This is why the administration is blocking legal oversight and demanding illegally to have three days prior warning for inspections. They are keeping these kidnapped victims in horrific conditions to force them to agree to deportation. The facility in Florida a former worker admitted that and said it worked.
“Under such conditions, some of those arrested are pressured into accepting voluntary departure,” the lawsuit stated.
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Dakota Smith
5 min read
Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) stands outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building downtown earlier this summer. On Monday, he was allowed to enter the ICE processing facility in the basement. (Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
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For two months, several Democratic members of Congress have been unable to enter a downtown L.A. processing center run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, prompting widespread complaints and a federal lawsuit.
On Monday, the Congress members got their first look at the basement facility known as B-18.
But Reps. Brad Sherman, Judy Chu and Jimmy Gomez said that they were left with more questions than answers — and accused the government of sanitizing the center.
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“They wanted to show us nothing,” said Gomez, whose district includes downtown L.A. “It was nothing, it was like no one was there. It was deliberate so members of Congress cannot conduct oversight.”
Scores of migrants, as well as some U.S. citizens, have been taken from Home Depot parking lots, car washes and other locations by masked and heavily armed agents and brought to B-18 since early June. Some detainees have complained of overcrowding and being held for multiple days.
The facility can hold up to 335 migrants, but there were just two people in one of the holding rooms Monday, the members said at a news conference in downtown L.A. after their visit.
The group’s previously scheduled visit was canceled by ICE. Monday’s visit took days of planning and advance notice, according to the politicians.
They described a sparse scene inside B-18, with nine holding rooms, each with two toilets.
Chu, whose district includes Monterey Park, described the floors as concrete and said that there were no beds. She said ICE detainees are supposed to be held at the facility for only 72 hours, but she has heard stories of people kept there for 12 days.
Some detainees have reported receiving one meal a day, she said. On Monday, she visited the food pantry at B-18, which Chu described as “scanty.”
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“I am deeply disturbed by what I saw and what I heard,” Chu said.
Chu also said she has been told that detainees have no soap or toothbrushes.
“It’s alarming that it’s taken so long for congressional members to gain access to this site,” said Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a nonprofit that seeks to protect the rights of immigrants.
Perez was able to visit Narciso Barranco, a Mexican national whose three sons are U.S. Marines, in June. Perez said he saw Barranco after he’d been held at the facility for three days. Perez said Barranco, who was punched and pepper-sprayed during his arrest, did not receive medical attention.
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The Department of Homeland Security shared video of his arrest on social media and said Barranco attacked an agent with his gardening tool.
Barranco told Perez that each of the rooms held 30 to 70 people at the time and that some had to sleep standing up, Perez said. Food was scarce and they didn’t have access to showers.
The ICE facility was designed as a processing center, not a detention facility, Perez said.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin denied that individuals don’t receive medical care. She also disputed Chu’s suggestion that an individual was held at the facility for 12 days.
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Addressing the politicians’ other complaints about B-18, McLaughlin wrote, “Now, politicians are complaining about ICE processing facilities being TOO CLEAN.”
McLaughlin said that claims of poor conditions at ICE facilities are false and that the agency “has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”
“Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE,” she said.
Sherman, who represents parts of the San Fernando Valley and Pacific Palisades, said that one of the two detainees at B-18 on Monday rested with his head on a table.
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Sherman said he “illegally” took a picture during his visit and that he shouted out to several people being brought into the facility for processing, asking them whether they were U.S. citizens or green card holders. No one replied, he said.
Sherman, Chu, Gomez and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who joined the group after their visit, criticized the ongoing immigration enforcement, and in particular the use of masked, roving agents.
A federal judge last month temporarily barred the government from mass sweeps in Los Angeles and seven nearby counties without first establishing reasonable suspicion that the targets are in the U.S. illegally.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which sued the federal government over the sweeps, described B-18 as “dungeon-like” and accused the administration of failing to “provide basic necessities like food, water, adequate hygiene facilities, and medical care.” Detainees were allegedly subjected to overcrowding and did not have adequate sleeping accommodations.
