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Associated Press: She was adopted into an abusive home in the US. Decades later, ICE deported her back to Brazil

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In March, Pires showed up at the immigration office with paperwork listing all her check-ins over the past eight years. This time, instead of receiving another compliance report, she was immediately handcuffed and detained.

“The government failed her,” attorney Jim Merklinger said. “They allowed this to happen.”

It sounded like freedom, like a world of possibility beyond the orphanage walls.

Maria Pires was getting adopted. At 11 years old, she saw herself escaping the chaos and violence of the Sao Paulo orphanage, where she’d been sexually assaulted by a staff member. She saw herself leaving Brazil for America, trading abandonment for belonging.

A single man in his 40s, Floyd Sykes III, came to Sao Paulo to meet her. He signed some paperwork and brought Maria home.

She arrived in the suburbs of Baltimore in the summer of 1989, a little girl with a tousle of dark hair, a nervous smile and barely a dozen words of English. The sprawling subdivision looked idyllic, with rows of modest brick townhouses and a yard where she could play soccer.

She was, she believed, officially an American.

But what happened in that house would come to haunt her, marking the start of a long descent into violence, crime and mental illness.

“My father — my adopted father — he was supposed to save me,” Pires said. Instead, he tortured and sexually abused her.

After nearly three years of abuse, Sykes was arrested. The state placed Pires in foster care.

By then, she was consumed with fury. In the worst years, she beat a teenager at a roller rink, leaving him in a coma. She attacked a prison guard and stabbed her cellmate with a sharpened toothbrush.

In prison, she discovered that no one had ever bothered to complete her immigration paperwork. Not Sykes. Not Maryland social service agencies.

That oversight would leave her without a country. She wasn’t American, it turned out, and she’d lost her Brazilian citizenship when she was adopted by Sykes, who died several years ago. But immigration officials, including those under President Donald Trump’s first administration, let her stay in the country.

After her release from prison in 2017, Pires stayed out of trouble and sought help to control her anger. She checked in once a year with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and paid for an annual work permit.

But in the second Trump administration — with its promise of mass deportations, a slew of executive orders and a crackdown targeting those the president deemed “the worst of the worst” — everything changed. Trump’s unyielding approach to immigration enforcement has swept up tens of thousands of immigrants, including many like Pires who came to the U.S. as children and know little, if any, life outside America. They have been apprehended during ICE raids, on college campuses, or elsewhere in their communities, and their detentions often draw the loudest backlash.

In Pires’ case, she was detained during a routine check-in, sent to one immigration jail after another, and ultimately deported to a land she barely remembers. The Associated Press conducted hours of interviews with Pires and people who know her and reviewed Maryland court records, internal ICE communications, and adoption and immigration paperwork to tell her story.

U.S. immigration officials say Pires is a dangerous serial criminal who’s no longer welcome in the country. Her case, they say, is cut and dried.

Pires, now 47, doesn’t deny her criminal past.

But little about her story is straightforward.

A new chapter of childhood, marked by abuse

Pires has no clear memories from before she entered the orphanage. All she knows is that her mother spent time in a mental institution.

The organization that facilitated her adoption was later investigated by Brazilian authorities over allegations it charged exorbitant fees and used videos to market available children, according to a Sao Paulo newspaper. Organization leaders denied wrongdoing.

Pires remembers a crew filming a TV commercial. She believes that’s how Sykes found her.

In his custody, the abuse escalated over time. When Sykes went to work, he sometimes left her locked in a room, chained to a radiator with only a bucket as a toilet. He gave her beer and overpowered her when she fought back. She started cutting herself.

Sykes ordered her to keep quiet, but she spoke almost no English then anyway. On one occasion, he forced a battery into her ear as punishment, causing permanent hearing loss.

In September 1992, someone alerted authorities. Sykes was arrested. Child welfare officials took custody of Maria, then 14.

Maryland Department of Human Services spokesperson Lilly Price said the agency couldn’t comment on specific cases because of confidentiality laws but noted in a statement that adoptive parents are responsible for applying for U.S. citizenship for children adopted from other countries.

Court documents show Sykes admitted sexually assaulting Maria multiple times but he claimed the assaults stopped in June 1990.

He was later convicted of child abuse. Though he had no prior criminal record, court officials acknowledged a history of similar behavior, records show.

Between credit for time served and a suspended prison sentence, Sykes spent about two months in jail.

Sykes’ younger sister Leslie Parrish said she’s often wondered what happened to Maria.

“He ruined her life,” she said, weeping. “There’s a special place in hell for people like that.”

Parrish said she wanted to believe her brother had good intentions; he seemed committed to becoming a father and joined a social group for adoptive parents of foreign kids. She even accompanied him to Brazil.

But in hindsight, she sees it differently. She believes sinister motives lurked “in the back of his sick mind.”

At family gatherings, Maria didn’t show obvious signs of distress, though the language barrier made communication difficult. Other behavior was explained away as the result of her troubled childhood in the orphanage, Parrish said.

“But behind closed doors, I don’t know what happened.”

Years in prison and an eventual release

Pires’ teenage years were hard. She drank too much and got kicked out of school for fighting. She ran away from foster homes, including places where people cared for her deeply.

“If ever there was a child who was cheated out of life, it was Maria,” one foster mother wrote in later court filings. “She is a beautiful person, but she has had a hard life for someone so young.”

She struggled to provide for herself, sometimes ending up homeless. “My trauma was real bad,” she said. “I was on my own.”

At 18, she pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for the roller rink attack. She served two years in prison, where she finally learned basic reading and writing skills. It was then that authorities — and Pires herself — discovered she wasn’t a U.S. citizen.

Her criminal record meant it would be extremely difficult to gain citizenship. Suddenly, she faced deportation.

