The meeting is at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, outside the El Paso Service Processing Center. Family, friends and aid groups have called the press, activists, community leaders, and anyone else who wants to join in. The idea is for the place to be filled with banners depicting a young Indigenous woman, sometimes wearing a Texan hat, sometimes surrounded by flowers, sometimes harvesting the land, sometimes carrying a basket in the middle of a furrow in some field in South Florida. The hope is also for the final release of Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago, a Mexican Zapotec woman, the daughter of farmers, the beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the Dreamer who should never have been detained in early August as she was about to board a domestic flight to Houston.
Outside, the detention center is a beehive of activity. Inside, the hearing is underway in which a judge is deciding Xóchitl’s future. A future that has been on hold for 25 days, since August 3, when two Border Patrol agents detained the 28-year-old at El Paso International Airport while she was heading to a conference as part of her work with the nonprofit organization La mujer obrera (The working woman). It was almost 5:00 a.m. when the agents asked her to accompany them.
“What for?” asked Xóchitl.
“We’re going to ask you questions about your documents,” an officer replied.
“What’s the interrogation for?” she insisted.
“We’ll talk about it downstairs,” they told her.
The officers wanted to know how she obtained her work permit, the identification she has as a DACA recipient. Xóchitl demanded the presence of her lawyer, but the second officer ironically preempted her: “Well, you can’t see your lawyer unless he buys a plane ticket.”
The conversation was recorded on Xóchitl’s cell phone, and she managed to send it to her partner, Desiree Miller. Afterward, Xóchitl stopped texting. “I didn’t know where she was; I thought she was on the flight, and that’s why she wasn’t responding. I didn’t know exactly what was going on,” her partner says. Apparently, there was no problem with her documents, which were valid until April 29, 2026.
No one heard from her again until a few hours later, when she was allowed to make a call. Xóchitl confirmed that she was indeed in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “This is not an isolated incident,” the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) denounced in a statement. “Catalina is part of a disturbing and growing trend in which legally resident immigrants are detained without cause.”
Contrary to the protections afforded them until now by a program like DACA, Xóchitl is on the growing list of young people arrested in recent months by the Donald Trump administration. In a country with a government focused on meeting its self-imposed deportation quotas, the more than 500,000 DACA beneficiaries are not exempt from persecution, detention, or expulsion.
DACA, the unfulfilled promise of protection
Until now that it happened to his sister Xóchitl, JL—who asked to be identified only by his initials—didn’t feel like anything could happen to him, or that life would go back to the way it was before 2012, when they were still living almost in hiding, inhabiting the ghostly world of the undocumented. “We thought there was no risk, since DACA is protection against deportation, but today, making any mistake is a risk,” he says.
JL, 29, recalls the time when he and his sister, aged eight and nine respectively, set out from Oaxaca to travel the dangerous route to the border. “We were so afraid of getting lost or dying in the desert, but we made it.” The Zapotec family later settled in Homestead, a major agricultural area in Miami.
It was difficult, especially for them, as they not only didn’t understand English, but also didn’t speak Spanish. “At home, we didn’t speak Spanish, but Zapotec,” says JL. “That was a shock. Neither the school system nor the government knew what to do with us; there weren’t as many migrants then as there are now.”
The parents dedicated themselves to agricultural work. As teenagers, the kids combined their high school studies with farm work. Xóchitl and JL worked the Homestead fields, harvesting beans, pumpkins, cherries, and okra.
Working the land has been a skill the siblings retain to this day. JL remains involved in agriculture, and Xóchitl, from the age of 17, became involved in working with migrant support organizations. It was at that age, in 2012, that President Barack Obama announced a program that would benefit some 700,000 people across the country who had arrived in the United States as children and could now live under protection that is renewed every two years.
Like many, the siblings were suspicious of a program that required them to hand over their personal information to the authorities, not knowing what the latter might do with it. “We didn’t know how it would work, or if it would last long, because administrations change,” says JL. “Even so, we applied; there wasn’t much to lose and more to gain.”
