First Enslaved Africans Arrive in VA, & The Equal Opportunity Act Is Signed, In Peace & Justice History for 8/20

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august20

From ProPublica:

Top Democrat on Oversight Committee Demands Trump Administration Account for Wildland Firefighter Vacancies

The request follows ProPublica reporting that DOGE cuts and voluntary resignations left thousands of vacant jobs at the Forest Service, severely hampering its ability to fight wildfires.

by Abe Streep Aug. 14, 2025, 1 p.m. EDT

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

The top Democrat on a House committee is demanding that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins account for discrepancies between her public statements about wildland firefighter staffing and a ProPublica report showing there were thousands of vacancies in the Forest Service’s firefighting workforce as peak wildfire season approached.

In June, the Forest Service claimed it had reached 99% of its hiring goal for its wildland firefighting workforce. But ProPublica’s reporting indicated that the agency was selectively counting firefighters, presenting an optimistic assessment to the public. As many as 27% of jobs were vacant as of July 17, according to data obtained by ProPublica.

Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California and the ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, made the request to Rollins in a letter sent Thursday morning. “The Trump Administration’s staffing decisions are exacerbating an already dire situation: The Forest Service’s firefighting capacity has been dangerously hampered by Department of Government Efficiency and Trump Administration layoffs, deferred resignations, and other early retirements and resignations just as climate change is extending the fire season,” he wrote.

The Forest Service’s assertions about its readiness are contradicted not only by its own staff — a wildland firefighter in California quoted in the ProPublica report called the 99% figure “grossly inaccurate” — but by its own statistics. In July, ProPublica reported that, according to agency data, its fire and aviation management program contained more than 4,500 active vacancies, including for such crucial primary firefighting positions as hotshots, dispatchers and engine captains. At the time, a spokesperson for the Agriculture Department disputed that the Forest Service had that many vacancies within its fire and aviation management program but did not provide data showing otherwise. A spokesperson for the Forest Service later claimed that ProPublica’s figures were inaccurate, telling the High Country News, “Their numbers likely come from outdated org charts and unfunded positions.” However, ProPublica excluded all unfunded positions from its analysis, and its data came from active agency organizational charts.

When asked to support its claims that the agency’s fire service is fully staffed, a spokesperson wrote: “The Forest Service is fully prepared and operational to protect individuals and communities from wildfires. The Forest Service has over 19,000 workers, both in and out of the Fire and Aviation Management group, who hold incident response qualifications.”

According to experts, the agency has long resisted providing a comprehensive and transparent breakdown of its wildland firefighting force. “Unless Congress tells them to, they’re not going to do a report of that magnitude,” said Robert Kuhn, a former Forest Service official who between 2009 and 2011 co-authored such an assessment. Kuhn cited the cost and effort involved in analyzing a sprawling and complex agency. Earlier this year, Grassroots Wildland Firefighting, a labor advocacy organization, wrote, “None of the federal agencies have developed a modern formula for determining how many wildland firefighters and support personnel are truly needed to address 21st century issues.” Most federal wildland firefighters work for the Forest Service, within the Department of Agriculture. In addition, the federal government employs thousands of wildland firefighters at four agencies in the Department of the Interior. President Donald Trump has ordered all of them to consolidate their wildland fire programs. Details about that unification have not been released.

Every year, the Forest Service reports that it has filled its ranks with what are known as primary firefighters. But according to current and former Forest Service employees, that assessment — the basis of the claim that the agency reached 99% of its hiring goal — is misleading on a number of levels. The Forest Service simply counts “operational firefighters” working within a specified pay range. That figure includes both temporary seasonal firefighters who have just joined the agency and experienced year-round veterans — but it does not distinguish between the two and therefore elides a great loss of institutional knowledge. In recent years, the agency has suffered an exodus of experienced firefighters. The agency’s assessment also excludes both senior-level fire managers and crucial support staff. The public associates wildland firefighting with its most iconic figures: smokejumpers, hotshots and members of engine crews, who often are supported by aircraft dropping retardant. But the nation’s wildland fire apparatus also includes, for example, human-resource specialists, ecologists, wilderness rangers, meteorologists, trails workers and other employees who possess qualifications allowing them to work on a fire line. Those qualifications are listed in what’s known as a “red card.” An archaeologist could have a red card allowing them to, say, oversee the distribution of food at a fire camp.