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“Under such conditions, some of those arrested are pressured into accepting voluntary departure,” the lawsuit stated.
On Monday, Chu said that she asked ICE representatives during the tour why people were jumping out of vans with masks, and no identification.
She said the representatives replied, “That’s not us, and we go in if there’s probable cause, if there’s a warrant out there.”
Gomez, who has been repeatedly turned away from entering the B-18 facility since the crackdown started this year, is part of a group of Democratic House members suing the federal government over the lack of access.
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The lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Washington, said the individuals attempted to visit a detention facility, either by showing up in person or by giving Homeland Security Department officials advance notice, and were unlawfully blocked from entering.
ICE recently published new guidelines for members of Congress and their staff, requesting at least 72 hours’ notice from lawmakers and requiring at least 24 hours’ notice from staff before an oversight visit.
Times staff writer Andrea Castillo contributed to this report.
This is an interview with two doctors who served in Gaza. They tell of Israeli soldiers taking the baby formula the doctors tried to take in. They talk of the starving babies they can’t feed because Israel refuses any baby formula into Gaza. They talk of the systemic targeting of women and children by drone copters. The male doctor describes a game the IDF plays with using teenaged boys 11 to 16 for target practice. One day they would target heads, the next day they targeted chest, then abdomens, then arms, then legs. The most horrifying was the days the hospital was brought teenagers again 11 to 16 who had been shot in the testicles. Yes Israeli soldiers felt it was a great idea to shoot boys in the balls and dicks to make sure they couldn’t create any more Palestinians. I have no use for the government of Israel nor any use for the people of the country who support this. The public knows what is happening, the military knows what they are doing. This is a genocide of the Palestinians so that Jewish people can have the land. Jewish people of all people should understand this is wrong. Never again did not mean just never again to the Jews, it means never again for any genocide. Yes the US government is complicit in this act and should be held to account, but while we did not do enough at least democrats were willing to try to stop it, tRump and the republicans endorse it. There are chapter markings on the progress bar to help you get to the most damning parts of the interviews. Israel is not letting new doctors go in to help. They are killing the doctors and aid workers. Hugs
Chuck Schumer has created and talked about a fictitious family declaring they are real people. It seems he has talked himself into believing they are real. This is the Democratic Party leader in the Senate. Hugs
Education advocates are afraid that the administration’s getting hold of admissions racial data could make colleges a more hostile place for students of color.
“The student data could be used to challenge the admission of Black students in particular under assumptions that they are presumptively unqualified because of their race,” Janel George, a law professor at Georgetown University, told HuffPost.
“Woke is officially DEAD at Brown. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Donald Trump declared in a Truth Social post last week.
He was celebrating the fact that the prestigious Providence, Rhode Island, university had just agreed to a settlement with him. In order to restore its federal funding, the school agreed to implement anti-transgender policies and hand over its race and admissions data.
It was similar to a deal the federal government had struck with Columbia University in New York after Trump relentlessly attacked the school in the wake of on-campus pro-Palestinian protests.
And then on Thursday, Trump went further: He signed an executive order demanding that every college in the country hand over its admissions data, citing a 2023 Supreme Court decision prohibiting the use of race as a factor in college admissions. “Greater transparency is essential to exposing unlawful practices and ultimately ridding society of shameful, dangerous racial hierarchies,” the order reads.
Already, there is growing fear from legal experts and higher education advocates that he could weaponize this data in order to get higher education institutions to fall in line with his administration’s goals.
“They can misuse the data, they can interpret it in any way they want,” said Mariam Rashid, the associate director for the Center for American Progress’ racial equity and justice program. “And they can misuse it in order to misinform the public, too.”
For example, the Trump administration could use the racial data to claim a university is discriminating against a certain race, or infer that not enough Trump supporters are being admitted because the freshman class doesn’t have a high enough percentage of students from red states.