DACA allowed them to do many things for the first time, to begin inhabiting an area of life that until now had been forbidden to them. For example, they had, for the first time, a driver’s license. They could also, for the first time, board a domestic flight, but also return to visit the countries they had left. That’s why Xóchitl didn’t think she’d have any problems when she boarded her flight a few weeks ago. However, it’s clear to her brother that there is no guarantee of anything these days, at least not until DACA becomes a program that facilitates immigration status and gives them the possibility of moving toward naturalization.
“We’ve always said there’s no permanent solution for the many people in this country in our situation,” JL says. “So there’s always that risk. For now, DACA is protection from deportation, but it doesn’t protect you from being detained or from facing that long, costly, and inhumane process.”
In a statement to the press, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asserted that Xóchitl’s arrest was due to a criminal record that included charges for trespassing and possession of drug paraphernalia. However, her attorney, Norma Islas, issued a statement refuting this claim and asserting that “no such pending criminal charges exist.”
Although Donald Trump lashed out against DACA during his first administration, at the end of last year he made it seem as though, once he returned to the White House, he intended for its beneficiaries to remain in the country. It only took a few months for the fear to return, however. Not only have they been told that Dreamers would not be eligible for the federal health insurance marketplace, but Tricia McLaughlin, deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), encouraged them to self-deport and let them know that “DACA does not grant any type of legal status in this country.”
The statements and news of the arrests of other beneficiaries of the program have been a shock for a community that has built a life, created families (250,000 citizen children have parents with DACA status), and contributes some $16 billion to the U.S. economy each year. That’s why Desiree Miller insists that every vigil they’ve held outside the detention center, every protest, and every call to the community is not only for Xóchitl’s release, but “for the millions of people who are going through the same thing.”
Federal agents reportedly demanded to see the IDs of members belonging to two private contractor crews hired to battle the fire, which some 400 individuals are working to contain. Firefighters who spoke to the Times did so based on the condition of anonymity because they fear retaliation by the federal government.
“You risked your life out here to save the community,” one firefighter said. “This is how they treat us.”
Two firefighters in Washington state were arrested on Wednesday while combating the largest wildfire in the state.
The Bear Gulch fire has consumed nearly 9,000 acres since it began on July 6.
“Why the two firefighters were arrested is unclear,” The Seattle Times said. “But a spokesperson for the Incident Management Team leading the firefighting response said the team was ‘aware of a Border Patrol operation on the fire,’ that it was not interfering with the firefighting response and referred reporters to the Border Patrol station in Port Angeles.”
Federal agents reportedly demanded to see the IDs of members belonging to two private contractor crews hired to battle the fire, which some 400 individuals are working to contain. Firefighters who spoke to the Times did so based on the condition of anonymity because they fear retaliation by the federal government.
“You risked your life out here to save the community,” one firefighter said. “This is how they treat us.”
While waiting for their supervisor to arrive on Wednesday morning, the crews were confronted by federal law enforcement around 9:30 a.m. One of the firefighters told the Times they were instructed not to take video as they were asked to line up and present their IDs.
The Times added:
In a FaceTime video call from the other firefighter to The Seattle Times, firefighters in their gear were seen sitting on logs in front of federal officers. Some firefighters were dismissed back to their vehicles.
One firefighter attempted to walk over to his company vehicle to get something to drink and appeared to have been called back by federal officers.
In images shared by firefighters from the scene, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicle is parked nearby. Officers wearing “Police” vests are seen arresting a firefighter, while another appears to be restrained.
According to one of the firefighters, they were denied the chance to say goodbye to the detained crew members.
“I asked them if his (family) can say goodbye to him because they’re family, and they’re just ripping them away,” the firefighter told the Times. “And this is what he said: ‘You need to get the (expletive) out of here. I’m gonna make you leave.’”
Since taking office again in January, President Donald Trump has implemented a crackdown on illegal and legal immigration. His administration has targeted farmhands, garment workers, international students, and other immigrants from various walks of life for deportation.
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday were unable to persuade a grand jury to approve a felony indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent on the streets of Washington this month, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The grand jury’s rejection of the felony charge was a remarkable failure by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and the second time in recent days that a majority of grand jurors refused to vote to indict a person accused of felony assault on a federal agent. It also amounted to a sharp rebuke by a panel of ordinary citizens against the prosecutors assigned to bring charges against people arrested after President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and federal agents to fight crime and patrol the city’s streets.