According to internal data reviewed in July by ProPublica, approximately 1,600 red-carded staff left the government this winter and spring. The Forest Service has claimed that the actual figure is 1,400. Garcia asked for a full accounting of DOGE’s impact on the Forest Service, demanding “all documents and communications regarding staffing, hiring, reductions in force, the Deferred Resignation Program, or the ‘Fork in the Road,’ and firefighting resources and capacity at the Forest Service.”

The agency’s rosy public assessments of its own force have also been belied by its efforts to rehire the workers it forced out. In a July memo, the Forest Service’s chief, Tom Schultz, allowed that the agency did not have enough resources and was now recruiting red-carded staff who had separated from the agency. More recently, emails reviewed by ProPublica show that, since July 22, the Forest Service has sent multiple recruiting notices to departed staff. The emails advertise dozens of openings for essential firefighting positions — such as dispatcher, engine captain and hotshot superintendent — in at least seven states. When asked about the emails, an agency spokesperson wrote, “We do have active recruitments out for FY26.”

In his letter, Garcia requested that Rollins provide the oversight committee with “a detailed and comprehensive accounting of current staffing and staffing changes at the Forest Service, including firefighting jobs” since Jan. 20.

Clara Luper, Desmond Tutu, & More, in Peace & Justice History for 8/19

(Click through on the Desmond Tutu link, and join me in what I’m pretty sure will be your first thought when you see the page. And enjoy your beverage while reading. -A.)

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august19

Talking Points Memo Reports:

A good place to pick up important info quickly; all linked/cited for sourcing.

Ed Martin Confirms Ed Martin’s Witch Hunt Against Elected Democrats by TPM

INSIDE: Pam Bondi … Adam Schiff … Letitia James Read on Substack

A Classic Example of Political Corruption

Ed Martin had no prior experience as a prosecutor when he became acting D.C. U.S. attorney earlier this year. And it shows.

Since his nomination to the permanent position was aborted because of lack of Senate GOP support, Martin has been triple-hatting at Main Justice as (i) U.S. pardon attorney; (ii) the chief of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “Weaponization Working Group” — the unintentionally revealing name of the outfit that’s charged with politicizing the Justice Department; and (iii) most recently as Bondi’s “special attorney” overseeing the politically motivated mortgage fraud investigations of Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

It was in that third role that Martin was apparently serving when he went on Fox News and admitted that he’s using the pretext of the clearly bogus mortgage fraud probes to conduct an open-ended witch hunt into Schiff and James. “We’re also gonna look at everything else they’ve been doing,” Martin said on air:

https://embed.bsky.app/embed/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/app.bsky.feed.post/3lwm6otyddp2f?id=6254561201210245

Most legal experts think the mortgage fraud claims don’t amount to anything on the facts or on the law. But don’t underestimate the potency of ongoing criminal investigations hanging over anyone, especially elected officials, particularly when the investigations are used as justification for a wide-ranging probe of unspecified other wrongdoing.

Even if charges never come, this is a classic example of political corruption — and of authoritarian capture of the independence of federal prosecutors. Martin has embarked on a fishing expedition and he’ll keep it going for as long as it’s useful to the White House.

Speaking of Letitia James …

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $500 million civil fraud judgment against Donald Trump has been held up on appeal for nearly a year, apparently because of deep divisions and three dueling written opinions on the five-justice appeals court panel, the WSJ reports.

Thread of the Day

With a new series of edicts, FBI Director Kash Patel is further degrading the bureau and converting into something akin to a national police department (which is NOT what the FBI has historically been):

WASHINGTON, DISTICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES – 2025/08/17: Activist Nadine Seiler holds a sign that reads “What Trump order won’t you obey” stands in front of a National Guard vehicle as protesters gather at Columbus Circle following President Donald Trump’s announcement to place the D.C. Metropolitan Police under federal control. (Photo by Probal Rashid/LightRocket via Getty Images)

A Recipe for Disaster

Red states are jumping on the bandwagon to send their national guards to the nation’s capital and show plurality Black D.C. who’s boss. West Virginia, Ohio, and South Carolina (still smarting from the last time it tried to overthrow D.C.) are first in line to engage in performative strong-arming of Democratic cities.