Pires said she hadn’t realized the potential consequences when accepting her plea deal.

“If l had any idea that I could be deported because of this, I would not have agreed to it,” she wrote, according to court records. “Going to jail was one thing, but I will lose everything if I am deported back to Brazil.”

A team of volunteer lawyers and advocates argued she shouldn’t be punished for something beyond her control.

“Maria has absolutely no one and nothing in Brazil. She would be completely lost there,” an attorney wrote in a 1999 letter to immigration officials.

Ultimately, the American judicial system agreed: Pires would be allowed to remain in the United States if she checked in annually with ICE, a fairly common process until Trump’s second term.

“How’s your mental?”

Pires didn’t immediately take advantage of her second chance.

She was arrested for cocaine distribution in 2004 and for check fraud in 2007. While incarcerated, she picked up charges for stabbing her cellmate in the eye, burning an inmate with a flat iron and throwing hot water on a correctional officer. Her sentence was extended.

Pires said she spent several years in solitary confinement, exacerbating her mental health challenges.

Her release in 2017 marked a new beginning. Through therapy and other support services, she learned to manage her anger and stay out of trouble. She gave up drinking. She started working long days in construction. She checked in every year with immigration agents.

But in 2023, work dried up and she fell behind on rent. She felt her mental health slipping. She applied for a women’s transitional housing program in Baltimore.

Pires thrived there. With no high school diploma and only second-grade reading skills, she qualified for a state-run job training course to polish and refinish floors. Photos show her smiling broadly in a blue graduation gown.

Friends say Pires may have a tough exterior, but she’s known for thinking of others first. She often greets people with a cheerful question: “How’s your mental?” It’s her way of acknowledging that everyone carries some sort of burden.

“This is a person who just yearns for family,” said Britney Jones, Pires’ former roommate. “She handles things with so much forgiveness and grace.”

The two were living together when Pires went to downtown Baltimore on March 6 for her annual immigration check-in. She never returned.

A crackdown on “the worst of the worst”

When President Donald Trump campaigned for a second term, he doubled down on promises to carry out mass deportations. Within hours of taking office, he signed a series of executive orders, targeting what he called “the worst of the worst” — murderers, rapists, gang members. The goal, officials have said, is 1 million deportations a year.

In March, Pires showed up at the immigration office with paperwork listing all her check-ins over the past eight years. This time, instead of receiving another compliance report, she was immediately handcuffed and detained.

“The government failed her,” attorney Jim Merklinger said. “They allowed this to happen.”

Given that she was adopted into the country as a child, she shouldn’t be punished for something that was out of her hands from the start, he said.

Her March arrest sparked a journey across America’s immigration detention system. From Baltimore, she was sent to New Jersey and Louisiana before landing at Eloy Detention Center in Arizona.

She tried to stay positive. Although Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric made her nervous, Pires reminded herself that the system granted her leniency in the past. She told her friends back home not to worry.

A deportation priority

On June 2, in an email exchange obtained by AP, an ICE agent asked to have Pires prioritized for a deportation flight to Brazil leaving in four days.

“I would like to keep her as low profile as possible,” the agent wrote.

Her lawyer tried to stop the deportation, calling Maryland politicians, ICE officials and Brazilian diplomats.

“This is a woman who followed all the rules,” Merklinger said. “This should not be happening.”

He received terrified calls from Pires, who was suddenly transferred to a detention facility near Alexandria, Louisiana, a common waypoint for deportation flights.

Finally, Pires said, she was handcuffed, shackled, put on a bus with dozens of other detainees, driven to the Alexandria airport and loaded onto an airplane. There was a large group of Brazilians on the flight, which was a relief, though she spoke hardly any Portuguese after so many years in the U.S.

“I was just praying to God,” she said. “Maybe this is his plan.”

After two stops to drop off other deportees, they arrived in the Brazilian port city of Fortaleza.

Starting from scratch back in Brazil

Brazilian authorities later took Pires to a women’s shelter in an inland city in the eastern part of the country.

She has spent months there trying to get Brazilian identification documents. She began relearning Portuguese — listening to conversations around her and watching TV.

Most of her belongings are in a Baltimore storage unit, including DJ equipment and a tripod she used for recording videos — two of her passions.

In Brazil, she has almost nothing. She depends on the shelter for necessities such as soap and toothpaste. But she maintains a degree of hope.

“I’ve survived all these years,” Pires said. “I can survive again.”

She can’t stop thinking about her birth family. Years ago, she got a tattoo of her mother’s middle name. Now more than ever, she wants to know where she came from. “I still have that hole in my heart,” she said.

Above all, she hopes to return to America. Her attorney recently filed an application for citizenship. But federal officials say that’s not happening.

“She was an enforcement priority because of her serial criminal record,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an email. “Criminals are not welcome in the U.S.”

Every morning, Pires wakes up and keeps trying to build a new life. She’s applied for Brazilian work authorization, but getting a job will probably be difficult until her Portuguese improves. She’s been researching language classes and using her limited vocabulary to communicate with other shelter residents.

In moments of optimism, she imagines herself working as a translator, earning a decent salary and renting a nice apartment.

She wonders if God’s plan will ever become clear.

She was adopted into an abusive home in the US. Decades later, ICE deported her back to Brazil
When Maria Pires was adopted from Brazil as a child, she believed she was officially an American. But her adoptive father, who sexually abused her for years, never completed paperwork to make her a citizen.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-immigration-policy-deportations-brazil-bb8beabbe4deb8f966826b9161158a3b

Associated Press: Judge pauses California’s request to bar Trump administration’s ongoing use of National Guard troops

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A federal judge who ruled last week that the Trump administration broke federal law by sending National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area said Tuesday he will not immediately consider a request to bar the ongoing use of 300 Guard troops.

