Tag: Racism

ICE officers stuck in Djibouti shipping container with deported migrants

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/06/05/djibouti-deportations-migrants-ice-trump/

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)

By 

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.

Immigration during Trump’s second term

Trump’s aggressive crackdown: Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has made immigration enforcement one of his top priorities. He issued a series of executive orders that include declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, deploying hundreds of troops there and attempting to end birthright citizenship for the children of noncitizens, a move that a federal judge has temporarily blocked. The administration has also largely closed access to the asylum process, suspended refugee resettlement and ended temporary humanitarian protections for about 350,000 Venezuelans who sought refuge in the United States. These policies have created widespread panic and confusion in immigrant communities across the country.

More resources diverted: Trump has promised to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally, and administration officials have directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to aggressively ramp up the number of people they arrest, from a few hundred per dayto at least 1,200 to 1,500. To meet these goals, the administration has enlisted personnel from the FBI, U.S. Marshals, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. To quickly increase ICE’s detention capacity, the administration has begun to send migrants to the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

Pushback in the courts: Advocacy groups and others have filed lawsuits over many of Trump’s new policies. Officials in 22 states, plus D.C. and San Francisco, have sued over Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigrant Justice Center and others have challenged the Trump administration’s claim that there is an “invasion” on the border to justify summarily expelling migrants without giving them a chance to apply for asylum.

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What readers are saying

The comments overwhelmingly criticize the Trump administration for the situation faced by ICE officers and deportees in Djibouti, arguing that the administration’s decision to send them there, rather than returning them to the U.S. as per a judge’s order, is the root cause of the… Show more

This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments.

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia, newly returned to US, appears in court on charges of trafficking migrants

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.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/mistakenly-deported-kilmar-abrego-garcia-back-us-face/story?id=121333122

The Salvadoran native was brought back to the U.S. from El Salvador Friday.

ByKatherine Faulders, James Hill, and Alexander Mallin
June 6, 2025, 7:26 PM

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.

Undated photo provided by Murray Osorio PLLC shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Murray Osorio PLLC via AP

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.

I am going to be doing dishes so enjoy some The Majority Report clips I found informative. Hugs

 

 

 

 

Some recent clips from The Majority Report. Watch / listen to those that interest you.

 

 

 

A few news articles I wanted to share. Crazy, hateful, and mean.

Trump Admin “Effectively Legalizes” Machine Guns

DOJ Wants To Make It Easier To Indict Congress Reps

 

AP: How Trump Is Scrubbing His Admin’s Records

FDA Approves New COVID Vax With Strict Conditions

 

Federal Judge Rules That DHS Must Keep Custody Of Migrants Shipped To South Sudan Pending His Ruling

Inside The Christianist Plot To Quash Gaza Protests

Wow. A group that initially included no Jews hatched a plan to make support for Palestine a crime. The US is following their playbook and supporting the mass killing & removal of Palestinians.Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement http://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/u…

— David Schatsky (@dschatsky.bsky.social) 2025-05-18T10:24:52.522Z

MSNBC’s Ali Velshi: “America Is Sliding Into Autocracy”

Rule Change Would Let Trump Fire Federal Statisticians

Cooking the books? Fears Trump could target statisticians if data disappointsProposed rule change could pave way for president to fire economists whose figures prove politically inconvenientwww.theguardian.com/us-news/2025…

— Lauren Ashley Davis (@laurenmeidasa.bsky.social) 2025-05-18T17:03:59.368Z

Major Corporate Sponsors Withdraw From NYC Pride

Here’s the list:

Anheuser-Busch
Booz Allen Hamilton
Citi
Comcast
Deloitte
Diageo
Garnier
Nissan
PepsiCo
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Skyy Vodka
Target
Mastercard

US Army To Alter Birth Records Of Transgender Troops

Exclusive: US Army to change transgender soldiers' records to birth sex reut.rs/4dvNxhZ

— Reuters (@reuters.com) 2025-05-21T15:40:15.551Z

Hegseth Leads Pentagon Prayer For “Divine” Trump

FDA Orders New Warning Labels On COVID Vaccines

Felon Explodes At “Idiot, Jerk, Fake News” Reporter For Asking About Qatari Jet: “You Are Not Smart Enough”

