Isn’t this a rouge thug agency that hides their faces and refuses to show ID? How does anyone tell them apart from kidnappers, maybe a Proud Boy member pretending so they can abuse people they dislike. Plus the creative ideas she has suggested are dubiously legal, possibly a crime. Also as you see in the second one they already pretended to be utility workers causing issues for that company and lying to kids. There is so much more than I can express here about what our country has become. How can people hate that much. I did not paste the hateful attacks on Pride Events by religious people making up stuff they think the right is doing like using the Trevor Project’s suicide hotline to claim that they are transing kids? Or the woman who claimed walking into a store with pride merchandise is being assaulted with rainbows, the cloying fume of pride, and Legos of all colors. When did just seeing that other people exist become an assault and a threat to yourself personally. I don’t agree with fundamentalist Christians, but I don’t want to ban them or force their books from stores and libraries. Why can not these people live and let live. Just knowing people eat asparagus don’t make the evil even if I personally refuse to touch the stuff. Anyway, the news has me very down and sad. So much hate or bigotry and these people revile in both. They love it. They want it at the same time saying it is in the name of their god who as I remember preached the opposite of what they are doing, feed the poor, clothe the poor, help the immigrant as you were once an immigrant, judge not least you be judged, and so much more. Hugs
Senior US immigration officials over the weekend instructed rank-and-file officers to “turn the creative knob up to 11” when it comes to enforcement, including by interviewing and potentially arresting people they called “collaterals”, according to internal agency emails viewed by the Guardian. Officers were also urged to increase apprehensions and think up tactics to “push the envelope” one email said, with staff encouraged to come up with new ways of increasing arrests and suggesting them to superiors.
“If it involves handcuffs on wrists, it’s probably worth pursuing,” another message said. The instructions not only mark a further harshening of attitude and language by the Trump administration in its efforts to fulfill election promises of “mass deportation” but also indicate another escalation in efforts, by being on the lookout for undocumented people whom officials may happen to encounter – here termed “collaterals” – while serving arrest warrants for others.
Read the full article. Impersonating utility workers apparently falls under getting “creative.”
“Creative” = “Get illegal” and “terrorize”. San Diego is still reeling from a raid on a restaurant at happy hour where employees were handcuffed until 4 of their colleagues were dragged off by masked men. When concerned community members began filming the encounter they were greeted by flash-bang grenades. This is fascism.
Southside neighbors jumped into action Wednesday morning when they believed immigration officers were attempting an arrest near Sixth Ave. and Ajo Way. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told KGUN 9 that there is an ongoing investigation, but did not provide further details.
Christine Cariño called KGUN 9 because she believed there were ICE or HSI agents in her neighborhood. Cariño described their unmarked vehicles, claimed they asked her unusual questions, and claimed that they worked with Tucson Electric Power.
She began to suspect the individuals were immigration enforcement officers during the initial interaction. She explained how they initially asked her to help them find her neighbor. That’s when she questioned if they were ICE or HSI agents, despite having been told they were with Tucson Electric Power.
An Arizona power company is warning that it objects to anyone who may misrepresent themselves as one of its employees amid allegations that immigration officials posed as utility workers while attempting to detain a man at his home in south Tucson.
Tucson Electric Power’s statement come after local residents raised concerns that two men who introduced themselves to neighbors as utility workers and asked for directions to a specific house were actually federal agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Members of the Arizona Latino Legislative Caucus were quick to condemn the incident, saying it was “part of a broader pattern of concerning actions” by immigration authorities. State Rep. Mariana Sandoval, D-Goodyear, said in a statement that federal officials should investigate the incident and publish guidelines to prevent future occurrences.
Do ya notice how quickly and gladly ICE and other law enforcement agents go full on gestapo? If they could just shoot people dead for no reason, a lot of them would do it and high-five each other afterwards.
there was a clip of the ICE director (either very mad, or very nervous –(watching his fingers tapping anxiously on the podium)) the other day answering the question on the facial coverings (hence my calling them ICEis ) ..
because nasty people were taking pictures of agents and Doxxing them! (and apparently their wives, children, etc etc ) …
well, oddly enough, in most places you can find the names of the local police officers, and who of those are on things like the SWAT team .. and they at least wear badge numbers, if not names ..