In a court order, Senior District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said he was not sure he had the authority to consider California’s motion for a preliminary injunction blocking the administration’s further deployment of state National Guard troops. That’s because the case is on appeal before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the judge said.

Breyer indefinitely paused all proceedings related to the state’s motion, though he suggested California officials could file the request with the 9th Circuit.

An email to the California attorney general’s office late Tuesday was not immediately returned.

Breyer’s Sept. 2 ruling took on heightened importance amid President Donald Trump’s talk of National Guard deployments to other Democratic-led cities like Chicago, Baltimore and New York. Trump has already deployed the Guard as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover targeting crime, immigration and homelessness in Washington, where he has direct legal control over the District of Columbia National Guard.

The Trump administration sent troops to the Los Angeles area in early June after days of protests over immigration raids.

Breyer ruled the administration “willfully” broke federal law, saying the government knew “they were ordering troops to execute domestic law beyond their usual authority” while using “armed soldiers ( whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles.”

He did not require the 300 remaining soldiers to leave but pointed out that they received improper training and ordered the administration to stop using them “to execute the laws.” The order that applies only to California was supposed to take effect Sept. 12, but the 9th Circuit has put it on hold for now.

California later sought a preliminary injunction blocking an Aug. 5 order from the administration extending the deployment of the 300 troops for another 90 days.

The further deployment “would ensure that California’s residents will remain under a form of military occupation until early November,” including while voting on Nov. 4 on whether to adopt new congressional maps — “an election with national attention and significance,” state officials said in a court filing.

Judge pauses California’s request to bar Trump administration’s ongoing use of National Guard troops
A federal judge who ruled last week that the Trump administration broke federal law by sending National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area says he will not immediately consider a request to bar the ongoing use of 300 Guard troops.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-california-national-guard-troops-08f8a71ca5834b8f32ce4c3ee944abca

Washington Post: Senators ramp up pressure on Trump to abandon threats to send troops into U.S. cities

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A group of Democratic senators is filing a friend of the court brief Tuesday in California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lawsuit against President Donald Trump, stepping up pressure to keep Trump from overriding Democratic leaders and sending National Guard troops into Democrat-led cities like Chicago.

The 19 senators are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to overturn a temporary order issued by a three-judge panel in June that found that Trump had the authority to send National Guard troops into Los Angeles this summer over Newsom’s objections. The Democratic senators argue that the issue has gained greater salience since then, as Trump began threatening to go into other states and cities against the wishes of their governors and mayors.

The senators are amplifying Newsom’s argument that the president’s use of the federal troops — at a moment when local law enforcement officials said they did not need federal support — violated the separation of powers doctrine by usurping Congress.

A federal district court judge initially sided with Newsom on June 12. Then, on June 19, the three-judge panel issued their temporary ruling siding with Trump. California is waiting on a final ruling from the appeals court.

Led by California Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, the group includes senators who represent Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, and Portland — all cities that Trump has threatened to send in National Guard troops to “straighten it out” as he ramps up enforcement on crime and immigration. Schiff said in a statement that he hoped the Newsom case would become “the line drawn in the sand to prevent further misuse of our service members on the streets of American cities.”

The senators argue in their brief that by federalizing 4,000 California National Guard troops for domestic law enforcement over Newsom’s objections “without showing a genuine inability to enforce federal laws with the regular forces,” Trump violated the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering mandate and contravened the provisions of the Constitution assigning power over militias to Congress.

“Our concern that President Trump will continue to act in bad faith and abuse his power is borne out by his recent deployment of state militias to Washington, D.C. and his stated intent to deploy state militias elsewhere (like Chicago and Baltimore),” the senators wrote in the brief obtained by The Washington Post that will be filed in court Tuesday. They warned that courts are the last resort to “prevent the President from exceeding his constitutional powers” and that failing to do so could “usher in an era of unprecedented, dangerous executive power.”

In court filings this summer, the administration argued that Trump was compelled to send the National Guard to protect federal personnel and property because numerous “incidents of violence and disorder” posed unacceptable safety risks to personnel who were “supporting the faithful execution of federal immigration laws.” Department of Justice lawyers argued that Trump was within his rights to mobilize the National Guard and Marines “to protect federal agents and property from violent mobs that state and local authorities cannot or choose not to control.”

Before Trump sent National Guard troops into Los Angeles this summer in the midst of protests against his administration’s immigration raids, prior presidents had deployed Guard troops on American soil primarily to assist after natural disasters or to quell unrest.

The senators write that the last instance in which a president federalized the National Guard without consent from the state’s governor is when Alabama Gov. George Wallace (D) ordered the Alabama Highway Patrol to prevent the Rev. Martin Luther King, Rep. John Lewis and others from marching from Selma to Montgomery. President Lyndon B. Johnson intervened to protect the marchers.

Our arguments to the court make clear that Trump’s unprecedented militarization of Los Angeles should not be used as a playbook for terrorizing other cities across America,” Padilla said in a statement.

Last month, the president deployed National Guard troops and federal agents to D.C., arguing that they needed to tackle a “crime emergency” that local officials say does not exist. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, a Democrat, last week sued the Trump administration, seeking to force it to withdraw troops from the city.

In recent days, Trump has escalated his warnings to intervene in Chicago, posting on his social media site that the city is “about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” a reference to the Defense Department.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) said on social media Monday that Trump’s threats were not “about fighting crime,” which would require “support and coordination” from the administration that he had not yet seen.

The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it had launched an operation to target immigrants in Chicago as the president vowed a broader crackdown on violent crime. A spokesperson for Pritzker said Monday that the governor’s office has not received any formal communication from the Trump administration or information about its plans.

