration cracks down on legal immigration pathways. The Trump Administration is reportedly in talks with South Korean officials to create a new visa category.

“I don’t want to frighten off or disincentivize Investment into America by outside Countries or Companies,” Trump added. “We welcome them, we welcome their employees, and we are willing to proudly say we will learn from them, and do even better than them at their own ‘game,’ sometime into the not too distant future!”

· What to Know About ICE’s Controversial Arrest of Former TIME100 Listee Jeanette Vizguerra

· How a Massive ICE Raid Caused a Diplomatic Incident With a Key U.S. Ally

· Judge Orders Release of Rümeysa Öztürk, Tufts Student Detained by ICE

· How ICE’s Raid on Korean Workers in Georgia Demonstrates Trump’s Clashing Priorities

ATTACHMENT TWENTY FIVE – FROM CNN

South Korea’s president says Georgia ICE raid could have ‘considerable impact’ on direct US investment from his country

By Jessie Yeung, Yoonjung Seo and Marianna Kim

Seoul, South Korea — 

The ICE raid on more than 300 South Korean workers in Georgia could impact future South Korean investment in the US, its president said on Thursday, adding the fallout had created a “very confusing” situation for Korean companies there.

His comments come as South Korea reels from the raids – one of the largest by US immigration enforcement agencies in recent years, and which threatens to create a rift between two close partners that have long cooperated on military and economic matters.

South Korean businesses in the US “need to build facilities, install equipment, and set up factories, which requires skilled technicians,” Lee Jae Myung said at a press conference that marked his 100th day in office.

“This issue could have a considerable impact on foreign direct investment in the US,” he said. “We are urging the US side to normalize the visa process related to investment, whether by securing sufficient visa quotas or by creating a new category of visa.”

Lee’s comments come as the South Korean workers detained in Georgia prepare to depart Atlanta on a Thursday flight and arrive in Seoul on Friday.

They will return home to a country that has been dismayed on their behalf, with many viewing the images of shackled workers being marched onto buses as the betrayal of a bilateral friendship forged over more than seven decades since the end of the Korean War.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

On Thursday, South Korea’s foreign ministry said President Donald Trump had temporarily paused the deportation process to discuss the workers’ potential future in the US.

“President Trump temporarily paused the procedure in order to listen to our position on whether it would be possible for our nationals, who’re all skilled workers, to continue working in the US,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“The South Korean side made it clear that under no circumstances should there be delays in their departure and return, and that swift and safe movement of our nationals should be ensured,” it said.

However, it added, Foreign Minister Cho Hyun had told Secretary of State Marco Rubio “that it would be best if our nationals first returned home and then reentered the US to resume work, and the US side said it respected this position and would promptly move forward with the repatriation schedule.”

US and South Korean officials also discussed the process for bringing the workers home – with Trump reportedly instructing immigration authorities to transport the workers “without handcuffs or other physical restraints, despite strict US escort regulations, per our request,” the foreign ministry said.

Outrage and shock

The South Korean workers were taken into custody last Thursday during a sweeping ICE operation at a battery plant under construction in Ellabell, approximately 25 miles west of Savannah.

The plant is a joint venture between Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, two giants of South Korean industry that have made major multi-billion dollar investments in the US.

The news, along with images released by ICE of workers being lined up and restrained with long chains, sparked widespread frustration and outcry across the political spectrum in South Korea. Many fear the detentions could have a chilling effect on any business thinking of striking a deal on US soil.

“It was like ‘a slap in the face’ moment,” Choi Jong Kun, South Korea’s former First Vice Foreign Minister, told CNN.

Some of the 475 detained entered the US illegally, according to Steven Schrank, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge, while others had overstayed their visas. Others were in here under the US Visa Waiver Program which allows workers to travel for tourism or business for up to 90 days.

But Cho Hee-kyoung, a law professor at Seoul’s Hongik University, told CNN South Korean workers have long worked under visa arrangements similar to those detained in Georgia and pointed to the ongoing problem of the US approving too few business visas.

Lawyers for some of the detained workers insist their clients were legally working on the Georgia site.

Some US lawmakers have recently pushed to address the lack of visas for South Korean workers. A bill called the “Partner with Korea Act” was introduced in the House in July but hasn’t moved since.

Cho, the foreign minister, and Rubio discussed potentially creating new visa categories for South Korean workers during their meeting on Wednesday, according to a readout from the South Korean foreign ministry.

ICE across AMERICA

ATTACHMENT TWENTY SIX – FROM FROM NBC

By Dan De Luce Sept. 10, 2025, 7:31 PM EDT / Updated Sept. 10, 2025, 7:44 PM EDT

Immigrants who witnessed a traffic stop Wednesday by U.S. Park Police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers panicked and tried to flee onto the CIA’s compound, attempting to scale fences around the spy agency’s headquarters.

On the George Washington Parkway, which runs in front of the CIA’s entrance in northern Virginia, U.S. Park Police, supported by ICE, had stopped a car and approached the driver’s side of the car, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.

“The driver refused to turn off the car and sped off nearly hitting Park Police and ICE officers,” DHS said. “U.S. Park Police and ICE pursued the vehicle, until the driver jumped the median traveling south on northbound lanes of the parkway, jeopardizing the safety of officers and the public,” DHS said.

The three people in the car fled on foot and officers apprehended one of them, DHS said.

During the traffic stop, a second car approached and “the occupants panicked at the sight of law enforcement presence and fled onto CIA property,” the statement said.

Officers apprehended three of the four immigrants in the second car. One of them had been removed from the United States twice, according to DHS.

Initially, CIA employees thought there had been a raid at a nearby building site, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

ICE officers did not inform the CIA of the raid in advance, and the incident caused a traffic jam outside its complex in Langley, Virginia, during the morning commute, the source said.

The New York Times first reported the incident.

A CIA spokesperson said by email that law enforcement responded to a security incident at the agency complex but did not offer more details.

As a precaution, the CIA temporarily shut down access to the agency to check whether the perimeter of the campus was secure. The people who tried to scale the fences did not breach headquarters security or pose any threat, the source said.

CORRECTION (Sept. 12, 2025, 3:21 p.m. ET): Based on erroneous information from a source, an earlier version of this article inaccurately described the details of an immigration enforcement operation. ICE participated in a traffic stop on the George Washington Parkway; it was not conducting a raid at a nearby construction site.

Dan De Luce

ATTACHMENT TWENTY SEVEN – FROM IUK

Trump threatens to declare national emergency in Washington DC if mayor doesn’t back ICE raids

The president lashed out at D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser after his 30 day takeover expired

Sam Rkaina Monday 15 September 2025 12:45 BST

White House claims crimes are being invented in D.C. to undermine Trump's ‘100 percent successful’ crackdown

Donald Trump has threatened to declare a national emergency in Washington, D.C. in a rant against the mayor over his crime crackdown.

Taking to Truth Social, the president claimed his recent deployment of the National Guard had led to “virtually no crime” in Washington.

But he warned that pushing back against ICE anti-immigration raids in D.C. would see crime “roaring back” and attacked Mayor Muriel Bowser in his latest social media post on Monday.

“The Federal Government, under my auspices as President of the United States of America, has stepped into the complete criminal mess that was Washington, D.C., our Nation’s Capital,” he wrote.

“Because of this, D.C. has gone from one of the most dangerous and murder ridden cities in the U.S.A., and even around the World, to one of the safest – In just a few weeks.

“It has been a beautiful thing to watch but, now, under pressure from the Radical Left Democrats, Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has presided over this violent criminal takeover of our Capital for years, has informed the Federal Government that the Metropolitan Police Department will no longer cooperate with ICE in removing and relocating dangerous illegal aliens.

“If I allowed this to happen, CRIME would come roaring back. To the people and businesses of Washington, D.C., DON’T WORRY, I AM WITH YOU, AND WON’T ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN. I’ll call a National Emergency, and Federalize, if necessary!!!”

Trump’s 30-day emergency declaration to federalize the district’s police force expired last week, with the administration celebrating it as a success. The reality is not so clear-cut, as crime was already falling before the president weighed in.

Data shared by the White House said there were more than 2,100 arrests from August 7, when federal law enforcement began their deployment, through September 8.

Metropolitan Police Department figures show that violent crime during the surge was down 39 percent from the same period last year, including a 53 percent drop in homicides, with seven during the surge, compared to 15 during the same timespan in 2024.

District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser cooperated with the administration’s efforts (AP)

Earlier this month, Bowser issued an order requiring ongoing local coordination with the takeover by Trump.

Speaking at a press conference on August 27, the mayor said that carjackings were down 87 percent since the same 20-day period last year.

“We know that when carjackings go down, when use of guns goes down, when homicide or robbery go down, neighborhoods feel safer and are safer,” she said. “So, this surge has been important to us for that reason.”

Bowser has yet to comment on Trump’s latest remarks.

Several thousand protesters hit the streets this month over the deployment of National Guard troops to “re-establish law, order, and public safety,” after Trump called crime a blight on the capital.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY EIGHT – FROM 19^TH NEWS

‘They are hunting us:’ Child care workers in D.C. go underground amid ICE crackdown

In Washington, D.C., where close to 40 percent of child care workers are immigrants, fear has taken hold amid a crime crackdown that has raised ICE presence. Many are missing work, deepening a staffing shortage in the industry.

By Chabeli Carrazana Published September 11, 2025, 9:21 a.m. ET

From her home-based day care in Washington D.C., Alma peers out the door and down the sidewalks. If they’re clear and there are no ICE agents out, she’ll give her coworker, an undocumented Latina who lives nearby, a call letting her know it’s safe to head in for work. 

They have to be careful with the kids, too. Typically, she took the five children she cares for to the library on Wednesdays and out to parks throughout the week, but Alma — who is also undocumented — had to stop doing that in August, when President Donald Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the district. Now, two of the kids she cares for are being pulled out of the day care. The parents said it was because they weren’t going outside. 

Trump has deployed the National Guard and a wave of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into the district. ICE arrests there have increased tenfold. The situation has thrust the Latinas who hold up the nation’s child care sector into a perpetual state of panic. Nationwide, about 1 in 5 child care workers are immigrants, but in D.C. it’s closer to 40 percent; about 7 percent nationally are undocumented. Nearly all are women. 

Many are missing work, and others are risking it because they simply can’t afford to lose pay, providers told The 19th. All are afraid they’ll be next. 

“What kind of life is this?” said Alma, whose name The 19th has changed to protect her identity. “We are not delinquents, we are not bad people, we are here to work to support our family.” 

Alma has been running a home-based day care for the past decade. She’s been in the United States for 22 years, working in child care that entire time. With two kids being pulled, she will have to reduce her staffer’s hours as she tries to find children to fill those spots. 

Her four school-age children also depend on her. This month, she had to write out a signed document detailing what should happen to her kids if she were to be detained. Her wish is that they be brought to detention with her. 

“I can’t imagine my kids here without me,” she said.

She said she understands the president’s approach of expelling immigrants with criminal convictions from the country, but teachers who are working with kids? Who haven’t committed any crime? 

By targeting them, she said, the administration is “destroying entire families.”

The Multicultural Spanish Speaking Providers Association in D.C., which works with Latina child care providers, has seen this panic first hand for the past couple of weeks as more and more Latinas in child care have stopped coming into work. The center also helps workers obtain their associate’s degree in early childhood education, and since the semester started in mid-August, many teachers have asked for classes to be offered virtually so they don’t have to show up to campus at night. 

Latinas have flocked to the child care industry for multiple reasons: Families seeking care value access to language education, and Latinas have a lower language barrier to entry, said Blanca Huezo, the program coordinator at the Multicultural Spanish Speaking Providers Association. 

“In general, this industry offers them an opportunity for a fresh start professionally in their own language and without leaving behind their culture,” Huezo said.

Though the number of undocumented child care workers has historically been low, recent changes from the Trump administration to revoke or reduce legal protections have likely increased it. This year, the administration has narrowed opportunities for claiming asylum at the border, tried to bar certain groups from obtaining Temporary Protected Status and temporarily paused humanitarian protections for groups of migrants, thrusting more workers into the “undocumented” category. 

The changes, coupled with increased enforcement, has fostered fear among Latinx people regardless of immigration status. That fear among workers is deepening a staffing crisis in an industry that already couldn’t afford additional losses, Huezo said. 

“There is a shortage — and now even more,” she said. “There are many centers where nearly 99 percent of teachers are of Hispanic origin.” 

Washington, D.C., has been a sanctuary city since 2020, where law enforcement cooperation with immigration officials was broadly prohibited. Earlier this year, however, Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed repealing that law and, in mid-August, Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department Police Chief Pamela Smith gave officers leeway to share information with ICE about individuals they arrested or stopped. 

“There was some peace that living in D.C. brought more security,” Huezo said. Now, “people don’t feel that freedom to walk through the streets.” 

Child care centers are also no longer off limits for ICE raids. The centers were previously protected under a “sensitive locations” directive that advised ICE to not conduct enforcement in places like schools and day cares. But Trump removed that protection on his first day in office. While reports have not yet surfaced of raids in day cares, ICE presence near child care care centers, including in D.C., has been reported. 

A similar story of fear and surveillance has already played out in Los Angeles, where ICE conducted widespread raids earlier in the summer. Huezo said her organization has been in touch with child care providers in L.A. to learn about how they managed those months. 

In the meantime, the best the organization can do, she said, is connect workers with as many resources as possible, including legal clinics, but the ones that help immigrants are at their maximum caseload. The group has put child care workers who are not leaving their homes in touch with an organization called Food Justice DMV that is delivering meals to their doorsteps. Prior to last month, people who needed food could fill out a form and get it that same week. Now, the wait time is two to three weeks, Huezo said. For those in Maryland and Virginia, it’s closer to a month. 

Thalia, a teacher at a day care, said her coworkers have stopped coming to work. It’s all the staff talks about during their lunchtime conversations. When she rides the Metro into work, she looks over her shoulder for the ICE agents, their faces covered, who are often at the exits.

“They are hunting us,” she said.

Thalia, whose name has been changed because she is undocumented, has been living in the United States for nine years and working in child care that entire time. Like her, many of the Latina teachers she works with have earned certifications and degrees in early childhood education. 

“We are working, we are cooperating, paying taxes,” she said. “We are there all day so other families can benefit from the child care.” 

As a single mother, Thalia has also had to consider what would happen to her three children if she was detained. This past month, she retained a lawyer who could help them with their case in case anything were to happen. Her school-age kids know: Call the lawyer if mom is detained and get tickets to Guatemala to meet her there. 

This is what she lives with every day now: “The fear of leaving your family and letting them know, ‘If I don’t return, it’s not because I am abandoning you.’”

ATTACHMENT TWENTY NINE – FROM VIRGINIA PUBLIC MEDIA

ICE arrests in Virginia soar under Trump crackdowns

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement assisted by the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, apprehended three illegally present aliens during a routine enforcement operation in Arlington, Feb. 11, 2025.

