ICE agents detained two parents, who are undocumented Mexican immigrants, and their 22-year-old son outside of Chicago as the family was on their way to celebrate their 10-year-old son’s birthday.
‘We don’t answer questions’: Teen faces agents after ICE detains parents and older brother
ICE agents detained two parents, who are undocumented Mexican immigrants, and their 22-year-old son outside of Chicago as the family was on their way to celebrate their 10-year-old son’s birthday.
‘This is what it looks like when ICE violates our First Amendment rights,’ said Kat Abughazaleh
Kat Abughazaleh, a former journalist and Democratic congressional candidate, was thrown to the ground by an ICE agent during a protest in Chicago on Friday, with video of the incident going viral.
The 26-year-old running for Congress in Illinois’s 9th District in 2026 posted videos of the incident on X, writing, “This is what it looks like when ICE violates our First Amendment rights.”
In the first video, an armed agent grabs Abughazaleh around the chest and throws her onto the road, landing on her backside.
The other shows Abughazaleh seated on the street alongside other protestors wearing face masks and holding signs.
A group of ICE agents walks up to the group, and one picks up Abughazaleh, dragging her further back. She gets up to be shoved by other agents as multiple bystanders record the interaction.
“What ICE just did to me was a violent abuse of power — and it’s still nothing compared to what they’re doing to immigrant communities,” Abughazaleh added in another post. “I’ve been fighting the right as a journalist and now I’m running for Congress to do the same in DC.
“I hope you’ll join me in this fight,” she said, providing a link to her campaign website.
Some right-wingers appeared gleeful at the assault.
“I love watching communists get body slammed by ICE,” MAGA commentator Laura Loomer posted. “Communist and Palestinian. Pick a struggle.”
Abughazaleh first made a name for herself at Media Matters for America, where she drew attention for her sharp critiques of Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Her work has also appeared in outlets like Mother Jones and The New Republic.
“First off they shot pepper balls to the ground, and then said, ‘Your First Amendment rights are on the sidewalk,'” Abughazaleh told Newsweek. “And then when we tried to get in the way of the van, they picked us up or dragged us away, for some people, shoved people. I was picked up and thrown.”
“No one was violent. No one did anything that could possibly warrant being detained by federal officers. But they didn’t care,”
ICE throws reporter, House candidate down as 400 arrested in Chicago
‘This is what it looks like when ICE violates our First Amendment rights,’ said Kat Abughazaleh
ICE arrested more people in Chicago’s western suburbs Wednesday and a dramatic raid in Naperville caused a chaotic situation, according to witnesses.
Witnesses said federal agents appeared to target a suburban roof repair to the distress of workers and many Cress Creek residents.
The agents converged on a two-story home early Wednesday afternoon without warning, sending roofers running in all directions.
Bobby Fischer said his Naperville home has a giant hole in the roof and no one to fix it after the ICE operation sent roofers running in all directions.
“Our neighbors witnessed agents with guns drawn running down a residential street, which seems irresponsible,” Fischer said.
He and his family were not home when ICE arrived as they were out celebrating a birthday. They came home to an abandoned work site with all the roofers inexplicably gone.
Neighbors quickly caught the Fischers up on what happened.
One of the roofers, who did not want to reveal his identity, told WGN-TV the ICE agents were heavy-handed, in his opinion, as they took many of the roofers into custody.
“They commenced to attack us, to throw us onto the ground,” the roofer said.
That roofer, a 32-year-old father, is still shaken and was barely able to finish his conversation as he was overcome with emotion.
“Some of them are fathers,” he said. “It’s very hard what is happening. It’s a lot of harm that they’re doing to us.”
Fischer wishes agents could have used more discretion and done this at a safer location without putting the roofers or the neighborhood in harm’s way.
“There shouldn’t be anything wrong with guys making a living. I don’t care if they’re documented,” Fischer said.
WGN-TV reached out to ICE for comment, but has not yet heard back.
Meanwhile, people in Cicero, Wheaton and Naperville spotted ICE’s arrest teams taking some people into custody and caught some of it on video.
Witnesses described a group of masked individuals trying to get others to come out of their vehicle in a Mendard’s parking lot off Aurora Avenue.
One man who spoke with WGN-TV said the masked men had no visible ID badges as they tried to make an arrest.
