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.”
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
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5454204-bondi-immigration-enforcement-urge
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.”
https://apnews.com/article/trump-washington-dc-takeover-race-39388597bad7e70085079888fe7fb57b
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.
From her room on the third floor of the Sonesta Chicago O’Hare Airport Rosemont hotel, Valentina Galvis could see flight crews and travelers coming and going. Families enjoyed summer dining on the outdoor patio. Friends snapped selfies commemorating their stays. Children fidgeted as they waited for shuttles to deliver them to the nearby airport.
But for Galvis and her seven-month-old son, the hotel was not a vacation — it was a jail. The phone had been removed from the room, and Galvis had no way to contact the outside world. Private guards contracted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stood watch at all times. She had no idea when she and her son Naythan, who is a U.S. citizen, would ever get to leave.
Galvis and her son were detained at the Sonesta for five days in early June after they were apprehended at the Chicago Immigration Court by federal agents.
“I was sad, confused, and often terrified,” Galvis said. “I wanted to call my husband, my attorney, or anyone at all to let them know where I was.”
In screenshots taken by family members and reviewed by Injustice Watch and The Intercept, Galvis appeared on the ICE locator to be held over 700 miles away in Washington, D.C.
Galvis’s detention at the airport hotel came as federal immigration authorities have rounded up more than 100,000 immigrants nationwide in an effort to meet arrest targets set out by the Trump administration. The spike in immigration arrests has overwhelmed detention centers around the country: Immigrants have been packed into overcrowded holding cells, forced to sleep on floors, and subjected to “unlivable” conditions at a hastily built detention camp in the Florida Everglades.
Though a hotel may seem preferable to these conditions, advocates said Galvis’s detention raises concerns about what types of facilities are being turned into de facto detention centers and how many people are quietly held in Illinois.
Xanat Sobrevilla, who works with Organized Communities Against Deportations, says it’s not the first time she’s heard of an Illinois mother of an infant baby appearing to be in Washington, D.C. — which has no detention center.
“We know we can’t trust the ICE detainee locator,” she said. “People get lost in this system.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., called the false location listing “chilling” and likened the secretive hotel detention to a “kidnapping.”
Illinois and Chicago have some of the nation’s strongest laws aimed at protecting immigrants like Galvis by prohibiting state and local agencies from cooperating with ICE. But her and Naythan’s detention at the Sonesta shows the limits of the state’s efforts to block ICE detention. The federal government can still use commercial facilities like hotel rooms to hold individuals and families in its custody.
“Nothing that the states or local governments can do will stop ICE from carrying out its operations,” said Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel at Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who has backed legislation that defends immigrants in the state, declined to comment.
Ramirez said private companies are violating the spirit of sanctuary legislation — and she called for a state investigation into what happened with Galvis.
“This requires the [Illinois] attorney general to conduct an investigation and to consider what legal action must be taken in the state of Illinois” against the security company that detained Galvis and Naythan as well as the hotel they were confined in, Ramirez said.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement to Injustice Watch, Sonesta, one of the world’s largest hotel chains, asserted it “has no knowledge of any illegal detentions at any hotels in the Sonesta portfolio.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to requests for comment.
ICE Detention by Another Name
Galvis doesn’t remember the name of the company the civilian guards said they worked for. But she recognized a photo of JoAnna Granado, an employee for MVM Inc., a longtime ICE contractor with active contracts to transport children and families and a track record of confining unaccompanied migrant children in office buildings as well as in hotels. Granado confirmed to Injustice Watch and The Intercept that she transported Galvis and her son from the Sonesta O’Hare. MVM did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
Since fiscal year 2020, MVM has entered into contracts worth more than $1.3 billion from ICE — the vast majority of it for the transportation of immigrant children and families.
In 2020, when an attorney for the Texas Civil Rights Project attempted to reach unaccompanied children being held in a McAllen hotel, he was physically turned away. ICE acknowledged MVM was at the hotel in question. The Texas Civil Rights Project and the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration, and the government ultimately transferred the children out of the hotel.
More recently, attorneys filed suit against MVM last year for enforced disappearance, torture, and child abduction — among other claims — for its role during the first Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy that separated thousands of children from their parents near the border. The company’s effort to get the case dismissed failed.
Calls to the Sonesta O’Hare in June and July after Galvis’s release confirmed that MVM had rooms there.
ICE’s standards for temporary housing allow for the use of hotel suites to hold noncitizens “due to exigent circumstances including travel delays, lack of other bedspace, delay of receipt of travel documents, medical issues, or other unforeseen circumstances.” The standards require ICE or its contractors to explain to the detainee why they are at the hotel and how long they will be there, and to inform the detainee of the right to file a grievance, as well as “unlimited availability of unmonitored telephone calls to family, friends, and legal representatives” and various oversight agencies. Galvis said she wasn’t allowed to make any calls and was never told she was able to file a complaint.