Ahhh. That explains the push to make it a crime to identify ICE officers. There was one the other day that was confronted over his white supremacist tattoos that were clearly visible on his right arm. I think it has more to do with them hiring from racist groups rather than protecting their “families”.
No question. My trump loving cousin works for a homeland security contractor. he is always talking about the “gangs” from the city who take over all the street festivals, all the parks (especially the suburban ones), all the malls and gallerias, and all other public spaces. He really thinks that there are roving gangs on marauding everywhere! And they are all black and brown people, naturally, and he insists they are all criminals, raping and murdering everyone. It’s why he will never go downtown.
He is totally anti-immigrant and would dearly love to deport every one of them for any reason or no reason. And if they die in the process, so much the better.
I thought it was illegal to claim you were utility person? I recall back in olden times that sometimes men would pose as a utility person or cable guy to get access to people’s homes to steal things or even rape women. That’s why they started carrying ID cards that they were required to have them visible. I wonder if they violated some law?
I was an enumerator for the Census in 2020, and we were told how to look, dress conservatively, be respectful of the property, etc. We were required to wear our badges and to show it to any person who answers the door. We also had bags with US CENSUS 2020 emblazoned in large letters. Sometimes when I’d be walking down the street, bikers or car drivers would shout out a thankyou.
Even with all that, some people refused to open the door and speak with us, fearing whatever. We were instructed on how to handle that politely, and leave a note.
I can only imagine that ICE keeps doing these things for the next four years, the Census will not get a good count on huge swaths of people.
Trump officials transferred the migrants to the East African nation in response to a judge’s order. They now face threats that include rocket attacks from Yemen.
June 6, 2025 at 5:51 p.m. EDTyesterday at 5:51 p.m. EDT
A U.S. Air Force plane used for deportation flights is stationed at Biggs Army Airfield in Fort Bliss, El Paso, on Feb. 13. (Justin Hamel/AFP/Getty Images)
Nearly a dozen immigration officers and eight deporteesare sick and stranded in a metal shipping container in the searing-hot East African nation of Djibouti, where they face the constant threat of malaria and rocket attacks from nearby Yemen, according to a federal court filing issued Thursday.
A federal judge in Boston interrupted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flight taking immigrants from Cuba, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Mexico to South Sudan more than two weeks ago. U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy said the flight violated his order prohibiting officials from sending immigrants to countries where they aren’t citizens without a chance to ask for humanitarian protection. He instructed officials to arrange screenings.
Trump officials could have flown the immigrants back to the United States. Instead, they were taken to Djibouti, where in late May officers turned a Conex container into a makeshift detention facility on U.S. Naval Base Camp Lemonnier, according to Mellissa Harper, a top ICE official, who detailed the conditions Thursday in a required status update to the judge.
Three officers and eight detainees arrived at the only U.S. military base in Africa unprepared for what awaited them. Defense officials warned them of “imminent danger of rocket attacks from terrorist groups in Yemen,” but the ICE officers did not pack body armor or other gear to protect themselves. Temperatures soar past 100 degrees during the day. At night, she wrote, a “smog cloud” forms in the windless sky, filled with rancid smoke from nearby burning pits where residents incinerate trash and human waste.
The Trump administration has urged the Supreme Court to stay Murphy’s April order requiring screenings under the Convention Against Torture, which Congress ratified in 1994 to bar the U.S. government from sending people to countries where they might face torture. In a filing in that case Thursday, officials told the Supreme Court that Murphy’s order violates their authority to deport immigrants to third countries if their homelands refuse to take them back, particularly if they are serious offenders who might otherwise be released in the United States.
Matt Adams, a lawyer for the detainees and legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said the government is delaying interviewing the men to determine whether they have a reasonable fear of harm. The judge ordered the government to provide the detainees with access to their lawyers, but Adams said they haven’t spoken to them.
Lawyers fear the Trump administration is delaying the screenings in hopes that the Supreme Court stays Murphy’s order and clears the way for officers to deport the men to South Sudan. He said detainees are likely to prevail in proving they have a credible fear of being tortured because South Sudan is on the brink of civil war and they are not citizens of that country.
“What person wouldn’t have a reasonable fear of being dropped into a war torn country that they know nothing about?” he said.
While Djibouti is one of the hottest inhabited places on earth, a Navy guide to Camp Lemonnier says it has air conditioning, WiFi, a Pizza Hut, a Planet Smoothie, and a medical clinic. It also has a movie theater, a restaurant called “Combat Cafe,” a gym and a swimming pool.
