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Associated Press: ‘Leave our kids alone’: Schools reopen in DC with parents on edge over Trump’s armed patrols
“Mr. President, do not come to Chicago,” [Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said, standing in a park about a mile from the Chicago skyscraper that features Trump’s name in large lettering. The governor said he would fight the “petty whims of an arrogant little man” who “wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish his dissidents and score political points.”
Public schools reopened Monday in the nation’s tense capital with parents on edge over the presence in their midst of thousands of National Guard troops — some now armed — and large scatterings of federal law enforcement officers carrying out President Donald Trump’s orders to make the District of Columbia a safer place.
Even as Trump started talking about other cities — “Do not come to Chicago,” was the Democratic Illinois governor’s clipped response — the president again touted a drop in crime that he attributed to his extraordinary effort to take over policing in Washington, D.C. The district’s mayor, meanwhile, was lamenting the effect of Trump’s actions on children in her city.
“Parents are anxious. We’ve heard from a lot of them,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said at a news conference, noting that some might keep their children out of school because of immigration concerns.
“Any attempt to target children is heartless, is mean, is uncalled for and it only hurts us,” she said. “I would just call for everybody to leave our kids alone.”
Rumors of police activity abound
As schools opened across the capital city, parental social media groups and listservs were buzzing with reports and rumors of checkpoints and arrests.
The week began with some patrolling National Guard units now carrying firearms. The change stemmed from a directive issued late last week by his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Armed National Guard troops from Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee were seen around the city Monday. But not every patrol appears to be carrying weapons. An Associated Press photographer said the roughly 30 troops he saw on the National Mall on Monday morning were unarmed.
Armed Guard members in Washington will be operating under long-standing rules for the use of military force inside the U.S., the military task force overseeing all the troops deployed to D.C. said Monday. Those rules, broadly, say that while troops can use force, they should do so only “in response to an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm” and “only as a last resort.”
The task force has directed questions on why the change was necessary to Hegseth’s office. Those officials have declined to answer those questions. Speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, Hegseth said that it was common sense to arm them because it meant they were “capable of defending themselves and others.”
Among their duties is picking up trash, the task force said, though it’s unclear how much time they will spend doing that.
Bowser reiterated her opposition to the National Guard’s presence. “I don’t believe that troops should be policing American cities,” she said.
Trump is considering expanding the deployments to other Democratic-led cities, including Baltimore, Chicago and New York, saying the situations in those cities require federal action. In Washington, his administration says more than 1,000 people have been arrested since Aug. 7, including 86 on Sunday.
“We took hundreds of guns away from young kids, who were throwing them around like it was candy. We apprehended scores of illegal aliens. We seized dozens of illegal firearms. There have been zero murders,” Trump said Monday.
Some other cities bristle at the possibility of military on the streets
The possibility of the military patrolling streets of Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, prompted immediate backlash, confusion and a trail of sarcastic social media posts.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a first-term Democrat, has called it unconstitutional and threatened legal action. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker deemed it a distraction and unnecessary as crime rates in Chicago are down, as they are nationwide.
Trump suggested multiple times earlier Monday that he might dispatch the National Guard to Chicago regardless of Pritzker’s opinion, calling the city a “killing field.”
Pritzker and other Illinois officials said the Trump administration has not reached out to Chicago leaders about any federal initiative to deploy military personnel to the city to combat crime. They cited statistics showing drops in violent crime in Chicago and cast Trump’s move as performative, partisan and racist.
“Mr. President, do not come to Chicago,” Pritzker said, standing in a park about a mile from the Chicago skyscraper that features Trump’s name in large lettering. The governor said he would fight the “petty whims of an arrogant little man” who “wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish his dissidents and score political points.”
Others raised questions about where patrols might go and what role they might play. By square mileage, Chicago is more than three times the size of Washington, and neighborhoods with historically high crime are spread far apart.
Former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, who also worked for the New York Police Department, wondered what the National Guard would do in terms of fighting street violence. He said if there was clear communication, they could help with certain tasks, like perimeter patrol in high-crime neighborhoods, but only as part of a wider plan and in partnership with police.
National Guard troops were used in Chicago to help with the Democratic National Convention last summer and during the 2012 NATO Summit.
Overall, violent crime in Chicago dropped significantly in the first half of 2025, representing the steepest decline in over a decade, according to police data. Shootings and homicides were down more than 30% in the first half of the year compared with the same time last year, and total violent crime dropped by over 22%.
Still, some neighborhoods, including Austin on the city’s West Side, where the Rev. Ira Acree is a pastor, experience persistent high crime.
Acree said he’s received numerous calls from congregants upset about the possible deployment. He said if Trump was serious about crime prevention, he would boost funding for anti-violence initiatives.
“This is a joke,” Acree said. “This move is not about reducing violence. This is reckless leadership and political grandstanding. It’s no secret that our city is on the president’s hit list.”
In June, roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines were sent to Los Angeles to deal with protests over the administration’s immigration crackdown. California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and other local elected officials objected.