The rejection by grand jurors was particularly noteworthy given the attention paid to the case of the man who threw the sandwich, Sean C. Dunn. Video of the episode went viral on social media, senior officials talked about the case, and the administration posted footage of a large group of heavily armed law enforcement officers going to Mr. Dunn’s apartment.
It remained unclear if prosecutors planned to try again to obtain an indictment against Mr. Dunn, 37, a former Justice Department paralegal. They could also forgo seeking felony charges and refile his case as a misdemeanor, which does not require an indictment to move forward.
Mr. Dunn was initially charged on Aug. 13 in a criminal complaint accusing him of throwing a submarine sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer who was on patrol with other federal agents near the corner of 14th and U Streets in the northwest section of the capital, a popular part of the city filled with bars and restaurants.
Before he threw the sandwich, the complaint asserts, Mr. Dunn stood within inches of the officer, calling him and his colleagues “fascists” and shouting, “I don’t want you in my city!”
Mr. Dunn’s lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, declined to comment.
It is extremely unusual for prosecutors to come out of a grand jury without obtaining an indictment because they are in control of the information that grand jurors hear about a case and defendants are not allowed to have their lawyers in the room as evidence is presented.
But Mr. Trump’s decision to flood the streets of Washington with federal agents and military personnel who are generally not trained in conducting routine police stops has resulted in a flurry of defendants being charged with federal crimes that would typically be handled at the local court level, if they were filed at all.
It has also led to an increasing number of embarrassments for federal prosecutors, who have had to dismiss weak cases or reduce the charges that defendants were facing in recent days.
On Monday, for instance, prosecutors refiled a felony assault charge as a misdemeanor in the case of a woman who was accused of injuring an F.B.I. agent during a protest last month against immigration officials at the local jail in Washington.
The charges were reduced against the woman, Sidney Lori Reid, after prosecutors failed not just once but three times to obtain an indictment in the case.
That same day, at the request of prosecutors, a federal magistrate judge dismissed all charges against a man who was arrested at a Trader Joe’s grocery store last week for what the police said was possession of two handguns in his bag.
At a hearing, the magistrate judge, Zia M. Faruqui, lambasted prosecutors for having charged the man, Torez Riley, in an apparent violation of his constitutional rights.
“Lawlessness cannot come from the government,” Judge Faruqui said, according to HuffPost. “We’re pushing the boundaries here.”
In a separate case, the judge blasted federal prosecutors and corrections officials on Tuesday for having allowed a woman, Kristal Rios Esquivel, to remain in jail for nearly six days after she was arrested for allegedly spitting on a National Zoo police sergeant.
Ms. Rios Esquivel’s lawyer, H. Heather Shaner, had submitted an emergency motion to the judge seeking her release and ended her filing with a single word, “HELP!!!”
While Ms. Rios Esquivel was ultimately freed, Judge Faruqui pointed out in an order that she had somehow been allowed to languish behind bars even though prosecutors had not asked for her to be detained.
“This is inexcusable,” he wrote.
Mr. Dunn is scheduled to appear next week in Federal District Court in Washington for a preliminary hearing where another magistrate judge, G. Michael Harvey, will determine if there is probable cause that a crime was committed during the sandwich-throwing incident.
Prosecutors typically have 30 days to secure an indictment after a defendant is arrested. If they fail to do so within that window, they either have to reduce the charges to a misdemeanor or dismiss the case altogether.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday his plans to hold a special election in November to redraw the state’s congressional districts in response to Texas’s attempts to redraw their own maps to help the GOP cling to its narrow majority in the House of Representatives.
Arriving in Los Angeles for the planned press conference/rally at the Japanese American National Museum in the early hours of Thursday morning, I thought it would be a fairly standard press event. Newsom and other state and federal lawmakers would make their remarks, lay out their plans for the new congressional maps, and make their case to voters as to why this drastic move was necessary.