But the most alarming news to come out over a generally alarming weekend is that the national guardsmen may be armed, a reversal of an earlier decision that deployed the D.C. National Guard on the streets without weaponry on their persons or in the vehicles.

The ingredients could be in place for a cocktail of violence: federal agents and national guardsmen with little to no training in street policing being sent with guns into a peaceful urban area (that many of them are not even from) and expected to stir up trouble. It puts everyone — D.C. residents, local police, guardsmen, and federal agents — in an impossible situation.

One glimmer of good news was that the Trump administration was hauled into court Friday over its attempt to take over the D.C. police department and, under pressure from a federal judge, backed off its maximalist position.

ICYMI

Religion Dispatches: Latest ICE Recruitment Materials Include Overt Neo-Nazi Reference and Nazi-Nazi Script

Sign of the Times: The New Fascism Comes With Merch

The Florida GOP scrubbed its online store of a new line of merchandise touting the state’s new “Deportation Depot” after Home Depot complained it was an unapproved use of its branding.

Texas Dems Expected Back This Week

With California Democrats proceeding with their own mid-decade redistricting, Texas Democrats are expected to return to the state today, giving Republicans a quorum in the legislature to push through their redistricting plan. Texas Democrats succeeded in blocking the redistricting push in the first special session of the legislature. But when it ended, Friday Gov. Greg Abbott (R) immediately called a second special session, setting the stage for passing a new, more GOP friendly congressional district map to help national Republicans hold their House majority in next year’s midterms.

Quote of the Day

“Trump has completely ceded narrative control to Putin. What Ukraine is just basically getting as a concession is for the Russians to stop fighting. And this is Putin’s way all the way through the 25 years of his presidency, which is: ‘I’m going to beat you up and my concession is that I stopped beating you up.’”–former Trump I National Security Council official Fiona Hill

D’oh!

Guests at a hotel in Anchorage found sensitive documents from the Trump-Putin summit on a public printer, NPR reports.

Trump’s D.C. Circuit Appointees Strike Again: CFPB Edition

D.C. Circuit Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, Trump appointees who have had out-sized influence in the first months of the Trump II presidency, cleared the way Friday for the Trump administration to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Judge Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee dissented.

“The notion that courts are powerless to prevent the President from abolishing the agencies of the federal government that he was elected to lead cannot be reconciled with either the constitutional separation of powers or our nation’s commitment to a government of laws,” Pillard wrote.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

TPM’s Layla A. Jones: The Trump Administration Is Laying the Groundwork for a Full Takeover of Federal Data

Judge Blocks FTC Probe of Media Matters

U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan of D.C. sided with Media Matters in blocking a politically motived Federal Trade Commission investigation of the liberal watchdog group.

“This case presents a straightforward First Amendment violation,” Sooknanan ruled.

Media Matters has been struggling financially under the weight of bogus right-wing investigations into whether its reporting on antisemitic content on X/Twitter amounted to anticompetitive conduct. It also faces related serial lawsuits by Elon Musk.

“It should alarm all Americans when the government retaliates against individuals or organizations for engaging in constitutionally protected public debate,” Sooknanan wrote. “And that alarm should ring even louder when the Government retaliates against those engaged in newsgathering and reporting.”

A Rare Example of Organized Left-Wing Violence?

The purported attack at an ICE detention center in Texas last month caught my eye as an possible example of organized left-wing violence, a relative rarity since the 1970s. When I say “organized,” I don’t necessarily mean well-organized. The ragtag group’s alleged attack seemed especially hapless, even according to the official law enforcement account of the incident. Adding to the weirdness, the alleged perpetrators — among them two transgender women activists — appeared to be from in and around Dallas, which wouldn’t be my first choice for hotbeds of anti-fascism.

