SF Gate: ICE stormed SF court to arrest 4 asylum seekers, denounced as unlawful

Four asylum seekers were detained by federal agents on Tuesday at San Francisco Immigration Court, a move the Department of Homeland Security has portrayed as part of a broader return to “the rule of law” but that immigration attorneys have called unconstitutional and unprecedented in U.S. history. 

According to the San Francisco Bar Association, the individuals were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in two separate sweeps, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, while attending hearings to claim asylum. All four had pending asylum applications.

“It’s a clear violation of the Constitution and due process rights,” Milli Atkinson, an immigration attorney with the SF Bar Association’s Attorney of the Day program, told SFGATE. Association members were at the courthouse when ICE swept in during the morning and were advocating for one of the detainees.

Atkinson added that ICE had already determined at the time of arrest that each individual should pursue asylum before a judge – a legal process outlined by Congress. She argued that the agency is now attempting to reverse course by claiming a change in circumstances, a justification she described as unfounded.

Under federal law, those eligible for asylum are permitted to stay in the U.S. while their applications are reviewed by an immigration judge. Atkinson said Tuesday’s arrests short-circuited that process. 

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/asylum-seekers-arrested-ice-san-francisco-20349387.php

Independent: Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem demand ICE agents increase arrests to 3,000 per day: report

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanded immigration agents significantly increase daily arrests to 3,000 in a “tense” meeting last week, according to a report.

Miller, President Donald Trump’s top adviser and architect of the administration’s aggressive immigration policies, and Noem told agents they needed to up daily arrests and deportations during the meeting at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. on May 21, according to Axios.

The figure is approximately triple the number of daily arrests that ICE agents were making at the beginning of the Trump administration, the outlet noted.

Ugly is about to get a lot uglier. We must resist this tyranny!

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/stephen-miller-kristi-noem-ice-arrests-b2759244.html

2 Paragraphs: Congressman Slams Homeland Security: “Spare Me the Fake Outrage

U.S. Representative Dan Goldman (D-NY) stood outside a Manhattan courtroom this week and reported that he observed an immigration court and “plainclothes officers wearing masks arresting and detaining immigrants who were here to appear in front of a judge as part of their court case.”

Goldman, a former federal prosecutor, said: “This is Gestapo-like behavior, where plainclothes officers wearing masks are terrorizing immigrants who are doing the right thing by going to court, following up on their immigrant proceedings and trying to come into this country lawfully, which is through asylum.”

Goldman replied: “Spare me the fake outrage DHS. None of these people showing up for court are criminals of any kind. As a prosecutor, I worked with many ICE officers who arrested violent criminals. None of them wore masks. Many of your agents are clearly ashamed to carry out your orders.

CBS Minnesota: DHS head Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem accuses Minnesota of harboring “criminal illegal aliens,” defying federal immigration laws

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is taking aim at Minnesota and its Twin Cities, alleging the deliberate obstruction of the enforcement of federal immigration laws, and protecting “dangerous criminal aliens from facing consequences.”

Minnesota is designated on the list as having “self-identification as a state sanctuary jurisdiction,” naming Minneapolis, St. Paul and 20 counties: Carver, Cottonwood, Goodhue, Hennepin, Le Sueur, Lincoln, Lyon, Martin, Nicollet, Nobles, Otter Tail, Pipestone, Ramsey, Scott, Steele, Todd, Watonwan and Wright counties.

It’s called the Tenth Amendment, not that the Constitution means much to Homeland Security. If the states, counties, and cities wish to help you, they can. If they don’t, they don’t have to.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey nailed it:

In response to the executive order, Mayor Jacob Frey said he won’t comply, calling it illegal.

“I don’t want our police officers tracking down undocumented immigrants when we need to prevent homicides from taking place and car jackings,” Frey said. “[Trump] can’t require local law enforcement to do certain and specified federal work. That would be against the state law because federal immigration policy is not one of the enumerated policies under state law that police can conduct that business in.”

Minneapolis has an ordinance in place barring law enforcement and public officials from enforcing federal immigration laws.

https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/dhs-kristi-noem-sanctuary-states-warning-minnesota-minneapolis

Slingshot News: ‘I Think That’s Outrageous’: Senator Gary Peters Hammers Kristi Noem Over $100k Per Day Spending On Guantanamo Bay Prisoners

Senator Gary Peters recent exposed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem for spending over $100k per day per prisoner on housing migrants at Guantanamo Bay.

Salon: Stephen [“Goebbels”] Miller’s deportation machine is failing — and he’s furious

In reality, which still holds some influence in our aggressively-online world, there are about 11 million undocumented people in the U.S., total. And despite all-caps propaganda to the contrary, they as a class “have substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens,” according to a 2020 study; they even commit fewer crimes, on average, than fully legal immigrants — those who came here “the right way.”

