Boing Boing: ICE claims success recruiting “teens and seniors”

A recent decision to relax age restrictions has resulted in a “surge in applications” to join U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), it claims. The federal government’s force of masked goons, often seen violently detaining those it wants to deport, will soon include teenagers and seniors. Previously, applicants had to be between 21 and 40 years old. Now they can be between 18 and 65.

You’ll [“Bimbo #2”] Noem when you see ’em.

[Kristi] [“Bimbo #2”] Noem’s defense of ICE raids, which she claims target “murderers, rapists, and child pedophiles” based on “reasonable suspicion,” has been contradicted by incidents like the detention of U.S. citizen Andrea Velez in Los Angeles, who alleged racial profiling, as we previously reported.

White House border czar Tom Homan’s statement on Fox & Friends, suggesting physical appearances can justify detentions, further fueled accusations of discriminatory practices, per Yahoo News.

Another way of looking at it is that ICE couldn’t meet recruitment goals despite a vastly-enlarged budget. Why are teens and seniors signing up? Consider what happens when all this is over. Old folks won’t need another job and might appreciate free housing. Teenagers, on the other sand, don’t see consequences coming at all.

Miami Herald: FEMA’s $64 Million Cut to NYC Sparks Fury

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has condemned the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s $64 million cut to New York City’s security funding following a Manhattan shooting. Washington, D.C. has experienced a 44% reduction in funding, as cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are also facing funding cuts. NYC Mayor Eric Adams is reportedly working to maximize federal resources amid the Trump administration’s widespread cuts to federal agency budgets.

Schumer stated that President Donald Trump “treats NY like his personal punching bag in an attempt to settle political scores — and failing to release NY’s critical anti-terrorism funds is stooping to a new low.”

New York Mayor Eric Adams’ spokesperson Liz Garcia said, “We are committed to securing every federal dollar that New Yorkers deserve.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) plans to question Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, warning that political motives may risk public safety. She stated, “I would ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the funding cuts, adding that it is possible the agency is risking New Yorkers’ safety as a political power move.”

Amid the fight for security funding, NYC Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has come under fire for reportedly spending over $33,000 on private security throughout his campaign. Critics condemned the spending, citing his 2020 calls to defund the police.

In 2020, Mamdani wrote, “We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti‑queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD. But your compromise uses budget tricks to keep as many cops as possible on the beat. NO to fake cuts – defund the police.” He added, “We need a socialist city council to defund the police.”

Mamdani added, “The New York City Council tried to make the NYPD reduce its overtime budget by half. They simply refused. There is no negotiating with an institution this wicked & corrupt. Defund it. Dismantle it. End the cycle of violence.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fema-s-64-million-cut-to-nyc-sparks-fury/ss-AA1KyL6W

Rolling Stone: Trump’s ICE Spent Half a Million on Tricked-Out Trucks for a Hype Video

The vehicles, purchased for “recruitment purposes,” were styled to look like Trump’s private jet — another big expense

Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is flush with cash after the president signed his so-called Big Beautiful Bill, so it should probably come as no surprise that the agency has decided to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on new trucks to showcase in social media posts. 

The Department of Homeland Security posted a video Thursday on X featuring music by rapper DaBaby and footage of a Ford Raptor pickup truck and GMC Yukon SUV traveling the streets of Washington, D.C., and parked outside the White House and the U.S. Capitol. The trucks, which have the same color scheme as Trump’s private jet, sport ICE’s logo and the phrase: “Defend the Homeland.” The words “President Donald J. Trump” appear on the back window of at least one of the vehicles.

The Homeland Security Department’s thread directs users to ICE’s job recruiting website, as it works toward hiring 10,000 officers. Another post with images of the trucks declares: “We will have our country back.”

In the past two weeks, Trump’s administration spent $384,000 on new Ford Raptors and GMC Yukons for “recruitment purposes,” according to federal procurement data. The administration also spent $182,000 this week on “graphic wrap design and application for law enforcement vehicles.” 