In its statement, Sonesta said that “all guest rooms at the property have a telephone and seating” at the O’Hare hotel.
Two Sonesta O’Hare workers said they were familiar with MVM — one added that the company had a special rate there. (In a phone call with Injustice Watch, Sonesta O’Hare’s general manager, Sandra Wolf, said she was “unaware” of MVM or the confinement of detainees at her hotel.)
Calls to other airport Sonesta hotels suggest that MVM’s detention of immigrants may be more widespread.
When called in June, a front-desk worker at the Sonesta Atlanta Airport South in Georgia said that MVM usually has rooms at the hotel. On a call, an attendant at the Sonesta Select Los Angeles LAX El Segundo immediately recognized the company name and explained that MVM books rooms at a nearby property.
A front-desk agent at the nearby Sonesta Los Angeles Airport LAX acknowledged by phone that MVM regularly has rooms at the hotel. The hotel’s general manager Robert Routh later said he’d never heard of MVM and wasn’t familiar with the practice of holding ICE detainees in his hotel.
In a written statement, Sonesta wrote that it “does not condone illegal behavior of any kind at its hotels, and we endeavor to comply with the law and with law enforcement in the event of any suspected illegal behavior at any property within the Sonesta portfolio.” The company declined to answer questions about whether it has any contractual obligations to MVM or whether MVM received a special rate at its hotels.
Snatched From Immigration Court
Galvis knew before she went to Chicago’s immigration court on Thursday, June 5, from news and social media reports that ICE had been arresting people like her when they had shown up to court for their immigration cases.
But her husband, Camilo, a long-haul truck driver, had been granted asylum in the same court just two weeks earlier. The facts of their cases were almost identical. They had come to the U.S. together in 2022, fleeing far-right paramilitary violence in their native Colombia. Galvis had also survived a brutal assault from the paramilitary group.
So she came to the court at 55 E. Monroe Street with her infant son, Naythan, hoping to walk out without incident.
Instead, as with thousands of other immigrants in recent months, federal prosecutors asked the judge to dismiss her case, ending the asylum process. Plainclothes agents were waiting to detain her the moment she left the courtroom.
The agents shuttled Galvis and Naythan first to a nearby building, where she was fingerprinted and her phone and documents — including Naythan’s U.S. passport and birth certificate — were seized. Mother and son were then taken to an initial hotel where they spent several hours late into Thursday night. She was told that they would be flown to Texas before dawn on Friday — the sole detention center, ICE claimed, that could accommodate families. She was allowed one call to her husband; in a call that lasted a few seconds, she told him she was heading to Texas.
The terror that Naythan might be torn away consumed her thoughts. She could endure detention and deportation alongside her son, Galvis said. Without him, she believed grief alone might kill her.
Around 2:30 a.m., two people dressed in civilian clothing arrived. They said their names were Alejandro and Lori and told Galvis in Spanish that they worked for a private company, though Galvis doesn’t remember which one. They encouraged her to ask any questions about her case to the ICE agents while she still had the chance, because the two of them wouldn’t be able to answer them.
Soon after, they brought Galvis and Naythan to the Sonesta, where they would spend the next five days cut off from the outside world.
They were held in a two-room suite and monitored at all times by one or two civilian guards, sometimes Alejandro and Lori and sometimes others. They were given fast food: Panera Bread, Subway, McDonald’s; Galvis picked out little pieces of vegetables to feed to her son, who was just beginning to eat solid foods.
On Friday, the day after she and Naythan were detained by ICE, Galvis’s attorney William G. McLean III filed a writ of habeas corpus, petitioning for her release. U.S. District Judge Franklin Valderrama soon ordered that the Trump administration “shall not remove Petitioners from the jurisdiction of the United States, nor shall they transfer petitioners to any judicial district outside the State of Illinois” before June 12. Judge Valderrama set an afternoon hearing for Tuesday, June 10, on the matter.
In emails reviewed by Injustice Watch and The Intercept, McLean pleaded with an ICE field officer for days to know his client’s whereabouts. “We do not know where they are located,” he wrote on Saturday. “I feel that it is very important to know that everything is OK,” he wrote the following Monday. ICE didn’t reveal his client’s location.
Galvis, meanwhile, had no idea about her lawyer’s efforts to release her. One day, she was told by one of the civilian guards that she would be deported with her son to Colombia. Other days, she said, she was told they’d be taken to Texas. She continued to fear that her son would be taken from her.
Finally, on the fifth day, Granado and another guard loaded Galvis and Naythan in a car but wouldn’t divulge where they were headed, Galvis said. While the airport was only minutes away, she noticed the navigation system indicated a 40-minute drive. Her heart sank, thinking they were taking her to a new location where her son could be taken from her.