WHRO | By Kunle Falayi | VCIJ Published September 11, 2025 at 11:27 AM EDT

The Trump administration's enforcement has targeted thousands of foreign nationals — most from Central and South America and without criminal records.

By the Numbers

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made 4,264 arrests in Virginia in the first seven months of the year, nearly three times the number for the entire previous year, according to an analysis of federal court records.

That figure exceeds the combined total of ICE arrests in Virginia during the same seven-month period across each of the four previous years, from 2021 through 2024, according to the Deportation Data Project, a nonprofit research collective based at UC Berkeley.

Nationwide, ICE has arrested over 142,000 immigrants between January and July, including a peak of over 30,000 in June. By comparison, since 2012 the high mark of monthly ICE arrests was roughly 26,000 in March 2012.

In these data visualizations, VCIJ at WHRO breaks down what immigration enforcement has been like under President Donald Trump's administration.

About 872,000 immigrants live in Virginia, according to federal and independent estimates. More than 6% of the state's population are temporary workers and immigrants – lawful permanent residents, nonimmigrants, asylees and refugees – a population that has remained largely the same in the decade. Another 3.7% of the state's population is undocumented immigrants, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center estimate.

Virginia ranks among the top ten for immigration arrests per capita, with roughly 490 arrests for every 100,000 documented and undocumented immigrants from January through July.

The Deportation Data Project is a team of researchers based at the UC Berkeley School of Law. It collects, links and documents anonymized U.S. government immigration enforcement datasets. It makes the information available to the media, researchers, lawyers, and policymakers. Through a FOIA lawsuit brought against ICE by the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, the collective acquired data on removals, detention, apprehensions and encounters.

Nationwide, daily arrests are 150% higher than a year ago. But after surging to a record average of more than 1,200 a day in June, the numbers began to drop in late June, according to the Deportation Data Project's analysis. The downward trend carried through July, even as ICE added more agents.

Data from the Deportation Data Project, obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, may be the only publicly available source that provides a detailed look at ICE enforcement activities on a case-by-case level. The anonymized data includes arrest date, location, any past criminal records, country of origin, age and other case information.

An analysis of this data by VCIJ at WHRO shows that arrests in Virginia mirrored national patterns — climbing sharply to a daily average of about 34 at the height of the surge in June and declining through July.

UC Berkeley Law Professor David Hausman, who leads the Deportation Data Project, said the drop in arrests may partly be linked to a July ruling by the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The court issued a temporary restraining order that barred the Department of Homeland Security from engaging in illegal profiling.

ICE has, in some cases, arrested lawful permanent residents and even some U.S. citizens who were later released.

Since the beginning of the immigration clampdown by the Trump administration, the focus of ICE arrests has remained the same: targeted individuals are predominantly from Central and South America. Data from the Department of Homeland Security shows that most undocumented immigrants are from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

Most immigrants arrested in Virginia have not been convicted of any crimes and do not have pending criminal charges. About 29% of all those arrested by ICE in the state between January and July had convictions, and less than 16% had pending criminal charges.

The American Civil Liberties Union has said ICE arrests and political rhetoric often criminalize the undocumented population and has criticized terms like "criminal alien."

Asylum seekers have also fared poorly in Virginia.

An analysis by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Clearing House shows that immigrants have more frequently been denied asylum in Virginia's three immigration courts in Arlington, Annandale and Sterling.

In fact, in July 2024, approval rates were nearly 50%. Just a year later, approvals had plummeted to just a little above 20%.

Hausman said changes to asylum law, along with personnel shifts, may explain the higher denial rates.

"There has been some relatively significant turnover among immigration judges," he said. "The make-up of the Board of Immigration Appeals has changed substantially."

In September 2024, there were 735 immigration judges in the country. There are now 685 judges, according to data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the immigration court system.

The Trump administration has also signaled plans to shut down the asylum system and restrict access for people seeking refuge at the U.S.-Mexico border. And in July, the Board of Immigration Appealspublished a decision that the American Immigration Council said will make it harder for people to qualify for asylum based on the claim of gender-based violence.

Between January and July, Virginia immigration courts decided more than 6,000 asylum cases. Nationals of Honduras and El Salvador make up nearly 1 in three applicants in those cases.

Reach Kunle Falayi at Kunle.Falayi@whro.org.

ICE on the BORDER

ATTACHMENT THIRTY – FROM KXAN TX

Austin dog handler ‘inexplicably’ detained by ICE during routine check-in

by: Jala Washington

Posted: Sep 15, 2025 / 11:23 AM CDT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Seyre ‘Mussa’ Traore, an Austin dog handler, was detained by U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) last week, during a routine check-in, according to his attorney.

Friends of Traore, describe him as a dedicated employee at Neighbors Dog Park & Coffee Shop and East Lamar Dog Training and Boarding.

Traore, 30, is from Mauritania in West Africa. His attorney said he was detained on Sept. 11, inexplicably. His attorney told KXAN he has no criminal history and had a work permit as he awaited date in court next year.

According to his attorney Traore entered the country illegally, but had legal documentation to stay in the country, as an asylum seeker.

KXAN checked Travis County, as well as the Texas Department of Public Safety records, and did not find any criminal history for Traore.

According to ICE’s online database, Traore is being held in the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center.

Traore’s supporters have started a campaign, pushing for answers.

KXAN has reached out to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security and is waiting to hear back. We will update this if any statements are received.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY ONE – FROM PHOENIX NEW TIMES (BORDER)

A Republican helped an immigrant. The county GOP censured her

Lisa Everett, a GOP district chair, got a slap on the wrist for trying to free Peoria restaurateur Kelly Yu from ICE custody.

By Morgan Fischer September 15, 2025

Republican Lisa Everett has teamed up with Democrat Brent Peak to advocate for the release of Peoria restaurant owner Kelly Yu from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. 

On the last day of August, Lisa Everett took a road trip. The Republican Party chair of Legislative District 29 in the West Valley, Everett was doing something no major GOP official in Arizona had deigned to do this year — visit Eloy Detention Center, the prison where Immigration and Customs Enforcement stashes people for deportation.

Everett and Brent Peak, a Democrat and the co-chair of progressive activist group Northwest Valley Indivisible, were making a rare bipartisan trip to visit Kelly Yu, the mother and owner of Kawaii Sushi and Asian Cuisine in Glendale and Peoria. Yu, who fled China as a pregnant 18-year-old before settling in Arizona, has been in ICE custody since May. Yu's daughter is a U.S. citizen and she is married to another. Despite that, she has a standing removal order and could be deported to China any day.

Everett doesn’t want that to happen. She’s a Trump supporter, but she sees no benefit in separating a longstanding local business owner from her loved ones. “I am all for getting the worst-of-the-worst out of here,” Everett said, quoting Donald Trump’s often-used pledge. “I am not in favor of separating good people from their family.”

That dollop of moderation is apparently high treason in the modern Republican Party. Two days after Everett’s visit, the Maricopa County Republican Committee censured her for advocating for Yu’s release and for her partnership with Peak. On Sept. 2, the MCRC approved the censure by a 23-6 vote for defying the Trump administration’s immigration policy, “bring(ing) scrutiny and criticism on the party” and ongoing long-term friction between Everett and other members of LD29.

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Everett knew her advocacy on behalf of Yu might result in something like this, though she said she’s “disappointed” by it. The censure — which is essentially a strong finger wag and a slap on the wrist — called for her resignation, though Everett has no intention of providing it.

“I am going to stand up for what is right,” Everett told New Times. “Even when it’s hard.”

Yu’s plight has gained notable attention from the media, the community and several elected officials. Several Democrats have either met with Yu’s husband or traveled to Eloy to meet with Yu. On Sept. 6, Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego joined Reps. Greg Stanton and Yassamin Ansari in a letter urging Trump and members of his cabinet to “use their discretion to stay or suspend the removal of Kelly Yu.”

Few, if any, Republicans have joined the cause. (That includes Rep. Abe Hamadeh, whose district includes Kawaii Sushi.) That’s what makes Everett’s advocacy so unique. Everett joined the growing fight to call for Yu’s release in mid-August after Peak called to see if she “might be on the same page.” The duo had met while organizing rival protests at Hamadeh’s office. Despite their disagreements about most things, Everett was on board to support Yu.

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Everett hasn’t shied from her support for Yu, writing about her visit to the detention center in a Sept. 8 newsletter to LD29 precinct committee members.

“The visitation room was sterile, hot, and joyless. There were no tissues for the many tearful families and no cups for the water cooler in the corner,” Everett wrote in her newsletter, which goes out to thousands of Republicans across the Valley. “In a place designed to strip humanity away, Kelly still shines as a light of compassion.”

These GOP lawmakers rushed to blame ‘the left’ for Charlie Kirk’s death

Hurting America

Further down in her Sept. 8 newsletter, Everett wrote about her MCRC censure, which she took on the chin — and as a badge of honor. Her “name is now listed alongside an ever-growing roster of Republicans who have been censured by MCRC,” she wrote, a list that includes Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas Galvin, former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and even the entire Arizona Supreme Court.

“Sadly, the people in charge treat this like a sports rivalry,” Everett said. “But the home team is supposed to be America, not the parties. We’re supposed to look out for what is best for America.”

Everett also believes the decision to censure her came from a “handful” of “extremely disruptive” precinct committee members who were “looking for anything” to hold against her. This group, Everett said, is motivated by a personal disdain for her after multiple former LD29 board members failed to get reelected. The censure alleged that Everett filed “multiple injunctions” against the disruptive group with the intent to “deprive” them of the ability to attend public LD29 meetings.

In an email response to the censure sent to the MCRC board, Everett said that wasn’t the case. Instead, she said she’s faced ongoing harassment from the group, which included “cornering someone in public, shoving a phone in their face, calling them names and escalating into physical assault” after she was pushed at a meeting. Everett said she’s often had to wait “15 to 20 minutes after meetings adjourn, hoping they will leave,” and has been “escorted by a uniformed officer to my car just to ensure these women would leave me alone.” Though the censure alleged that Everett paid court fees for the injunction with district money, Everett said she paid her “service fees out of my own pocket.”

Everett said this group with an axe to grind includes LD29 Treasurer Frank Jugo and former LD29 board members Steve Skvara and Mary Jane Ziola, who are both on the Dysart Unified School District Governing Board. Skvara and Ziola weren’t reelected to their positions on the LD29 board in November 2024.

When asked about the situation, Jugo told New Times over email that “I don’t deal with the Fake News Media.” Skvara denied any involvement, telling New Times he had “nothing to do with that.” Ziola did not respond to New Times’ request for comment.

Despite the pushback, Everett doesn’t plan to stop advocating for Yu, whom she worries could be deported soon. Every morning around 7:30 a.m., Yu texts her husband to let him know that she’s still at Eloy Detention Center. The day a text doesn’t arrive, it may be a sign that she has been flown back to China overnight. Every couple of days, Peak checks in with Yu's husband to confirm that she is still in Eloy.

In a Sept. 15 newsletter, Everett wrote that “there is hope for Kelly Yu” after Trump “intervened” in the deportation of more than 300 South Koreans detained by ICE while working at a Hyundai plant in Georgia. (The detained workers chose instead to return to South Korea.) “If he can act in that instance,” Everett wrote, "there is hope that he could also step in to stop the deportation of Kelly Yu.” It baffles Everett that anyone would desire this to happen to a mother, wife and local business owner.

“I’m not understanding how deporting Kelly Yu is going to help America. I only see it hurting America,” she said. “I’m not going to step down.”

Peak, whom the MCRC censure describes as “the leader of the ultra-left wing West Valley Indivisible Organization,” called the MCRC’s decision to censure Everett a “disappointment” but said he knew Everett “thought it would be coming.”

“I wish there were more Republicans like Lisa,” he said. “It’s sad that anyone who would try and reach across the aisle for a cause — that I think the majority of people would agree on — gets labeled a RINO, gets censured (and) gets urged to step down.”

ATTACHMENT THIRTY TWO – FROM FRESNO BEE

California’s largest ICE detention facility has 500 detainees. ‘It’s total chaos’

By Melissa Montalvo Updated September 15, 2025 10:53 AM

ICE continues to detain a growing number of immigrants without a criminal history, according to recently released federal data.

California’s largest immigration detention center has already filled up with 500 detainees since it quietly opened two weeks ago, according to a California City official. Immigration advocates and lawyers say Tennessee-based private prison operator CoreCivic flouted state laws and California City municipal code in its rapid pursuit to open the 70-acre detention center.

The remote, Antelope Valley facility in eastern Kern County began receiving detainees at the 2,560-bed facility in late August though California City has yet to approve CoreCivic’s operating permits.

Community groups also raised concerns about living conditions in the facility and described a chaotic opening with unexpected transfers from other Kern County detention facilities and delays in fulfilling detainees’ medication. The facility’s speedy opening reflects the federal government’s furious push for mass deportations and a record-level number of people in ICE detention. Local immigration advocates intensely oppose the facility and said it would lead to more community arrests. They also accuse California City officials of not being transparent about the site’s reopening process.

California City Mayor Marquette Hawkins has repeatedly said there isn’t much the city can do to stop the project. The project is also expected to bring hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue to the city. Hawkins confirmed the city’s permitting process is not yet complete. He said he didn’t find out the CoreCivic facility had opened until he received word from an immigration lawyer.

“The fact that they [CoreCivic] opened — that’s on them,” Hawkins said of the pending permits. He toured the California City Immigration Processing Center on Tuesday morning with representatives from CoreCivic and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He confirmed that there were 506 detainees as of his Sept. 9 visit. “We walked around the facility, we looked at services provided,” he said.

Ryan Gustin, senior director of public affairs for CoreCivic, said in a statement “we take seriously our obligation to adhere to all applicable federal standards in all our federally contracted facilities, including our California City Correctional Facility (CCCF).”

“All our facilities operate with a significant amount of oversight and accountability, including being monitored by federal officials on a daily basis, to ensure an appropriate standard of living and care for every individual,” he said. The site has operated as a detention facility beginning in 1999 and previously housed ICE detainees as well as inmates from the United States Marshals Service, Gustin of CoreCivic said.

Conditions at California City ICE detention center Hawkins told The Bee he walked around the facility and observed detainees as well as the medical, dental, psychiatric and legal services available.

“From what I saw,” Hawkins said, “the conditions look humane.” Community groups painted a different picture. Jeannie Parent, a coordinator with Kern Welcoming and Extending Solidarity to Immigrants, said at a Sept. 9 California City council meeting that several detainees at the California City ICE detention center have reported poor living conditions.

Parent said many detainees at Mesa Verde in Bakersfield or Golden State Annex in McFarland have been transferred to the California City facility. “I’m getting multiple calls a day from guys inside,” she told The Bee in a follow-up interview. She said that some transferred detainees had their personal hygiene products, such as shampoo and toothpaste, thrown away while others had not promptly received medication to treat their high blood pressure and psychiatric conditions.