The WaPo’s Robert Klemko has dug a bit more into the “secretive network of Dallas anti-fascists” who “initially united around trans and queer identity issues.” He did a jailhouse interview with the group’s alleged ringleader, a former Marine Corps reservist of mixed Japanese and Korean descent who trained “very young, naive leftists,” as one witness put it, in close-quarters combat and large-scale gunfights at his mother’s taekwondo studio in suburban Dallas.

Women Have Had The Right To Vote For 105 Out Of 249 Years & More, in Peace & Justice History for 8/18

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august18

From Joyce Vance

Moving The Window by Joyce Vance
Read on Substack

The Overton Window is a model that describes the range of policies considered acceptable at a given time by the public and policymakers. It’s the spectrum of ideas that are legitimate, feasible choices, and anything that falls outside of the window is considered too extreme for serious consideration. For instance, the idea of deploying the National Guard, or even the military, on American streets to control the local population is something we would have considered far outside of the Window for decades.

Think of what Donald Trump is doing in the District of Columbia in these terms. He’s made up a crisis—a wave of crime that doesn’t exist. The law in the District is different from how it is elsewhere because of limited home rule and a law that was drafted, at least arguably, to give the president alone the ability to declare an emergency that would permit control of local law enforcement. Trump tried it in Los Angeles, but ran into issues, like the Governor’s objection and the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents direct law enforcement by the Guard and the military. But in the District of Columbia, Trump has asserted the ability to seize control of the Metropolitan Police for at least thirty days and longstanding DOJ interpretation of the law says Posse Comitatus doesn’t apply in D.C.

Trump is using the quasi-federal status of the District to socialize the idea that he can:

make up an emergency and no one can challenge his thinking
seize control of local law enforcement
use the National Guard for direct law enforcement purpose

For the casual observer of American politics, he’s creating a new normal and shifting the Overton Window to include a presidential takeover of American cities.

Next stop, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, New York and Chicago, all cities Trump said were “bad, very bad,” without explanation. All cities where the law is less friendly to a Trump takeover than it is in the nation’s capital. But Trump has been more than willing to brazen it out in court and live to fight in the Supreme Court, where he hopes for, and has frequently been rewarded with, a decision that hands over more power to the unitary executive. To be able to last out the appeal, Trump needs to make sure that the public isn’t so outraged that he has to pull back. Hence, the need to move the Overton Window.

A potential pitfall for Trump is that outside D.C., he’ll need to convince courts, where his moves will certainly be challenged, that his determination of an emergency or other condition necessary to allow him to interfere with state and local control is not reviewable. Since his first day in office, when he declared an emergency at the border, Trump has been relying on that notion, that contrary to the checks and balances the Founding Fathers set up, any decision he makes that there is a national emergency can’t be challenged in the courts. Then, he declared an emergency that permitted him to make the (false) claim that the Venezuelan drug cartel Tren de Aragua was invading the United States, which set up his inhumane deportations of people to CECOT prison in El Salvador without due process. Most recently, it has been tariffs, predicated on the claim that “foreign trade and economic practices” have led to a “national emergency.” In each instance, Trump has faked an emergency, while pushing the courts to say that they cannot review his decisions. So far, the lower federal courts seem to be skeptical. At some point, that issue will make its way to the Supreme Court. If SCOTUS lets him get away with that, our position becomes that much more precarious.

Understood this way, what’s happening this weekend in the District of Columbia is a matter that should concern all of us. We cannot afford to let the Overton Window move. Our conversations with the people around us matter and it’s a moment where we need to make real the spectre of armed and masked troops marching through our streets—not just those in other people’s neighborhoods.

Last week, we discussed how small of a force the D.C. National Guard is. There are reports that early this week, National Guard troops from other states, Trump-friendly red states like West Virginia, Ohio, and South Carolina, will arrive to assist in whatever it is that Trump thinks he’s doing—surely not fighting crime, since these troops aren’t trained to do that. If Trump wanted to help reduce crime, he’d be funding data-driven best practices that are shown to work and that have, in fact, been bringing down crime in the District, as then-interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin announced Trump had done during his first 100 days in office. Make sure you point out the incredible hypocrisy by Trump when he justifies his actions by claiming crime is out of control.