‘Leave our kids alone’: Schools reopen in DC with parents on edge over Trump’s armed patrols
WASHINGTON (AP) — Public schools reopened Monday in the nation’s tense capital with parents on edge over the presence in their midst of thousands of National Guard troops — some now armed — and large scatterings of federal law enforcement officers carrying out President Donald Trump’s orders to make the District of Columbia a safer place. Even as T…
Raw Story: Ex-general warns Trump using National Guard as ‘catnip’: ‘He needs to put on a show’
A retired American general tore into President Donald Trump and said his latest threats to send the National Guard into Democratic-run cities are merely a tactic to distract his base and the media, likening it to “catnip.”
Major General William Enyart joined MSNBC on Monday afternoon to discuss Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s (D) blistering speech, hitting back at Trump’s plans to send troops to Chicago.
“A barnburner of a speech from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who told the people of Illinois in no uncertain terms that what Donald J. Trump plans to do in his city is, ‘unprecedented, illegal, unconstitutional, and un-American,’ urging him publicly with the city’s business, faith and elected officials, ‘Do not come to Chicago,'” noted host Nicolle Wallace.
She added that Pritzker made a “salient, indisputable fact” that 13 of the top 20 cities when it comes to homicide rates are led by Republicans. Additionally, eight Republican-led states have the top homicide rates.
Enyart said Pritzker made a “spot-on speech.”
“Trump desperately needs to cling on to power. And I think the reason that he is taking these actions is distraction, distraction, distraction,” he said.
Enyart then hit back at Trump’s claims with statistics of his own.
“The price of hamburger a year ago today: $5.35 a pound. Hamburger today: $6.98 a pound. That’s a 33% increase. Coffee $6.32 a year ago. Today, it’s $8.41 a pound, another 30-plus percent. Food prices have gone up every single month, but one, since Trump took office,” he noted.
Enyart called out Trump for vowing to drive food prices down.
“Yet another lie. He can’t afford to face truth. And that’s why he has to have distraction,” he railed.
Enyart called Trump’s use of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., and proposal to do the same in Chicago simply that.
“He is doing it in order to provide a distraction to his base and to, frankly, to most of the news media so they’ll chase that catnip,” he said, calling Trump’s tariffs a “failure,” along with his negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Corn prices have cratered. Corn prices are 40% down from what they were under the Biden administration,” he added.
Soybean prices for farmers, he added, are down more than 50% since Biden’s administration.
” China used to buy 60% of their soybeans from the United States farmers. Today? 20%. Brazil took those. Why? Trump’s tariffs. His policies are incredibly unpopular, and so he needs to put on a show. He is a mastermind at showmanship, and that’s what he is doing.”
Washington Post: Democrats are pushing back against crackdown on sanctuary cities
Some responded with strongly worded letters. Others spoke out publicly, accusing Attorney General Pam Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors.
Democratic state and local officials are forcefully pushing back against threats from Attorney General Pam Bondi that their jurisdictions could be stripped of federal funding or they could face criminal prosecution if they don’t back away from “sanctuary” policies friendly toward suspected undocumented immigrants.
Bondi last week sent a letter to leaders of more than 30 Democratic-led cities, counties and states that accused the jurisdictions of interfering with federal immigration enforcement.
Some responded with their own strongly worded letters. Others seized the moment to speak out in a public show of resistance, accusing Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors amid the political divide over President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration tactics.
But what happens next remains deeply unclear, according to those Democratic officials, who have described the events of the past week as startling and unprecedented, even against the backdrop of the tumultuous launch of the second Trump term. They are staying mum so far about how much they are coordinating with each other to combat potential actions by the administration.
In Seattle, Mayor Bruce Harrell (D), who is seeking a second term, told The Washington Post that the Aug. 13 letter from Bondi warned that his “jurisdiction” had been “identified as one that engages in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement.” It did not reference his city by name, mention specific local laws or policy, or cite Seattle’s crime rates, which Harrell pointed out are “down in all major categories.”
Days later, he was standing behind Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson (D), who had received a nearly identical letter.
“A letter like this cannot be normalized,” Ferguson said Tuesday, speaking to reporters at the state Capitol in Olympia. He called the attorney general’s threats a “breathtaking” tactic aimed at pressuring elected officials to “bend a knee” to Trump.
Ferguson told Bondi in a letter that his state “will not be bullied or intimidated by threats and legally baseless accusations.”
On the opposite coast, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) stepped onto the plaza outside City Hall for a news conference that quickly took on the feel of an anti-Trump rally.
“Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures,” said Wu, the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants. “Boston follows the law, and Boston will not back down from who we are and what we stand for.”
The Trump administration’s intensifying efforts to identify and deport suspected undocumented immigrants include the deployment of thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in U.S. cities as they seek to meet a directive from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to make at least 3,000 arrests a day.
Bondi and other Trump administration officials have insisted on cooperation from state and local officials, including access to law enforcement facilities and, in some cases, officers as they seek to step up deportation efforts.
Trump last week ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to D.C. and has sought to expand federal control over D.C. police, claiming the city was not doing enough to stem violent crime. He has indicated that cities like Baltimore, Chicago and New York could be next, likening them to urban hellscapes ruined by crime and lawlessness. All three cities are listed as sanctuary jurisdictions on federal government websites.
On Thursday, Trump reiterated his pledge to pursue similar crime crackdowns in Democratic-led cities.
In an interview last week with Fox News, Bondi suggested a takeover could be on the table for any city the administration deems out of compliance with federal immigration laws. “You better be abiding by our federal policies and with our federal law enforcement, because if you aren’t, we’re going to come after you,” she said.