Community rapid response teams in Wheaton converged on a parking lot near Roosevelt as federal agents worked to arrest what Homeland Security described as “illegal criminal aliens.”‘
The local response team, however, questioned the ICE agents and demanded to see judicial warrants. The ICE agents soon left and abandoned their effort, according to witnesses.
ICE agents also continue to stake out local jails, looking to detain people as they’re released from custody.
Video obtained by WGN Investigates shows agents in the public library of the Kane County Jail in St. Charles, taking a man into custody on Wednesday.
It’s unclear why the man had been in jail, or why ICE agents targeted him.
ICE agents target roofers in Chicago suburb, leaving workers and residents shaken
DHS boss Kristi [“Bimbo #2”] Noem joined law enforcement on a raid in which U.S. citizens were detained.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi [“Bimbo #2”] Noem could be subpoenaed after she joined a blundering ICE raid in which two U.S. citizens were wrongly detained, according to a former prosecutor.
[“Bimbo #2”] Noem—dubbed ICE Barbie for her love of dolling up in military gear for photo-ops—was present when the Americans were detained by her masked goons Tuesday as part of her ongoing “Operation Midway Blitz” in the Chicago area.
The embarrassing episode—which took place on Mexican Independence Day—prompted a former federal prosecutor to warn that Noem could be compelled to testify.
Joyce Vance—the former U.S. attorney in Alabama during the Obama administration and now an NBC and MSNBC legal analyst—argued in her Civil Discourse newsletter that Noem’s presence in an active operation potentially makes her a witness, opening the door to defense and civil lawyers seeking her testimony.
She wrote that [“Bimbo #2”] Noem’s on-scene involvement was “dangerous” and apparently done for “a photo op.”
“[“Bimbo #2”] Noem, too, should be concerned about the security risk her presence creates,” Vance wrote. “Furthermore, if [“Bimbo #2”] Noem accompanied agents to the scene, as the reporting indicates, she made herself a witness. If I’m a criminal defense lawyer for one of the men or a plaintiff’s lawyer in a civil suit, I’m cutting the subpoena for her testimony pronto.”
“This is why smart prosecutors know better than to go along when a search warrant is executed, let alone an attorney general or a Cabinet secretary,” Vance added. “But [“Bimbo #2”] Noem likes her photo ops.”
In typical fashion, [“Bimbo #2”] Noem has leaned into the cameras throughout Operation Midway Blitz.
[“Bimbo #2”] Noem boasted that she was “on the ground in Chicago” Tuesday as agents arrested what the department called “the worst of the worst.”
Coverage of the operation in Elgin, Illinois, noted that two U.S. citizens were cuffed and later released. [“Bimbo #2”] Noem posted footage herself on X.
However, one of those detained was Texas-born Joe Botello.
“I’m just blessed that I’m still alive,” the 37-year-old told theChicago Tribune, describing how armed and masked agents had smashed down his door and handcuffed him and his friends.
“I’ve been hearing it and seeing it through social media. But it never crossed my mind that it was going to happen here at the house… where I live.”
CBS News reported that a second U.S. citizen was also arrested during the raid. After showing their IDs, they were both released.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, a DHS spokesperson denied any “arrest” of U.S. citizens in the operation, insisting the men were held only “for their and officers’ safety… [which] is standard protocol.”
[“Bimbo #2”] Noem’s own video did not acknowledge the mistake.
ICE Barbie Could Be Hit With Subpoena After Photo Op Flub: Ex-Prosecutor
DHS boss Kristi [“Bimbo #2”] Noem joined law enforcement on a raid in which U.S. citizens were detained.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also speculated about the president’s neurological health during a separate conversation.
President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) traded barbs on social media on Tuesday, with plenty of name-calling.
Trump trashed Newsom as “Newscum” ― a name he often uses for the governor ― while Newsom’s press office accused the president of suffering from dementia.
At least one other Democratic governor, Illinois’ JB Pritzker, also suggested the president may have “some” dementia during an unrelated discussion on Tuesday.
Trump lashed out at Newsom in a lengthy post on Truth Social, claiming the governor is “is in final stages of approval” for low-income housing in the “super luxury” Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles after the devastating fires earlier this year.
He also claimed Newsom “allowed their houses to burn” by “not accepting” water from the Pacific Northwest.