The morning started off normal enough. For those who don’t work in the news or media business, covering a press conference may seem an easy, by-the-books type of thing. However, that is rarely the case, especially for any events involving political leaders. First, you must lay all bags and equipment down in a designated area for a bomb sniffing dog to sweep them, and second, depending on your position, whether it be TV cameraperson, still photographer, videographer, or print journalist, you have to jockey for position in the press area. This is particularly important for still photographers. It comes as Newsom’s press conference [was] stormed by masked Border Patrol guards with guns.
As we were ushered into the press area by Newsom’s staff, we were given specific instructions for both parts of the event. The first part, Newsom and several other state and national Democratic leaders would deliver their remarks, including Sen. Adam Schiff, Sen. Alex Padilla, and Rep. Maxine Waters. That would be followed up by a traditional press gaggle where the governor would take questions from reporters.
The day took an unexpected turn as the 30 or so reporters from every major national and local news outlet crammed into the small auditorium inside the Japanese American National Museum. Word began circulating that U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Agents had appeared outside the museum. While I couldn’t confirm it then, I kept my eye on my phone to see if anyone posted about it on social media. As the event began, speakers from various labor unions and activist groups delivered remarks supporting redistricting efforts. That was until one of the speakers confirmed that Border Patrol agents were intact outside. As Sen. Schiff spoke at the podium, I decided the story had shifted from inside the event to outside.
I quickly went outside to find no Border Patrol agents in sight. (I later learned they had arrested one person and quickly departed.) What I did find was a gaggle of reporters surrounding one person. So, as any reporter would do, I quickly ran over to the area, only to find Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass sounding off at the situation, denouncing President Donald Trump, and accusing him of intentionally sending the agents to the event.
“He [Trump] did this intentionally to disrespect the governor, to disrespect this iconic museum, and to disrespect our state. Now, why is this helpful to anybody at all? At this point, this doesn’t have anything to do with immigration. This is about causing trouble in our city,” Bass said.
Speaking to witnesses, I learned that the agents had arrested one person. I later learned that it was a delivery driver delivering produce to a local restaurant in Little Tokyo. By the time I got back inside, Newsom had already begun speaking. He also called out Trump, accusing him of intentionally sending the agents to the event.
“We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country,” Newsom said. “We are not bystanders in this world. We can shape the future. Donald Trump, you have poked the bear, and we will punch back.”
Since I don’t cover events like this regularly, it’s always bizarre to see people you’re used to seeing on TV up close in person. And having even the chance to ask the governor questions during the press gaggle was a big deal to me.
As Newsom finished his remarks, the press were taken to a separate room to set up for the press gaggle. Taking my position near the front of the pack, I set up my camera to get some decent original footage. As Newsom made his way into the room, he began taking questions. My hopes of posing a question to the governor quickly vanished, as it became apparent I was a small fish in a big pond. The TV reporters barked their questions out faster than I could form the words in my mouth. Another reporter luckily asked the question I wanted to ask, regarding the Border Patrol agents converging on the event.
“Well, I think it’s pretty sick and pathetic, and it said everything you need to know about the setting that we’re under. That they chose the time, manner, and place to send their district director outside right when we’re about to have this press conference,” Newsom told reporters. “It said everything you know about Donald Trump’s America, and that was top down, you know that for a fact.”
Newsom took several more questions regarding the special elections and the new congressional maps, which he said would be presented to the public and voted on by the legislature next week. Rep. Waters also gave remarks to the gaggle but declined to take any questions.
As Newsom’s staff began to wrap things up we all were ushered outside even as many reporters, including myself, tried to follow Newsom and continue asking questions. I made my way outside, headed to my car and like most of the reporters, quickly wrote the story I would file later that day. It comes after a bizarre internet image exposed how Trump looks without his fake tan and iconic hairdo.
https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/i-went-gov-gavin-newsoms-1332122
The joke’s on you, bubba!
What do you expect when you vote for a bigoted racist with 34 felony convictions?
Two Trump voters allege that Border Patrol agents racially profiled them after they were stopped and questioned on the way to the dentist.
George and Esmeralda Doilez, both U.S. citizens, were driving to an appointment in Southern California on Wednesday when a dark SUV started to follow them.
George told a San Diego NBC affiliate that the SUV put on a siren, pulled them over, and a group of masked Border Patrol agents got out to question them.