Under the Big Beautiful Bill, Trump’s legislation to slash taxes for the rich and health care for the poor, the administration received tens of billions of dollars to hire thousands of new ICE agents. Trump officials are now seeking to recruit agents all over the country, from coast to coast, border to border, to supercharge the president’s militarized immigration crackdown.

The decision to parade new ICE trucks around the nation’s capital comes as Trump has troops in the streets and is leading a federal takeover of Washington because a group of teenagers allegedly beat up a Trump administration staffer known as “Big Balls.”

A $560,000 expense on trucks and wraps the administration can use in social media posts looks downright frugal compared to the $200 million that DHS is spending on ads thanking Trump for deporting immigrants. (Those ad buys are being placed by the firm that bought most of the ads for Trump’s 2024 campaign.)

The Trump administration also spent up to $45 million on a military parade through D.C. on the president’s birthday.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-ice-spent-tricked-out-trucks-hype-video-social-media-1235408281

Raw Story: CNN right-winger gets shut down as he uses ‘2 different sets of facts’ to defend Trump

A conservative commentator was hit with a quick fact check on CNN after excusing President Donald Trump’s interference in the Texas redistricting mess.

Border Patrol agents poured into downtown Los Angeles as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats outlined plans to redraw California’s congressional map in response to a Republican push to do the same in Texas to their own advantage, and conservative journalist Rob Bluey told “CNN This Morning” that the situations in the two states were completely different.

“It’s important also to point out that we’re talking about two different sets of facts,” Bluey said. “The whole situation in Texas stemmed from a lawsuit and a decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.”

Fellow panelist Sabrina Singh, a former deputy Pentagon press secretary under Joe Biden, quickly pushed back.

“That’s still caught up in the courts,” she said. “What Gov. [Greg] Abbott is taking a Sharpie pen and just redoing the maps. That’s not from the lawsuit that’s been brought.”

Bluey argued the GOP governor’s actions were justified by changes to the state’s population since the last census was conducted five years ago.

“Texas has also had 2 million new residents move into the state since the last census,” he said. “The census made errors. Texas was cheated out of a seat and an electoral vote and Florida was cheated out of two because the census made errors. There were a number of problems that have happened over the last couple of years that could lead people to that conclusion that [host Audie Cornish] just made, that their vote is in some ways not [being counted].”

Cornish expressed skepticism, asking whether states should simply call for a new census and redraw their congressional maps if they didn’t like the results of the head count conducted under constitutional authority, and Bluey eagerly took the bait.

“I think states should do their own census,” Bluey said. “Maybe each state and the federal government can do this in collaboration. By the way, in the 1970s they amended the law and they said that you could do a mid-decade census, so it’s not that Donald Trump’s doing anything unusual, it’s just that the federal government hasn’t done it before.”

Singh poured cold water on Bluey’s argument, saying the president’s insistence on changing a state’s congressional map to favor his own party was indeed unusual.

“Each state has their own different constitution, but the lawsuit that you’re referring to is not why Gov. Abbott decided to draw the map, redraw the maps,” Singh said. “He decided to do that because Donald Trump put pressure on him. The lawsuit is still in the Texas courts and has not risen to the state level to redraw the map.”

https://www.rawstory.com/texas-redistricting-2673886861

Scary Mommy: Researchers Sound Alarm On Immigration Policy’s Effect On Kids’ Mental Health

Every now and then, there’s a study done whose results are so obvious some may wonder “Why did we need someone to take the time to research something we already know?” But the truth is, as intuitive as something may be, we don’t officially know until we look into it. As such, researchers from the School of Medicine at University of California Riverside recently looked into the effect of U.S. immigration policy and practice on the mental health of children. Their work, published in Psychiatric News in July, found children who have been separated from their parents, or who simply live with the possibility of such separation, can experience “profound emotional harm.”

“Immigration policy in the United States is a source of chronic fear, instability, and trauma for millions of immigrants, with the expansion of enforcement mechanisms transforming daily life for families and children,” the report reads. “Psychiatry cannot remain on the periphery.”