During a recent bilateral meeting with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, Donald Trump hypocritically ranted about California Governor Gavin Newsom and his body language, specifically his hand gestures. Trump, who is known for wildly flailing his hands like he’s playing the accordion, should be the last person to call others out on their hand gestures.
A federal judge who ruled last week that the Trump administration broke federal law by sending National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area said Tuesday he will not immediately consider a request to bar the ongoing use of 300 Guard troops.
In a court order, Senior District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said he was not sure he had the authority to consider California’s motion for a preliminary injunction blocking the administration’s further deployment of state National Guard troops. That’s because the case is on appeal before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the judge said.
Breyer indefinitely paused all proceedings related to the state’s motion, though he suggested California officials could file the request with the 9th Circuit.
An email to the California attorney general’s office late Tuesday was not immediately returned.
Breyer’s Sept. 2 ruling took on heightened importance amid President Donald Trump’s talk of National Guard deployments to other Democratic-led cities like Chicago, Baltimore and New York. Trump has already deployed the Guard as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover targeting crime, immigration and homelessness in Washington, where he has direct legal control over the District of Columbia National Guard.
The Trump administration sent troops to the Los Angeles area in early June after days of protests over immigration raids.
Breyer ruled the administration “willfully” broke federal law, saying the government knew “they were ordering troops to execute domestic law beyond their usual authority” while using “armed soldiers ( whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles.”
He did not require the 300 remaining soldiers to leave but pointed out that they received improper training and ordered the administration to stop using them “to execute the laws.” The order that applies only to California was supposed to take effect Sept. 12, but the 9th Circuit has put it on hold for now.
California later sought a preliminary injunction blocking an Aug. 5 order from the administration extending the deployment of the 300 troops for another 90 days.
The further deployment “would ensure that California’s residents will remain under a form of military occupation until early November,” including while voting on Nov. 4 on whether to adopt new congressional maps — “an election with national attention and significance,” state officials said in a court filing.
Judge pauses California’s request to bar Trump administration’s ongoing use of National Guard troops
A federal judge who ruled last week that the Trump administration broke federal law by sending National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area says he will not immediately consider a request to bar the ongoing use of 300 Guard troops.
ABC News goes inside the ICE immigration crackdown underway in Chicago, where roughly 300 agents swept through the city to track suspected Tren de Aragua gang members accused of selling guns.
An Irish woman who has been living in the US since she was a child faces deportation over a ‘bad’ $25 cheque she wrote a decade ago.
Donna Brown, 58, who emigrated nearly 50 years ago, is being held by Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement – known as ICE – and faces being sent back to Ireland.
Her husband, Jim Brown, said his wife, an Irish citizen born in England, moved to America when she was 11 and is a legal resident alien, but not a U.S. citizen. The couple married eight years ago, which he believes should also protect her from being deported.
Mr Brown told his local TV station in Missouri: ‘It’s just not fair that you’re telling me I have to be a bachelor the rest of my life because of some stupid policy.’
In July, Donna was arrested at customs in Chicago on her return from Ireland after a family funeral. Her husband said: ‘You don’t arrest 58-year-old grandmothers. It’s just wrong. She hasn’t committed crimes.’
She has now spent more than 30 days in jail in Kentucky as the US government moves to deport her, which Mr Brown fears will happen.
‘It’s egregious that we have allowed a government to allow this to happen,’ he said.
‘It’s egregious that we have allowed a government to allow this to happen,’ he said.
Legal documents for her arrest say that ten years ago, Donna wrote a bad cheque for $25. However, she paid the money back and was given probation. But Mr Brown said the US government is now arguing that was a ‘crime of moral turpitude’.
US courts say a ‘crime of moral turpitude… refers generally to conduct that shocks the public conscience as being inherently base, vile or depraved, contrary to the rules of morality’. It has been used in the past against former IRA members who did not declare their crimes to immigration.
Mr Brown believes his wife’s arrest is a direct result of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policies.
‘I think it’s nonsense. I think it’s a blanket thing to catch everybody, to fill [jail] beds. They signed a stupid bill that is torturing innocent people, and that’s the problem,’ he said. He is now protesting at what he calls his wife’s ‘deplorable’ conditions in jail and is campaigning for her release.
‘She’s been in this country 47 years, is married, with five kids and five grandkids, and you’re telling me she’s a flight risk? I want somebody to have the guts and the fortitude to stand up and say, “You know what? This is wrong”,’ he said.