The Doilezes told NBC7 that they had been scoping out potential camping sites in the area on the way to the dental appointment.
George and Esmeralda voted for Trump in 2020, both of their first time voting, and again in 2024.
In a video of the interaction, a Border Patrol agent questions George through the car window.
“If you have a dentist appointment, it probably wasn’t the best idea to be out in the middle of nowhere,” the agent tells him.
“We have the right to travel anywhere we want to travel,” George says.
“You’re absolutely right, you do, and I actually have the right and authority to stop you,” the agent replies. “It’s called reasonable suspicion.”
The stated reason for the stop was that a “known alien” had been detected in the area, which is about 9 miles from the Southern Border. The agent said the Doilezes had aroused suspicion by making several U-turns.
But the couple said they thought the true rationale for the stop was their skin color.
“Why are we not allowed to be here? Because we’re not white? Our skin doesn’t match?” George told NBC7.
The agent called a K-9 unit, which detected a small amount of legally purchased cannabis in the car.
Citing that finding as probable cause, the agents searched George and Esmeralda’s car before letting them go about 30 minutes after the encounter began.
“I’m gonna go ahead and let you off with a warning,” the agent said after he told them he could have ticketed them for having marijuana.
In the wake of the incident, which left George “terrified” and his wife “shaking and crying,” the couple said that they regretted their votes for Trump.
“I feel shame, guilt, and anger at the same time because of the promises that he made that he lied to us about, going after the worst of the worst,” Georgesaid. “He lied on those and he stole our vote.”
Despite Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policies dictating that the agency cannot lawfully detain U.S. citizens, the agencies have detained dozens of citizens—including an electrician in New York and a tow yard employee near Los Angeles—per CNN.
Echoing Doilez’s frustration with Trump’s promise to target the “worst of the worst,” internal ICE data obtained by NBC shows that about half of those in custody have been neither convicted nor charged with a crime.
“Complying is going to get you in a prison concentration camp,” George said. “That’s what it’s going to do eventually. Maybe it might be sooner than we all think.”
A spokesperson for Customs and Border Patrol said in a statement to the Beast that the incident was a “lawful stop based on reasonable suspicion” and that “the claim that the stop was based on racial profiling is baseless.”
“Border Patrol Agents acted within their legal authority throughout this incident and remained focused on CBP’s mission: securing the border,” the statement said.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-couple-regrets-trump-vote-after-terrifying-border-patrol-stop
Los Angeles Unified School District leaders are calling for limits on immigration enforcement near campuses after a 15-year-old boy with disabilities was pulled from a car, handcuffed, and briefly detained outside Arleta High School on Monday in what officials describe as a case of mistaken identity.
The incident happened around 9:30 a.m. on Monday, just days before more than half a million LAUSD students return to classrooms. According to Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, the student — who attends San Fernando High School — had gone to Arleta High with his grandmother to accompany a relative registering for classes.
While the family member was inside, several officers approached their vehicle, telling them they were not with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). However, Carvalho said district-reviewed video appeared to show both police and Border Patrol personnel.
The boy was removed from the car and placed in handcuffs.
“As our students return to school, we are calling on every community partner to help ensure that classrooms remain places of learning and belonging,” Carvalho said. “Children have been through enough — from the pandemic to natural disasters. They should not have to carry the added weight of fear when walking through their school gates.”
The teen was eventually released after school staff and Los Angeles police Intervened.
“The release will not release him from what he experienced,” Carvalho said during a news conference. “The trauma will linger. It will not cease. It is unacceptable, not only in our community, but anywhere in America.”
Parents like Yvonne, whose child attends school in the district, said the incident has left them shaken. “I was upset because our kids shouldn’t have to be going through this and being scared of coming to school, parents dropping them off. We shouldn’t be going through this,” she told KTLA.
Soon after the incident, parents received a recorded voice message from the principal, saying: “We are aware of reports of immigration enforcement activity in the area, near our campus. Our school has not been contacted by any federal agency.”
Many parents KTLA spoke with called the presence of federal agents near public school campuses shameful. “Our government, the administration had stated they were going to go after criminals. At a school, what criminals are you going to find? Kids trying to enroll — today’s orientation day,” parent Dorian Martinez said.