Numerous city and state officials in their letters to Bondi questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s threats against their jurisdictions, with some pointedly critical of Trump’s actions in D.C. and in Los Angeles, where the president — despite the opposition of state and local officials — activated National Guard troops amid protests over the administration’s immigration arrests.
Responding to a letter sent to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), Ann Spillane, the governor’s general counsel, noted federal courts had repeatedly upheld an Illinois law that restricts state law enforcement involvement in immigration enforcement. Spillane said that Illinois officers’ primary focus is fighting crime and that they routinely cooperate with federal law enforcement on those issues. “We have not observed that type of coordination with local law enforcement in Washington, D.C. or Los Angeles,” Spillane wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Post.
Bondi’s letters also arrived at the offices of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston (D). Trump homed in on the state during the presidential race last year, baselessly claiming one of its cities had been overrun by Venezuelan gangs.
Johnston’s city has already lost millions in federal grants intended for migrant shelters, and the Justice Department sued him, Polis, and other state and local officials in May over what it called “disastrous” sanctuary policies. Colorado law bars local police officers from asking a person for their immigration status, arresting someone based only on that status and giving that personal information to federal authorities.
“It is immaterial to whether or not you were doing 55 in a 45, where you were born, and so we don’t ask for that information,” Johnston said. “We don’t have that information.” On Thursday, he remained adamant that Denver had not violated any laws. Bondi’s allegations, he said, are “false and offensiveOn Thursday, Trump reiterated his pledge to pursue similar crime crackdowns in Democratic-led cities.
In an interview last week with Fox News, Bondi suggested a takeover could be on the table for any city the administration deems out of compliance with federal immigration laws. “You better be abiding by our federal policies and with our federal law enforcement, because if you aren’t, we’re going to come after you,” she said.
Numerous city and state officials in their letters to Bondi questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s threats against their jurisdictions, with some pointedly critical of Trump’s actions in D.C. and in Los Angeles, where the president — despite the opposition of state and local officials — activated National Guard troops amid protests over the administration’s immigration arrests.
Responding to a letter sent to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), Ann Spillane, the governor’s general counsel, noted federal courts had repeatedly upheld an Illinois law that restricts state law enforcement involvement in immigration enforcement. Spillane said that Illinois officers’ primary focus is fighting crime and that they routinely cooperate with federal law enforcement on those issues. “We have not observed that type of coordination with local law enforcement in Washington, D.C. or Los Angeles,” Spillane wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Post.
Bondi’s letters also arrived at the offices of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston (D). Trump homed in on the state during the presidential race last year, baselessly claiming one of its cities had been overrun by Venezuelan gangs.
Johnston’s city has already lost millions in federal grants intended for migrant shelters, and the Justice Department sued him, Polis, and other state and local officials in May over what it called “disastrous” sanctuary policies. Colorado law bars local police officers from asking a person for their immigration status, arresting someone based only on that status and giving that personal information to federal authorities.
“It is immaterial to whether or not you were doing 55 in a 45, where you were born, and so we don’t ask for that information,” Johnston said. “We don’t have that information.” On Thursday, he remained adamant that Denver had not violated any laws. Bondi’s allegations, he said, are “false and offensive.”
In his letter to Bondi, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) questioned Bondi’s demand that he identify how he’s working to eliminate laws, policies and practices that she claimed impede federal immigration enforcement.
“In a democracy, governors do not unilaterally ‘eliminate laws.’ The role of the executive is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not to pick and choose which to follow,” wrote Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president. “In Minnesota, we take pride in following the law.”
New York Mayor Eric Adams, who promised to toughen immigration enforcement in his city after the Trump administration dropped corruption charges against him this spring, did not respond directly to Bondi’s letter. The task was passed on to the city’s corporation counsel, who sent a two-paragraph letter that said the city was not thwarting federal immigration policies but operating under a “system of federalism” that means states and cities do not have to undertake federal mandates.
Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokeswoman for Adams, said the city was taking Trump’s threat to possibly target New York seriously and preparing for any scenario. But she declined to reveal what that playbook might look like.
In Washington, Ferguson, who previously served as the state’s attorney general before he was elected governor in November, said he had anticipated some dramatic action from the Trump administration. Late last year, before he was sworn into office, Ferguson spoke to state finance officials to determine how the state would fare fiscally if it lost federal funding, which makes up 28 percent of the budget.
But Ferguson did not anticipate Bondi’s threat to potentially prosecute him or any other elected official in the country over differences in policy. As attorney general, he had been the first to file a lawsuit over Trump’s 2017 executive order to ban visitors and refugees from several predominantly Muslim countries.
On Tuesday, Ferguson recalled trying to reassure his 8-year-old daughter at the time, who worried something might happen to him for challenging Trump.
“I remember telling her … ‘We’re lucky to live in a country right where your dad, or any American, can speak out against the president, where your dad can file a lawsuit against the president, say things that are pretty direct about the president, be critical,’” Ferguson recalled.
It was something they shouldn’t take for granted, he told her, because in other countries people could get sent to jail for something like that.
Eight years later, Ferguson said he didn’t know what he would say to his daughter now of that freedom to challenge a president. “Maybe I’m not so sure about that,” the governor said.