Parent also reported that detention center staff are working 16 to 18 hour shifts per day. “It’s total chaos,” she said. Healthcare is available 24-7, Gustin said, and all individuals have daily access to sign up for medical care, including mental health services. Individual prescription medications are either managed by CoreCivic health services team or the individuals themselves, depending on the type of medication, he said.

“Any delay in getting prescription medications due to transfers of individuals from other facilities has been resolved,” Gustin said. Every individual is provided with clothing, toiletry kits (which include shampoo and toothpaste) and blankets when they arrive at the facility and staff will reissue supplies and clothing as needed, Gustin said.

As for concerns around the adequacy of staffing, he said staff received over six weeks of cumulative training before working within the facility. “As is common in public service industries, such as corrections, staff do sometimes work more than eight hours when the need arises, but this is done in accordance with our government partners’ policies,” Gustin said.

The reopening of the ICE detention center fueled criticism that the city is not enforcing its own laws. The reopening process has been muddied by a separate city problem: on July 11, two councilmembers quit in protest over allegations of racism, KGET reported. A third councilmember, Michael Hurles, had been absent for several weeks citing medical reasons. Hawkins told The Bee that the council had been “blocked from getting information” because of the inability to establish quorum due to Hurles absence.

Gustin said CoreCivic “submitted all required information for the business license and continue to maintain open lines of communication with city officials.”

Rosa Lopez, a Kern County-based senior policy advocate with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, accused the mayor of using the council’s recent turmoil as an excuse to withhold information and obscure the process. “We hear the same excuse: ‘This is out of our hands. We have nothing that we could do. This is a federal contract,’” Lopez, a longtime Kern County resident, said during a Sept. 2 planning commission meeting. Grisel Ruiz, a senior managing attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said CoreCivic should have applied for a new conditional use permit in light of the nearly 10% increase in bedspace given its original permit was only for 2,304 beds.

She said the facility needs to comply with SB29. The state law requires two public meetings and an 180-day notice before a local government entity can approve a permit for a private prison corporation to run an immigration detention center. “You can enforce your own municipal code,” Ruiz said.

Hurles said he reached out to the offices of Gov. Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta and Assemblymember Tom Lackey for guidance on whether or not CoreCivic can reopen. He said city officials made an effort to seek guidance from the state, but did not receive any responses. “The silence is deafening,” Hurles said.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/loc

al/article312055176.html#storylink=cpy

While Illegal Aliens Kill and Rape, Bogus Crime ...

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https://cis.org › Todd Bensman

Jul 17, 2024 — The libertarians and progressives who created and purveyed the citizen-versus-illegals crime-rate comparison debate should be called out for ...

Yes, You're Still Imagining a Migrant Crime Spree

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https://www.cato.org › blog › yes-youre-still-imagining-...

Oct 22, 2024 — Malanga then brushed aside the best empirical evidence on illegal immigrant criminality when he wrote: The elite press rode to Biden's defense.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY THREE – FROM FOX

ICE arrests 'pedophiles, rapists, abusers' in Chicago sanctuary city crackdown operation

Officials in Chicago target criminal illegal immigrants in Operation Midway Blitz in honor of slain Katie Abraham

By Brooke Taylor Fox News Published September 11, 2025 7:28am EDT

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested several dangerous criminal illegal immigrants in the sanctuary city of Chicago for heinous crimes such as sexually assaulting a child family member, rape, armed robbery and domestic battery. 

As part of Operation Midway Blitz, these arrests honor Katie Abraham, who was killed in a drunk-driving hit-and-run car wreck caused by criminal illegal immigrant Julio Cucul-Bol in Illinois. 

"In just the last few days in Chicago, ICE has arrested pedophiles, rapists, abusers, armed robbers, and other violent thugs," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. "These are the criminal illegal aliens Governor Pritzker, Mayor Johnson, and their fellow sanctuary politicians protect over the law-abiding American citizens."

ICE AGENTS BREAK CAR WINDOW TO ARREST RESISTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT IN EXCLUSIVE FOX NEWS RIDE-ALONG

· Varinderpal Singh, a 24-year-old criminal immigrant from India, was convicted of strongarm rape.   

"These criminal illegal aliens flocked to Illinois because sanctuary policies allow them to roam free and terrorize innocent Americans without consequence," McLaughlin said. "President Trump and Secretary Noem have a clear message: no city is a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens. If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return." 

TOM HOMAN PUTS SANCTUARY CITIES 'ON NOTICE' AS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CRACKS DOWN ON IMMIGRATION

DHS provided mugshots of the ones the department described as some of the worst of the worst offenders

DHS will continue our law enforcement and public safety mission undeterred as we surge ICE resources in the city in coordination with our federal partners from across the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. 

ATTACHMENT THIRTY FOUR – FROM FOX

DHS ‘blitzes’ Chicagoland, netting ‘many arrests’ as Noem onsite for immigration crackdown

Illinois leaders have vociferously opposed federal intervention in Chicago

By Charles Creitz , Alexis McAdams , Michael Tobin , Patrick McGovern 

Published September 16, 2025 2:39pm EDT | Updated September 16, 2025 4:32pm EDT

The Department of Homeland Security ramped up its Chicagoland operations Tuesday, as ICE’s Operation Midway Blitz was met by resources from Border Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino’s Operation At-Large utilized in Los Angeles in August. 

"Well, Chicago, we’ve arrived," Bovino said in captioning a video taken from vehicles rolling northbound on the Barack Obama Expressway (I-55) toward the Windy City.

"Operation At-Large is here to continue the mission we started in Los Angeles—to make the city safer by targeting and arresting criminal illegal aliens," Bovino wrote.

"We are already going hard this morning!!! Many arrests," he told Fox News.

Border Patrol sources told Fox News that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also arrived in the Land of Lincoln, overseeing a morning operation in the exurb of Elgin, Illinois. 

A tactical team served a felony arrest warrant for illegal re-entry in one case, with sources saying that a roadblock led to the feds making an "explosive" entry into a home.

Noem posted a video showing a man being led out of a house in predawn hours, captioned by a reminder of a situation involving an ICE agent being dragged and severely injured by a vehicle driven by a criminal illegal immigrant who resisted arrest.

"President Trump has been clear: If politicians will not put the safety of their citizens first, this administration will," she said.

"I was on the ground in Chicago today to make clear we are not backing down," she said. "Just this morning, DHS took violent offenders off the streets with arrests for assault, DUI, and felony stalking. Our work is only beginning."

ARCHITECT OF LA ICE RAIDS REPORTEDLY ARRIVES IN CHICAGO AS FOCUS SHIFTS TO WINDY CITY, AGENT'S HISTORY

ICE also arrested a violent gang member found guilty of murder charges after a maximum security prison outside Chicago declined to honor a federal detainer.

Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, Illinois, released Aldo Salazar Bahena in line with Illinois sanctuary policies, and it took three days for ICE to find and arrest him themselves.

Salazar Bahena had been locked up for about 20 years but was released despite a 2016 order of removal signed by an immigration judge from the Justice Department.

The convict came to the U.S. as a lawful permanent resident in 1998 but never took action to become a citizen and instead retained Mexican citizenship.

Salazar Bahena was jailed in connection with the 2005 murder of Fernando Diaz Jr., who was accused of making disparaging comments about Salazar Bahena’s "Larazo" gang.

He was convicted in Kane County, Illinois, in 2016 and lost legal permanent status, leading to the judge ordering his removal.

Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital. 

ATTACHMENT THIRTY FIVE – FROM NBC

Suburban ICE raids continue as feds step up operations in Chicago area

"Operation: Midway Blitz" has been ongoing in the city and suburbs for days, with more federal enforcement actions expected

By Lexi Sutter and James Neveau

Immigration enforcement actions continued in Chicago and suburban areas Tuesday, with residents in Elgin waking up to the sound of helicopters and federal agents.

Those neighbors were awoken just before 6 a.m. Tuesday as helicopters buzzed overhead and federal agents entered a home in the 900 block of Chippewa Drive.

“This helicopter kept circling over and over again, spotlight shining down on a certain area,” witness Nick Hurst said. “My natural reaction was ‘alright, at this point this is probably some high-profile case, maybe they caught a serial killer.’”

Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem posted a video on her social media feeds of the raid Tuesday morning, with three men, all of whom were allegedly undocumented immigrants, taken into custody from the rental property in the neighborhood.

Ismael Cordova-Clough, an advocate for Casa DuPage, responded to the scene of the enforcement action.

“I see the door broken, and I hear them screaming in Spanish, telling them to ‘get out, otherwise they will come in with deadly force,’ things like that,” Cordova-Clough said. “Then I see them come out, one by one.”

Chicago Politics

Elgin officials did not have immediate comment on the operation, and while Noem’s post said that her department was “taking violent offenders off the streets” on various charges, federal officials have not detailed what the three men at the center of the raid were accused of.

Illinois State Sen. Cristina Castro said the overwhelming force of the raid, which featured more than a dozen vehicles and some armored units, unnerved residents in the neighborhood.

“I got a lot of phone calls from friends and neighbors,” she said. “For many of them, they were unnerved and they were like ‘what’s going on in our neighborhood,’ and a lot of people are scared.”

Castro also expressed anger that Noem’s presence for the raid, saying that Homeland Security officials are sowing fear within communities without just cause.

“She can go to hell,” she said. “Don’t come to my community. Go to hell.”

Noem said that the administration has made its position clear that it will go into so-called “sanctuary” communities, like in the state of Illinois, to enforce immigration laws.

“President Trump has been clear: if politicians will not put the safety of their citizens first, this administration will,” she said. “I was on the ground in Chicago today to make clear we are not backing down.”

The posts come a week after DHS announced another immigration enforcement campaign, "Operation Midway Blitz," was set to launch in Chicago. According to authorities, an ICE facility in suburban Broadview and the Great Lakes Naval Base in North Chicago were both set to help house processing and staging for the increased efforts, which could last as long as 60 days.

Pritzker has been critical of federal operations, arguing that the Trump administration’s lack of communication has made life more difficult for law enforcement as well as residents.

“Our law enforcement are excellent at the work that they do right? Which is fighting crime. That is their job, to fight crime and when they see skirmishes going on, they don't know if those are real ICE officials, especially if they're wearing masks and in unmarked cars and aren't carrying or showing their identification,” he said. “So this is a real problem, I think, for the city of Chicago, for the state of Illinois and it is the fault of the Trump administration and of ICE that they are unwilling to simply communicate with us about what they're up to.”

President Donald Trump also said Tuesday that he plans to send National Guard members to Chicago in opposition to the wishes of Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Speaking on the White House lawn Tuesday morning, Trump said he plans to send troops to Chicago after Memphis, calling the Illinois city a "death trap."

"So I'm going to go to Chicago early, against Pritzker. Pritzker is nothing," Trump said. "If Pritzker was smart, he'd say please come in."

Pritzker said the president’s back-and-forth on whether he would send National Guard members to Chicago has been reflective of the lack of communication with city and state officials.

"Sometimes he attacks sending his agents in, sometimes he forgets. I think he might be suffering from some dementia, you know? And the next day he'll wake up on the other side of the bed and stop talking about Chicago,” he said. “So I've never really counted on anything that he said as real. When he said that he wasn't coming to Chicago, I didn't trust that. When he says he is coming to Chicago, it's hard to believe anything he says."

ATTACHMENT THIRTY SIX – FROM NEWSWEEK

Kristi Noem Joins ICE Raid—DHS Deny US Citizens Arrested by Mistake

By Martha McHardy Published Sep 17, 2025 at 4:28 AM EDT Updated Sep 17, 2025 at 11:11 AM EDT

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined federal immigration agents during an early morning operation in Elgin, Illinois, on Tuesday that resulted in multiple people being led away in handcuffs, and two U.S. citizens being briefly detained.

A CBS report said that five people had been arrested during the raid, including two U.S. citizens, before being released after showing their official documentation. But when asked by Newsweek, DHS denied that two U.S. citizens were arrested and said they were held briefly and subsequently released.

"No U.S. citizen was arrested, they were briefly held for their and officers' safety while the operation in the house was under way. This is standard protocol," a DHS spokesperson told Newsweek.

DHS said that five people were arrested as part of the raid, all of whom were illegal immigrants.

The raid—which Noem posted footage of on X—was part of a broader Department of Homeland Security (DHS) enforcement effort called "Operation Midway Blitz" that targeted criminal noncitizens in the Chicago area, according to officials.

Why It Matters

Noem's presence on an early morning enforcement action underscores the heightened federal focus on immigration enforcement in the Chicago metropolitan area and the political salience of those operations. The homeland security secretary has become the face of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, making numerous public appearances and frequently attending ICE raids around the country.

The White House has floated a goal of 3,000 daily ICE arrests, raising concerns among advocates who say such quotas encourage indiscriminate enforcement practices and undermine due process protections.

What To Know

DHS said that five illegal immigrants were arrested in the Chicago area, including an individual convicted of a DUI with a child passenger, an individual convicted of violent assault, and an individual arrested for domestic violence, harassment, obstruction, and felony stalking.

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"President Trump has been clear: if politicians will not put the safety of their citizens first, this administration will," said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. "Just this morning, DHS took violent offenders off the streets with arrests for assault, DUI, and felony stalking. Our work is only beginning."

Video posted by Noem on X shows agents in tactical gear leading people away in handcuffs. It is unclear if those handcuffed included the two U.S. citizens.

DHS said the operation was part of a multi-week enforcement push targeting what the department described as "criminal illegal aliens" who have come to Illinois, particularly Chicago.

Local witnesses described helicopters, bright spotlights, tactical vehicles and what one neighbor called the "drone of a helicopter" overhead.

The Trump administration has pledged to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history and has conducted numerous ICE raids since taking office in January.

ICE reported more than 66,000 arrests and 65,000 removals in the administration's first 100 days, with the daily detention population swelling to 55,000 people, well above pre-inauguration levels.

While officials have stressed that dangerous criminals are being targeted, federal data show that many detainees have no criminal record at all.

Last month, ICE agents detained the boyfriend of a New York City official though he had legal status.

"On August 28, ICE arrested Nathaniel Rojas, a criminal alien from the Dominican Republic. His criminal history includes convictions for felony grand larceny, felony aggravated DUI with a child passenger less than 16 years old, identify theft, and retail theft. This criminal alien is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings," Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek.

What People Are Saying

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on X alongside footage of the operation: "This week, a brave ICE officer was dragged many yards by a car after a criminal illegal alien resisted arrest. His life was put at risk and he sustained serious injuries. President Trump has been clear: if politicians will not put the safety of their citizens first, this administration will. I was on the ground in Chicago today to make clear we are not backing down. Just this morning, DHS took violent offenders off the streets with arrests for assault, DUI, and felony stalking. Our work is only beginning."