Board of Education President Kelly Gonez condemned the actions on social media, calling them “absolutely reprehensible” and part of the “continued unconstitutional targeting of our Latino community.”
The district says the detention underscores the need for strong protections as students return to school. In a statement Monday, LAUSD reaffirmed that “schools are safe spaces” and said immigration enforcement near campuses “disrupts learning and creates anxiety that can last far beyond the school day.”
Some parents fear that their children will be targeted simply because of the color of their skin, regardless of immigration status. “He fits that category,” Yvonne said of her child. “Where he’s on the darker side, and I feel like that’s who they’re attacking… that’s the main reason I tell him you better be careful and you don’t go with anybody.”
Ahead of the start of the school year, the district said it has contacted 10,000 families potentially impacted by immigration enforcement efforts, rerouted bus stops, deployed 1,000 central office staff to assist in school zones, and expanded virtual options for those too afraid to leave their homes.
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/disabled-teen-detained-ice-outside-school
Any attorney who files or argues in favor of this appeal should be disbarred!
Any justice who votes in favor of this appeal should impeached and removed!
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow officers to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants in Southern California because of how they look, what language they’re speaking and what kind of work they’re doing, factors that federal judges have found to be baseless and discriminatory.
Last month’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Maame Frimpong, upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California,” D. John Sauer, the Justice Department’s solicitor general, said Thursday in a filing with the Supreme Court. “This Court should end this attempted judicial usurpation of immigration-enforcement functions” and suspend the injunction while the case is argued in the lower courts, Sauer wrote.
The Central District, which includes Los Angeles County and six other counties, has nearly 20 million residents, more than any other federal court district in the nation. It became the focus of legal disputes over immigration enforcement after President Donald Trump took control of the California National Guard in June and sent thousands of its troops to the streets in Los Angeles to defend immigration agents against protesters of workplace raids.
A 9th Circuit panel upheld Trump’s commandeering of the National Guard, rejecting a lawsuit by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But Frimpong, an appointee of President Joe Biden, ruled July 11 that immigration officers were overstepping legal boundaries in making the arrests, and issued a temporary restraining order against their practices.
In a ruling Aug. 1 upholding the judge’s decision, another 9th Circuit panel said federal officers had been seizing people from the streets and workplaces based on four factors: their apparent race or ethnicity, the language they spoke or accent in their voice, their presence in a location such as a car wash or an agricultural site, and the type of work they were doing.
That would justify the arrest of anyone “who appears Hispanic, speaks Spanish or English with an accent, wears work clothes, and stands near a carwash, in front of a Home Depot, or at a bus stop,” the panel’s three judges said. They agreed with Frimpong that officers could not rely on any or all of those factors as the basis for an arrest.
But the Trump administration’s lawyers said those factors were valid reasons for immigration arrests in the Central District.
In April, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston issued a similar order against the Border Patrol, prohibiting immigration arrests in the Eastern District of California unless officers have a reasonable suspicion that a person is breaking the law. The district is based in Sacramento and extends from Fresno to the Oregon border.
“You can’t just walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Give me your papers,’” Thurston, a Biden appointee, said at a court hearing, CalMatters reported. The Trump administration has appealed her injunction to the 9th Circuit.
The administration’s compliance with the Central District court order was questioned by immigrant advocates on Wednesday after a raid on a Home Depot store near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, in which officers said 16 Latin American workers were detained. An American Civil Liberties Union attorney, Mohammad Tajsar, said the government “seems unwilling to fulfill the aims of its racist mass deportation agenda without breaking the law.”
There is ample evidence that many businesses in the district “unlawfully employ illegal aliens and are known to hire them on a day-to-day basis; that certain types of jobs — like day labor, landscaping, and construction — are most attractive to illegal aliens because they often do not require paperwork; that the vast majority of illegal aliens in the District come from Mexico or Central America; and that many only speak Spanish,” Sauer told the Supreme Court.
“No one thinks that speaking Spanish or working in construction always creates reasonable suspicion” that someone is an illegal immigrant, the Justice Department attorney said. “But in many situations, such factors — alone or in combination — can heighten the likelihood that someone is unlawfully present in the United States.”