Democrats are pushing back against crackdown on sanctuary cities
Some responded with strongly worded letters. Others spoke out publicly, accusing Attorney General Pam Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/08/22/sanctuary-cities-bondi
No paywall:
Washington Post: Democrats are pushing back against crackdown on sanctuary cities
Some responded with strongly worded letters. Others spoke out publicly, accusing Attorney General Pam Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors.
Democratic state and local officials are forcefully pushing back against threats from Attorney General Pam Bondi that their jurisdictions could be stripped of federal funding or they could face criminal prosecution if they don’t back away from “sanctuary” policies friendly toward suspected undocumented immigrants.
Bondi last week sent a letter to leaders of more than 30 Democratic-led cities, counties and states that accused the jurisdictions of interfering with federal immigration enforcement.
Some responded with their own strongly worded letters. Others seized the moment to speak out in a public show of resistance, accusing Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors amid the political divide over President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration tactics.
But what happens next remains deeply unclear, according to those Democratic officials, who have described the events of the past week as startling and unprecedented, even against the backdrop of the tumultuous launch of the second Trump term. They are staying mum so far about how much they are coordinating with each other to combat potential actions by the administration.
In Seattle, Mayor Bruce Harrell (D), who is seeking a second term, told The Washington Post that the Aug. 13 letter from Bondi warned that his “jurisdiction” had been “identified as one that engages in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement.” It did not reference his city by name, mention specific local laws or policy, or cite Seattle’s crime rates, which Harrell pointed out are “down in all major categories.”
Days later, he was standing behind Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson (D), who had received a nearly identical letter.
“A letter like this cannot be normalized,” Ferguson said Tuesday, speaking to reporters at the state Capitol in Olympia. He called the attorney general’s threats a “breathtaking” tactic aimed at pressuring elected officials to “bend a knee” to Trump.
Ferguson told Bondi in a letter that his state “will not be bullied or intimidated by threats and legally baseless accusations.”
On the opposite coast, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) stepped onto the plaza outside City Hall for a news conference that quickly took on the feel of an anti-Trump rally.
“Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures,” said Wu, the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants. “Boston follows the law, and Boston will not back down from who we are and what we stand for.”
The Trump administration’s intensifying efforts to identify and deport suspected undocumented immigrants include the deployment of thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in U.S. cities as they seek to meet a directive from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to make at least 3,000 arrests a day.
Bondi and other Trump administration officials have insisted on cooperation from state and local officials, including access to law enforcement facilities and, in some cases, officers as they seek to step up deportation efforts.
Trump last week ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to D.C. and has sought to expand federal control over D.C. police, claiming the city was not doing enough to stem violent crime. He has indicated that cities like Baltimore, Chicago and New York could be next, likening them to urban hellscapes ruined by crime and lawlessness. All three cities are listed as sanctuary jurisdictions on federal government websites.
On Thursday, Trump reiterated his pledge to pursue similar crime crackdowns in Democratic-led cities.
In an interview last week with Fox News, Bondi suggested a takeover could be on the table for any city the administration deems out of compliance with federal immigration laws. “You better be abiding by our federal policies and with our federal law enforcement, because if you aren’t, we’re going to come after you,” she said.
Numerous city and state officials in their letters to Bondi questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s threats against their jurisdictions, with some pointedly critical of Trump’s actions in D.C. and in Los Angeles, where the president — despite the opposition of state and local officials — activated National Guard troops amid protests over the administration’s immigration arrests.
Responding to a letter sent to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), Ann Spillane, the governor’s general counsel, noted federal courts had repeatedly upheld an Illinois law that restricts state law enforcement involvement in immigration enforcement. Spillane said that Illinois officers’ primary focus is fighting crime and that they routinely cooperate with federal law enforcement on those issues. “We have not observed that type of coordination with local law enforcement in Washington, D.C. or Los Angeles,” Spillane wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Post.
Bondi’s letters also arrived at the offices of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston (D). Trump homed in on the state during the presidential race last year, baselessly claiming one of its cities had been overrun by Venezuelan gangs.
Johnston’s city has already lost millions in federal grants intended for migrant shelters, and the Justice Department sued him, Polis, and other state and local officials in May over what it called “disastrous” sanctuary policies. Colorado law bars local police officers from asking a person for their immigration status, arresting someone based only on that status and giving that personal information to federal authorities.
“It is immaterial to whether or not you were doing 55 in a 45, where you were born, and so we don’t ask for that information,” Johnston said. “We don’t have that information.” On Thursday, he remained adamant that Denver had not violated any laws. Bondi’s allegations, he said, are “false and offensive.”
In his letter to Bondi, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) questioned Bondi’s demand that he identify how he’s working to eliminate laws, policies and practices that she claimed impede federal immigration enforcement.
“In a democracy, governors do not unilaterally ‘eliminate laws.’ The role of the executive is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not to pick and choose which to follow,” wrote Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president. “In Minnesota, we take pride in following the law.”
New York Mayor Eric Adams, who promised to toughen immigration enforcement in his city after the Trump administration dropped corruption charges against him this spring, did not respond directly to Bondi’s letter. The task was passed on to the city’s corporation counsel, who sent a two-paragraph letter that said the city was not thwarting federal immigration policies but operating under a “system of federalism” that means states and cities do not have to undertake federal mandates.
Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokeswoman for Adams, said the city was taking Trump’s threat to possibly target New York seriously and preparing for any scenario. But she declined to reveal what that playbook might look like.
In Washington, Ferguson, who previously served as the state’s attorney general before he was elected governor in November, said he had anticipated some dramatic action from the Trump administration. Late last year, before he was sworn into office, Ferguson spoke to state finance officials to determine how the state would fare fiscally if it lost federal funding, which makes up 28 percent of the budget.
But Ferguson did not anticipate Bondi’s threat to potentially prosecute him or any other elected official in the country over differences in policy. As attorney general, he had been the first to file a lawsuit over Trump’s 2017 executive order to ban visitors and refugees from several predominantly Muslim countries.
On Tuesday, Ferguson recalled trying to reassure his 8-year-old daughter at the time, who worried something might happen to him for challenging Trump.
“I remember telling her … ‘We’re lucky to live in a country right where your dad, or any American, can speak out against the president, where your dad can file a lawsuit against the president, say things that are pretty direct about the president, be critical,’” Ferguson recalled.
It was something they shouldn’t take for granted, he told her, because in other countries people could get sent to jail for something like that.
Eight years later, Ferguson said he didn’t know what he would say to his daughter now of that freedom to challenge a president. “Maybe I’m not so sure about that,” the governor said.
Democrats are pushing back against crackdown on sanctuary cities
Some responded with strongly worded letters. Others spoke out publicly, accusing Attorney General Pam Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/08/22/sanctuary-cities-bondi
Also here without the paywall:
Slingshot News: ‘I Will Find Out’: Pam Bondi Exposes Her Incompetence, Admits She Has Not Secured Sensitive FBI Data In House Hearing
‘I Will Find Out’: Pam Bondi Exposes Her Incompetence, Admits She Has Not Secured Sensitive FBI Data In House Hearing
During a recent hearing held by the House Appropriate Committee several weeks ago, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi admitted to Congressman Frank Mrvan (D-IN) that she has no idea where potentially sensitive information from the FBI went to. “I will find out, and I will get you that information,” Bondi stated.
Daily Beast: U.S. Citizen: I Was Seized by ICE and Held for Days Without Water
Andrea Velez spent two days in a Los Angeles detention center despite telling ICE officers that she is a U.S. citizen.
An American citizen has told how she was held by ICE for 48 hours, claiming she was denied water despite proving her legal status.
Andrea Velez, 32, had just arrived at work in Downtown Los Angeles on June 24 when agents grabbed her and forced her into a car.
Velez told NBC4 News Los Angeles that an immigration raid was going on when she was slammed to the ground. Velez, a graduate of Cal Poly Pomona, who works in fashion was taken into custody while her mother, Margarita Flores, screamed at agents to stop.
“She’s a U.S. citizen,” Velez’s mother, an immigrant from Mexico, said through tears. “They’re taking her. Help her, someone.”
Velez said she was sitting in a detention center and was given nothing to drink for 24 hours. In total she spent two days in detention. She said that the ordeal has left her unable to physically return to work.
“I’m taking things day by day,” she told the station.
The incident had been notorious from the beginning. LAPD officers were called to the scene because it was reported as a “kidnapping” but did not intervene when it became clear it was an ICE action—even though it was against a U.S. citizen, ABC& Los Angeles previously reported.
Velez was charged with assaulting a federal officer while he was attempting to arrest a suspect. A federal criminal complaint alleged that the agent was chasing after a man but Velez stepped into the agent’s path and extended her arm “in an apparent effort to prevent him from apprehending the male subject he was chasing.” The complaint added that her arm hit the agent in the face.
The incident had been notorious from the beginning. LAPD officers were called to the scene because it was reported as a “kidnapping” but did not intervene when it became clear it was an ICE action—even though it was against a U.S. citizen, ABC& Los Angeles previously reported.
Velez was charged with assaulting a federal officer while he was attempting to arrest a suspect. A federal criminal complaint alleged that the agent was chasing after a man but Velez stepped into the agent’s path and extended her arm “in an apparent effort to prevent him from apprehending the male subject he was chasing.” The complaint added that her arm hit the agent in the face.
Velez denied wrongdoing. She said that during the incident, someone grabbed her and slammed her to the ground. She tried to tell the agent, who was in plainclothes, that she was an American citizen. But he told her she was “interfering” and he was going to arrest her.
“That’s when I asked him to show me his ID, his badge number,” she said. “I asked him if he had a warrant, and he said I didn’t need to know any of that.”
Velez said she repeatedly told ICE officers she was a U.S. citizen. When she was taken into a Los Angeles detention center, she gave officers her driver’s license and health insurance card to prove her citizenship status. She was still locked behind bars.
Velez’s family was unaware of her whereabouts for more than a day until lawyers for the family tracked her down.
Later, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismissed her case without prejudice, meaning it could be reopened if prosecutors decide to.
Velez’s attorneys told NBC Los Angeles that they are exploring legal moves against the federal government.
Between 2015 and 2020, ICE erroneously deported at least 70 U.S. citizens, arrested 674 and detained 121. It is unclear how many have been mistakenly taken amid the Trump administration’s mass campaign to deport 1 million immigrants per year.