But Harper wrote that the officers and detainees staying in the shipping container have not had access to basic necessities. Officers and detainees began to suffer symptoms of a bacterial upper respiratory infection soon after deplaning, including “coughing, difficulty breathing, fever, and achy joints.”
Medication wasn’t immediately available. She wrote that the flight nurse has since obtained treatments such as inhalers, Tylenol, eye drops and nasal spray, but they cannot get tested for the illness to properly treat it.
“It is unknown how long the medical supply will last,” Harper wrote, though the camp guide has a clinic on-site.
The officers spend their days guarding eight immigrants convicted of crimes that include murder, attempted murder, sex offenses and armed robbery, court records show. Harpersaid Defense Department employees “have expressed frustration” about staying in close proximity to violent offenders.
Harper said ICE has had to deploy more officers available to work in “deleterious” conditions to give the initial crew a break. Currently 11 officers are assigned to guard the immigrants and two others “support the medical staff,” she said. They work 12-hour shifts guarding immigrants, taking them to get medication, and to use the restroom and the shower in a nearby trailer, one at a time. Officers pat down the detainees, searching them for contraband.
At night and on breaks, officers sleep on bunk beds in a trailer, with one storage locker apiece. Some wear N95 masks even while they sleep, because the air is so polluted it irritates their throats and makes it difficult to breathe. The area is dimly lit, which Harper wrote poses a security risk to the officers.
Department of Homeland Security officials seized on the court filings to criticize the judge.
“This Massachusetts District judge is putting the lives of our ICE law enforcement in danger by stranding them in [Djibouti] without proper resources, lack of medical care, and terrorists who hate Americans running rampant,” said DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin on X. “Our @ICEgov officers were only supposed to transport for removal 8 *convicted criminals* with *final deportation orders* who were so monstrous and barbaric that no other country would take them. This is reprehensible and, quite frankly, pathological.”
A lawyer for the detainees said they are also worried about their clients’ health, and said the government is responsible for the current situation. Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the detainees and executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, noted Murphy gave the government the option of returning the men to the United States.
“The government opted to comply overseas,” she said. “This is a situation that the government created by violating the order and easily can remedy with a single return flight.”
Family members who finally reached the detainees by phone said the trailer where they are being kept has air conditioning, but that they remain in leg irons and without sufficient access to medicine.
Murphy had said DHS abruptly launched the deportation flight even though it plainly violated his April 18 preliminary injunction barring them from removing people without due process. Federal law prohibits sending anyone — even criminals — to countries where they might be persecuted or tortured.
Although McLaughlin said officials couldn’t deport them to their home countries, Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said at a news conference last month that the U.S. government did not inform her of the Mexican national sent to Djibouti, Jesus Munoz Gutierrez, who was convicted of second-degree murder in Florida 20 years ago, court records show.
She said the U.S. would have to follow protocols to bring him to Mexico, if he wishes to be repatriated, and she said he could be detained upon arrival. She said Mexico is reviewing the case.
Murphy has also ordered the government to return a gay Guatemalan man who was deported to Mexico, where he said he had been kidnapped. The man returned Wednesday.
Mayor Muriel Bowser addressed the closure for the first time in a public radio appearance Friday afternoon. She called the closing an “unfortunate error” and said she would “continue to try to lean on” the National Park Service “for a different decision.” At the same time she appeared to defend the decision, saying police had “a lot of events to be responsible for” and that “unfortunately, the public safety issue rose to the top over the public celebration.”
A cyclist draped in a rainbow Equality flag chanted “shame” as she rode loops around the park. Passersby, turned away by police from entering the circle, shouted expletives. A man, driving top-down in a convertible through the snarled traffic around Dupont Circle, shouted, sarcastically: “Oh no! I’m a heterosexual man, and I must be protected from Pride!
The park has been a historic gathering place that has hosted celebrations following the first Pride events in the 1970s, AIDS protests in the ’80s and ’90s and vigils after violent attacks on the LGBTQ community, including a vigil for the victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting and a Black Trans Lives Matter rally.
Earlier this week, D.C. Council members Brooke Pinto and Zachary Parker announced that the Metropolitan Police Department had withdrawn its request to close the park following backlash from community members. But federal officials proceeded with the shutdown anyway and have not responded to requests for comment.