Joe Botello, a U.S. citizen from Texas detained in the raid, told the Chicago Sun-Times: "I told them I was a U.S. citizen, that my ID was in my wallet."

Illinois state Senator Cristina Castro, addressing Noem directly, told CBS Chicago: "She can go to hell. Don't come into my community."

What Happens Next

DHS has signaled that the operation will continue for several weeks across the Chicago area, with federal agencies participating in enforcement actions. CBS reported that the broader federal presence included ICE, U.S. Marshals, the FBI and Customs and Border Protection.

Update 9/17/25, 11:03 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment and new information from DHS.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY SEVEN – FROM THE HILL

Trump says Memphis is next target of federal crime crackdown

by Brett Samuels - 09/12/25 8:36 AM ET

President Trump said Friday he plans to deploy the National Guard and other federal resources to Memphis, Tenn., as part of a crackdown on crime.

“We’re going to Memphis. Memphis is deeply troubled,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends.”

“And the mayor is happy. He’s a Democrat mayor. The mayor is happy. And the governor, Tennessee, the governor is happy,” Trump added.

Trump said he would deploy the “National Guard and anybody else we need. And by the way, we’ll bring in the military too, if we need it.”

Bottom of Form

Memphis had the highest crime rate per 100,000 people, based on FBI data from 2024.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young (D) had said Thursday that he was informed earlier in the week that Trump and Gov. Bill Lee (R) were considering deploying the National Guard in the city.

“I am committed to working to ensure any efforts strengthen our community and build on our progress,” Young said in a statement to WMCA in Memphis.

Young’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s Friday remarks.

Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.), who represents part of Memphis, welcomed Trump’s announcement.

“It is important for the long term success in Memphis to have additional and permanent federal law enforcement officers and agents who can work in conjunction with state and local officials,” Kustoff said in a statement. “I will continue to work with the White House to secure these important resources.“

Trump said he “would have preferred” sending federal law enforcement into Chicago, something he had mused about for weeks. But city and state officials there had aggressively pushed back, raising the prospect of a drawn-out legal battle over a National Guard deployment.

The president last month surged federal law enforcement and deployed the National Guard across Washington, D.C. Crime has been down across the District, though many residents have expressed their displeasure and raised concerns that immigration arrests have been a central part of the crackdown. National Guard troops have also been tasked with picking up garbage and beautifying the city.

The White House also took over control of the District’s police department, though that move lapsed this week after 30 days. White House officials have pointed to a measure signed by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) that ensures indefinite cooperation between the city and the federal government.

Lee Harris, a Democrat who serves as mayor of Shelby County, which includes Memphis, issued a statement Friday criticizing the move and warning it would cause “confusion and fear in many of our communities.”

“Let’s be clear: the President sending troops to Tennessee will interfere and have a chilling effect on Tennesseans’ ability to exercise critical freedoms, such as the freedom to protest and the liberty to travel,” Harris posted on X. “We will do everything in our power to prevent this incursion into Tennessee and to protect the rights, safety, and dignity of every resident in our communities.”

Updated at 12:09 p.m. EDT

ATTACHMENT THIRTY EIGHT – FROM IUK

Trump eyes Memphis for next federal crackdown on crime but admits he would have preferred to send Guard to Chicago

During an interview with Fox and Friends the president claimed that the boss of a major railway line told him he had needed to travel in an ‘armored vehicle with bulletproof glass’ when visiting Memphis

Mike Bedigan

Friday 12 September 2025 16:24 EDT

Donald Trump says that his next federal crackdown on crime will be in Memphis, Tennessee, but said he would have "preferred" to send National Guard troops to Chicago after previously saying he wanted to "clean up" the Windy City.

During a Friday interview with Fox and Friends, the president claimed that the boss of a major railway line had needed to travel in an "armored vehicle with bulletproof glass" when traveling just one block while visiting Memphis.

Trump's crackdown on Democratic-led municipalities, including Los Angeles and Washington D.C., has sparked protests in recent months, including a demonstration by several thousand people in the U.S. Capitol last weekend.

"Maybe I'll be the first to say it right now again – we're going to Memphis," Trump said Friday. Memphis is deeply troubled. The mayor is happy. He's a Democrat. And the governor of Tennessee is happy. We're gonna fix that just like we did Washington. I would've preferred going to Chicago."

Donald Trump says that his next federal crackdown on crime will be in Memphis, Tennessee, but said he would have ‘preferred’ to send National Guard troops to Chicago after previously saying he wanted to ‘clean up’ the Windy City (Getty Images)

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· GET x62

The Independent has reached out to the offices of the Mayor of Memphis to confirm if he is “happy” with the proposed move by the president.

In a statement shared with The Independent, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said that he had been in close and constant communication with the Trump administration “for months” and was “grateful for the President’s unwavering support and commitment to providing every resource necessary to serve Memphians.”

Lee’s statement added that he was working to develop a “multi-phased, strategic plan to combat crime in Memphis, leveraging the full extent of both federal and state resources,” which would include the involvement of the state National Guard, FBI, Tennessee Highway Patrol and Memphis Police Department.

“As one of America’s world-class cities, Memphis remains on a path to greatness, and we are not going to let anything hold them back,” the statement said.

Speaking to Fox and Friends, the president recalled a conversation with “the head of a big big railroad,” who had allegedly told him that there was trouble in Memphis. “I asked him ‘So what do you think? where should we go next as a city?’ because we’re gonna do one, two, three, then maybe we’ll do a few at a time but we’re gonna straighten out the crime in these cities,” he said.

“He said ‘Sir, Memphis would be good… when I walk one block from my hotel they won’t allow me to do it. They put me in an armored vehicle with bulletproof glass to take me one block, it’s so terrible.

“So we’re going to Memphis, I’m just announcing that now and we’ll straighten it out [with] the National Guard and anyone else… and by the way we’re bringing the military if we need it.”

The president’s announcement comes less than a week after Trump back-pedaled on a bizarre Truth Social post, in which he seemed to suggest that his administration was going to war with Chicago. “‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning…’ Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” the post read.

Trump later downplayed the language he had used, telling reporters: “We’re not going to war. We’re going to clean up our cities.”

Despite the president’s clarification that he was not “declaring war” on Chicago, White House border czar Tom Homan later doubled down the initial claims, telling CNN that a crackdown in Chicago would soon be underway.

“You can expect action in most sanctuary cities across the country. President Trump prioritized sanctuary cities because sanctuary cities knowingly release illegal alien public safety threats to the streets every day. That’s where the problem is.”

Trump previously put police in Washington, D.C., under federal control, despite Justice Department data showing violent crime in 2024 hit a 30-year low in the nation’s capital.

In June, protests erupted in downtown LA when the Trump administration sent ICE into communities with higher populations of Hispanic or Latino residents. While the protests were mostly peaceful, the minor disruption they caused the city led the president to deploy the National Guard and Marines to protect ICE officials – bypassing both city and state authorities.

ELVIS on ICE

ATTACHMENT THIRTY NINE – FROM GUK

17.20 EDT

Trump announces he will send National Guard to Memphis, with Chicago ‘probably next’

Donald Trump announced that he will deploy the National Guard to Memphis during an Oval Office ceremony attended by Tennessee governor Bill Lee.

Last week, Trump said “Memphis is deeply troubled” and teased that he wanted to “fix that just like we did Washington”, referring to his decision to deploy National Guard troops to Washington DC last month in an effort to “crack down” on crime in the nation’s capitol. Violent crime was already at a 30-year low in the city.

Lee has welcomed Trump’s offers of federal troops and thanked the president during today’s announcement.

Trump added that he is considering sending National Guard troops to “Chicago probably next” and floated cities such as St. Louis may be next. “We want to save these places,” he said.

“Chicago is a great city,” Trump added. “We’re going to make it great again very soon.”

Illinois’ Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, has vehemently opposed the idea of federal troops deploying to Chicago.

Memphis, Chicago and St. Louis are among the cities with the largest percentage of Black residents in the United States.

Trump said law enforcement agents from agencies including the FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE and Homeland Security will join the National Guard in Memphis.

Share

Updated at 17.22 ED

ATTACHMENT THIRTY SIX – FROM TIME

Sep 15, 2025 6:03 PM ET

Trump Deploys the National Guard to Memphis, Saying Chicago Is ‘Probably’ Next in Crime Crackdown

By Connor Greene

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Monday directing that the National Guard be sent to Memphis, while suggesting Chicago will be up next in his federal crackdown on crime.

Trump announced the creation of a task force for the deployment of federal troops and agents in Memphis including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, and other federal agencies as well as the National Guard, saying it was put together at the request of Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee. The President said the operation will be a “replica” of the approach he took in Washington, D.C.

Trump also pointed to other cities where he might soon direct similar efforts. “We’re going to be doing Chicago, probably next,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Monday, adding “we’re going to go big.” He later stated that “we’ll get to St. Louis.”

The announcement came as key members of Trump’s cabinet flanked his desk, including Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

“This team will deploy the full power of federal law enforcement,” Trump said.

Lee, who was also present during Trump’s announcement, said he is “tired of crime holding the great city of Memphis back.” Tennessee Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty were also present.

The support of the state’s Republican governor and senators marks a notable difference from Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles this summer against the wishes of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and local officials.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, said... after Trump indicated his plans to send the National Guard to the city last week... that he was “certainly not happy” about the deployment and that his administration would “do all that we can to make sure that it has limited impact on our community.”

”We’re not going to let this savagery destroy our county any more,” Trump said, after reciting statistics about crime in Memphis. 

A recent USA TODAY analysis found that among major U.S. cities, Memphis had the highest murder and violent crime rates in the country last year. The Memphis Police Department said last week, however, that crime in the city is overall at a historic 25-year low in 2025. Prior to Trump’s D.C. takeover, the Justice Department said crime in the city was also at a decades-low level.

Trump has previously spoken about launching a federal crackdown in other cities as well, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, and New Orleans. He indicated that Chicago was “next” in late August, prompting city officials and residents to begin preparing for a National Guard deployment, but has not indicated when he would send troops to the city.

“We’ve got to go and save our great cities,” Trump said on Monday.

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ATTACHMENT THIRTY SEVEN – FROM portland, OR

Trump threatened Portland with troops to quell protests. The mayor says it's not needed

By Claire Rush Friday 12 September 2025 00:03 EDT

Trump threatened Portland with troops to quell protests. The mayor says it's not needed

A gas mask dangled from Deidra Watts's backpack as she joined dozens of others outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, just as she has many nights since July.

The protesters toed a blue line painted across the building's driveway. “GOVERNMENT PROPERTY DO NOT BLOCK,” read its white, stenciled letters. When they lingered too close, what appeared to be pepper balls rained down on them from officers posted on the building's roof.

No one was injured Wednesday, and some of the crowd began to dissipate by about midnight.

While disruptive to nearby residents — a charter school relocated this summer to get away from the crowd-control devices — the nightly demonstrations are a far cry from the unrest that gripped the city following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020.

They nevertheless have drawn the attention of President Donald Trump, who often sparred with the city's mayor back then.

Last week, Trump described living in Portland as “like living in hell” and said he was considering sending in federal troops, as he has recently threatened to do to combat crime in other cities, including Chicago and Baltimore. He deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles over the summer and as part of his law enforcement takeover in Washington, D.C.

Most violent crime around the country has actually declined in recent years, including in Portland, where a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found that homicides from January through June decreased by 51% this year compared to the same period in 2024.

“There’s a propaganda campaign to make it look like Portland is a hellscape,” said Casey Leger, 61, who often sits outside the ICE building trying to observe immigration detainee transfers. “Two blocks away you can just go to the river and sit and sip a soda and watch the birds.”

The building is off a busy road leading into Portland from the suburbs, and next to an affordable housing complex. During the day, Leger and a few other advocates mill about and offer copies of “know your rights” flyers featuring a hotline number for reporting ICE arrests.

At night, Watts and other protesters, many dressed in black and wearing helmets or masks, arrive. She called ICE a callous and cruel machine.

“In the face of that, there has to be people who will stand up and make it known that that’s not gonna fly, that that’s not something the people agree with,” Watts said.

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The nighttime protests peaked in June after the nationwide “No Kings” marches, when Portland police declared one demonstration a riot. Since then, at least 26 protesters have been charged with federal offenses tied to the ICE building, including assaulting federal officers, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon.

“Like other mayors across the country, I have not asked for – and do not need – federal intervention," Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement following Trump's threat. The city has protected freedom of expression while “addressing occasional violence and property destruction,” he said.

There have been smaller clashes since June. On Labor Day, some demonstrators brought a prop guillotine — a display the Department of Homeland Security blasted as “unhinged behavior.”

Wilson expects protests to stay focused on the area by the building, he said.

Some residents of the adjacent apartments are upset about that. One sued to try to make the city enforce noise ordinances. She said she believed noise from bullhorns, speakers and “piercing whistle-type sounds” akin to air-raid sirens had caused her eardrum to burst, and gas that entered her apartment made her ill. The judge who heard the case sided with the city.

Rick Stype, who has lived there for 10 years, said he accompanies some neighbors outside because they fear being harassed by protesters.

“I just want them to leave us alone,” he said. “I want them to be gone.”

A charter school next to the ICE building, the Cottonwood School of Civics and Science, relocated over the summer, saying that chemical agents and crowd-control projectiles put student safety at risk.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY EIGHT – FROM ABC (BOSTON)

ICE crackdowns intensify across Boston as cities face Trump’s latest operation

President Donald Trump is intensifying immigration enforcement in sanctuary cities like Boston

By LEAH WILLINGHAM Associated Press, MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press, and HOLLY RAMER Associated Press

September 16, 2025, 7:15 AM

BOSTON -- 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.

Just north of Boston, the city of Everett canceled its annual Hispanic Heritage Month festival after its mayor said it wouldn't be right to "hold a celebration at a time when community members may not feel safe attending.”

The actions have been praised by public officials like New Hampshire Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who signed legislation this year banning sanctuary city policies in her state, vowing not to let New Hampshire “go the way of Massachusetts." ICE this summer began utilizing a New Hampshire airport about an hour from Boston to transport New England detainees.

However, others argue that ICE's presence in Massachusetts is doing more harm than good.

“This is really increasing the fear in communities, which is already incredibly high,” said Elizabeth Sweet, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition.

Cities like Boston and Chicago — where Mayor Brandon Johnson has also condemned the Trump administration’s recent immigration crackdown, calling it an example of “tyranny” — have become targets for enforcement in recent days. Trump also threatened to potentially deploy the National Guard to Chicago, though he had wavered on a military deployment last week.

The U.S. Department of Justice on Sept. 4 filed a lawsuit against Mayor Michelle Wu, the city of Boston and its police department over its sanctuary city policies, claiming they’re interfering with immigration enforcement. In response, Wu accused Trump of “attacking cities to hide his administration’s failures.”