In January, U.S. citizen Julio Noriega was looking for work in Chicago when he was swept up in the mass raids. In May, Georgia college student Ximena Arias-Cristobal was detained after police pulled over the wrong car during a traffic stop. In June, a deputy U.S. marshal was detained in Arizona because he “fit the general description of a subject being sought by ICE.” That same month, a Ph.D. student named Job Garcia was tackled and thrown to the ground by ICE for recording a raid in Los Angeles.
A recent lawsuit claims that at least three American-born children have been removed from the country. The sudden banishment includes a 4-year-old boy with stage-four kidney cancer who was receiving critical, life-saving medical treatment in the United States. He was shipped from Louisiana to Honduras in April.
The Daily Beast has reached out to ICE for comment.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the Daily Beast: “FALSE. ICE provided Andrea Velez with water, food, sanitary products, and she was given restroom breaks as needed. The media needs to stop peddling lies and smears that have led to a 1000% increase in assaults against our brave ICE officers.”
The Hill: [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi ramps up pressure on 32 ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’: Who’s on the list?
Attorney General Pam [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi said Thursday she was ramping up pressure on 32 “sanctuary jurisdictions,” urging them to comply with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
“I just sent Sanctuary City letters to 32 mayors around the country and multiple governors saying, you better be abiding by our federal policies and with our federal law enforcement, because if you aren’t, we’re going to come after you,” she told a Fox News reporter.
“And they have, I think, a week to respond to me, so let’s see who responds and how they respond. It starts at the top, and our leaders have to support our law enforcement,” she added.
The measure comes after an Aug. 5 release from the Justice Department highlighting various states, cities and counties deemed noncompliant with regulations that impede enforcement of federal immigration laws.
“For too long, so-called sanctuary jurisdiction policies have undermined this necessary cooperation and obstructed federal immigration enforcement, giving aliens cover to perpetrate crimes in our communities and evade the immigration consequences that federal law requires,” [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi wrote in the letter to officials across the country.
“Any sanctuary jurisdiction that continues to put illegal aliens ahead of American citizens can either come to the table or see us in court,” [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi wrote in a post announcing the move.
She cited a late April executive order from President Trump as legal grounds for the push.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for the 32 jurisdictions that received letters from [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi.
The below jurisdictions received a letter from the Department of Justice on Aug. 5:
States:
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Illinois
- Minnesota
- Nevada
- New York
- Oregon
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- Washington
Counties:
- Baltimore County, Md.
- Cook County, Ill.
- San Diego County, Calif.
- San Francisco County, Calif.
Cities:
- Albuquerque, N.M.
- Berkeley, Calif.
- Boston
- Chicago
- Denver
- District of Columbia
- East Lansing, Mich.
- Hoboken, N.J.
- Jersey City, N.J.
- Los Angeles
- New Orleans
- New York City
- Newark, N.J.
- Paterson, N.J.
- Philadelphia
- Portland, Ore.
- Rochester, N.Y.
- Seattle
- San Francisco City
Pam Bimbo #3 Bondi is one of the stupidest women on Earth. Despite already losing a couple such cases on well-established Tenth Amendment grounds, she is now threatening to replicate her failures in 12 states, 4 counties, and 19 cities. When God passed out brains, Pam Bimbo #3 Bondi must have been hanging out near the manure spreader.
The bottom line is that the federal government can’t compel state and local governments to do its bidding. If the state and local governments don’t wish to comply or assist, the federal government must do its own dirty work.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5454204-bondi-immigration-enforcement-urge
Associated Press: Trump’s rhetoric about DC echoes a history of racist narratives about urban crime
President Donald Trump has taken control of D.C.’s law enforcement and ordered National Guard troops to deploy onto the streets of the nation’s capital, arguing the extraordinary moves are necessary to curb an urgent public safety crisis.
Even as district officials questioned the claims underlying his emergency declaration, the Republican president promised a “historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.” His rhetoric echoed that used by conservatives going back decades who have denounced cities, especially those with majority non-white populations or led by progressives, as lawless or crime-ridden and in need of outside intervention.
“This is liberation day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capital back,” Trump promised Monday.
As D.C. the National Guard arrived at their headquarters Tuesday, for many residents, the prospect of federal troops surging into neighborhoods represented an alarming violation of local agency. To some, it echoes uncomfortable historical chapters when politicians used language to paint historically or predominantly Black cities and neighborhoods with racist narratives to shape public opinion and justify aggressive police action.
April Goggans, a longtime D.C. resident and grassroots organizer, said she was not surprised by Trump’s actions. Communities had been preparing for a potential federal crackdown in D.C. since the summer of 2020, when Trump deployed troops during racial justice protests after the murder of George Floyd.
“We have to be vigilant,” said Goggans, who has coordinated local protests for nearly a decade. She worries about what a surge in law enforcement could mean for residents’ freedoms.
“Regardless of where you fall on the political scale, understand that this could be you, your children, your grandmother, your co-worker who are brutalized or have certain rights violated,” she said.
Other residents reacted with mixed feelings to Trump’s executive order. Crime and homelessness has been a top concern for residents in recent years, but opinions on how to solve the issue vary. And very few residents take Trump’s catastrophic view of life in D.C.
“I think Trump’s trying to help people, some people,” said Melvin Brown, a D.C. resident. “But as far as (him) trying to get (the) homeless out of this city, that ain’t going to work.”