The most important news is that Americans are not giving way to Trump. As the pictures sent to me by protestors show, people were out in the District of Columbia today, refusing to be intimidated by a president who wants to convince us that sending out masked law enforcement agents and armed troops on the streets of the nation’s capital, and any other city for that matter, is within his power. It is not. We will not tolerate his creeping totalitarianism. We are not obligated to accept his power play or make any of this easy for him, as he takes a well-worn page from every authoritarian’s playbook. We are not that country and he is not a king—nor a dictator.

On Friday, Judge Ana Cecilia Reyes, born in Uruguay and appointed to the district court in D.C. by Joe Biden in 2023, wasted no time in scheduling a hearing after the District filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s attempt to exceed the power granted by the home rule law in his attempt to take over the Metropolitan Police. The previous night, Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to replace the D.C. Chief with the head of the DEA.

You have to like a judge who has this picture of herself with her pup on Wikipedia and reportedly brings her dog to work. Such a breath of fresh air during an administration where the president has no pets and the Secretary of DHS admitted that she shot hers.

Judge Reyes began the hearing by clarifying that she was not holding an evidentiary hearing and would not get into issues that would require development of the facts, like whether there was actually an emergency or a legitimate federal purpose behind Trump’s takeover. For purposes of the hearing, she assumed that Trump was correct on those points, saying she would go into them this coming week if necessary, before delving into the legal issues surrounding Trump’s order.

In the end, Attorney General Pam Bondi backed down, agreeing to let Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith continue to run the Department’s day-to-day operations under Mayor Muriel Bowser’s orders. She wrenched a concession from the district, directing Bowser to order the police department to assist in federal immigration enforcement. There is likely another legal confrontation coming where that process may conflict with laws passed by the District, which is a sanctuary city.

And as for Trump’s claim that he was worried about crime? Chief Smith wrote in an affidavit accompanying the District’s lawsuit that, “If effectuated, the Bondi Order would upend the command structure of MPD, endangering the safety of the public and law enforcement officers alike.” Imagine your local police department being run by the attorney general or his designee instead of the people who know your city and its needs the best. We’ve come full circle to where we started: Trump is making up the need for any of this. It’s about moving the Overton Window to give him the opportunity to seize more power, in more places, in a distinctly un-American fashion.

We shouldn’t forget about what was on the front pages before Trump started all of this and his embarrassing knee-bending exercise with Putin in Alaska on Friday. Trump has something to hide. And, apparently, he’s willing to take some hits to try and knock it off the public’s radar screen. Let’s not let anyone forget about it: Trump could release the Epstein files tomorrow.

(snip)

We’re in this together,

Joyce

Reblog From Annieasksyou

Please Watch This Urgent Conversation Between the Historian and the Governor!

Snippet:

“You can make the argument that you are supporting these institutions, not undercutting them...

Newsom observed that “Donald Trump will represent this nation on our 250th anniversary, and he’s up to this?”

Richardson’s response was “We’re going to represent the nation. The most important office is that of citizen. ‘We the people’ is foundational.”

Newsom quickly seized that assessment. “You’re reminding Americans they do have agency,” he said. “It’s not what happens to us; it’s how we respond to what happens to us. He [Trump] can’t take it away from us if we don’t allow it.”

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

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ice-processing-center-empty-california-100000943.html

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.

——————————————————————————————————————

Dakota Smith

Tue, August 12, 2025 at 6:00 AM EDT

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)
More

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.

Read more: Texas, Florida hit with far more ICE arrests than California. But that’s not the whole story

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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.

Read more: Agents detain student at gunpoint near school; safe zones to be expanded around LAUSD campuses

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.

Read more: L.A. ‘under siege’: Brown-skinned people targeted, tackled, taken, and it must stop, federal suit says

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.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

True Words, About Literal Integration

Snippet: “We are not asking for inclusion as charity. We are demanding participation as justice. And we are not waiting for the tide to turn—we are drafting new maps, with new compasses, and inviting others to co-author the journey.”