Now, ICE has launched an operation it called “Patriot 2.0" on the heels of a May crackdown where nearly 1,500 immigrants were detained in Massachusetts. Its latest operation came days before a preliminary mayoral election, where incumbent Wu won easily. The mayor has become a frequent target over her defense of the city and its so-called sanctuary policies, which limit cooperation between local police and federal immigration agents.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the Boston surge would focus on “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” living in Massachusetts.

“Sanctuary policies like those pushed by Mayor Wu not only attract and harbor criminals but protect them at the peril of law-abiding American citizens," she said in a press release early last week, which detailed the arrest of seven individuals by ICE, including a 38-year-old man from Guatemala who had previously been arrested on assault-related charges.

The agency did not respond to requests from The Associated Press about the number of immigrants detained since “Patriot 2.0” began.

ICE has contracts to detain people at multiple correctional facilities across New England, including county jails as well as the federal prison in Berlin, New Hampshire, and a publicly-owned, privately operated prison in Central Falls, Rhode Island.

Volunteers monitoring flights carrying detainees from New Hampshire’s Portsmouth International Airport at Pease have documented the transfer of more than 300 individuals since early August, with at least five flights per week transferring people from New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts. All of the detainees have been in shackles, said David Holt, who has been organizing regular protests at Pease.

Protesters gathered at venues like the ICE office in Burlington, where three participants were arrested on trespassing charges.

Luce, the Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, staffed its hotline with interpreters who speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, and Haitian Creole to collect information about ICE sightings. The organization put out a call for volunteers who speak languages like Cape Verdean Kriolu, Nepali and Vietnamese to help manage the influx.

Kevin Lam, co-executive director with the Asian American Resource Workshop, a community group that works on immigration and other issues, said they have seen a “spike” in ICE activity, including five Vietnamese residents from a Boston neighborhood who were detained last week.

He and other advocates said many immigrants have expressed fear about everyday tasks like picking up their kids at school and riding on public transportation. However, he said many are still attending work, with some willing to risk being detained because they are the primary breadwinners for their families.

"Many of them are like, ‘Yeah, it is a risk every day when I step out, but I need to work to be able to provide for my family,’” he said.

Republican Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said she is “100% supportive” of ICE's latest operation in the state and that her office will not hesitate to prosecute immigrants without legal status who commit crimes. Noncriminals have also been swept up in raids that ICE calls “collateral arrests.”

"We stand ready to charge individuals who violate all federal laws, including those who enter our country without authorization after being deported and those who assault federal law enforcement officers or impede or interfere with federal officers doing their jobs," she said in a statement to the AP.

Advocates like Lam pushed back on claims that ICE agents are only targeting criminals, saying that with fewer protections for asylum-seekers and others who are here legally, the strategy seems to be going well beyond “bad immigrants” with records.

Alexandra Peredo Carroll, director of legal Education and advocacy at the Boston-based Mabel Center for Immigrant Justice, said the Trump administration is "trying to fit folks into this narrative of being illegal or having broken the law, when in fact, many of these are individuals who are actually going through the legal process.”

“I think you’re going to see more and more how families are going to be torn apart, how individuals with no criminal history, with pending forms of relief, pending applications are just going to be rounded up,” she said.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY NINE – FROM BOSTON 25 NEWS

Community members in Milford demand answers after 16-year-old was detained by ICE

By Ryan Breslin, Boston 25 News

September 14, 2025 at 2:05 pm EDT

MILFORD, Mass. — Community members in Milford rallied on Sunday, demanding answers after a 16-year-old was detained by ICE near Draper Park.

The rally took place across from Milford Police Headquarters, with participants calling for ICE to leave the community.

Members of the community say that a 16-year-old was detained on Friday, and this has sparked concern among residents, who are advocating for immigrant families in the area.

“We’re saddened, we’re disgusted with what’s happening with ICE,” said Tina Ryan from Uxbridge.

Connie Paige, a Milford resident, expressed her concerns, saying, “I’m very disturbed by these ICE raids. I think that they have been targeting anyone that doesn’t look white like me.”

Friends of the detained teenager shared their distress over the incident.

“He told me that he was really scared and that he was crying,” Andrey Defreitas said.

“He’s scared to even go on the streets now cause he’s scared that ICE might get him, so I think ICE should not even get near kids at all,” Thiago Fernandes added.

New video footage shows the traffic stop on Main Street, where ICE initially detained the teenager.

A crowd gathered shortly after, and ICE eventually left without the person they had detained.

Milford Police Chief Robert Tusino clarified the department’s stance, stating, “The only time we work with ICE or the other federal agencies is criminal matters. And I’ve been saying this for over a year. The people that we are involved with, you don’t want anywhere near the streets, ok? But the civil side of it, that’s an ICE issue.”

This incident follows a similar case last May when an 18-year-old Milford senior was detained by ICE and held for six days before being released.

Community members are concerned about the impact of such actions on local teenagers

“I just think it’s despicable and I think it’s unconstitutional and I wish the federal government would change its policies,” said Paige.

Boston 25 has reached out to ICE for more information, and has not heard back.

RED ICE

ATTACHMENT FORTY – FROM new Orleans taco @get

Immigrants helped rebuild New Orleans. Under Trump, some worry they’ll be forced to leave.

Immigration

Sep 02, 2025 | 11:22 am ET

By Bobbi-Jean Misick, Verite

Olga still tears up when she recalls witnessing New Orleanians returning to the city in the months after Hurricane Katrina struck — only to find their homes destroyed.

“It made me sad to see other people suffer like that. … They were coming home and hoping that maybe they’d find some pieces of what they left behind and there would be nothing – nothing,” said Olga, a 63-year-old construction worker originally from Veracruz, Mexico, speaking through a translator earlier this month. “I think that vicarious trauma affected me a lot. … I did all I could to try to help those people.”

Olga — an undocumented immigrant who asked that her full name not be published — arrived in New Orleans in January 2006 hoping to find work. There was plenty to be found. Katrina had hit New Orleans just a few months earlier. The failure of the flood protection system that followed left 80 percent of the city underwater; entire neighborhoods were in ruins.

In the months after she arrived, Olga found jobs clearing out rotting furniture, deceased pets and damaged memories from people’s homes. She also worked on demolitions.

As crews began to rebuild, she excelled in installing wallboard and later in welding fences, she said.

Olga is one of thousands of workers from Central America and Mexico who came to the New Orleans metro region to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina’s destruction.

The influx of Latinx workers to New Orleans has largely been viewed as a net positive. Many residents say the reconstruction workers helped make it possible for them to return to their homes and get back their lives after the storm took so much away.

Hispanic residents represent one area of growth in an otherwise shrinking region. In the past two decades, the Hispanic population in the metro area grew by about 80,000 — going from 5% of the area population in 2000 to about 14% as of last year — adding to the local labor force, boosting local entrepreneurship and contributing to local tax revenues.

But the stability that many longtime undocumented residents and recently arrived immigrants have sought in Louisiana is now being threatened as the Trump administration, along with state and local authorities, cracks down on immigration.

New state laws and federal policies have increased information-sharing between the state and immigration enforcement agencies. Immigrants have been taken into federal custody and swiftly deported after showing up for routine ICE check-in appointments. ICE has conducted major worksite raids in New Orleans and Calcasieu Parish. And nearly two dozen local and state law enforcement agencies have inked partnership agreements with ICE, deputizing local officers to do the federal agency’s work.

Olga said the threat of detention and deportation feels “omnipresent” now.

“I think the greatest fear I’ve ever felt is this year,” Olga said. “You leave for work in the morning and you have no idea if you’re ever going to make it home.”

‘Leaving our families behind and risking our lives’

Reconstruction workers had different reasons to come to New Orleans after Katrina. For Olga, it was money. Her husband had walked out on her, and she had three kids to feed. So she took the journey to Texas, traveling by bus and foot to the U.S. border, then crossing the Rio Grande in a raft. Olga left behind two daughters, a son and her parents, planning to send money back to them in Mexico.

Once she crossed into Texas, near McAllen, she said, she had to hide from immigration authorities in a ditch. She then headed northeast on foot, walking for eight hours. She then put her trust in smugglers, known as “coyotes,” to get her to a safe place to stay. She rested there for a month before making her way to Louisiana.

Her first Louisiana home was in Hammond, about an hour outside New Orleans across Lake Pontchartrain. She shared the house, which lacked electricity, with a group of roughly 20 other workers – mostly men.

After 10- to-12-hour days working in construction, she and the only other woman living in the house were expected to cook for the crew. This is how it went for years, she said, moving from house to house with different crews. Now, Olga lives in Jefferson Parish – which has seen the largest growth in the region’s Latinx population in recent decades. She lives with her son, who joined her in the U.S. in 2014 and works alongside her on construction jobs, and her grandson.

Leticia Casildo, who came to New Orleans from Honduras in November 2005, came here seeking safety.

Back home, she worked as a police officer. In an interview Tuesday, Casildo said she was threatened after she reported corruption within the force. She and her husband fled, leaving behind their 2-year old daughter and 5-year old son in hopes that they would be able to send for them soon after. It would be eight years before they were reunited. By then Casildo and her husband were also raising their third child, a U.S. citizen.

Both Olga and Casildo cried when reminded of how their families were broken apart in their quests for stability in the U.S.

“My husband and I worked hard because we kept thinking, ‘I need my children. I need my children with me,’ all the time,” Casildo said.

Because of her status, Olga has never left the U.S. since crossing the border 20 years ago.. When her father died in 2009, she could not return home.

“[People] see us working, but a lot of people have no idea the suffering immigrants go through day in and day out,” Olga said. “We all have lived that same situation of leaving our families behind and risking our lives.”

Building community

The rebuilding work could be risky. To aid in rebuilding quickly, the Bush administration in September 2005 briefly suspended federal worksite inspection and enforcements in storm-affected areas.

Even though the regulations were quickly put back in place, the suspension of the laws had already “paved the way for exploitation of workers,” said Sarah Fouts, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County professor who provided support to workers in the 2010s as a volunteer with El Congreso de Jornaleros, or Congress of Day Laborers, a program of the now-splintered New Orleans Worker’s Center for Racial Justice.

Fouts’ recently published book, “Rebuilding New Orleans: Immigrant Laborers and Street Food Vendors In The Post-Katrina Era,” notes the “toxic conditions” and lack of protections for thousands of Central American and Mexican workers reconstructing the region.

“As day laborers worked relentlessly, they fell victim time and again to an unregulated job market, receiving little to no compensation or protections,” Fouts writes.

Olga said on multiple occasions, she and a crew she was working with would finish a job, only to be told that the homeowner refused to pay for the work.

In 2009, the Times-Picayune reported that El Congreso de Jornaleros and the Workers’ Center filed complaints against contractors and subcontractors for shorting laborers on pay.

Wage theft for immigrant construction workers in the United States persists as the threat of climate disasters intensifies – with reports of lost wages from laborers who helped rebuild after Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and Hurricane Ida in 2021.

Responding to challenges that the region’s immigrant community was facing, Casildo founded the nonprofit Familias Unidas en Accíon, or Families United in Action, in 2018. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization delivered food to undocumented immigrants who did not qualify for benefits. Familias Unidas has grown to operate other programs, including addressing labor rights issues.

Despite these challenges of poor living and working conditions and fighting for proper compensation, Olga said she never considered leaving New Orleans. She was determined to create opportunities for her family in Mexico. She said her work has paid for her children’s education. Her eldest daughter is now a biologist. Her other daughter is a sommelier, and her son earned a law degree before joining his mother in the U.S. She also paid for a house in Mexico, where her daughter and grandchildren live.

Others have become entrepreneurs.

In “Rebuilding New Orleans,” Fouts, who researches foodways, writes that food trucks, called loncheras, sprung up near popular day-laborer corners during the post-Katrina reconstruction era because workers needed affordable, familiar foods to fuel their long work days. Now, she said, it’s easy to see the impact that Hispanic immigrants have had on the New Orleans metro region by following the food.

“Maybe the people aren’t that visible, but the restaurants are so visible,” Fouts said.

In Mid-City, Fouts noted, food trucks selling Mexican tacos and Salvadoran pupusas line Broad Street, sitting near restaurants offering typical Honduran cuisine and three supermarkets serving Latinx customers – Norma’s Bakery on Bienville Street, La Morenita on Canal Street and Ideal Supermarket on Broad Street.

“If you have three Latin American grocery stores within a half a mile radius, that’s super visible,” Fouts said.

‘Your parents were heroes’

A few years after Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Juan Gershanik, who is originally from Argentina,  looked around New Orleans and noticed that — in a city filled with monuments to the past — there was little public recognition of the Latinx workers’ contributions to the post-Katrina recovery.

Gershanik is a pediatrician, not a construction worker, but he had made his own notable contribution to the city in the wake of the storm.

As the floodwaters rose, he worked with a team of people at Memorial Medical Center, now Ochsner Baptist, to safely transfer some of its most vulnerable patients – newborn babies in the neonatal intensive care unit being kept alive inside incubators –  to Baton Rouge. The team transported the incubators to a helipad on the hospital’s roof. Inside a supply helicopter, Gershanik helped the newborns to breathe by manually pumping oxygen from a portable tank. With the most vulnerable baby needing warmth, Gershanik placed the tiny child on his stomach – earning him the nickname “the Argentinian Kangaroo.”

In the years after Katrina when he and his wife, Ana, a journalist, began speaking with Hispanic students in a drug and alcohol awareness program, they noticed that the children of migrant recovery laborers appeared “ashamed” of their parents’ work, he said in a recent interview.

“I say, ‘What does your family do?’ And they start getting down in the face,” Gershanik said. “They were so, in a sense, ashamed that their parents were in what they called menial [jobs].”

“My husband and I said to them … ‘Without your parents, we would not have been able to go back to New Orleans,’” Ana Gershanik said. “Your parents were heroes.”

They decided then that there needed to be a physical monument honoring the Latin Americans that helped rebuild New Orleans.

“I wanted these children to be proud – to help their self-esteem,” Juan Gershanik said.

The Gershaniks and their three children worked on the effort to bring the statue to life. They found an Italian sculptor, Franco Alessandrini, to build it.

Juan Gershanik wanted the sculpture to include a roof and ladder – things that pointed to the work that was done. Ana Gershanik worked to ensure that the people in the finished piece did not have European features, but instead were representative of the Central Americans and Mexicans that worked in New Orleans. And she said, there had to be women there because she remembered seeing women working alongside men on dusty construction sites.

“There were women everywhere,” Ana Gershanik said.

In November 2018, the monument was unveiled inside Crescent Park, which runs along the Mississippi River, stretching from the Marigny neighborhood at the edge of the French Quarter to Bywater. The 26,000-pound sculpture featured workers – a man on a ladder, another on the roof of a house, a woman holding a broom.