“It’s like a band-aid to a gunshot wound,” said Melissa Velasquez, a commuter into D.C. “I feel like there’s been an increase of racial profiling and stuff, and so it’s concerning for individuals who are worried about how they might be perceived as they go about their day-to-day lives.”
Uncertainty raises alarms
According to White House officials, troops will be deployed to protect federal assets and facilitate a safe environment for law enforcement to make arrests. The Trump administration believes the highly visible presence of law enforcement will deter violent crime. It is unclear how the administration defines providing a safe environment for law enforcement to conduct arrests, raising alarm bells for some advocates.
“The president foreshadowed that if these heavy-handed tactics take root here, they will be rolled out to other majority-Black and Brown cities, like Chicago, Oakland and Baltimore, across the country,” said Monica Hopkins, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s D.C. chapter.
“We’ve seen before how federal control of the D.C. National Guard and police can lead to abuse, intimidation and civil rights violations — from military helicopters swooping over peaceful racial justice protesters in 2020 to the unchecked conduct of federal officers who remain shielded from full accountability,” Hopkins said.
A history of denigrating language
Conservatives have for generations used denigrating language to describe the condition of major cities and called for greater law enforcement, often in response to changing demographics in those cities driven by nonwhite populations relocating in search of work or safety from racial discrimination and state violence. Republicans have called for greater police crackdowns in cities since at least the 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles.
President Richard Nixon won the White House in 1968 after campaigning on a “law and order” agenda to appeal to white voters in northern cities alongside overtures to white Southerners as part of his “Southern Strategy.” Ronald Reagan similarly won both his presidential elections after campaigning heavily on law and order politics. Politicians, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former President Bill Clinton have cited the need to tamp down crime as a reason to seize power from liberal cities for decades.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called Trump’s takeover of local police “unsettling” but not without precedent. Bowser kept a mostly measured tone during a Monday news conference but decried Trump’s reasoning as a “so-called emergency,” saying residents “know that access to our democracy is tenuous.”
Trump threatened to “take over” and “beautify” D.C. on the campaign trail and claimed it was “a nightmare of murder and crime.” He also argued the city was “horribly run” and said his team intended “to take it away from the mayor.” Trump on Monday repeated old comments about some of the nation’s largest cities, including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland and his hometown of New York City. All are currently run by Black mayors.
“You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities in a very bad, New York is a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don’t even mention that anymore. They’re so far gone. We’re not going to let it happen,” he said.
Civil rights advocates see the rhetoric as part of a broader political strategy.
“It’s a playbook he’s used in the past,” said Maya Wiley, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Trump’s rhetoric “paints a picture that crime is out of control, even when it is not true, then blames the policies of Democratic lawmakers that are reform- and public safety-minded, and then claims that you have to step in and violate people’s rights or demand that reforms be reversed,” Wiley said.
She added that the playbook has special potency in D.C. because local law enforcement can be directly placed under federal control, a power Trump invoked in his announcement.
Leaders call the order an unjustified distraction
Trump’s actions in Washington and comments about other major cities sent shock waves across the country, as other leaders prepare to respond to potential federal action.
Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement that Trump’s plan “lacks seriousness and is deeply dangerous” and pointed to a 30-year-low crime rate in Baltimore as a reason the administration should consult local leaders rather than antagonize them. In Oakland, Mayor Barbara Lee called Trump’s characterization of the city “fearmongering.”
The administration already faced a major flashpoint between local control and federal power earlier in the summer, when Trump deployed National Guard troops to quell protests and support immigration enforcement operations in LA despite opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass.
Civil rights leaders have denounced Trump’s action in D.C. as an unjustified distraction.
“This president campaigned on ‘law and order,’ but he is the president of chaos and corruption,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson. “There’s no emergency in D.C., so why would he deploy the National Guard? To distract us from his alleged inclusion in the Epstein files? To rid the city of unhoused people? D.C. has the right to govern itself. It doesn’t need this federal coup.”
Trump’s rhetoric about DC echoes a history of racist narratives about urban crime
President Donald Trump’s rhetoric in his federal takeover of Washington police echoes that of conservative politicians going back decades who’ve denounced American cities with majority non-white populations or progressive leaders as crime-ridden and in need of outside intervention.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-washington-dc-takeover-race-39388597bad7e70085079888fe7fb57b
NBC News: Immigration raid fears trigger Latino student absences, as experts warn of consequences
Chronic absenteeism affects children’s health and outcomes, as well as classmates and school resources, experts say, as some districts try to stem families’ fears of going to school.
As the new school year approaches, the typical worries of getting supplies and organizing schedules are compounded for families of mixed immigration status: wondering whether or not to send their children to class due to fears of an immigration raid at the school.
“I’ve heard so many people ask what to do, whether to take them or not, because of all these fears,” Oreana, a mother of four children enrolled in schools in Phoenix, Arizona, told Noticias Telemundo.
The fact that places like churches and schools are no longer considered “sensitive” spaces from immigration enforcement actions “causes a lot of fear,” the Venezuelan woman said.
Up until late January, when President Donald Trump took office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s operations had been restricted in churches, schools and hospitals.
The Trump administration has defended its decision to allow immigration raids in formerly sensitive locations, such as schools. “ICE does not typically conduct immigration enforcement activities at schools or school buses,” the agency told NBC News in March, adding that an immigration action near a school would be from a “case-by-case determination.”