 

New Montana law limits what flags can be flown at schools and government buildings

The entire article is saying that the public schools should be for everyone … except LGBTQ+ kids and parents of those kids.  Yes gay and trans children exist and need / deserve to see themselves represented in the community just as much as straight cis kids do.  This is a hate bill, banning a group because the majority in charge doesn’t like them.  The flags they say are ok to fly like the Gladstone flag or the thin blue line flag are not neutral and they most definitely represent a political ideology.  Again this is about erasing the LGBTQ+ kids / people from society to make the Christian fundamentalist and insecure parents who know they can’t have produced a gay / trans kid feel better about themselves.  It is a desire to force the fundamentalist view point on every one regardless if they believe it.  It is a desperate attempt to return to the 1950s.   Hugs

https://www.ktvh.com/news/new-montana-law-limits-what-flags-can-be-flown-at-schools-and-government-buildings

By: John Riley
Posted 2:53 PM, May 21, 2025 
and last updated 6:48 PM, May 21, 2025

A new Montana law limits what flags can be flown on government property or at public schools.

House Bill 819, sponsored by Rep. Braxton Mitchell, R-Columbia Falls, restricts any flags that “represent a political party, race, sexual orientation, gender or political ideology.”

The law effectively bans Pride flags and other LGBTQ flags from being flown at schools or government buildings. In 2019, Gov. Steve Bullock, D-Montana, flew a Pride flag over the state Capitol, which drew criticism from Republicans.

Language in the bill does allow flags like the Gadsden flag and other “official historical flags” to be flown. It also allows flags for law enforcement officers and fallen officers, like the “Thin Blue Line” flag, which Gov. Gianforte, R-Montana, flew above the Montana Capitol on Thursday, May 15, 2025.

When HB 819 was debated on the floor of the Montana House of Representatives, Mitchell said the bill was intended to ensure government entities remain a place of neutrality and was not to impact an individual’s free speech.

“Government buildings, schools and public facilities serve all citizens and should not be used to promote political, ideological or activist messaging,” said Mitchell during the March 6 floor debate.

Critics of HB 819 say the bill targets free speech by allowing provisions for specific flags like the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag to be flown, while others were prohibited. Rep. Pete Elverum, D-Helena, said under the language, a Confederate flag could be flown.

“What we’re doing here is we’re expressly prescribing what speech is allowed, ‘these flags’, and what speech is not allowed, ‘these other flags’,” said Rep. Pete Elverum, D-Helena, on March 6. “And as for the definition of ‘promoting a certain ideology,’ those [flags] are expressly prohibited, but at the exact same time we’re sitting here with a bill proclaiming to be about free speech, we’re expressly prohibiting some and promoting others.”

Flags of tribal nations, foreign countries, military service branches, the POW/MIA flag and official school or government entities’ flags are also permitted under the law.

HB 819 went into effect immediately after Governor Greg Gianforte signed it.

This year, both Utah and Idaho have passed similar laws restricting or banning Pride flags on government property or at schools.

New Montana law decides which flags fly in public schools.

— The Pulp (@thepulp.org) 2025-05-23T21:15:13.391Z

So is this one allowed, or not?

U.S. citizen with REAL ID handcuffed and held in immigration raid before being released

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/us-citizen-immigration-raid-real-id-handcuffed-alabama-rcna208794

The man told Noticias Telemundo that authorities took his ID from his wallet and told him it was fake before handcuffing him.

By Suzanne Gamboa

A U.S.-born citizen who was wrestled into the dirt, handcuffed and detained in a vehicle as part of an immigration raid had a REAL ID on him that was dismissed as fake, the man’s cousin said Friday.

Video of the arrest, aired by Noticias Telemundo, showed authorities grabbing Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, while at a job site in Foley, Alabama, on Wednesday and bending his arms behind him. Someone off-camera can be heard yelling, “He’s a citizen.”

Garcia told Noticias Telemundo that authorities took his ID from his wallet and told him it was fake before handcuffing him. REAL ID is the identification U.S. citizens are required by law to have in order to travel through airports and enter federal buildings. It is considered a higher security form of identification.