Senators ramp up pressure on Trump to abandon threats to send troops into U.S. cities
Democratic senators are filing a brief in support of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s suit against the Trump administration.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/senators-ramp-up-pressure-on-trump-to-abandon-threats-to-send-troops-into-u-s-cities/ar-AA1Mb9dp

Washington Post: Military-related work absences at a 19-year high amid deployments

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The number of Americans missing work for National Guard deployments or other military or civic duty is at a 19-year high, adding disruption to a labor market that’s already under strain.

Between January and August, workers reported 90,000 instances of people missing at least a week of work because of military deployments, jury duty or other civil service, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is more than double the number of similar absences in the same eight-month period last year, and the highest level since 2006, when President George W. Bush deployed the National Guard to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Southwest U.S. border in large numbers.

The absences are due at least in part to a growing military presence in American cities. Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has sent thousands of National Guard service members — civilians, many with full-time jobs — to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. He has suggested expansions of those efforts to at least seven more cities, including Chicago, New York, Baltimore and New Orleans, and called for the creation of a new military unit that can quickly mobilize anywhere in the country.

The ramp-up is happening at a vulnerable time for the labor market. Job openings have dropped in recent months, layoffs are picking up and businesses are slow to hire. Companies added just 22,000 new jobs in August, well below economists’ expectations, while the unemployment rate edged up to 4.3 percent.

Military-related absences so far make up just a sliver of overall workplace disruptions. In August, for example, more than twice as many people reported missing work because of labor disputes, and seven times as many said they were out because of bad weather. Economists also caution that the data are calculated using a small subset of responses, which can distort the numbers. Even so, with the president considering expanding National Guard presence to other parts of the country, they warn the burden on workers and employers could deepen.

“Uncertainty over whether you or your employees might be called to National Guard duty and how long that deployment might last is just adding to the chaos” for families and businesses, said Michael Makowsky, an economist at Clemson University whose work focuses on law enforcement. “Anything that makes it harder to make a plan is generally bad for the economy.”

The White House says its efforts are improving the U.S. economy by combating crime and unrest in major cities.

The “President has rightfully deployed the National Guard to cities like Los Angeles, which was ravaged by violent riots … and Washington, DC, while strengthening small businesses and revitalizing our economy,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement. “These deployments saved small businesses from further destruction and preserved great American jobs.”

Although military-related work absences tend to fluctuate throughout the year, spiking during hurricane season, for example, they have been consistently higher than in 2024 almost every month this year.

“You can see an elevation in the data, that’s for darn sure,” said William Beach, who headed the BLS during Trump’s first term and is now a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Innovation Center. “It’s more than likely because of a military influence — an increase in reserve duty or an increase in military service.”

The data come from the Current Population Survey, a monthly federal survey that asks Americans whether they missed work in a given week each month, and why. Civil or military duty-related absences include jury duty, Armed Forces reserve duty, National Guard duty or “a similar obligation,” according to the BLS.

National Guard recruitment has recently picked up after years of decline. In an executive order last month, Trump called for the creation of an online job portal to encourage more people to apply to join federal law enforcement efforts, saying they are needed in “cities where public safety and order has been lost.”

Deployment orders are expected to accelerate as the president leans on the National Guard to crack down on what he calls rampant crime in U.S. cities. Although a federal judge last week ruled that the Trump administration’s use of troops to carry out domestic law enforcement in Los Angeles was illegal, he did not require that the administration withdraw the 300 service members who are still in the city.

The Trump administration has appealed that ruling and suggested that it will not hamper plans to send troops to other cities. The White House is also expected to extend the National Guard’s deployment in D.C. — where it has faced criticism for relying on troops for landscaping and trash removal — from mid-September to Dec. 31.

For those who are being deployed, assignments require stepping away from duties at their day jobs. Despite federal protections, some National Guard members say they have trouble finding or keeping work, especially in a labor market weighed down by uncertainty.

“Companies say they’re veteran-friendly until it’s time for you to deploy or there’s a natural disaster, and they realize your time out of the office is going to cost them productivity or they’re going to have to hire someone to cover for you,” said Charlie Elison, a noncommissioned officer in the Army National Guard who also works a day job as an executive director for the city of Philadelphia.

Elison, who until earlier this year worked for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said his career options have been “very limited” because of growing military responsibilities. He spends about 90 days a year out of the office in uniform, and he usually does a year-long deployment overseas every four years. Adding crime-related domestic duties to that list, he said, could add new challenges for troops and employers.

“There’s this unfunded mandate across our country, where Guard and reserve members are asked to do more and more every year,” he said. “And there’s this unfunded requirement for our civilian employers to shoulder that burden.”

Military-related work absences at a 19-year high amid deployments

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/military-related-work-absences-at-a-19-year-high-amid-deployments/ar-AA1M2rvW

Mirror US: Chicago fights back against Trump’s National Guard threats as NYC’s Mamdani issues warning

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The Illinois governor called Donald Trump a ‘wannabe dictator,’ after earlier this month Trump claimed Americans might ‘like a dictator’

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani issued fiery statements opposing President Donald Trump’s escalating threats to deploy federal troops into the largely Democratic cities, a continuation of his weaponization of the government against his opponents.

Mamdani, asked about the idea of National Guard troops being sent to New York City, cautioned that the potential illegality of an act would not dissuade Trump from pursuing it. “The first thing is we have to prepare for the inevitability of that deployment,” he said. “We cannot try to convince ourselves that because something is illegal, Donald Trump will not do it.”

Pritzker, in response to a post from Trump threatening to sick his so-called “Department of War” on an American city, called Trump a “wannabe dictator.”