Examining previous research on the topic along with clinical experiences of the UC researchers and others, study authors found a rise in pediatric depression, chronic anxiety, and even PTSD among children whose families have experienced separation from Trump administration immigration policies. Notably, this was not just among children who experienced deportation or detention — either themselves or their parents — but those who had even one parent who might be deported or detained. “The mental health of immigrant children is inseparable from the conditions in which they live, grow, and imagine their futures,” the study observes in its conclusion.

Uncertainty, researchers said — including inconsistent enforcement actions, lack of transparency, and the ubiquity of raids, including at locations once held as safe such as schools, health care facilities, and immigration court — has intensified fear within immigrant communities and among children. Even those who enjoy some legal status have been swept up in immigration enforcement action, adding to the sense within communities that anyone can be detained or deported.

This has resulted not only in worsened mental health outcomes, but withdrawal from public life (including school), sleep and appetite disturbances, emotional dysregulation, and developmental regression.

Researchers also note that while daily deportations are down by double digit percentages (nearly 11% overall), prolonged and indefinite detentions are on the rise, which can be just as traumatizing — leading to increased instances of suicidal ideation and alcohol use — for the children left to cope with separation from a parent.

“Both real and threatened separations can undermine attachment, derail developmental processes, and contribute to persistent traumatic stress,” the study says, continuing. “Immigration enforcement becomes a formative, often traumatic, force in children’s lives.”

https://www.scarymommy.com/lifestyle/researchers-sound-alarm-on-how-immigration-policy-is-affecting-childrens-mental-health

Newsweek: Donald Trump’s new census could be bad news for Texas


Is there anything that King Donald can’t seek to manipulate and destroy?


President Donald Trump‘s proposal for a new national census that excludes people living in the United States illegally could reduce Texas’ political power by reducing both its number of Electoral College votes and seats in the House of Representatives.

Why It Matters

The Trump administration is pushing for a new census despite the next one not being due until 2030. Excluding those in the U.S. illegally from the figures would reduce the political representation of states with disproportionately high illegal migrant populations, such as California and Texas.

Citing “two people with knowledge of the effort,” The Texas Tribune reported that the administration’s primary goal behind the new census was to boost Republicans politically, though some experts have expressed skepticism over whether this would happen.

What To Know

On August 7, Trump said he had instructed the Department of Commerce to begin work on a new national census that would exclude illegal migrants, using data from the 2024 presidential election as a baseline.

Census Bureau data is used to determine how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives and also how many Electoral College votes it gets during presidential elections. So if a state loses population disproportionately once illegal migrants are excluded, it would see its political influence decrease.

In 2024, the Department of Homeland Security estimated that in January 2022 there were 10,990,000 people residing in the U.S. illegally. It found that California had the largest illegal migrant population with 2,600,000 people, followed by Texas with 2,060,000, Florida with 590,000 and New Jersey with 490,000.

Speaking with Newsweek, Joshua Blank, who heads the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said a new census without illegal migrants would reduce the state’s population and therefore its House representation. He added that Texas “did nothing to promote census participation” in 2020.

Blank said: “While, ostensibly, this move would reduce Texas’ population size for the purpose of congressional districts, it’s probably the case that it’s less than it would if Texas were to have engaged in a serious effort to get a good count in the first place.”

In terms of the nationwide political effect, Blank added: “This would apply to other states, including other states with large immigrant populations, and those that actually sought to get an accurate count, like California. So the overall exchange of seats, since the number of overall congressional seats remains fixed, is pretty hard to game out.”

Trump’s new census plan would almost certainly face legal challenges, with critics arguing that it violates the 14th Amendment, which states that seats in the House should be based on “counting the whole number of persons in each State.”

What People Are Saying

Gil Guerra, an immigration policy analyst at the Niskanen Center, told Newsweek“These numbers matter enormously for apportionment—states like California, Texas, and Florida have substantial undocumented populations that currently contribute to their congressional representation.”