“Apparently a REAL ID is not valid anymore. He has a REAL ID,” his cousin Shelah Venegas said. “We all made sure we have the REAL ID and went through the protocols the administration is asking for. … He has his REAL ID and then they see him and I guess because his English isn’t fluent and/or because he’s brown it’s fake, it’s not real.”

Garcia had told Noticias Telemundo that “they grabbed me real bad” and the handcuffs were placed “very hard” on him.

Garcia said he was released from the vehicle where he was held after he gave the arresting officials his Social Security number, which showed he is a U.S. citizen.

The arrest has left Garcia, who was born in Florida, shaken, particularly because the officers also arrested and detained his brother, who is not in the country legally, Venegas said. She added that Garcia lived with his brother. Their parents are from Mexico.

Leonardo Garcia Venegas.
Leonardo Garcia Venegas.Telemundo

“He was actually pretty sore when he got back,” Venegas said of Garcia. “He said his arms were hurting and his hands. His wrists, you could see where he had all the marks from the handcuffs. … The way they put him on the ground, his knees also were hurting.”

She said they have been trying to find a lawyer but local ones have told them that it is nearly impossible to sue a federal agent. It is not clear from the video whether the authorities were federal immigration agents or local law enforcement carrying out enforcement duties.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to NBC News that Garcia interfered with an arrest during a targeted worksite operation.

“He physically got in between agents and the subject they were attempting to arrest and refused to comply with numerous verbal commands,” said Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary. “Anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties, including U.S. citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest.”

The response did not address the dismissal of Garcia’s identification.

Garcia denied that he interrupted an arrest. He told NBC News that he was trying to take out his phone when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent took it and threw it to the ground and then an agent began grabbing him.

Venegas said Garcia’s brother has signed deportation papers because the family didn’t want him detained “forever” as they’ve seen happen to another family member, who was held for months in a Louisiana detention center.

“It’s inhumane, what they are doing to our people. They are treating them as if they were murderers,” she said.

Venegas said the immigration arrests are creating repercussions among Hispanics, even among U.S. citizens.

“It’s about race now. It’s not about whether you are here legally or not,” she said.

Her family owns a fairly large contracting company, she said, “and a lot of the people that work with us are not working. … They are refusing to go to work. They said they are not going to go until this stuff calms down.”

Venegas added that the majority of her family is self-employed and “we do the same thing every other citizen does.”

“It’s just insane we can’t be different, the color that we are. We contribute to this country the same way every other citizen does with their taxes,” she said. “But we have to be the ones that every time we go to work, we are going to be scared that we’re going to get discriminated.”

“I think about my family,” she said. “Even though a lot of them are citizens, I think about how we all work in the same area in construction and they can’t sit out there because they could literally get harassed or attacked the way my cousin did.”

Did The Government Just Make Immigration a Game Show?

 

Trump administration seeks to end basic rights and protections for child immigrants in its custody

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/22/trump-children-flores-settlement-agreement

Flores Settlement Agreement limits how long children can be detained and requires they be provided with food, water and clean clothes

Detained children line up in the cafeteria at the Karnes County Residential Center in Karnes City, Texas, on 10 September 2014. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP

The Trump administration is trying to end a cornerstone immigration policy that requires the government to provide basic rights and protections to child immigrants in its custody.

The protections, which are drawn from a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, limit the amount of time children can be detained by immigration officials. It also requires the government to provide children in its custody with adequate food, water and clean clothes.

The administration’s move to terminate the Flores agreement was long anticipated. In a court motion filed Thursday, the justice department argued that the Flores agreement should be “completely” terminated, claiming it has incentivized unauthorized border crossings and “prevented the federal government from effectively detaining and removing families”.

Donald Trump also tried to end these protections during his first term, making very similar arguments.

law enforcement officer walk with a detained person
Ice arrests at immigration courts across the US stirring panic: ‘It’s terrifying’
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The move to end protections follows a slew of actions by the Trump administration that target children, including restarting the practice of locking up children along with their parents in family detention. Immigration advocacy groups have alleged in a class-action lawsuit filed earlier this month that unaccompanied children are languishing in government facilities after the administration unveiled policies making it exceedingly difficult for family members in the US to take custody of them. The president and lawmakers have also sought to cut off unaccompanied children’s access to legal services and make it harder for families in detention to seek legal aid.