Galvis kept quiet in the car, caressing Naythan and silently praying. As they approached their destination, Granado turned to her, Galvis said.
“I think they’re going to let you go,” Galvis remembered her saying.
Galvis didn’t believe her. But moments later, she was at the Department of Homeland Security’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office in Chicago. Agents gave her paperwork, including some of Naythan’s documents, and placed an electronic bracelet monitor on her wrist. Relief overcame her, mixed with uncertainty about what could happen next.
“I was obviously very scared of being deported, but my principal fear was being deported without my baby,” Galvis said. “I don’t think I could have survived that.”
The dismissal in Galvis’s original immigration case is on appeal, and she now has a new asylum case with a new immigration judge in the same court. Galvis has regular online and in-person check-ins. Her next immigration court date is scheduled for January.
The Trump administration plans to cut millions in security funding for Washington, D.C., despite the president also directing federal law enforcement to increase its presence in the city because of its “totally out of control” crime.
In a grant notice posted last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said that D.C.’s urban security fund would receive $25.2 million, a 44% year-over-year reduction.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, said on Friday it slashed funds to multiple cities to be consistent with the “current threat landscape.” Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Jersey City also had their security funds cut, but the decrease in D.C. was the largest for any urban area that received funding from the program last fiscal year.
DHS has “observed a shift from large-scale, coordinated attacks like 9/11 to simpler, small-scale assaults, heightening the vulnerability of soft targets and crowded spaces in urban areas.”
Violent crime in D.C. dropped by 35% between 2023 and 2024, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. said in December, stating that there were 3,388 incidents last year compared to 5,215 incidents the year before.
Crimes that saw significant drops last year included homicide, which was down 30%, sexual abuse down 22% and assault with a dangerous weapon down 27%. Robberries and burglaries slightly dropped to 8% for both.
The federal funding covers security needs in the National Capital Region, which includes D.C. and surrounding cities in Maryland and Virginia.
FEMA has $553.5 million to spend to support cities across the U.S. to boost security. It is unclear how much of the National Capital Region’s total security budget comes from that program.
In the past, local officials have used federal funds for hazmat training, hiring officers and replacing fiber in their emergency communications network, according to a 2016 report from D.C.’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.
On Thursday, Trump directed federal law enforcement to increase their presence in the nation’s capital, following a string of violent crimes, including an incident in which former DOGE staffer Edward Coristine, nicknamed “Big Balls”, was beaten in the city’s streets earlier this week.
“Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Local ‘youths’ and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released. They are not afraid of Law Enforcement because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it’s going to happen now!”
The president said that the nation’s capital “must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans and, importantly, for the World to see.”
“If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore,” he continued. “Perhaps it should have been done a long time ago, then this incredible young man, and so many others, would not have had to go through the horrors of Violent Crime.”
Comedian and television host Bill Maher pressed television personality and former clinical psychologist, Dr. Phil, on Friday about his inclusion in the Trump administration’s ongoing nationwide immigration raids.
Why It Matters
Phil McGraw or better known as Dr. Phil who is widely known for his television career, is a vocal supporter of the Trump administration. He has spoken at campaign rallies, interviewed the then-Republican candidate, and been present atImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids since Donald Trump took office in January, including operations in Chicago and Los Angeles.
The Trump administration has spearheaded a major immigration crackdown, vowing to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history. The initiative has seen an intensification of ICE raids across the country, with thousands of people detained and many deported.
What To Know
Maher, host of the HBO talk show Real Time with Bill Maher, asked his guest, Dr. Phil, about his reasoning for joining the immigration raids.
“Why are you going on these ICE raids? I don’t understand that,” Maher said. “You’re a guy who we know for so many years who has been working to put families together; to bring families who are apart and heal them. And now you’re going on raids with people who are literally separating families. Explain that to me.”
Dr. Phil quickly countered, “Well, now that’s bull****.”
Maher then interjected, “That’s not bull****…They’re not separating families?”
Dr. Phil continued, “Look, if you arrest somebody that’s a citizen, that has committed a crime or is DUI’d with a child in the backseat, do you think they don’t separate that family right then, right there? Of course they do!”
“But that’s not what’s going on,” Maher argued.
Dr. Phil then referenced part of Maher’s earlier monologue, turning to talk about how ICE agents have to wear masks because of “doxxing” concerns.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported in July that ICE agents “are facing an 830 increase in assaults from January 21st to July 14th compared with the same period in 2024.”
Dr. Phil defended the ICE agents, saying they are simply doing their jobs by carrying out the raids, saying, “They didn’t make the laws; they didn’t make that law. What are you expecting them to do, just not do their job? If you don’t like the law, change it. I don’t like that law, at all. Change the law!”
Maher then asked, “If you don’t like it then why are you going?” which drew applause from the live audience. Dr. Phil responded, “Because that is the law.”