The Supreme Court told lawyers for the immigrants to file a response by Tuesday.
The case is Noem v. Perdomo, No. 25A169.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/scotus-immigration-california-20809308.php
A couple detained by Border Patrol in Boulevard said they believed agents did not have reasonable suspicion to stop them at all, recording the interaction and alleging they were racially profiled, pulled over by an unmarked vehicle as they were scoping out campsites on their way to the dentist.
George and Esmeralda Doilez are U.S. citizens who live in Brawley and were headed to a dental appointment in North County on Wednesday. They said they were exploring Jacumba and the surrounding area for the first time when a dark-colored SUV started following them near McCain Valley Recreation Area, then put on a siren and pulled them over.
“We didn’t think we had anything to worry about,” George said.
George said the Border Patrol agents first approached wearing masks.
“Who does that?” George said. “Criminals do that. Robbers and thieves do that. Kidnappers do that. And that’s what we’re seeing by our own government.”
They lowered the masks, George said, as Esmeralda began to record.
“The reason why we’re stopping you is because you did U-turns and there’s a known alien out in the area,” an agent at the driver’s side window said in the video.
George can be heard telling the agent that he and his wife were avid campers “exploring” on their way to the dentist and that he did not consent to any search.
“If you have a dentist appointment, it probably wasn’t the best decision to be out in the middle of nowhere,” the agent said.
“We have the right to travel anywhere we want to travel,” George responded, to which the agent replied, “You’re absolutely right you do, and I actually have the right and authority to stop you.”
Border Patrol has not responded to request for comment on the stop.
“Why are we not allowed to be here?” George said. “Because we’re not white? Our skin doesn’t match?”
George can be seen on the video showing the agent his ID but not leaving the vehicle, repeatedly saying he was asserting his rights. Border Patrol called a K-9 unit, which detected a small amount of legally purchased cannabis, prompting an agent to say they now had probable cause and the couple would be arrested if they did not get out for a full search of the vehicle.
“Terrified, terrified, absolutely terrified,” George told NBC 7 on Thursday. “As a husband, you’re seeing your wife, you know, shaking and crying. Your natural instinct is: I got to do something to protect her. And then what is this going to lead to? In my mind, I’m thinking of so many things, OK? If I fight these guys, I’m going to lose. I could get killed out here. But why should I allow them to trample on my Constitutional rights? Why should I allow them to get away with this kind of stuff?”
After the full search, an agent can be heard telling the couple that he could seize their vehicle and ticket them for having marijuana but that he would let them off with a warning. About 30 minutes after the encounter began, they were released.
“This place is controlled by goons in masks in unmarked vehicles chasing down American citizens just because of the color of their skin,” Doilez said. “Nobody should be afraid of their own government. They’re here to protect, to serve, not to be pirates.”
George and Esmeralda said they both voted for the first time in 2020, and then again in 2024 – both times for President Donald Trump. They said, as they’ve watched his mass deportation effort unfold in immigration court and at workplaces, seeing the majority of people detained without a violent criminal record, they both have come to regret their votes.
“I feel shame, guilt and anger at the same time because of the promises that he made that he lied to us about, going after the worst of the worst,” George said. “He lied on those and he stole our vote.”
They were going to the dentist because, two years ago, George was injured in an accident at work that destroyed his jaw and nearly took his life. Esmeralda said that the thought crossed her mind that she could have almost lost him again.
“I did think that there might have been a chance,” Esmeralda said through tears. “I remember sitting there crying, thinking like, ‘Oh, my God, if this happens, what’s going to happen? I’m going to see something bad. I don’t want to see that.’”
“We already went through something traumatic two years ago, so, you know — we don’t want to see something else even worse,” Esmeralda continued. “I feel sad this is where we’re at. I can’t believe this is where we’re at.”
Both said they felt the need to record and speak out to raise awareness.
“Do not comply, because complying is going to get you in a prison concentration camp,” George said. “That’s what it’s going to do eventually. Maybe it might be sooner than we all think.”
“We can’t let them take our rights,” Esmeralda said. “Then we’re nothing.”