“I am extremely disappointed and frustrated that Dupont Circle Park will be closed this weekend despite MPD’s commitment to keep folks safe there,” Pinto said in a statement to The Advocate.
“This closure is disheartening to me and so many in our community who wanted to celebrate World Pride at this iconic symbol of our city’s historic LGBTQ+ community. I wish I had better news to share.”
Underscoring their desire to implement the closure, USPP highlighted criminal incidents that were initially pointed out in Smith’s April 22 letter. Those incidents, which took place during the District’s Pride celebration, included damages to the park’s historic fountain in 2023 that amounted to approximately $175,000.
In 2019, panic erupted at the park after loud popping sounds were perceived as gunshots being fired. However, it was later determined no firearm had been discharged. Seven people were transported to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries prompted by the chaos that had initially broken out.
Police responded to recent incidents of vandalism to Pride decorations in D.C. The suspects tore down rainbow wraps from poles in the area, according to two incident reports from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). One incident is listed as a suspected hate crime. The suspects got away in both cases, according to MPD.
Chris De Anda said he wrapped himself around one of the poles to block the suspect from ripping off the rainbow wrap, thinking that would stop him. It didn’t.
“He starts to rip down the flag, rips my arms off trying to get into them to pull down the paper a little bit more, but the entire time I basically hold on to it,” de Anda described, saying the man scratched his arms a bit to get to the flag.
The lawless, corrupt occupation regime in DC is doing this on purpose as a way to inconvenience, snub and insult the lgbt community. Their long term goal is to silence, cancel and eradicate lgbt Americans, so expect increasing instances of these kinds of things, and worse.
So…a bunch of bigots have been vandalizing things in Dupont Circle, so they close it all off so the people who AREN’T the bigoted vandals can’t go there? Kinda sounds like they’re letting the bigots win here…
Childish petty thin skinned MAGA cultists in the White House just can’t let anyone celebrate anything that isn’t specifically a “Christian” event. I wonder what would happen in Thousands just show up to DuPont Circle enmass, what are they going to do, arrest them all???
First you know this man was threatened all the way back to the US that his family would be rounded up and tortured if he told of what happened to him in that prison. I wonder if they had to wait until injuries healed before they could let the public see him? Ron says they maybe starved him and had to feed him again to build up his weight and looks. Poor man I hope he is able to safely get his story out. It is clear the charges against him are fraudulent and made up. Just like the government kept saying he was an MS 13 gang member which two courts found he was not. Also he was living in Maryland and his court case is being heard in DC so why is the Justice department trying his new charges in Tennessee? Why not add the charges to the case being heard now in DC. Clearly they hope to get a much more conservative and racist court there than they would in the northern states. I am surprised they did not charge him in Texas. Hugs.
Mistakenly deported Salvadoran native Kilmar Abrego Garcia appeared in a Tennessee courtroom Friday, hours after he was brought back to the United States to face criminal charges for allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the U.S.
More than two months after the Trump administration admitted it mistakenly deported Abrego Garcia from Maryland to his native El Salvador, a two-count indictment unsealed Friday alleges that he participated in a years long conspiracy to haul undocumented migrants from Texas to the interior of the country.
The return of Abrego Garcia from his native El Salvador follows a series of court battles in which the Trump administration repeatedly said it was unable to bring him back, drawing the country toward the brink of a constitutional crisis when the administration failed to heed the Supreme Court’s order to facilitate his return.
MORE: Justice Department investigating 2022 Abrego Garcia traffic stop: Sources
He made his initial court appearance Friday evening in the Middle District of Tennessee, answering “Yes, I understand” in Spanish when U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes asked him if he understood the charges against him.
Judge Homes set a hearing for June 13, where Abrego Garcia will be arraigned on charges and the judge will take up the government’s motion to hold him in pre-trial detention on the grounds that he “poses a danger to the community and a serious risk of flight” He will remain in federal custody in Tennessee pending next week’s hearing.
“If convicted at trial, the defendant faces a maximum punishment of 10 years’ imprisonment for ‘each alien’ he transported,” said the government’s motion for detention, which also contained an allegation — not included in the indictment — that one of Abrego Garcia’s co-conspirators told authorities that Abrego Garcia participated in the murder of a rival gang member’s mother in El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia’s attorney, in an online press briefing, called the charges against his client “an abuse of power.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is placed in the back seat of a truck by ICE agents after arriving in Nashville, Tenn., June 6, 2025.