Speaking with The Texas Tribune about the president’s new census proposal, Robert Warren, a demographer at the Center for Migration Studies, said: “It wouldn’t shift enough [House] seats to make any difference, and that’s been true for five straight censuses.”

President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on August 7: “I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024. People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

A Department of Commerce spokesperson told Newsweek: “The Census Bureau will immediately adopt modern technology tools for use in the Census to better understand our robust Census data. We will accurately analyze the data to reflect the number of legal residents in the United States.”

What Happens Next

If Trump pushes ahead with his plan, it will almost inevitably spark a major legal battle. Even if the courts approve, experts agree that the overall effect on American politics is hard to determine, though states with a high illegal migrant population—such as Texas—will likely lose some influence.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-new-census-could-bad-news-texas-2114326

Slingshot News: ‘He Has The Authority’: Sec. Kristi Noem Talks Down To Senator Maggie Hassan Over Illegal Violations Of Habeas Corpus In Senate Hearing


Kristi “Bimbo #2” Noem is as stupid and ignorant as they come!


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/he-has-the-authority-sec-kristi-noem-talks-down-to-senator-maggie-hassan-over-illegal-violations-of-habeas-corpus-in-senate-hearing/vi-AA1KJvGM

Daily Mail: Lawmaker allegedly ‘stuffs ballots’ in swing state that Trump just won

A chilling video has allegedly shown a lawmaker accompanying a friend who stuffed ballots in a swing state that Donald Trump only won by just over 80,000 votes.

Abu Musa, a city council member of Hamtramck, Michigan, was in the passenger seat handing several bundles of what appear to be absentee ballots to the driver.

Musa then watches the driver deposit three stacks of ballots into a drop box.

Michigan State Police confirmed the authenticity of the clip, which was filmed on August 1. It is part of an investigation into council members’ residency requirements.

The alleged ballot box stuffing incident took place just before the city’s latest primary election on August 5 – which Musa won with more than 1,129 votes. 

The video comes days after two of Musa’s councilmen colleagues, Muhtasin Sadman and Mohammed Hassan, were charged over forging ballots in the city’s tightly fought 2023 election.

Musa was previously named as ‘under investigation’ in the same conspiracy – but was not charged at the time.

According to a document by Attorney General Dana Nessel requesting a special prosecutor in the 2023 case, Musa’s colleagues ‘conspired to receive unvoted absentee ballots that had been signed by recently naturalized citizens.’ 

The accused then allegedly proceeded to ‘fill in the candidates of their choosing’ during the city’s 2023 elections, according to the document issued in April. 

Musa received the most votes in the August 5 primary election, per unofficial election results released on August 6 – receiving 12.5 percent of total votes in a field of 12 candidates.

Of the total 1,129 votes received by Musa, 843 were cast by absentee ballot. The 286 total of election day votes received by Musa is only the fifth-highest tally.    

Hamtramck’s council was embroiled in the election forgery scandal earlier this year – and Sadman and Hassan were charged on August 11. Musa and another council member, Mohammed Alsomiri, were not charged at the time. 

The drama was ramped up when Attorney General Nessel then decided to recuse herself from the investigation because of criticism she had faced in the past.

Nessel, a Jewish lesbian, previously criticized policy positions taken by the Muslim-majority council to ban Pride flags from being flown on city-owned property. 

The Michigan Attorney General had also faced harsh scrutiny for her prosecutions of pro-Palestinian protestors at the University of Michigan in the wake of October 7.

Nessel was additionally accused of prosecuting the campus protestors due to ‘bias against Muslims and/or people of Arab descent.’ 

She foresaw similar criticisms coming her way in this ballot forgery case, as five of the defendants ‘are of Arab descent’ – therefore she removed herself. 

Hamtamack, a city in Metro Detroit, has a population just over 28,000 residents, which is over 70 percent Muslim. The city became the first in America to be governed by an all-Muslim council in 2022. 