Earlier this summer, large-scale clashes between protesters and immigration officials in Los Angeles prompted the deployment of the National Guard and U.S. Marines to the city. Dr. Phil was on the ground in Los Angeles with his TV channel, Merit TV, for the raids, while earlier in January he partook in a ride-along with border czar Tom Homan during the Chicago raids.
What People Are Saying
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement previously shared with Newsweek: “Under Secretary Noem, we are delivering on President Trump’s and the American people’s mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens to make American safe. Secretary Noem unleashed ICE to target the worst of the worst and carry out the largest deportation operation of criminal aliens in American history.”
A Department of Justice spokesperson previously told Newsweek: “The entire Trump Administration is united in fully enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, and the DOJ continues to play an important role in vigorously defending the President’s deportation agenda in court.”
What Happens Next?
Democratic leaders and human rights advocates have criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policies, citing reports of inhumane conditions in detention centers and during detention procedures. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has repeatedly defended the department and its facilities, and has called for expanding ICE’s detention capacity.
Raids are expected to continue as the administration pledges to deport people without proper documentation.
https://www.newsweek.com/bill-maher-confronts-dr-phil-joining-trump-admins-ice-raids-2111269
A tiny agency that coordinates homelessness policy across the federal government has been effectively shut down, with all its staff put on administrative leave.
“The irony here is that the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness is designed for government efficiency,” said Jeff Olivet, the body’s most recent executive director under President Biden.
Congress created it in 1987, he said, “to make sure that the federal response to homelessness is coordinated, is efficient, and reduces duplication across federal agencies.”
There were fewer than 20 employees and a budget of just over $4 million. But President Trump included it in an executive order last month on whittling parts of the federal bureaucracy to the “maximum extent” allowed by law.
Legally, the homeless agency’s authorization continues until 2028. But DOGE, the cost-cutting team overseen by Elon Musk, told its employees Monday that they’d be put on leave the next day, according to an email from one employee that was shared with NPR.
Part of the agency’s mandate is to help states and localities manage homelessness, and Olivet said that under his leadership, it focused on the record-high number of people living outside.
“Even at a time where we saw overall homelessness going up in many places,” he said, “in those communities like Dallas and Phoenix and Chicago and others, we were able to see significant reductions, or at least not increases in unsheltered homelessness.”
The agency also coordinated an intensive push to bring down homelessness among veterans, making sure they were provided housing and healthcare. Over a decade, Olivet said, veterans homelessness dropped by more than half.
“The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness has been vital in shaping effective policy to end homelessness,” Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said in a statement.
But the Trump administration plans to take a dramatically different approach to the problem.
For decades, since the first Bush administration, there was bipartisan support for getting people housing first and then offering whatever mental or addiction treatments they needed. But there’s been a growing conservative backlash to that as homelessness rates have steadily risen.
During Trump’s first term, his appointee tried to steer the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness more toward treatment options than permanent housing. But the executive director is the only political appointee at the small agency, and all others are career staff.
“He was really working against the current,” said Devon Kurtz of the Cicero Institute, a conservative think tank. “Ultimately, the inertia of it was such that it continued to be sort of a single mouthpiece for housing first.”
Kurtz supports a dramatic shift away from a housing first policy, and thinks that can happen more easily without the homeless agency.
It’s not clear if there will be a legal challenge to the move. Democratic members of Congress objected to Trump’s targeting of the agency, calling it “nonsensical.”
“At a time when housing costs and homelessness are on a historic rise, we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to ensuring every American has a safe and stable place to rest their head at night,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri said in a statement to NPR. “Unfortunately, attacks on the [agency], along with damaging cuts to federal housing programs and staff, and the President’s tumultuous tariffs, will only exacerbate this country’s housing and homelessness crisis.”
District Judge Lindsay Jenkins has dismissed a lawsuit from the Trump administration regarding sanctuary policies in Illinois and Chicago, affirming that local governments have retained the right to refuse cooperation with federal immigration enforcement under the Tenth Amendment. The ruling marks a major setback for the administration’s efforts to challenge state and city-level protections for undocumented immigrants. It upholds laws such as Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance, reinforcing local authority in guiding immigration-related policies.
The Trump administration had sued sanctuary cities in California and New York. The Department of Justice (DOJ) targeted laws such as Illinois’ Way Forward Act and Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance.
The court rejected DOJ claims that state laws violated federal authority and dismissed Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker from the case. Meanwhile, some local governments like Louisville have expressed a willingness to work with federal agencies.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Pritzker praised the ruling, claiming it upholds local laws that protect public safety and resist harmful immigration policies.
Pritzker wrote, “Illinois just beat the Trump Administration in federal court.”
Johnson stated, “This ruling affirms what we have long known: that Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance is lawful and supports public safety. The City cannot be compelled to cooperate with the Trump Administration’s reckless and inhumane immigration agenda.”