Trump on Saturday amplified his promises to send National Guard troops and immigration agents to Chicago by posting a parody image from “Apocalypse Now” featuring a ball of flames as helicopters zoom over the nation’s third-largest city, according to The Associated Press.

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

A rally and march formed in downtown Chicago Saturday evening against the increase in ICE operations, which were expected to begin that day. About 300 federal agents were using North Chicago’s Naval Station Great Lakes as a logistical hub for the operations.

While Trump has attributed the surge in immigration enforcement activity in Chicago and other blue cities to “out of control” dangerous criminals, his claims defy evidence, which show decreases in violent crime. In 2024, Chicago’s violent crime rate was down 11% compared with 2023 levels, and about half what it was in the years leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the BBC.

Trump’s weekend post follows his repeated threats to add Chicago to the list of other Democratic-led cities he’s targeted for expanded federal enforcement. His administration is set to step up immigration enforcement in Chicago, as it did in Los Angeles, and deploy National Guard troops.

In addition to sending troops to Los Angeles in June, Trump has deployed them since last month in Washington, as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital.

He’s also suggested that Baltimore and New Orleans could get the same treatment, and on Friday even mentioned federal authorities possibly heading for Portland, Oregon, to “wipe ’em out,” meaning protesters. He could have been mistakenly describing video from demonstrations in that city years ago.

Details about Trump’s promised Chicago operation have been sparse, but there’s already widespread opposition. City and state leaders have said they plan to sue the Trump administration. Pritzker, a possible 2028 presidential candidate, is also fiercely opposed to it.

The president “is threatening to go to war with an American city,” Pritzker wrote on X over an image of Trump’s post. “This is not a joke. This is not normal.”

He added: “Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

Trump has suggested that he has nearly limitless powers when it comes to deploying the National Guard. At times he’s even touched on questions about his being a dictator.

“Most people are saying, ‘If you call him a dictator, if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants’ — I am not a dictator, by the way,” Trump said last month. He added, “Not that I don’t have — I would — the right to do anything I want to do.”

“I’m the president of the United States,” Trump said then. “If I think our country is in danger — and it is in danger in these cities — I can do it.”

Trump began putting the federal government to work for him within hours of taking office in January, and he’s been collecting and using power in novel ways ever since. It’s a high-velocity push to carry out his political agendas and grudges.

This past month, hundreds of federal agents and National Guard troops fanned out across Washington after Trump drew on a never-used law that allows him to take control of law enforcement in the nation’s capital. He’s threatened similar deployments in other cities run by Democrats, including Baltimore, Chicago, New York and New Orleans. He also fired a Federal Reserve governor, pointing to unproven claims of mortgage fraud.

That’s not weaponizing government, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told The Associated Press; it’s wielding power.

“What the nation is witnessing today is the execution of the most consequential administration in American history,” Fields reportedly said, “one that is embracing common sense, putting America first, and fulfilling the mandate of the American people.”

Chicago fights against Trump’s National Guard threats as Mamdani issues warning
The Illinois governor called Donald Trump a ‘wannabe dictator,’ after earlier this month Trump claimed Americans might ‘like a dictator’

https://www.themirror.com/news/politics/breaking-chicago-fights-back-against-1375650

Reuters: In Chicago, ICE fears turn Mexican parade into a ghost town

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A normally raucous, colorful parade to mark Mexican Independence Day in Chicago turned quiet and nervous on Saturday as U.S. President Donald Trump signaled he intended to ramp up deportations in the nation’s third-largest city.

In a break from traditional celebrations, twirling folklorico dancers decked in glimmering jewelry and billowing, multi-colored dresses distributed “know your rights” pamphlets to sparse crowds in the city’s historically Mexican Pilsen neighborhood. Horses wore the colors of Mexico’s flag in their tails, while their riders wore neon-orange whistles around their necks in case they needed to alert attendees of Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents. Along the sidelines, volunteers also kept watch for ICE.

“This place would normally be packed,” Eddie Chavez, a lifelong Pilsen resident, said while waving a Mexican flag in a lone row of lawn chairs along the parade route. “Now it’s empty, like a ghost town.”

Trump alluded to immigration raids in Chicago in a Truth Social post that echoed the movie Apocalypse Now.

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” his post said, opens new tab, above an image of Trump in a military uniform juxtaposed against flames and Chicago’s skyline. “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

Trump signed an executive order on Friday to rename the Department of Defense as the “Department of War.”

Illinois Govornor JB Pritzker, a Democrat and vocal critic of Trump, said on Tuesday he believed ICE raids would coincide with Mexican Independence day festivals scheduled for this weekend and next weekend. Some Mexican festivals in the Chicago area were postponed or canceled, opens new tab amid fears of immigration raids.

“We’re scared, but we’re here,” said Isabel Garcia, a dancer in Saturday’s parade wearing a marigold-yellow dress and multi-colored ribbons and flowers in her hair.

“We’re Mexican. We have to celebrate, and they’re not going to stop us.”

ICE has not responded to requests for comment on whether it sent more agents to Chicago, and residents said they had not seen significantly stepped-up immigration enforcement so far.

A large protest against ICE was expected later on Saturday in Chicago, after thousands turned out for a Labor Day protest on Monday.

Trump last month deployed National Guard troops to Washington, saying they would “re-establish law, order, and public safety.” In addition to Chicago, he has suggested the possibility of deploying troops to Democratic-run Baltimore in Maryland.

In Chicago, ICE fears turn Mexican parade into a ghost town
“We’re Mexican. We have to celebrate, and they’re not going to stop us.”

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/chicago-ice-fears-turn-mexican-parade-into-ghost-town-2025-09-06

Time: Trump Provokes Anger After Threatening Chicago With ‘Department of War’

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President Donald Trump threatened Chicago with his newly-renamed “Department of War” on Saturday, prompting anger from city and state officials who have been preparing for a looming deployment of National Guard troops to the city for weeks.

“‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning…’ Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of War,” Trump’s post on Truth Social said, accompanied by what appeared to be an AI-generated depiction of himself as Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore from the 1979 Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now. The words “Chicopolyse Now” were emblazoned on the image, a reference to Apocalypse Now, and the background showed a burning city and helicopters flying away.

The post prompted anger from state and city officials. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker called Trump a “wannabe dictator” and took the post as a threat to “go to war” with Chicago.

“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city,” Pritzker wrote on X. “This is not a joke. This is not normal.”

“Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator,” he added. 

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson accused Trump of “authoritarianism.”

“The President’s threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution,” he wrote on X.  

The post follows Trump’s Friday executive order that rebranded the Department of Defense as the Department of War, a move the president claimed sent “a message of strength.”

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said during the press conference Friday that the name indicates the department is “going to go on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct.”

Trump’s threats against Chicago follow his decision to federalize D.C.’s police department and deploy National Guard troops on the streets on Aug. 11, citing violent crime—even though data showed that violent crime in the nation’s capital had already been declining significantly. Since then, the President has threatened similar deployments in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, and Oakland.

Johnson and Pritzker have both been staunchly opposed to Trump’s threats of federal intervention. Last weekend, Johnson signed an executive order directing the city’s police force not to cooperate with federal agents in a potential crackdown on crime and immigration.

“We will protect our constitution. We will protect our city. And we will protect our people. We do not want to see tanks in our streets. We do not want to see families ripped apart,” Johnson said as he announced his executive order.

Pritzker has said that he will “absolutely” sue Trump and the federal government if he actually does deploy troops, adding to the multiple lawsuits already filed by Chicago against the President since his return to office in January.

Trump Threatens Chicago with ‘Department of War’
JB Pritzker called Trump a “wannabe dictator” after the president threatened Chicago with his newly-renamed “Department of War.”

https://time.com/7315149/trump-chicago-threat-war-pritzker

Reuters: Exclusive: FBI employees worry Trump’s Washington surge is exposing unmarked cars

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  • Current and former FBI employees express concerns over national security risks
  • FBI’s undercover cars risk exposure due to federal law enforcement surge
  • Former DHS official warns of risks to sensitive investigations
  • FBI spokesman says ‘FBI leadership hasn’t received any of the concerns alleged’

President Donald Trump’s surge of federal law enforcement into Washington, D.C., is exposing the FBI’s fleet of unmarked cars, potentially risking its ability to do its most sensitive national security and surveillance work, nine current and former employees of the bureau warned.

The surge, which the White House has said is meant to crack down on violent crime but has featured many arrests for minor offenses, could make it harder for the FBI to combat violent criminal gangs, foreign intelligence services and drug traffickers, said the current and former employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

As part of the surge, FBI agents who normally conduct their investigative work out of the spotlight are now more involved in routine police work in Washington, appearing in high-profile areas dressed in tactical gear and emerging from unmarked cars, with the unintended effect of potentially identifying those vehicles to surveillance targets.

As the Republican president publicly muses about expanding his crackdown into cities such as Chicago and Baltimore, the employees said they are urging leadership not to continue to expose more vehicles in this way.

“Every time you see us getting out of covert cars wearing our FBI vests that car is burned,” said one of eight current FBI employees who spoke with Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“We can’t use these cars to go undercover, we can’t use them to surveil narcotraffickers and fentanyl suppliers or Russian or Chinese spies or use them to go after violent criminal gangs or terrorists,” said a second current FBI employee.

An FBI spokesman denied the current employees’ assertions.

“The claims in this story represents a basic misunderstanding of how FBI security protocol works — the Bureau takes multiple safeguards to protect agents in the field against threats so they can continue doing their great work protecting the American people,” Ben Williamson, assistant director of the FBI public affairs office said in an email.

“FBI leadership hasn’t received any of the concerns alleged here, and anyone who did have a good faith concern would approach leaders at headquarters or our Washington Field Office rather than laundering bizarre claims through the press.”

The White House referred questions to the FBI.

The use of as many as 1,000 FBI unmarked vehicles in Washington during highly public scenes comes amid an already heightened threat to law enforcement from cartels, gangs and hostile nations who actively seek to identify agents and their vehicles, the current and former FBI employees said.

“They’re putting federal agents in a more highly visible situation where they’re driving their undercover cars and they’re engaging in highly visible public enforcement action or patrol actions,” said John Cohen, a former Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism coordinator.

“They may be unwittingly compromising the ability of those same personnel to go back and engage in sensitive investigations.”

The current and former FBI employees said they spoke to Reuters because of the depth of their concerns and the potential harm to national security and safety of the American public.

‘BAD FOR THE BUREAU’

Several of them urged an end to the practice of using undercover cars in the surge now before more are exposed.

“This is crazy, dangerous and bad for the bureau,” said former FBI agent Dan Brunner, who worked on cases involving the MS-13 street gang before retiring from the bureau in September 2023 after a two-decade career there.

“This is currently in D.C., which is the most saturated city with foreign nation spies, foreign actors so of course they’re going to be down there,” Brunner said. “So those guys, you know, their vehicles, their license plates are getting recorded.”

Reuters was not able to determine whether foreign actors were in fact tracking agents’ vehicles and Brunner did not provide evidence that they were doing so. But Brunner, Cohen and the current and former FBI employees said investigative targets, such as members of drug gangs and foreign intelligence entities, are constantly working to try to identify law enforcement agents and FBI in particular and said there would be no reason to think that would have stopped during the surge.