Detroit’s Local 4 News reported that the initial investigation began ‘after the city clerk noticed unusual patterns with absentee ballots – including identical handwriting on multiple envelopes and large bundles of ballots submitted at once.’

Hamtramck City Clerk Rana Faraj told Votebeat that ‘state laws are clear that your ballot should only be handled by you or a family member,’ adding that ‘everyone’s cousins around here.’

The council is made up of six members, and three slots are up for election every two years. Members serve four-year terms. 

Donald Trump won Michigan’s 15 electoral votes in 2024 with 49.7 percent of the votes to Kamala Harris’ 48.3 percent.

Hamtramck’s Mayor Amer Ghalib made waves last year after endorsing Trump for President as the mayor of America’s first Muslim-majority city.

Trump later nominated Ghalib to be the Ambassador to the State of Kuwait.

Daily Mail have contacted Musa for comment. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15008401/abu-musa-michigan-detroit-video-ballot-box-trump.html

Law & Crime: Judge shreds Trump admin for ‘nonsensical’ bid to terminate 28-year policy that protects immigrant children in federal custody

A federal judge in California has shot down an attempt by the Trump administration to scrub away the government’s 28-year-old Flores Settlement Agreement, which calls for court-mandated oversight on the treatment of immigrant children in federal custody.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee issued a 20-page order on Friday, keeping the 1997 agreement in place as Justice Department lawyers “fail to identify any new facts or law” that warrant its termination “at this time,” according to the Barack Obama appointee.

The administration had previously tried terminating the Flores agreement in 2019 at the end of Donald Trump‘s first term, but was unsuccessful then, too. Gee reportedly called a hearing last week on the matter “deja vu” as the government tried propping up similar arguments.

“The court remains unconvinced,” Gee wrote in Friday’s order. “There is nothing new under the sun regarding the facts or the law.”

Under the Flores Settlement Agreement, immigrant children must be held at “state-licensed” facilities — treated properly and humanely — before being released into the custody of family members or guardians “as expeditiously as possible,” per Gee’s order. The settlement is named after Jenny Lisette Flores, a 15-year-old detainee who sparked a class-action lawsuit to be filed in 1985.

The Trump administration recently argued that the Flores agreement was no longer needed because Congress had approved legislation to help deal with the issues the settlement addressed. It also claimed that government agencies had implemented practices and standards to ensure youths were being treated properly.

“The legal basis for the agreement has withered away,” DOJ lawyers argued in a May 22 motion for relief. “Congress enacted legislation protecting UACs [unaccompanied alien children], and the agencies promulgated detailed standards and regulations implementing that legislation and the terms of the FSA,” the lawyers said, blasting the agreement as an “intrusive regime” that has “ossified” federal immigration policy.

“The legal and policy landscape has also changed beyond recognition,” they added.

Gee noted Friday how she had heard this all before.

“These improvements are direct evidence that the FSA is serving its intended purpose, but to suggest that the agreement should be abandoned because some progress has been made is nonsensical,” the judge blasted.

“Incredulously, defendants posit that DHS need not promulgate regulations containing an expeditious release provision because ‘this Court has interpreted [expeditious release] to apply to accompanied children,'” Gee explained. “But ‘the FSA was intended to provide for prompt release of unaccompanied children.’ This is plainly incorrect and ignores the rulings of at least three separate courts.”

Gee concluded her order by saying it was ultimately the Trump administration that “continues to bind itself to the FSA by failing to fulfill its side of the parties’ bargain.”

Lawyers for immigrant children named in the class action complaint that spurred all this have said Trump’s second term has seen similar violations of the Flores agreement that have been alleged in the past.

“In CBP facilities across the country, including in cases documented by class counsel in New York, Maine, Illinois, Ohio, Arizona, Texas, and California, plaintiffs report being held for days and sometimes weeks in restrictive, traumatic conditions,” the lawyers said in a June 17 motion to enforce the FSA. One parent, whose allegations were included in the motion, described how they and their child were held at a facility where “the rooms have hard walls, like cement, and there is a window facing the hall but you cannot go out or see the sun,” per the motion.