After providing these contributions to New Orleans, immigrant workers “deserve the same treatment as anybody else who lives in this country,” Ana Gershanik said. She said that despite the threat of immigration detention and deportation, she believes recovery workers will continue to show up for U.S. communities after natural disasters.

Olga said she knows that she has made a positive impact on hundreds of people whose homes she’s worked on in the past two decades. She said of course she and other laborers deserve recognition, and they also deserve to live without fear.

“Don’t treat us as criminals. We are essential workers. We are hardworking people. We try and help the community rebuild, develop and flourish,” Olga said. “We’ve been here for you through all of this. … Help us to at least be able to live with certitude that will be able to make it home safely without being hunted down.”

ATTACHMENT FORTY ONE – FROM THE MARSHALL PROJECT

‘Unbearable’: How ICE Is Locking More Immigrants in Solitary Under Trump

A mother of three said she hallucinated after weeks in an ICE segregation cell in Louisiana. She’s one of thousands now facing the psychological toll of isolation.

By Christie Thompson, The Marshall Project, and Patricia Clarembaux, Univision Noticias

It’s been a month since Faviola Salinas Zaraté was deported from the U.S., but she still has nightmares about the Louisiana detention center where she said she was locked in a windowless isolation cell with a broken toilet for almost two months. In her dreams, the lights go out and no one saves her, even as she screams “Help!”

Salinas, a mother of three, said she was suffering from postpartum depression when she was detained in February, three months after the birth of her youngest child. Her depression worsened as she moved through detention centers before arriving at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile. She felt like everyone wanted to hurt her. Basile medical staff told her she was placed in solitary confinement for her own safety and to prevent her from harming other detainees, she said.

“I cried a lot, and sometimes, from the depression, I urinated in my clothes,” she said in Spanish in a phone call from Oaxaca, Mexico, where she lives now. “I don’t know why they didn’t give me the care I needed.”

As the Trump administration locks up people en masse in immigration detention, officials are also sending more people to solitary confinement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement data shows — raising alarms about the mental health consequences for thousands of detainees. From December 2024 to the end of August, the number of people who spent at least a day in solitary increased by 41%, according to an analysis by The Marshall Project and Univision. August was the peak, with over 1,100 placements in segregation that month.

ICE placements in solitary are rising ...

A new policy in December 2024 required reporting all solitary placements. By the following August, the number of people reported in segregation for at least one day during the month had risen 41%.

A line chart showing the percent increase, from December 2024, in people who spent at least one day in solitary confinement in ICE custody during a given calendar month. X-axis labels show December 2024 on the far left of the axis and August 2025 on the far right. Y-axis labels show percentages from 0% to 60%. The line showing the percent change is colored blue. The line starts at 0% in December 2024, before climbing to about 20% in January 2025. It dips below 15% in February and rises in March, and by April, reaches nearly 40%. The line falls slightly in May and June, before rising again in July. On the right-hand side of the chart, the line finishes with its highest value in August. In August, the number of people who spent at least one day in solitary confinement was 41% higher than in December 2024.

Dec.2024Aug.202503060%

+41% since Dec. 1,151 people in segregation in August

Percent change in people who spent at least one day in segregation during each month, since December 2024

Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

... but not as much as overall detention.

Between late December 2024 and late August 2025, the number of people in detention on ICE snapshot dates had increased by 56%.

A line chart showing the percent increase in the total number of people in immigration detention from Dec. 29, 2024. X-axis labels show December 2024 on the far left of the axis and August 2025 on the far right. Y-axis labels show percentages from 0% to 60%. The line representing the percent change is shown in red. The line starts at zero on the left side of the chart, the value for December 2024. It rises only slightly between January and February, and then climbs steadily throughout the months of 2025 before reaching its high point at the right side of the chart in August. The number of people in ICE detention increased 56% from December 29 to August 24.

Dec.2024Aug.202503060%

+56% since Dec. 61,226 people detained in August

Percent change in the number of people in immigration detention since December 29, 2024

The Marshall Project and Univision spoke with 10 people held in solitary confinement in ICE centers in Florida, Louisiana, Arizona and Washington, or their relatives and others representing them. Some people said they were held in isolation for protesting against their detention, arguing with officers or refusing to have their blood drawn. They also included a person recovering from surgery who was taken to solitary instead of a medical unit for hours on a weekly basis. One was detained with a second person in the segregation cell.

This article was published in partnership with Univision.

ICE did not respond to requests for comment about its use of solitary in general, or in individual cases described in this story.

The number of people ICE is holding in solitary is not growing as quickly as the population in detention overall, data shows. And the use of segregation had also increased under the Biden Administration. But the uptick in solitary is concerning, experts said, as more people are now exposed to its harms.

“Solitary confinement is perhaps the most punitive practice that exists in carceral settings, and it’s being used in immigration detention in very similar ways,” said Caitlin Patler, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley who has studied ICE’s use of isolation. “Now you’re getting more and more people who we would not have previously seen detained, [who are] experiencing these conditions. It’s a traumatic experience for anyone.”

Psychologists say any time in isolation can be damaging, especially for immigrants who have experienced trauma. Prolonged stints in solitary — which the United Nations defines as 15 days or more — can lead to reduced cognitive abilities, difficulty sleeping, and even thoughts of self-harm or suicide.

Salinas described her isolation cell as a roughly 20-square-foot space with no windows. The bed — a metal slab with a mattress — sat next to a stainless steel toilet and sink. The toilet didn’t work, Salinas said, so her waste piled up in the bowl. She began urinating into a drain in the floor. When that filled up, she would use her uniform to mop the floor, then rinse it in the sink.

The temperature inside the cell also wore her down. “Sometimes they gave me blankets, sometimes they didn’t,” she said. “It was so cold I tore open the mattress and crawled inside it like a blanket.” After that, Salinas said guards took the mattress away. For the next week, she slept on the bare metal slab.

Her only conversations were with another detainee, who was placed briefly in the adjoining isolation cell; they could hear each other through the wall. Salinas said at some point she started to hallucinate that the few items in her cell were moving.

“It was unbearable,” she said. “I felt anxious, helpless. I saw others being let out, and I was the only one left behind.”

ICE’s rising use of solitary comes as the Trump administration slashes what little oversight there was of conditions inside detention centers. Officials have made significant cuts to the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, as well as the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The department has also tried to restrict visits from members of Congress.

Some lawmakers are trying to push for more oversight of the use of isolation in federal immigration custody. Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff published an investigation this summer into the treatment of pregnant women and children in immigration detention, finding that some detainees who reported physical and sexual abuse said they were placed in solitary in retaliation. (A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said Ossoff’s findings were “garbage.”) A group of Congress members has also reintroduced a bill that would end solitary across all federal facilities, including immigration detention, with some exceptions.

“What’s really scary right now is there’s no third-party witnesses to what’s happening inside,” said Amanda Diaz, organizing director of Freedom for Immigrants, which advocates on behalf of people in detention. While the watchdog agencies already had little enforcement power, she said, “they at least documented the abuse and had statutory rights to ask for information and data, and interview people. Now there's no accountability.”

DHS policies allow ICE to use segregation for a number of reasons, including to separate a person who is considered a threat to others, for medical reasons or while someone is investigated for violating facility rules. The agency can also use segregation as punishment when a person violates certain rules — but only after a review panel issues such an order.

According to DHS policy, segregation “must never be used as an act of retaliation against a detainee,” but some people said they were punished for speaking out. Freedom for Immigrants runs a national immigration detention hotline that has received numerous calls about the use of solitary, including from people saying they were put in segregation after filing a civil rights complaint, or asking a guard for their name.

Daniel López, a Mexican immigrant, said he was punished with a month in segregation, including about 20 days with a cellmate, at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington — for speaking out against his and other detainees’ detention and submitting petitions on their behalf. López said he and others were calling for ICE to release them to continue their immigration cases outside detention, and for the agency to address the prolonged detention of some people awaiting deportation.

“It’s not right to punish people just because we’re immigrants, and we raised our voices,” López said in Spanish during an August phone call from the detention center.

ATTACHMENT FORTY TWO – FROM

Huntsville residents protest ICE detentions, call for city to respect immigrant rights

· By Scott Turner Updated: Sep. 12, 2025, 6:49 p.m.

A group of Huntsville residents are calling for the city government to respect immigrant rights and not participate in U.S. Immigration and Enforcement detention activities.

The group staged a protest on the steps of City Hall on Thursday afternoon, with many of the participants later addressing the Huntsville City Council. They asked council members to pass a resolution barring the city from any agreement that would grant federal civil immigration enforcement authority to police officers or detain or facilitate the detention of immigrants for federal immigration enforcement purposes.

“I’m a retired teacher, and I’ve taught many children from different countries,” retired teacher Donna Payne said during the protest. “It just really upsets me to see people picked up by ICE. They’re not getting due process. Some of them that have been picked up do have their papers, but they’re not given a chance to show that.”

One of the protesters shared a letter from Chelsea Brunty-Barojas, who said her husband Antonio Barojas Solano was taken into ICE custody outside of a north Huntsville home on Aug. 6 along with three other Hispanic men. The letter was shared during the protest and at the council meeting,

The letter said Brunty-Barojas’ husband tried to explain that he was married to a U.S. citizen, had legal representation and had six children who are citizens.

“Antonio is a man of faith, a father of six U.S. citizen children, and the sole provider for our family,” the letter said. “He is not a criminal and has only ever had minor traffic violations in the past. He works hard every day in construction across North Alabama, paying taxes, contributing to the community—and yet this is how he’s treated.”

The letter said Solano was denied access to his lawyer at the Etowah County Sheriff’s Office and was being held under inhumane conditions with no proper medical care, inadequate food, and unsanitary conditions.

“This administration promised they would be picking up the worst of the worst,” Meg Hereford said in response to stories such as the one about Solano. “That is not what is happening. We all know that. We all see that. I want our city officials to not let Huntsville fall into that trap. We’re a good, peaceful law-abiding city and county. I don’t want to see us going down that road.”

“These are not criminals,” Payne added. “Of course, we don’t want criminals loose. These are hardworking people, trying to make a living. They care for their families. It’s outrageous. But the worst of it all is people who are picked up when they are going to their appointments for their hearings. They’re trying to do the right thing. I just don’t understand it. We’re not treating people humanely.”

Larisa Thomason said she was concerned “that we have a mass of people without showing ID in unmarked cars snatching people off the street in American cities.”

“Nobody knows where they are going,” she said. “Is that not enough to be outraged about? We essentially now have secret police. That’s not due process. That’s not the Bill of Rights. It’s wrong. I’m an old white lady. I can come out and hold my sign without somebody asking ‘show me your papers.’ ”

“If the Constitution’s due process rights are not for some people, then it’s not for anybody,” Laura Lemley said.

Lemley said she didn’t think it was safe with “agents coming around and scooping up people off the sidewalk and racial profiling.”

“I actually think immigrants are a blessing to our communities,” she said. “There are criminal elements to each group of people. In general, immigrants give more than they get in this country. I don’t agree with all of the ICE raids. I think it’s bad for our country economically, socially, spiritually.”

Some of the protesters claimed a teacher from Williams Middle School had also been detained. But Huntsville City Schools could not verify the claim.

The council did not act on the resolution presented to it by the protesters.

But City Administrator John Hamilton said the Huntsville Police Department did not have an agreement with ICE when it came to enforcement. He said such an agreement would have to be approved by the council. He said the department currently does not have the resources to take on the added responsibility.

Hamilton said ICE has not approached the city about such an agreement. He said, however, that the city was aware of federal immigration enforcement within the city limits and did not dispute the accounts shared at the council meeting.

Hamilton said the city did not have the authority to interfere with enforcement by federal agencies within the city.

He pointed out that people arrested by Huntsville police officers are taken to the Madison County Jail, which falls under the authority of the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.

Hamilton said the county jail does notify ICE when they have people with undocumented status in custody.

Protests

ATTACHMENT FORTY THREE – FROM Google AI overview…

AI Overview

Since Donald Trump's return to the presidency in January 2025, a wave of protests against his administration's heightened immigration enforcement has taken place across the United States

. Spurred by an increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, these demonstrations have seen both peaceful marches and violent clashes with federal and local law enforcement. 

Overview of protests

· Widespread demonstrations: Protests have occurred in numerous cities, including Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Houston, and Atlanta.

· Escalation in Los Angeles: One of the most significant protest hotspots has been Los Angeles. Following an ICE crackdown that began on June 6, 2025, demonstrations led to clashes with police, property vandalism, and arrests. In response, the White House deployed thousands of National Guard troops and Marines, a move that California Governor Gavin Newsom called illegal and inflammatory.

· Solitary confinement increase: The Guardian reported that ICE placed over 10,000 individuals in solitary confinement in the year leading up to September 2025. This practice, particularly for vulnerable people, has been condemned by human rights groups.

· Violent rhetoric concerns: In September 2025, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement denouncing what it called "hateful rhetoric" from media and some political figures toward ICE and other law enforcement, claiming it inspired violence.

· Supreme Court ruling: After the June protests, a federal judge ordered a stop to immigration arrests without probable cause in parts of Southern California. However, the Supreme Court ended these restrictions in early September 2025.

· Legal challenges: Federal prosecutors dropped charges against some protesters in Los Angeles after it was found that DHS agents had made false statements. Additionally, a federal judge ruled that the deployment of military forces for civilian law enforcement in California was illegal.

· Detention conditions concerns: A July 2025 New York Times report highlighted growing concerns over poor conditions in immigrant detention facilities, with allegations of rotten food, and detainees being moved between facilities.

· Raid at Georgia EV factory: In September 2025, an immigration raid at a Hyundai Metaplant in Georgia, which employs South Korean specialists for EV and battery manufacturing, led to the detention of workers. South Korean workers, essential to the facility's operation, were arrested, prompting a protest outside the US Embassy in Seoul.

· 'Day Without Immigrants' protest: On February 3, 2025, a nationwide protest called "Day Without Immigrants" saw business closures in several cities to protest the new administration's immigration policies.

· Increase in ICE arrests: Statistics published in September 2025 show that the number of ICE detentions rose by 69% in the first eight months of the year, with most arrests conducted by ICE agents rather than Customs and Border Protection.

· ICE presence at hospitals: In September 2025, nurses in California reported hostile encounters with ICE agents at hospitals, with agents attempting to block staff from assessing patients already in custody.

· Protests continue: YouTube livestreams and other sources indicate that anti-ICE protests continue, with recent demonstrations held in Portland and outside an immigration facility near Chicago in September 2025. 

ATTACHMENT FORTY FOUR – FROM NBC

Bad Bunny says ICE raids influenced his decision to skip U.S. tour

Following his residency in Puerto Rico, which he described in a "TODAY" interview as "magical," Bad Bunny's concert tour will include stops in Latin America, Europe and Australia.