“It is a major threat facing U.S. law enforcement,” said Cohen, who now serves as executive director for the Center for Internet Security’s program for countering hybrid threats.

Cohen and several of the current and former FBI employees who spoke to Reuters cited a recent report by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog that detailed how this kind of information can be used against law enforcement.

In 2018, a hacker working for the Sinaloa Cartel homed in on an FBI employee working at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, accessing their phone records and tapping into the city’s network of cameras to help the cartel identify, track and kill FBI witnesses and sources.

“This isn’t a hypothetical issue, just look at what happened in Mexico City,” said a third current FBI employee.

Brunner, the retired agent, said that, at minimum, he believes the license plates of all the cars that were used in the surge need to be replaced. He and other current and former FBI employees said the bureau should consider using other cars if its agents are further deployed in future surges, perhaps renting them or borrowing them from other U.S. government agencies.

“There’s an argument to be made that highly visible law enforcement presence in high-crime areas can serve as a deterrent for crime,” said Cohen, the former DHS official.

“But at the same time, the value that comes from the federal government in fighting violent crime is through their investigations, which very often are conducted in a way in which the identity and the resources and the vehicles of the investigators are kept, you know, secret.”

Poor babies! With the fewest possible exceptions, ALL police cars should be conspicuously marked. There should be NO secret police in the United States.

Exclusive: FBI employees worry Trump’s Washington surge is exposing unmarked cars
Agents are appearing in high-profile areas dressed in tactical gear and emerging from unmarked cars.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi-employees-worry-trumps-washington-surge-is-exposing-unmarked-cars-2025-09-04

Washington Post: How Stephen Miller is running Trump’s effort to take over D.C.

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The deputy White House chief of staff has emerged as a key enforcer of the D.C. operation in the month since Trump federalized the local police department.

From the head of the conference table in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, Stephen Miller was in the weeds of President Donald Trump’s takeover of policing in the nation’s capital.

The White House deputy chief of staff wanted to know where exactly groups of law enforcement officers would be deployed. He declared that cleaning up D.C. was one of Trump’s most important domestic policy issues and that Miller himself planned to be involved for a long time.

Miller’s remarks were described to The Washington Post by two people with knowledge of the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House business. The result is a behind-the-scenes glimpse of one of Trump’s most trusted aides in action, someone who has emerged as a key enforcer of the D.C. operation in the month since Trump federalized the local police department and deployed thousands of National Guard troops to patrol city streets. While widely seen as a vocal proponent for the president’s push on immigration and law and order, Miller’s actions reveal how much he is actually driving that agenda inside the White House.

“It’s his thing,” one White House official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. “Security, crime, law enforcement — it’s his wheelhouse.”

Miller’s team provides an updated report each morning on the arrests made the night before to staff from the White House, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security, among others. The readouts include a breakdown of how many of those arrested are undocumented immigrants.

He has also led weekly meetings in the Roosevelt Room with his staff and members of the D.C. mayor’s office. Last week, he brought Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, according to two people briefed on the meeting. It’s unclear why Bessent attended the meeting.

A person familiar with Bessent’s thinking said he was encouraged by D.C. officials’ enthusiasm and collaborative tone.

Miller frequently frames Trump’s approach to crime-fighting as a moral and spiritual war against those who oppose him.

“I would say to the mayors of all these Democrat cities, like Chicago, what you are doing to your own citizens is evil. Subjecting your own citizens to this constant bloodbath and then rejoicing in it is evil,” Miller said on Fox News last week. “You should praise God every single day that President Trump is in the White House.”

Trump has signaled that his crackdown on cities will continue, recently naming Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore and Oakland, California, as places that might require federal intervention. Critics have characterized the moves as counterproductive, a waste of federal resources and illegal. Supporters see the effort as bringing long-awaited relief to cities afflicted by violent crime.

In D.C., crime was already trending down before Trump moved to take over the police department, according to city data. But rates have decreased further when comparing the 15 days before the Aug. 11 order with the 15 days after Trump’s operation, with violent crime decreasing by roughly 30 percent and property crime decreasing by roughly 16 percent.

Since Trump initiated an unprecedented incursion into D.C. affairs, the city has transformed from a place that proudly welcomed immigrants into one primed for their deportations. D.C. police officers now work with agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who have detained people in front of schools and restaurants. Park Police officers, now operating as beat cops, have chased vehicles with tinted windows, fake tags and broken headlights — a major departure from a city policy to avoid pursuits that pose safety threats. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has attributed the drop in crime to the federal surge.

Miller and others close to Trump have celebrated the changes in Washington, which they see as a winning political issue and central to their plans to host a series of events for America’s 250th birthday next year. White House officials expect the increased federal law enforcement presence to continue in the District through the end of 2026 — a period that would not only come after the semiquincentennial celebrations but also the midterm elections. D.C. officials have not publicly committed to that timeline.

This week, members of the Republican National Committee were briefed on a call about the D.C. crime operation, getting data on arrests and talking points for how to tout the initiative in their states.

Bowser and other top D.C. officials have gone out of their way to show willingness to work with Trump and his staff, positioning themselves as allies in his public safety crackdown. They see that tactic as their best chance at maintaining power given D.C.’s unique status under the U.S. Constitution, which grants Congress ultimate say over city laws and budgets.

Miller has been less involved in working directly with the mayor.

City Administrator Kevin Donahue, Deputy Mayor of Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah and the D.C. police department’s executive assistant chief Jeffrey Carrol have all attended Miller’s weekly meetings in the Roosevelt Room.

Bowser has maintained a separate line of communication with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, with Bondi speaking with Bowser sometimes daily, the White House official said.