But fear of possible immigration raids in schools isn’t just coming from parents. This past weekend, the Los Angeles Teachers Union held a protest to demand that the district do more to protect students from immigrant families.
Last semester, uneasiness following immigration raids resulted in more students missing school, according to Thomas S. Dee, a specialist in the School of Education at Stanford University.
Dee published an analysis in June whose results indicate that “recent raids coincided with a 22 percent increase in daily student absences” in California’s Central Valley, an agricultural area that’s home to many immigrant farmworkers.
The school absences were especially notable among preschool and elementary students, he noted, an age when parents are more likely to take them to school.
“We saw, when the raids began, a sharp increase in student absences that was very distinctive from the typical patterns we’d see across the school year,” Dee said in an interview with Noticias Telemundo, “and in particular relative to those baselines that we’d seen in prior years.”
What the numbers show
Beyond California, states like Washington state and Illinois have seen similar situations in some school districts.
In the suburbs of Seattle, the impact is notorious in the Highline district, which operates nearly 30 schools. There, data shows that chronic absenteeism — missing more than 10% of a class period — rose to 48% for the school year that ended in July, reversing gains the district had made over the previous two years in reducing K-12 absentee rates.
In Chicago, high school educators also reported 20% lower attendance compared to the previous year.
But Hispanic K-12 students were already likely to accumulate more absences before Trump’s second term. Some factors include going to work at an earlier age to support the family, health-related reasons or having to care for a family member during school hours.
In Illinois, Hispanic students had the second-highest chronic absenteeism rate throughout 2024, at 33%, compared to 26% across all demographic groups, according to data from the State Board of Education. Noticias Telemundo contacted the board and Illinois districts to obtain updated data through June 2025, but didn’t receive a response.
The current situation adds to disruptions to schooling that have been taking place since the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in widespread academic delays.
“We’re in an environment where we’ve seen historic losses in student achievement, sustained increases in chronic absenteeism, as well as a notable increase in the mental health challenges that youth are facing,” Dee said. “And so I see these immigration raids as only adding to the already considerable challenges of academic recovery that schools are currently facing.”
Fewer resources, more anxiety
Being absent several times during a school year has a considerable impact on a student’s education.
“Such extensive absences lead not only to poor academic performance; they often lead to students dropping out of school. And the impact of dropping out of high school is profound,” the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) stated via email.
The association highlighted that earnings for those who don’t graduate from high school are considerably lower than for those who do.
The impact, experts have said, goes beyond the classroom.
“Attending school regularly is one of the most powerful predictors of long term health, well-being and success,” Josh Sharfstein of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, said at a conference in mid-June.
This is because absences can affect children’s emotional and intellectual development, as well as their education. For example, they can trigger anxiety disorders that further harm children’s well-being and further encourage school absences.
Several associations have launched a campaign calling for school absences to be considered a public health problem.
“When multiple students in a classroom are chronically absent, the churn in the classroom affects everyone, even peers who had good attendance. It makes it harder for teachers to teach and set classroom norms, as well as for students to connect with each other,” said Hedy Chang, executive director of the Attendance Works group, which is leading a campaign launched in June.
Chronic absenteeism due to fears of immigration raids can have a knock-on economic effect, according to Dee.
“This also has financial implications for school districts,” he said. California is one of a handful of states that bases aid, in part, on average daily attendance, according to Dee, so when fewer kids show, that means fewer resources.
“I would expect that to have pejorative economic consequences for these communities as well as for the financial viability of the school districts serving them,” Dee said.
In many districts, repeated offenses related to absenteeism can also lead to youth being sent to truancy court. There, penalties can range from paying fines to serving time in juvenile detention.
Latino, Black and Indigenous youth in the U.S. are already more frequently referred to truancy court than non-Hispanic white students, in part because the former demographic groups’ absences are more likely to be recorded as “unjustified or unexcused,” research shows.
Preventive strategies
In response to long-standing concerns about truancy, there are strategies to combat absenteeism.
“There are many steps districts, schools, families and community partners can take to improve attendance,” said Chang, of Attendance Works.
At a Connecticut school where attendance fell early in the year due to fears of immigration raids, truancy was successfully curbed toward the end of the semester with measures such as directly contacting families and developing contingency plans.
These strategies include reaching out to community leaders, such as local church figures or food bank workers, who have contact with certain families to help encourage them to continue sending their children to school.
Another strategy that school principals belonging to NASSP say has helped is maintaining close contact with students — for example, calling their families’ homes to check on them.
Experts hope that these kinds of measures can help address the issue of absences in students of mixed immigration status who are afraid of potential immigration raids.
“In some districts, we’ve heard from students who can’t attend classes regularly right now for reasons like fear of raids, and they’ve been offered virtual learning,” Dee said. “I think educators need to be more aware of the challenges their students are currently facing due to these issues.”
For now, with protests like the one the teachers’ union held in Los Angeles, additional options are being explored, such as a districtwide campaign to educate parents about the importance of sharing an emergency contact with school administrators in case a parent is deported while the child is at school.
In the Highline school district in Washington state, communications manager Tove Tupper said in an email they’re “committed to protecting the rights and dignity of all students, families, and staff” and ensure all students “have a right to a public education, as protected by law,” regardless of citizenship or immigration status.