“Relative to undocumented immigrants, U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes,” according to the research, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

That’s why Stephen [“Goebbels”] Miller is so mad: an administration that wants nothing more than to parade millions of brown bodies onto military aircraft and out of the country — a MAGA team that promised its voters nothing less than “mass deportations now” — is having a tough time actually finding the hardened criminals the last folks supposedly let in. In April, the Trump administration deported more than 17,200 people; that’s up 29% from a year but it’s far below the pace necessary to meet the stated goal of one million deportees a year (and per NBC News, more than half of those now in ICE detention have no criminal record whatsoever).

https://www.salon.com/2025/05/29/stephen-millers-deportation-machine-is-failing–and-hes-furious

Guardian: A hidden measure in the Republican budget bill would crown Trump king

The bill could stop federal courts from enforcing their rulings, eliminating any restraint on Trump

Robert Reich

So what’s the next step? Will the supreme court and lower courts hold the administration in contempt and enforce the contempt citations?

Trump and his Republican stooges in Congress apparently anticipated this. Hidden inside their Big Ugly Bill is a provision intended to block the courts from using contempt to enforce its orders. It reads:

“No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued …”

Translated: no federal court may enforce a contempt citation.

The measure would make most existing injunctions – in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases and others – unenforceable.

Its only purpose is to weaken the power of the federal courts.

But the provision inside the bill that neuters the federal courts is even worse. It would remove the last remaining constraint on Trump, and thereby effectively end American democracy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/27/a-hidden-measure-in-the-republican-budget-bill-would-crown-trump-king

The Hill: Crockett on [Bimbo #2] Noem trip to Israel: ‘You just had a good photo op’

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) slammed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem for her recent trip to Israel, declaring it just another “photo op.”

Crockett said she didn’t think anything substantive would come from the foreign trip scheduled days after two Israeli Embassy staffers were fatally shot outside of a museum in Washington.

“You just had a good photo op. And I think that that’s probably all Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem is good for, is a photo op,” Crockett said Sunday during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Weekends with Alex Witt.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5319575-jasmine-crockett-kristi-noem-israel-trip

AsAmNews: Green card holders face extra scrutiny and detention at airports

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is warning travelers this summer holding green cards that they could face detention when traveling through airports.

There’s been much concern following reports that ICE agents have detained individuals returning to the U.S. from the Philippines.

“As part of CBP’s national security mission, officers routinely determine the admissibility of foreign nationals using longstanding U.S. immigration law,” CBP said in a statement to the Inquirer. “Lawful permanent residents convicted of offenses considered to be crimes involving moral turpitude, including aggravated felonies, can legally lose their status and be removed. Crimes involving moral turpitude include offenses such as grand theft and the use or distribution of controlled substances.”

A Homeland Security commercial running on both radio and TV features Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem proclaiming that under President Trump, the United States has been made safer as murderers and rapists are being deported.

However, its apparent nonviolent offenders are also being caught into this dragnet despite their legal immigration status. Protesters deemed acting against the interest of the Trump administration’s U.S. policy are also being deported.

Talking Points Memo: The ‘Invasion’ Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy

The Trump administration is using the claim that immigrants have “invaded” the country to justify possibly suspending habeas corpus, part of the constitutional right to due process. A faction of the far right has been building this case for years.

When top Trump adviser Stephen Miller threatened on May 9 that the administration is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus in response to an “invasion” from undocumented immigrants, he was operating on a fringe legal theory that a right-wing faction has been working to legitimize for more than a decade.

Hard-liners have referred to immigrants as “invaders” as long as the U.S. has had immigration. By 2022, invasion rhetoric, which had previously been relegated to white nationalist circles, had become such a staple of Republican campaign ads that most of the public agreed an invasion of the U.S. via the southern border was underway.

Now, however, the claim that the U.S. is under invasion has become the legal linchpin of President Donald Trump’s sweeping anti-immigrant campaign.

The claim is Trump’s central justification for invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport roughly 140 Venezuelans to CECOT, the Salvadoran megaprison, without due process. (The administration cited different legal authority for the remaining deportees.) The Trump administration contends they are members of a gang, Tren de Aragua, that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is directing to infiltrate and operate in the United States. Lawyers and families of many of the deportees have presented evidence the prisoners are not even members of Tren de Aragua.

The contention is also the throughline of Trump’s day one executive order “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” That document calls for the expansion of immigration removal proceedings without court hearings and for legal attacks against sanctuary jurisdictions, places that refuse to commit local resources to immigration enforcement.

So far, no court has bought the idea that the U.S. is truly under invasion….

And therein lies the problem: The Trump regime is off pursuing an unconstitutional tangent to solve a problem that is improperly framed as an “invasion”.

It’s a long well-researched article. Please click on the link below and read the entire article.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-invasion-invention-the-far-rights-long-legal-battle-to-make-immigrants-the-enemy