By Ariana Brockington, TODAY Sept. 11, 2025, 11:57 AM EDT / Source: TODAY

Bad Bunny is opening up about one of the reasons he opted not to do any concerts in the mainland U.S. during his upcoming tour.

The 31-year-old rapper and singer launched his 30-show residency, which is currently sold out, at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan in July. Since then, hundreds of thousands of fans have flown to the island to see the Grammy Award winner perform, including many celebrities.

Before his “No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí” (“I Don’t Want to Leave Here”) shows began, he told Variety that it was “unnecessary” to bring the shows to the United States. Now, during a recent interview with i-D magazine, Bad Bunny expounded on why he chose not to tour in the United States — as well as the significance of playing shows in Puerto Rico. Following his residency which ends on Sept. 14, Bad Bunny's concert tour will include stops in Latin America, Europe and Australia.

When he was asked by the British publication if he's not giving any concerts in the mainland U.S. out of concern over the mass deportations of Latinos across the country, he confirmed that concern impacted his decision.

“Man, honestly, yes,” he replied. “There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the U.S., and none of them were out of hate —I’ve performed there many times. All of (the shows) have been successful. All of them have been magnificent. I’ve enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the U.S.”

Bad Bunny continued, “But specifically, for a residency here in Puerto Rico, when we are an unincorporated territory of the US… People from the US could come here to see the show. Latinos and Puerto Ricans of the United States could also travel here, or to any part of the world. But there was the issue of — like, f------ ICE could be outside (my concert). And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”

Since the beginning of the year under President Donald Trump's administration there have been increased immigration raids around the country, as well as protests.

The “Baile Inolvidable” singer also told i-D that he believes fans can better understand his music and the “whole experience” that comes with it when they are in Puerto Rico.

“It feels a bit like… How do I say this? Innocence. An eternal innocence. It has the joy and the party vibe of ‘Un Verano Sin Ti,’ but this time the Puerto Rican-ness is more present than ever,” he said about his residency. “The pride, the sense of homeland that unites generations. It’s always been something you see in my concerts, but in this concert, it is much more marked. There are kids who are 17, 18—but also those who are 20, 30, 40, 60, there are elderly people. You see people dancing, laughing, singing.”

Bad Bunny previously discussed how meaningful the tour and his home country is to him when he appeared Sunday on "TODAY" with Willie Geist Aug. 31.

“This is so far my best experience in music, maybe in life. This happening right now in San Juan in that arena is something magical,” he said during the "TODAY" interview. His shows have brought in more than $200 million to the island, according to an organization that promotes the island called Discover Puerto Rico.

He further shared the joy he feels performing in Puerto Rico while speaking to Geist. “It’s such a pleasure to show my culture, my country, my land, right there, in my house,” he said. The musician also pointed out the location allows him to sleep in his bed every night, spend time with his family and avoid air travel.

“We show the best of Puerto Rico and also the toughest or delicate things about Puerto Rico,” he added. “I think that’s the beauty of this show. That is very powerful and honest.”

ATTACHMENT FORTY FIVE – FROM THE WORLD REACTS to ICE: AI overview

Former President Donald Trump's rhetoric and policies on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have provoked strong international reactions, particularly following recent events in his second term. Critics and human rights organizations have condemned his administration's use of ICE for mass deportations and aggressive raids, while some foreign governments have also expressed concern. 

Critical international reactions

International human rights organizations and some foreign governments have denounced Trump's use of ICE and his broader immigration policies.

· Human rights groups: Amnesty International USA and the International Refugee Assistance Project have been vocal critics, calling ICE operations under Trump "unconscionable" and rooted in racist narratives. These groups point to aggressive, targeted enforcement operations and the use of solitary confinement in detention facilities as flying "in the face of human rights".

· Targeting of students: Reports of ICE revoking visas and detaining international students have drawn criticism from multiple countries. In one notable instance, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to halt efforts to pursue a South Korean student at Columbia. A Fulbright scholar from India also fled to Canada after having her visa revoked.

· Third-country removals: The Trump administration's attempt to remove migrants to third countries without safety assurances has drawn international scrutiny.

· El Salvador: A mass deportation in June 2025 sent more than 250 Salvadoran men to a mega-prison in El Salvador. Relatives disputed the U.S. government's claim that the men were gang members, and a US Supreme Court ruling later found that at least one of the men had been wrongfully deported.

· Venezuelan-American Caucus: An advocacy group called decisions related to third-country removals and other actions "inhumane, cruel, and also illegal". 

Mixed or concerned government responses

Some foreign governments have had mixed or concerned reactions, often caught between navigating diplomatic relations and responding to domestic pressure.

· South Korea: A recent ICE raid on a South Korean-owned battery plant in Georgia led to a deal with the South Korean government to secure the release of hundreds of migrant workers. The incident reportedly caused internal frustration for the Trump administration, with some advisers concerned about potential damage to foreign investment.

· Canada: International students from various countries have fled to Canada in fear of U.S. immigration crackdowns, with some citing visa revocations.

· Concerns over stability: Some observers have expressed concern that Trump's actions and rhetoric are straining relationships with international allies and creating global instability. 

Trump's reaction to criticism

In response to both domestic and international pushback, Trump has largely defended his administration's actions and rhetoric on ICE. 

· Defensive stance: In July 2025, after facing backlash over raids, Trump gave ICE agents "total authorization" to protect themselves and directed arrests against protesters.

· Partial policy shift: Amid complaints from the business community, particularly in the agricultural and hospitality industries, the Trump administration directed ICE to pause most raids on farms, hotels, and restaurants in June 2025.

· Accusations against critics: The Department of Homeland Security has released statements accusing the media and critics of "demonization" and of using racist narratives against ICE agents. 

Broader foreign policy and ICE operations under Trump

This incident (Hyndai) reflects the broader and often inconsistent nature of Trump's foreign and immigration policies during his presidency and campaign:

· Prioritizing "America First": Trump's approach is guided by an "America First" stance, which can create tension when hardline domestic policies collide with foreign relations and economic goals.

· Increased enforcement: The second Trump administration has been aggressively expanding ICE operations, including workplace raids, removing protections for immigrants in "sensitive locations" like schools and hospitals, and intensifying pressure on so-called "sanctuary cities".

· Transactional approach: Trump has used a transactional approach, attempting to leverage U.S. economic and military power to serve American interests, sometimes with little regard for traditional international norms or alliances.

· Impact on foreign investment: While Trump has publicly courted foreign direct investment, his administration's aggressive immigration enforcement creates uncertainty and risk for foreign firms, particularly those relying on foreign workers. 

ATTACHMENT FORTY SIX – FROM DHS WEBSITE

DHS Calls for Media and Far Left to Stop the Demonization of President Trump, His Supporters, and DHS Law Enforcement

Release Date: September 17, 2025

This hateful rhetoric is contributing to political violence in our country and a more than 1000% increase in assaults against our brave ICE law enforcement

WASHINGTON – Following the evil act of political violence witnessed in the country last week and two attempts to resist arrest resulting in severe injuries of ICE law enforcement officers—one being drug by a car and another hit by a car—DHS is calling on the media, leftist groups, and sanctuary politicians to end their demonizing DHS law enforcement. This hateful rhetoric is inspiring political violence in our country and assaults against our brave DHS law enforcement.

“Following the evil act of political violence in the country this week and two brutal assaults on our brave ICE law enforcement last week, we are once again calling on the media and the far left to stop the hateful rhetoric directed at President Trump, those who support him, and our brave DHS law enforcement,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “This demonization is inspiring violence across the country. Our ICE officers are facing a more than 1000% increase in assaults against them. We have to turn down the temperature before someone else is killed. This violence must end.”

Below is a non-exhaustive list of violent rhetoric against DHS law enforcement:

· Rep. Jasmine Crockett compared ICE to “slave patrols.”

· Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called ICE law enforcement the “modern-day Gestapo.”

· Governor Pritzker claimed the United States is "essentially" becoming Nazi Germany as a result of ICE’s heroic efforts.

· Boston Mayor Michelle Wu compared to ICE to a neo-Nazi group.

· House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called for people to “fight” President Trump’s agenda “in the streets.”

· Rep. Pramila Jayapal called ICE agents “deranged” and said it is “inspiring” to obstruct immigration enforcement.

· Rep. Dan Goldman compared ICE to the “secret police.”

· Rep. Eric Swalwell compared ICE agents to a “KGB officer in Russia.”

· Rep. John Larson called ICE law enforcement officers “the SS” and “the Gestapo” for arresting criminal illegal aliens.

· Rep. Becca Balint called ICE law enforcement officers “vigilantes” who engage in “kidnapping.”

· Rep. Stephen Lynch called ICE law enforcement “thugs” and compared them to the Gestapo.

· Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called ICE “secret police” who “are terrorizing our communities.”

· LA Mayor Karen Bass perpetrated a hoax ICE “kidnapped” a woman.

· Vice Mayor Gonzalez’s Cudahy in southeast Los Angeles County called for criminal gangs – including the vicious 18th street gang—to commit violence against our brave ICE law enforcement.

· TikTokers implying incinerators are being used at Alligator Alcatraz for nefarious purposes.

· The American Civil Liberites Union (ACLU) compared an illegal alien detention center to an internment camps used during World War II.

This rhetoric is contributing to threats and a more than 1000% increase in assaults against DHS law enforcement. A non-exhaustive list is below:

· On September 14, an illegal alien resisted arrest and drove his car into an ICE officer nearly crushing him, hitting two government vehicles, and sped into oncoming traffic hitting another innocent bystander’s vehicle. The ICE officer is in stable condition.

· On September 12, while carrying out an enforcement operation targeting a criminal illegal alien, the alien resisted arrest, attempted to flee the scene and dragged an ICE law enforcement officer a significant distance with his car. The officer sustained multiple injuries and is in stable condition.

· On September 1, protestors gathered outside an ICE facility with a guillotine in violent riots.

· On August 29, Olivia Wilkins, attempted to run over a Border Patrol Agent who was arresting illegal aliens in Maine.

· On August 25, law enforcement arrested a suspect who made bomb threats to a Dallas ICE facility.

· On August 20, as law enforcement attempted to carry out its sworn duties, anti-ICE rioters surrounded and assaulted four federal agents. The agents sustained injuries from pepper spray deployed by rioters and a jammed finger. One individual, Adrian Guerrero—a U.S. citizen—was charged with assaults and destruction of federal property. According to court filings, Guerrero slashed the tire of a government vehicle and threatened to stab a law enforcement officer. While standing arm's length from the officer, Guerrero made repeated threats against stating: “I’m going to fuck you up,” “I’m going to go after your family,” and “I’m going to stab you.”

· On August 14, a threatening letter with a white powdery substance was sent to an ICE office in New York City.

· While facing menacing taunts and harassment from a crowd on the street, an illegal alien violently resisted arrest, resulting in one of our law enforcement officers being thrown on the ground and receiving a concussion on August 16.

· On August 2, a cowardly rioter threw a rock through a window of a building that ICE has a sub-office in Yakima Washington. Additionally, a small fire was set at the back of the building.

· Two criminal aliens attempted to ram their vehicle into ICE officers during a targeted enforcement operation in Colorado Springs, Colorado on July 31.

· On July 14, U.S. Representative Salud Carbajal was among the mob of rioters who attacked federal immigration authorities as they executed a criminal search warrant at a marijuana facility. Rep. Carbajal doxed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee, who was subsequently attacked by rioters and sent to the emergency room.

· On July 7, a gunman opened fire at the entrance of the United States Border Patrol (USBP) sector annex in McAllen, Texas. The suspect was neutralized by law enforcement who acted heroically to stop the shooter before there was any loss of life, however three were injured. A McAllen police officer was shot in the leg. Both a Border Patrol officer and Border Patrol employee also sustained injuries. All three were taken to the hospital in non-critical condition.

· On Independence Day, a group of about 15 rioters violently attacked the ICE Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas—and shot at a local police officer. The officer sustained an injury to his neck and was transported to a nearby hospital. Thankfully, he has since been discharged and is expected to make a full recovery.

· On June 18, ICE led an operation to arrest Gabriel Hurtado-Cariaco, a known Tren de Aragua terrorist, in Bellevue, Nebraska. As ICE and their law enforcement partners attempted to take him into custody, Hurtado-Cariaco launched a brutal and premeditated assault on an ICE HSI special agent. During the attack, the illegal alien threw the ICE agent to the ground, slammed her head into the pavement, ripped off her body armor, and made repeated and physical violent contact. The agent sustained serious injuries to her head and arm and was immediately transported to the University of Nebraska Medical Center for treatment. The agent has since been released from the hospital. The gang member was charged with attempted murder.

· On June 11, while carrying out an enforcement operation in Omaha, Nebraska an illegal alien from Honduras threatened federal officers and agents with a box cutter.

· In June, rioters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails and launched fireworks at Border Patrol and ICE law enforcement officers in Los Angles.

ATTACHMENT FORTY SEVEN – FROM FROM USA TODAY

Federal judge hands press groups wins in lawsuits against LAPD, DHS

U.S. District Judge Hernan D. Vera issued preliminary injunctions in lawsuits against the Los Angeles Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security over officers' treatment of journalists.

Vera wrote that federal officers "indiscriminate use of force ... will undoubtedly chill the media's efforts" to cover protests and that the police department violated both state and federal law.

Press groups filed lawsuits against both agencies in June following protests over President Donald Trump's immigration raids in Los Angeles.

A federal judge handed press and civil liberties groups wins in two separate cases against the Los Angeles Police Department and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over the treatment of journalists covering immigration raid protests.

U.S. District Judge Hernan D. Vera's preliminary injunctions bar, among other actions, the police department from arresting journalists for failing to disperse or otherwise interfering with journalists' ability to cover Los Angeles protests. The DHS officers are also barred from "dispersing, threatening, or assaulting" journalists who haven't "committed a crime unrelated to failing to obey a dispersal order."

In his Sept. 10 order in the LAPD case, Vera wrote that the department’s “heavy-handed efforts to police this summer’s protests” violated both state and federal law.

In granting the motion in the DHS case, Vera said federal officers “unleashed crowd control weapons indiscriminately and with surprising savagery” during the protests.

“Specifically, the Court concludes that federal agents’ indiscriminate use of force ... will undoubtedly chill the media’s efforts to cover these public events and protestors seeking to express peacefully their views on national policies,” Vera wrote.

He went on to condemn individuals who engaged in violent action during such protests, but said “the actions of a relative few does not give DHS carte blanche to unleash near-lethal force on crowds of third parties in the vicinity.”

In taking such actions, Vera wrote, federal officers have “endangered” peaceful protesters, journalists and the broader public.

“The First Amendment demands better,” he wrote.

USA TODAY reached out to the police department and the DHS for comment.