ABC News
“They’ll stop at nothing at all — even some of the most preposterous charges imaginable — just to avoid admitting that they made a mistake, which is what everyone knows happened in this case,” said attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg.
“Mr. Garcia is going to be vigorously defending the charges against him,” the attorney said.
The decision to pursue the indictment against Abrego Garcia led to the abrupt departure of Ben Schrader, a high-ranking federal prosecutor in Tennessee, sources briefed on Schrader’s decision told ABC News. Schrader’s resignation was prompted by concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons, the sources said.
Schrader, who spent 15 years in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville and was most recently the chief of the criminal division, declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.
The alleged conspiracy spanned nearly a decade and involved the domestic transport of thousands of noncitizens from Mexico and Central America, including some children, in exchange for thousands of dollars, according to the indictment.
Abrego Garcia is alleged to have participated in more than 100 such trips, according to the indictment. Among those allegedly transported were members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13, sources familiar with the investigation said.
MORE: Timeline: Wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador
Abrego Garcia is the only member of the alleged conspiracy charged in the indictment.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, at a Friday afternoon press conference, thanked Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for “agreeing to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.”
“Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant and they agreed to return him to our country,” Bondi said.
Bondi said that if Abrego Garcia is convicted of the charges, upon the completion of his sentence he will be deported back to his home country of El Salvador.
“The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,” Bondi said. “They found this was his full time job, not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found, smuggling people throughout our country.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche listens during a news conference about Kilmar Abrego Garcia at the Justice Department, June 6, 2025, in Washington.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
In a statement to ABC News, Abrego Garcia’s attorney said that he’s going to keep fighting to ensure Abrego Garcia receives a fair trial.
“From the beginning, this case has made one thing painfully clear: The government had the power to bring him back at any time. Instead, they chose to play games with the court and with a man’s life,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “We’re not just fighting for Kilmar — we’re fighting to ensure due process rights are protected for everyone. Because tomorrow, this could be any one of us — if we let power go unchecked, if we ignore our Constitution.”
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who had been living with his wife and children in Maryland, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13. His wife and attorneys deny that he is an MS-13 member.
The Trump administration has acknowledged in court filings that Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador in March was in error, because it violated a U.S. immigration court order in 2019 that shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to his native country, according to immigration court records. An immigration judge had determined that Abrego Garcia would likely face persecution there by local gangs that had allegedly terrorized him and his family.
The administration argued, however, that Abrego Garcia should not be returned to the U.S. because he is a member of the transnational Salvadoran gang MS-13, a claim his family and attorneys have denied. In recent weeks, Trump administration officials have been publicizing Abrego Garcia’s interactions with police over the years, despite a lack of corresponding criminal charges.
After Abrego Garcia’s family filed a lawsuit over his deportation, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that ruling on April 10.
Abrego Garcia was initially sent to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison but was believed to have later been transferred to a different facility in the country.
The criminal investigation that led to the charges was launched in April as federal authorities began scrutinizing the circumstances of a 2022 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, according to the sources. Abrego Garcia was pulled over for speeding in a vehicle with eight passengers and told police they had been working construction in Missouri.
According to body camera footage of the 2022 traffic stop, the Tennessee troopers — after questioning Abrego Garcia — discussed among themselves their suspicions that Abrego Garcia might be transporting people for money because nine people were traveling without luggage, but Abrego Garcia was not ticketed or charged.
The officers ultimately allowed Abrego Garcia to drive on with just a warning about an expired driver’s license, according to a report about the stop released last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Asked what circumstances have changed since Abrego Garcia was not taken in custody during that traffic stop in Tennessee, Bondi replied, “What has changed is Donald Trump is now president of the United States, and our borders are again secure, and thanks to the bright light that has been shined on Abrego Garcia — this investigation continued with actually amazing police work, and we were able to track this case and stop this international smuggling ring from continuing.”
Asked by ABC News’ Pierre Thomas asked whether this should be seen as resolving the separate civil case in Maryland in which a federal judge ordered the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “There’s a big difference between what the state of play was before the indictment and after the indictment. And so the reason why he is back and was returned was because an arrest warrant which was presented to the government and in El Salvador. So there’s, there’s a big difference there as far as whether it makes the ongoing litigation in Maryland moot. I would think so, but we don’t know about this. He just landed today.”