“Eviscerating the rudimentary protections that these children have is unconscionable,” said Mishan Wroe, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law. “At this very moment, babies and toddlers are being detained in family detention, and children all over the country are being detained and separated from their families unnecessarily.”

The effort to suspend the Flores agreement “bears the Trump administration’s hallmark disregard for the rule of law – and for the wellbeing of toddlers who have done no wrong”, said Faisal al-Juburi of the Texas-based legal non-profit Raices. “This administration would rather enrich private prison contractors with the $45bn earmarked for immigrant detention facilities in the House’s depraved spending bill than to uphold basic humanitarian protections for babies.”

The Trump administration in 2019 asked a judge to dissolve the Flores Settlement Agreement, but its motion was struck down. During the Biden administration, a federal judge agreed to partially lift oversight protections at the Department of Health and Human Services, but the agreement is still in place at the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies.

“Children who seek refuge in our country should be met with open arms – not imprisonment, deprivation and abuse,” said Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.

The settlement is named for Jenny Flores, a 15-year-old girl who fled civil war in El Salvador and was part of a class-action lawsuit alleging widespread mistreatment of children in custody in the 1980s.

Since the settlement agreement was reached in 1997, lawyers and advocates have successfully sued the government several times to end the mistreatment of immigrant children. In 2018, attorneys sued after discovering unaccompanied children had been administered psychotropic medication without informed consent.

In 2024, a court found that CBP had breached the agreement when it detained children and families at open-air detention sites at the US southern border without adequate access to sanitation, medical care, food, water or blankets. In some cases, children were forced to seek refuge in portable toilets from the searing heat and bitter cold.

 

Trump ambushes South Africa’s president with video footage in Oval Office

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/21/trump-south-africa-president-video-footage-oval-office

A US and a South African delegation sit in the Oval Office.

President Cyril Ramaphosa meets with President Trump in the Oval Office on May 21. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In a shocking moment during President Trump‘s meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday, Trump requested that videos be displayed purporting to show evidence of violence against white people in the country.

The big picture: Trump, who cut all foreign assistance to South Africa, has embraced the false accusations of genocide against white South Africans as justification for granting them refugee status in the U.S.

  • A South African court in February dismissed claims of a “white genocide” as not real.

Driving the news: In a stunning scene reminiscent of the Oval Office showdown with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump asked for the lights to be dimmed before playing the videos.

  • While Trump watched the video, Ramaphosa looked away, appearing uncomfortable.
  • At one point, speaking over the video, Trump said the screen was displaying “burial sites.” Ramaphosa inquired where the scene was located, adding, “This I’ve never seen.”
  • Later on, Trump paged through articles from the “last few days” while repeating, “death, death, death.”

Catch up quick: In the question that preceded the video display, a reporter asked Trump what it would take for him to be convinced there was no genocide in South Africa — an inquiry Ramaphosa answered.

  • “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans,” Ramaphosa said.
  • Trump jumped in, saying there were “thousands of stories” and “documentaries.”
  • “It has to be responded to,” he said before the footage began.

Context: The video played in the Oval Office featured the voice of Julius Malema, a firebrand politician and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, who was ejected from Parliament.

  • Ramaphosa clarified that the utterances in the footage were not “government policy,” saying, “We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves.”
  • South Africa’s Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen — who is white — reiterated Ramaphosa’s point, emphasizing that the two people in the video are opposition leaders. He said his party, the Democratic Alliance, chose to join forces with Ramaphosa’s “to keep those people out of power.”

Trump interjected, “You do allow them to take land … and then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer, and when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them.”

  • South Africa recently passed the Expropriation Act, which allows the government to take some land and redistribute it as part of a long-running effort to lessen the racial and economic disparities created by apartheid.
  • White people make up 7.3% of South Africa’s population and own 72% of the farmland.

Ramaphosa acknowledged there is “criminality” in the country — but said the majority of people killed have been Black people.

  • Trump claimed the “farmers are not Black” and said, without evidence, that people were being killed “in large numbers” and were decapitated. He repeatedly lashed out at reporters, saying, “The fake news in this country doesn’t talk about that.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.