Trump’s latest strike on American institutions connects his war on diversity and his administration’s assault on colleges across the country in a way that could turbocharge both. It’s not just that Trump will have an extraordinary amount of information about colleges; it’s how he’s likely to use it to further his false narrative about both race and higher education. And it’s students who will bear the brunt of the consequences.
“Given the administration’s flawed interpretation of our civil rights law, they might use this data to accuse schools of discrimination and threaten universities,” Donya Khadem, an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, told HuffPost.
“It’s unprecedented scrutiny by the federal government.”
– Donya Khadem, attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Some schools refused to play the game. In April, Harvard University wrote a letter to Trump saying that his demands flew in the face of free speech laws and would stifle the kind of learning and research that happens at a place of higher education. But other schools, like Columbia and Brown, bent the knee and gave Trump what he wanted.
“It’s very concerning because it’s unprecedented scrutiny by the federal government,” Khadem said.
This time, the administration is taking aim at an aspect of educational life that has long been a bugbear for conservatives. There is a widespread belief among conservatives that colleges and universities have given advantages to students of color at the expense of white students.
By allowing race to be a factor in admissions, the claim goes, schools are taking spots away from certain groups of students and instead admitting students they claim are less qualified, based solely on their race. (In reality, race has been one of many factors admissions officers consider when choosing between fully qualified applicants.)
“This is all motivated by a racist myth that Black people don’t deserve to be in these elite spaces,” Khadem said.
And now that Trump is back in office, getting his hands on this data is likely just the beginning of his attempt to turn back the clock on admitting students of color.
Asked for comment about how it intends to use the admissions data, the Department of Education directed HuffPost to a press release about the new executive order Trump signed on Thursday.
“We will not allow institutions to blight the dreams of students by presuming that their skin color matters more than their hard work and accomplishments,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.
Students pass the statue of John Harvard in Harvard Yard on their way to baccalaureate services ahead of commencement at Harvard University on June 17, 1951.
Photo by Sam Hammat/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Conservatives celebrated when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-conscious college admissions processes in Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard in 2023, saying that schools can not use race as a factor in college admissions.
Harvard, together with fellow defendant the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, had argued that schools needed to be able to consider race as one factor among many to ensure the educational benefits of a diverse student body. The high court disagreed, saying the schools did not have a “compelling interest” in considering race as a factor and thus violated the 14th Amendment.
But education law experts say that the federal government is using that ruling and expanding it far beyond its original intent.
In the same ruling, the court expressly said that “nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university.”
Now, Trump’s order undermines that.
“They’re using the Students For Fair Admissions [decision] in ways that are not what the justices meant when they wrote it,” Khadem said.
Education advocates are afraid that the administration’s getting hold of admissions racial data could make colleges a more hostile place for students of color.
“The student data could be used to challenge the admission of Black students in particular under assumptions that they are presumptively unqualified because of their race,” Janel George, a law professor at Georgetown University, told HuffPost.
“This is all motivated by a racist myth that Black people don’t deserve to be in these elite spaces.”
– Khadem
It could also turn off otherwise qualified students from attending some of these colleges. “I think it’s a big deterrent,” Khadem said. “Columbia’s campus has become and will continue to become less welcoming to Black students.”
Columbia and Brown did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Systemic racism and inequality are already significant barriers to college attendance. Research shows that Black students and other people of color are more likely to be from low-income families and struggle to afford college. Then there’s the fact that standardized tests frequently used in college admissions are biased toward white students and those from wealthier families.
Studies have shown that race-neutral admissions processes lead to a drop in diversity. In 1996, after California voters approved a measure that would ban affirmative action at the state’s public universities, the state’s most prestigious schools saw a drastic drop in diversity. Indeed, one of the arguments made by Harvard during its legal fight was that no race-neutral admissions process offers the same diversity benefits.
The first college classes to be enrolled after the Students for Fair Admissions ruling varied in their diversity. Some schools, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, saw a decrease in Black and Hispanic enrollment, while other schools’ racial compositions stayed roughly the same.