As ABC News first reported last month, the Justice Department had been quietly investigating the Tenessee traffic stop. As part of the probe, federal agents in late April visited a federal prison in Talladega, Alabama to question Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, a convicted felon who was the registered owner of the vehicle Abrego Garcia was driving when stopped on Interstate 40 east of Nashville, sources previously told ABC News. Hernandez-Reyes was not present at the traffic stop.
MORE: Newly released video shows Abrego Garcia’s 2022 Tennessee traffic stop
Hernandez-Reyes, 38, is currently serving a 30-month sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a prior felony conviction for illegal transportation of aliens.
After being granted limited immunity, Hernandez-Reyes allegedly told investigators that he previously operated a “taxi service” based in Baltimore. He claimed to have met Abrego Garcia around 2015 and claimed to have hired him on multiple occasions to transport undocumented migrants from Texas to various locations in the United States, sources told ABC News.
When details of the Tennessee traffic stop were first publicized, Abrego Garcia’s wife said her husband sometimes transported groups of fellow construction workers between job sites.
“Unfortunately, Kilmar is currently imprisoned without contact with the outside world, which means he cannot respond to the claims,” Jennifer Vasquez Sura said in mid-April.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who flew to El Salvador and met with Abrego Garcia shortly after his deportation, said Friday that the Trump administration had “relented” regarding his return.
“After months of ignoring our Constitution, it seems the Trump Admin has relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and due process for Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” Van Hollen posted on X. “This has never been about the man — it’s about his constitutional rights & the rights of all.”
Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally as a teenager in 2012, according to court records. He had been living in Maryland for the past 13 years, and married Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, in 2019. The couple has one child together.
ABC News’ Laura Romero contributed to this report.
June 7, 1712 The Pennsylvania Assembly banned the importation of slaves into the colony.
June 7, 1892 Homer Plessy, a Creole of European and African descent, was arrested and jailed for sitting in a Louisiana railroad car designated for white people only. Plessy had violated an 1890 state law, the Louisiana Separate Car Act, that called for racially segregated rail facilities. He then went to court, claiming the law violated the 13th and 14th amendments, but Judge John Howard Ferguson found him guilty anyhow. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed Plessy’s guilty verdict to stand by an 8-1 majority. The decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, established the doctrine of “separate but equal” [separate facilities for white and black people,] institutionalizing and legalizing segregation in the United States public transportation until 1946 in Morgan v. Virginia [see June 3, 1946]. More about Homer Plessy Read the decision
June 7, 1997 Seven activists are arrested for distributing copies of the Bill of Rights outside the Bradbury Science Museum, part of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the primary nuclear research facility in the U.S.
June 6, 1936 First issue of Peace News published in England. PeaceNews home page (Peace News subscriptions are no longer available. See this blog entry. -A. There is still useful information on its home page, etc.)
June 6, 1949 George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was published. It described a world in which totalitarian government controls the behavior of all, including the way one thinks.
This was summed up in the government’s slogans: War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Ignorance Is Strength.
June 6, 1966 James H. Meredith, the first African American ever to attend the University of Mississippi, was shot by a sniper in the back and legs while on a lone “March Against Fear.” He was walking the 220 miles from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to encourage others to stand up for their rights and self-respect, and to register to vote. Law enforcement officers and reporters following him witnessed the attack, and the shooter was arrested. Read more
June 6, 1968 Comedian Dick Gregory began a hunger strike in the Olympia, Washington, jail after his arrest with others at a fish-in, an act of civil disobedience in support of the fishing rights of the Nisqually Indian Tribe. See what happened after his arrest
June 6, 1971 40 members of the American Indian Movement camped in the sacred Black Hills, or Paha Sapa, atop Mount Rushmore; 20 were arrested. They were demanding the U.S. honor the terms of the 1868 treaty with the Sioux Nation granting them the Black Hills territory. Read more
June 6, 1989 The FBI and the Department of Energy, tipped off by plant workers, raided the Rocky Flats nuclear production facility. They found numerous violations of federal anti-pollution laws including massive contamination of water and soil. Rockwell International, the operator of the facility, was fined $18.5 million.
Scottie's Playtime 