"There's an old line in policing: We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way,” Adam Rose, press rights chair of the Los Angeles Press Club, said in a news release following the rulings. “Press organizations have been trying to help LAPD for years take the easy way, just asking them to train officers and discipline offenders. They wouldn't stop resisting. LAPD failed to police themselves. Now a judge is doing it for them."

The First Amendment Coalition filed the federal lawsuit against the police department in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of the press club and the independent media outlet Status Coup in mid-June.

Days later, a similar lawsuit was filed against Noem over what the plaintiffs, which include the Los Angeles Press Club and the NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America, described as federal officers’ unconstitutional actions against journalists.

Vera issued a temporary restraining order in the LAPD case on July 10 that barred officers from using less-lethal munitions against journalists not posing a threat to law enforcement. The plaintiffs later accused the department of violating the order by hitting journalists with batons and arresting them during an August protest.

BrieAnna Frank is a First Amendment reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at bjfrank@usatoday.com.

ATTACHMENT FORTY EIGHT – FROM NY TIMES

California Lawmakers Pass Bill That Would Ban Masks for ICE Agents

The legislation responds to immigration raids by federal agents who have shielded their identity. It heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has not said whether he would sign it.

By Laurel Rosenhall Sept. 11, 2025

California state lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday that would bar most law enforcement officers from covering their faces while interacting with the public, a direct response to immigration raids by masked agents who have been difficult to identify.

California’s Legislature is believed to be the first to pass such a bill, though similar proposals have been introduced in other states and Congress.

The legislation now goes to Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose support is not certain. The legislation, passed by Democratic lawmakers who control both houses of the State Legislature, would apply to local and federal agencies, and questions have been raised about whether the state has the legal ability to regulate federal agents.

“We’re looking at the constitutionality of it,” Mr. Newsom said in July in an interview with the Tennessee Holler, a liberal news site.

The Democratic governor explained at the time that he understood that officers may need masks to protect their safety in limited circumstances, but that he thought it was “insane” how widespread the practice had become.

Supporters of the bill said on Thursday that the ban was even more urgent in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this week that allowed federal agents to resume immigration stops based on factors including ethnicity and if someone is speaking Spanish.

“We are in a truly disaster of a situation where we have secret police, effectively, on our streets,” said Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator from San Francisco who wrote the bill.

“It’s tearing apart the fabric of society,” he added. “You have communities in Southern California where people are scared to go out on the street, they’re scared to go to work, they’re scared to bring their kids to school. And now is the time for us to say what the rules are.”

Mr. Wiener’s legislation would bar officers from wearing face coverings that shield their identities, such as the ski masks, balaclavas and neck gaiters that have become common in recent months during President Trump’s immigration crackdown. It does not apply to medical masks, clear plastic face shields, respirators, eye protection or other safety devices.

The bill would take effect in January if signed by Mr. Newsom. The governor has until Oct. 12 to act on the legislation.

Numerous lawmakers described fear and anxiety in California’s many Latino communities. Sasha Renée Pérez, a Democratic state senator from the Los Angeles area, said that one of her constituents was so afraid of immigration agents that he ran onto a freeway and died. She said that her own family members have begun carrying their passports at all times.

“That’s a very strange reality,” Ms. Pérez said.

Opponents of the California bill, including numerous law enforcement agencies, argued that officers must have the choice to cover their faces to protect themselves and their families from retaliation. Limiting the ways officers can keep themselves safe will make it harder to recruit people to work in law enforcement, they said.

“Bad guys wear masks because they don’t want to get caught. Good guys wear masks because they don’t want to get killed,” said Kelly Seyarto, a Republican state senator from Riverside County. “It’s that simple.”

He also argued that the state doesn’t have the power to regulate federal agencies, so that part of the bill is likely to be thrown out in court, and that the bill would wind up creating new civil liability for local officers because of how it would be enforced.

Mr. Wiener pointed to an opinion from the legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, who argued that the policy is constitutional because it does not only apply to federal agencies. State and local governments can require that federal agencies comply with general laws, Mr. Chemerinsky wrote, such as speed limits and restrictions on the use of force.

“There is no rule saying that just because you work with federal government, you’re exempt from all state law,” Mr. Wiener said.

The California State Senate passed the bill on Thursday, two days after the State Assembly approved the legislation.

Similar bills have been introduced in other states — including New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Michigan — but have not yet passed.

California lawmakers also passed a companion bill on Thursday that would require local, state and federal agents to wear identifying information such as their name or badge number. That bill was less controversial, and while some law enforcement agencies opposed it, the legislation received support from the major association representing local police officers in California.

ATTACHMENT FORTY NINE – FROM NPR

The Supreme Court clears the way for ICE agents to treat race as grounds for immigration stops

September 13, 20255:21 PM ET

Heard on All Things Considered

By Erika Ryan, Scott Detrow, Jasmine Garsd, and Avery Keatley

As ICE immigration enforcement intensifies across the country, a Supreme Court ruling permits racial profiling as grounds for immigration stops.

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

Federal immigration raids are getting more and more common across the country. On Monday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for federal immigration enforcement agents in Los Angeles to use race and other profiling factors in deciding who to stop and potentially detain. At the same time, ICE has expanded operations in Massachusetts and Illinois, and it remains active in Washington, D.C.

With the backing of the federal government and the courts, ICE is moving quickly to carry out the White House's deportation agenda. So what does it mean for protecting the civil rights of Americans? For more on this, we're going to bring in NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd. Hey, Jasmine.

JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: Hi, Scott.

DETROW: There's a lot to talk about here, but first, I want to start with this court ruling because it has gotten a lot of attention, and I think various elements of it have been kind of confusing. What do we need to know about what the Supreme Court said?

GARSD: So the Supreme Court in a temporary ruling - basically, what they said is that immigration agents may consider factors like race, whether Spanish is being spoken, whether English is being spoken with an accent, and employment location or people hanging out outside of a Home Depot - they may consider those factors when deciding to detain and interrogate someone. Yeah.

DETROW: It's temporary as the case still plays out. But I mean, let's play this out to its logical conclusion. If a United States citizen who's Latino in Los Angeles is walking down the street, does he feel like he has to carry his passport with him at this point?

GARSD: Certainly. People who I have been speaking to are already doing that. You know, people have been doing that in Los Angeles for months now. And increasingly, I'm hearing people around the country, Latinos around the country, who are doing that. And really the fact that they're doing that underscores the importance of this ruling.

DETROW: What else are people doing who have a worry in one way or another that they might be stopped and detained?

GARSD: Scott, I don't think I've ever, as an immigration reporter, spoken to so many people who are hiding behind closed doors, I mean, who are just not going out. I spoke to one family yesterday here in Washington, D.C., where I am, who - they have just stopped going to work. They've been here for about 25 years, and they're just not going out anymore. And they are going to self-deport, which is kind of, you know, one of the pillars of this administration's policy.

DETROW: But in the meantime, they're literally hiding from their government.

GARSD: They're literally behind closed doors. They are literally asking their son, who is an American citizen, a teenager, to go out and do the groceries. And that's kind of been, like, this really important pillar of policy, which is to make life feel so difficult for immigrants without papers. And, you know, arguably, with this Supreme Court decision, also for people who are Latinos and who are Spanish speakers or speak with an accent...

DETROW: Yeah.

GARSD: ...That the consideration is to self-deport.

DETROW: I want to talk specifically about a few of the cities. Chicago has been in the news for a lot of reasons lately - President Trump making threats against the city of Chicago, threatening to bring in the National Guard. We've seen reports in recent days that ICE activity has picked up in Chicago. What do we know about that?

GARSD: We know that he's launched a second immigration enforcement surge. We know that there is increased activity. It is important to highlight here that we haven't seen a significant increase in detentions...

DETROW: OK.

GARSD: ...Right now in Chicago, but we definitely have seen a heightened rhetoric. And we have seen this surge in immigration enforcement initiatives in Chicago and ICE agents, but we haven't really seen a significant increase in detentions just yet.

DETROW: Do we have a baseline number about how many of these detentions are happening a day nationwide, roughly?

GARSD: I mean, we know that the goal is 3,000 a day. We know that there has been a significant increase nationwide. I think a really important number to highlight is that consistently around 70% of people in immigration detention do not have a criminal conviction. And that seems like a really important statistic to think about when we're asking this question - what does it mean that you can consider all these factors during detention?

DETROW: So we're talking about the national picture. We're talking about Chicago. What about Boston? That's another city that's gotten some attention lately.

GARSD: Yes, we also have seen a second immigration enforcement surge in Boston. It's important to note that what the administration is doing here is talking about sanctuary cities - right? - cities where there are policies that local law enforcement cannot collaborate with immigration enforcement. And they're also blue cities, very specifically.

DETROW: I'm curious what groups trying to oppose this are telling you, whether it's civil rights organizations or legal groups or just people who are trying to document these detentions on the street as they happen with their phones. Like, what, if anything, are the people you're talking to feeling like they can do in this moment if they oppose these actions?

GARSD: Right now, I'm in D.C., doing field work in D.C. and Maryland and Virginia. And what I'm seeing is a heightened citizen activism, which includes things like taking children to school if their parents are undocumented and they are afraid of taking their kids to school. It also includes taping video of people being detained.

DETROW: Yeah.

GARSD: Can they stop the detention? Not necessarily, but the reasoning that I'm being told about it is to get any identifying features about the agent and also to talk about who is being detained. Do they have a family member who can speak for them?

DETROW: They're trying to get identifying features, and that's the reason that we've heard, at least, why so many of these agents are masking themselves.

GARSD: Yes, masking themselves - we're also hearing about no license plates, unmarked cars, civilian wear. In my reporting, something that has been really alarming is short-term disappearances - I mean, people who are detained and that nobody can find them in the system for three or four days. And so part of the reason why people say they're taking these videos is to be able to contact family members.

DETROW: I just want to underscore this because at times it feels like hyperbole, but we are talking factually about masked agents in unmarked vehicles taking people off the street, and at times, those people can't be identified. Like, those are things that you just said. Those are things that have been documented. It feels shocking to a lot of people, but I just want to underscore, like, this is the reality we're covering right now.

GARSD: This is the reality. I mean, look, this man who I spoke to, who has been in the U.S. for some 25 years, who is hiding in his home, who has a job in the service industry - he said so many things that just really were quite shocking about not being able to go out, not being able to get groceries, considering leaving. But the one thing he said that really stuck with me was, America is for white people now.

DETROW: I, over the course of the year, have kept thinking about the interviews that we did right before the election, the week of the election. President Trump ran on this. This platform was a big appeal for many of the people who voted for him. And I'm wondering, at this moment in time, as somebody who covers this issue, are you surprised by any of this?

GARSD: I mean, this - like you said, this was a centerpiece of his campaign. This was the promise. And I think the promise contained a fallacy. You know, the promise was we are going to take all those criminals and all those rapists and even, you know, all those cannibals and mental institution patients - these are actual things that were said - who are immigrants off of the streets.

And the fallacy within that promise is that we know we have abundant criminological studies that say that there is - you know, immigrants and undocumented immigrants do not commit crimes at the same rate as American citizens. And so I'm not surprised because when you make a promise like that, when you promise a historic mass deportation, you have to keep up with those numbers.

I think the thing that has surprised me is when I speak to MAGA supporters behind closed doors, to Trump supporters, and there is kind of a - you know, in hushed tones, an expression of, I'm no longer comfortable with this, or this is affecting my business. And it remains in hushed tones, but I am seeing more of that. I'm seeing more conservatives who are not entirely comfortable with what's happening right now.

DETROW: That is NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd. Jasmine, thanks much for talking to us.

GARSD: Thanks for having me.

DETROW: And it is important to note that although some Republican voters may be softening on their support for the president's approach to immigration, recent polling from the end of the summer does indicate that an overwhelming majority still support it. To watch video of my conversation with Jasmine Garsd, you can visit NPR's YouTube page.

ATTACHMENT FIFTY – FROM FOX

Fox News' Brian Kilmeade apologizes for saying mentally ill homeless people should be executed

By DAVID BAUDER

September 14, 2025 at 2:21 pm EDT

Fox News Channel host Brian Kilmeade apologized on Sunday for advocating for the execution of mentally ill homeless people in a discussion on the network last week, saying his remark was "extremely callous."

Kilmeade's initial comment came on a "Fox & Friends" episode Wednesday and began getting widespread circulation online over the weekend. Kilmeade, a host of the morning show, was talking with co-hosts Lawrence Jones and Ainsley Earhardt about the Aug. 22 stabbing murder of Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A homeless and mentally ill man, Decarlos Brown Jr., was arrested for murder, and the case received extensive attention on Fox following the release of a security video of the stabbing.

Jones was talking on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday about public money spent on trying to help homeless people and suggested that those who didn't accept services offered to them should be jailed.

“Or involuntary lethal injection, or something,” Kilmeade said. “Just kill 'em.”

Earhardt interjected, “Why did it have to get to this point?” Kilmeade replied, “I will say this, we're not voting for the right people.”

During an appearance on the “Fox & Friends" weekend show Sunday, Kilmeade said that “I wrongly said they should get lethal injection. I apologize for that extremely callous remark. I am obviously aware that not all mentally ill, homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina and that so many homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion.”

Fox News management did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

An advocate for homeless people said Sunday that Kilmeade's remark had been “completely devoid of all humanity.” Christine Quinn, president and CEO of Win, a provider of shelter and services for homeless children in New York City, invited Kilmeade to volunteer in one of the organization's shelters.

Kilmeade's initial remark came hours before the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah. An MSNBC analyst, Matthew Dowd, was fired for saying on the air that afternoon that hateful rhetoric can lead to hateful actions.

.

ATTACHMENT “A” – FROM GUK

Here’s Kirk, in his own words. Many of his comments were documented by Media Matters for America, a progressive non-profit that tracks conservative media.

Trump blamed ‘radical left’ for Charlie Kirk’s death – even as shooter’s identity remains unknown

On race

If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024

If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022

Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023

If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024

If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023

0:19

Charlie Kirk in his own words: 'Prowling Blacks go around for fun to target white people' – video

On debate

We record all of it so that we put [it] on the internet so people can see these ideas collide. When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity.

– Kirk discussing his work in an undated clip that circulated on X after his killing.

Prove me wrong.

– Kirk’s challenge to students to publicly debate him during the tour of colleges he was on when he was assassinated.

On gender, feminism and reproductive rights

Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.

– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025

The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.

– Responding to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape on the debate show Surrounded, published on 8 September 2024

We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 April 2024

0:33

Charlie Kirk in his own words: 'A Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic' – video

On gun violence

I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.

– Event organized by TPUSA Faith, the religious arm of Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, on 5 April 2023

On immigration

America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 22 August 2025

The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 20 March 2024

The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 March 2024

On Islam

America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 30 April 2025

We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilization.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 24 June 2025

Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.

– Charlie Kirk social media post, 8 September 2025

On religion

There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 6 July 2022