Not only could these changes further hinder access to higher education for nonwhite students, but there’s a question of how making this data public could harm students. If the Trump administration publicly calls out a school for having a certain number of nonwhite students, that could become a problem for people on campus.
“I do think it’s harmful,” Rashid said. “[The data] is not going to be attached to a name, but they can make up whatever narrative they want.”
Experts warn that it could create a hostile environment on campuses, where nonwhite students feel as if their peers believe that they’re unqualified to be there. “At schools with higher admissions of Black students or faculty, some people are going to feel a certain way about how they’re perceived at school,” Khadem said.
There is a direct line from Trump’s attacks on colleges to his administration’s larger anti-diversity campaign.
In an attempt to begin removing people of color from public life, Trump signed an executive order in January that sought to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs at different institutions, including nonprofit organizations receiving federal grants, law enforcement agencies and institutions of higher education. The penalty for not ending DEI, though vague, was the loss of crucial federal funding.
The Department of Education followed up with guidance for educational institutions, telling them they must end “racial preferences” and restore “merit.”
The Department of Justice joined the crusade too, launching investigations of colleges and universities it alleged were not complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling on using race in college admissions under the pretense of combating “illegal discrimination.”
“The [DOJ] will put an end to a shameful system in which someone’s race matters more than their ability,” acting Associate Attorney General Chad Mizelle said in a press release in March.
To the Trump administration, American society, and colleges in particular, have been beset by a racial regime that disfavors white conservatives — and this executive order was intended to combat that. Others, though, see a very different agenda.
“What they want to do is make everything race-neutral,” Rashid said. “In other words, make everything white.”
August 14, 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, creating unemployment compensation, old-age benefits and aid to dependent children.“We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.” President Roosevelt signing Social Security Act of 1935 in the Cabinet Room of the White House. Library of Congress photo A comprehensive history:
August 14, 1941 In the German Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, a group of prisoners had been chosen by the camp’s commander for death by starvation. Roman Catholic Fr. Maximilian Maria Kolbe offered himself for death instead of one of the condemned because the man had a family he needed to be alive to support. Fr. Kolbe was put to death on this day by lethal injection following two weeks of starvation. Pope John Paul II declared him a Saint in 1982.
August 14, 1945 President Harry Truman announced that Japan, one week following the atomic bomb attacks on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II.
August 14, 1959 The U.S.-launched Explorer VI satellite recorded the first photograph of Earth taken from space, at an altitude of 17,000 miles (27,400 km).
August 14, 1966 Twenty people were arrested for trying to attend services at the white First Baptist Church in Grenada, Mississippi. They were charged with “disturbing divine worship.” Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) field staff member Jim Bulloch was arrested and his car fire-bombed while he was in jail.
August 14, 1968 400 anti-apartheid students occupied the university in Cape Town, South Africa, to protest its refusal to hire a black professor.
August 14, 1976 Majella O’Hare, a young Catholic girl, was shot dead by British soldiers while walking with other children to confession near her home in Ballymoyer, Whitecross, County Armagh.The soldiers, initially denying they had fired any weapons, claimed that the patrol had been fired upon by an unidentified gunman. But there were serious doubts about the army’s claim. Eyewitness reports failed to confirm it and, unofficially, police investigating the case referred to the army’s “phantom gunman.” The same day 10,000 Northern Irish gathered at a demonstration in Andersontown, organized by the Women’s Peace Movement (later known as Peace People). Majella O’Hare How it happened from people who were there
August 14, 1980 After months of labor turmoil, more than 16,000 Polish workers seized control of the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk. They helped form Solidarnos´c´ (Solidarity), the first independent labor union anywhere in the Soviet bloc, as the Warsaw Pact nations were known. Under the leadership of Lech Valensa [lek va wen´suh] and others, it helped unite the broad political, social and religious opposition to the Communist government. Long-range look at Solidarity
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