“We are never allowed to go out,” the parent said. “The children keep telling us, ‘This is not America.’ They feel imprisoned and confused. They are seeing the sun for the first time in this interview room. They both ran to the window and stared out, and my son asked, ‘Is that America?'”

The plaintiffs’ lawyers accused the Trump administration of wanting to be released from the settlement “not because they have complied with and will continue to observe its fundamental principles, but because they want the flexibility to treat children however they wish,” according to the June motion.

DOJ officials did not respond to Law&Crime’s requests for comment Sunday.

Newsweek: Green card holder detained by ICE says food not fit for his dog

Agreen card holder detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has told Newsweek that conditions at the Houston Detention Center are harsh, saying the food served is so poor that he wouldn’t even give it to his dog.

Deon Lewis, who has lived in the United States since 1993, was taken into ICE custody on June 17. He has criminal convictions for cocaine possession, firearm offenses, multiple drug-related charges and driving without a license, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

He has faced serious medical challenges, including sickle cell disease and two lung surgeries due to pneumothorax. Lewis requested to be deported after struggling to live inside the ICE-run facility.

“The conditions in the Houston Detention Center are terrible. From the health care to the food they feed us. This food my dog wouldn’t even eat,” he told Newsweek from inside ICE custody.

The Department of Homeland Security has denied the allegations.

“There is black mold growing in the showers and bathroom floors. The air quality is horrible,” Lewis said.

“Some guards treat us like animals. Not all of them, but I think they try their best to keep us as uncomfortable as they possibly can,” he said.

“These facilities they are holding these people in are not set up correctly for humans to be held in. The conditions are not humane,” he added.

His wife, Roxanne Lewis, told Newsweek, “I have had many nights not being able to sleep from the worry about his health.”

She said that during transfers between detention centers—from Baltimore to New Jersey, Boston, Louisiana and finally Houston—he was denied proper medical attention. She recounted one incident in Louisiana when a nurse allegedly laughed while he vomited on the floor.

President Donald Trump has directed his administration to remove millions of migrants without legal status as he seeks to fulfill his campaign pledge of widespread mass deportations. In addition to people living in the country without legal status, immigrants with valid documentation, including green cards and visas, have been detained.

Lewis has a criminal record dating back to 2002, when he was arrested for cocaine possession, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation, according to the Houston Chronicle. In 2020, he faced additional charges, including possession of marijuana and cocaine and carrying a firearm, the outlet reported.

DHS has defended Lewis’ detention, emphasizing his criminal history and ICE’s commitment to providing medical care and maintaining humane conditions for detainees.

“The fake news refuses to report on Americans raped, murdered, and molested by criminal illegal aliens but maintain their 24-7 news cycle peddling false sob stories for dangerous lawbreakers—like Deon Kevon Lewis,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for DHS.

She continued: “Lewis is a 43-year-old convicted DRUG TRAFFICKER from Trinidad and Tobago, with multiple convictions including for cocaine trafficking, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and driving without a license and carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle.

“ICE provides all detainees access to comprehensive medical, dental and mental health care to include conducting an intake screening within 12 hours of their arrival at each detention facility. DHS takes its commitment to promote safe, secure, humane environments for those in our custody very seriously.”

Despite DHS’s assurances, Lewis said his experience in detention had been painful and disheartening.

“I am still here being detained, praying to be deported back to my birth country. I am paying for a crime I committed 23 years ago. I paid my dues to society, for the wrong I had done & don’t deserve this,” he said.

His wife described the toll the detention has had on the family, saying: “We are all feeling as a family very depressed. Being without Deon has been extremely difficult. He is a loving Father, Husband, Son, & Friend to many. He isn’t the ‘public safety threat’ as they are trying to portray him as. He is always willing to help someone in need.”

https://www.newsweek.com/green-card-holder-detained-ice-food-2114892