Last week, as Trump’s complaints about the mayor escalated, Bondi and Wiles met with Bowser at the White House. Soon after, Bowser gave White House officials an executive order to review — which ultimately ordered indefinite coordination between the city and federal law enforcement officials. The president has since changed his tune on Bowser, holding her up as an example of how blue-city mayors should behave.

“Everyone at the White House is pleased with Mayor Bowser and the ongoing partnership,” a White House official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share internal thinking.

Miller has made a point of being seen around the city since Trump infused it with federal troops. Last month, he appeared at a D.C. police station to address line officers and visited Union Station with Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Over the weekend, Miller and his family walked around the National Mall.

“Beautiful day to take in our monuments,” his wife, Katie Miller, wrote on X. “Thank you President Trump for Making DC Safe Again!”

She posted a picture in front of the Reflecting Pool, which stretches between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. Stephen Miller looked at his children and pointed toward the camera.

As deputy chief of staff, Miller oversees Trump’s domestic policy agenda. But he also serves in the lesser-known role of homeland security adviser, directing roughly 40 federal law enforcement officers in the Homeland Security Investigation division assigned to work on D.C. crime. Miller and his deputy on homeland security matters — a veteran law enforcement officer whose name the White House has declined to publicize — are also in close contact with the other federal and D.C. law enforcement agencies, the White House official said.

White House officials emphasized that Miller is acting on behalf of the president, who is personally invested in producing a successful operation. The officials said that his top domestic policy priority at the moment is reducing crime in large cities nationwide. Every day, those around him say, Trump inquires about the details of the D.C. operation. He has asked questions about the people arrested and how many guns and drugs officers seized from the streets, the White House official said.

“As President Trump has said himself many times, making D.C. safe and beautiful again is a top priority for the entire Trump Administration,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson. “The results of the highly successful operation speak for itself. President Trump has driven down crime in the District, removed countless violent criminals from the streets, and kick-started beautification efforts to make D.C. the greatest city in the world.”

Miller and his homeland security deputy, along with Terry Cole, the Drug Enforcement Administration chief whom Trump named D.C.’s “emergency police commissioner” last month; Gady Serralta, director of the U.S. Marshals Service; Bondi; and representatives from the FBI have all met with Trump a handful times since Trump signed the emergency declaration about D.C., according to the White House official.

By law, Trump’s federalization of the D.C. police force lasts 30 days and is set to expire next week. The White House has not announced its next steps, but those who know Miller say he almost certainly has a plan.

We must remember that Stephen Miller is an unrepentant bigoted racist whose #1 goal in life is to make America white again. The actions they are taking in L.A. and D.C. are targeted at Democrat mayors; the many Republican mayor of cities with HIGHER crime rates are getting a free pass. This is all about racism and politics, not public safety.

How Stephen Miller is running Trump’s effort to take over D.C.
The deputy White House chief of staff has emerged as a key enforcer of the D.C. operation in the month since Trump federalized the local police department.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/05/trump-dc-takeover-stephen-miller-white-house

No paywall:

How Stephen Miller is running Trump’s effort to take over D.C.
The deputy White House chief of staff has emerged as a key enforcer of the D.C. operation in the month since Trump federalized the local police department.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/how-stephen-miller-is-running-trump-s-effort-to-take-over-dc/ar-AA1LW0Uf

Alternet: Legal expert warns Trump saving this ‘big heavy gun’ for ‘when all hell has broken loose’

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In an article for Democracy Docket published Thursday, journalist Jim Saksa argued that President Donald Trump is systematically expanding his authority to deploy military force within U.S. cities, and that the lack of sufficient legal or legislative pushback risks making such aggressive domestic deployments routine.

Saksa noted that over the past two weeks Trump has repeatedly threatened to send the National Guard not only to Chicago, but also to New York, Baltimore, Seattle, New Orleans and other major American cities. These threats follow earlier deployments of thousands of troops to Los Angeles in June and Washington D.C. in August.

Most recently, Trump signed an executive order establishing a National Guard “quick reaction force” prepared for rapid nationwide mobilization.

While these troop deployments are of questionable legality, Saksa pointed out that previous actions, particularly the deployments to LA and D.C., have largely gone unchecked by either the courts or Congress.

This, he warned, could embolden the president to continue deploying military force in Democratic-led cities

Trump’s rhetoric has reinforced this trajectory. He described Chicago as “a killing field right now,” despite evidence of its safest summer in decades.

He further asserted, “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the President of the United States of America,” and added, “If I think our country is in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it.”

Saksa examined the legal response: a district court in California ruled that Trump’s administration violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which broadly prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement, but the court did not deem the deployment itself illegal.

The Ninth Circuit, moreover, upheld the administration’s actions, concluding the deployment to LA was lawful. As a result, around 300 National Guard personnel remain on federal active duty in Southern California nearly three months later.

The article noted the slow governmental response: nearly a month passed before Washington filed a legal challenge, a delay compounded by the District’s unique legal status.

Meanwhile, the White House continues to rely on obscure statutes and novel legal theories, while avoiding reliance on the Insurrection Act of 1807, a more traditional yet controversial legal pathway to deploy troops domestically.

David Janovsky, acting director of the Project on Government Oversight’s Constitution Project, told the outlet that courts and Congress have been “mostly feeble” in response to what he termed a “power grab.”

He voiced concern that there may be no clear limits left on such presidential authority: “I don’t know what the next meaningful limit is,” he said.

The article also included comments from William Banks, professor emeritus at Syracuse University College of Law, who said: “The insurrection act is the big heavy gun.”

He added: “It was intended to be utilized, if at all, when all hell is broken loose. It’s for extreme circumstances.”

Legal expert warns Trump saving this ‘big heavy gun’ for ‘when all hell has broken loose’

https://www.alternet.org/trump-military-deployment