‘It’s crazy that this is happening. It’s just crazy that this is even allowed in this country. That’s the problem. It shouldn’t even be thought that this should be okay,’ he said.
Mr Brown, a veteran who served 20 years in the military, said he won’t stop fighting for his wife. ‘My wife is not a criminal,’ he said. He is now caring for their horses on their nine-acre farm near Troy, Missouri.
A GoFundMe for Donna states it was created to help prepare and support her husband’s ‘fight for justice and freedom of his wife, Donna Hughes-Brown, who was wrongly detained and incarcerated this past July.
‘The goal is to raise the resources necessary to cover the lawyers and court fees, and help Jim and Donna navigate these difficult, stressful and expensive times,’ the appeal reads.
‘Jim and Donna are both very strong supporters and helpers of our community. They are often involved with multiple volunteer organisations and projects. They both are hard-working, honest, and caring individuals. They are good servers of God; humble people who are always willing to help, and kind friends that share knowledge and wisdom with anyone in need.’
In May of this year, Cliona Ward was released from custody in the US where she had been arrested after she returned from visiting her dying father in Ireland.
The 54-year-old Dubliner lives in Santa Cruz, California, and was detained by ICE over minor convictions from almost 20 years ago, which were supposed to have been expunged from her record.
Trump’s ICE agents threaten to deport Irish grandmother living in the US for 47 years
Donna Brown, 58, who emigrated nearly 50 years ago, is being held by Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement – known as ICE – and faces being sent back to Ireland.
Having rebranded the Department of Defense as the Department of War, the president is going on offense with the US military.
Donald Trump has foisted National Guard troops on Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. Other cities are on edge, particularly after he posted an apparently artificially generated image of himself dressed up like Robert Duvall’s surfing cavalry commander in “Apocalypse Now,” a meme that seemed to suggest he was threatening war on the city of Chicago.
Trump later clarified that the US would not go to war on Chicago, but he’s clearly comfortable joking about it. And he’s of the opinion his authority over the military is absolute.
“Not that I don’t have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States,” he said at a Cabinet meeting in August, when he was asked about the prospect of Chicagoans engaging in nonviolent resistance against the US military.
He’s reorienting the US military to focus on drug traffickers as terrorists and told Congress to expect more military strikes after the US destroyed a boat in the Caribbean last week.
All of this projects the kind of strongman decisiveness Trump admires.
A lot of it might also be illegal.
A ‘violation of the Posse Comitatus Act’
US District Judge Charles Breyer ruled this month that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth committed a “a serious violation of the Posse Comitatus Act” when they deployed federalized troops to Los Angeles over the objections of the state’s governor and mayor.
The Posse Comitatus Act was passed by Congress in 1878 as Southern states worked to oust federal troops and end Reconstruction. Questions over how and whether troops can be used to enforce laws goes back to the pre-Civil War period, when federal marshals sought help from citizens and militiamen in recovering fugitive slaves and putting down the protests of abolitionists, according to the Congressional Research Service.
It is not clear why Trump has not yet, as he has promised, called up the National Guard to patrol in Chicago, but he may be waiting for the Supreme Court, which has been extremely deferential to his claims of authority, to weigh in on a preliminary basis.
Trump has more authority to deploy the military inside Washington, DC, which the Constitution says Congress controls. But Congress has ceded some authority to locally elected officials in recent decades. DC’s Attorney General Brian Schwalb has sued the Trump administration over the deployment.
Testing the War Powers Act
Trump’s strike on a boat in the Caribbean is also on murky legal ground.
After Vietnam, Congress overrode Richard Nixon’s veto to pass another law, the War Powers Act of 1973, which requires presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours of a military strike. And Trump did do that, at least his third such notification since taking office in January. Trump also sent notifications to Congress about his strike against an Iranian nuclear facility and Houthi rebels who were attacking shipping routes.
The Reiss Center at New York University maintains a database of War Powers Act notifications going back to the 1970s.
Cartels as terrorist organizations
In the notification about the Caribbean strike, Trump’s administration argued that it has declared drug cartels are terrorist organizations and that he operated within his constitutional authority to protect the country when he ordered the strike.
Strikes against terrorists have been authorized under the catchall vote that authorized the use of military force against Islamic terrorists after the 9/11 terror attacks.
But Congress, which the Constitution puts in charge of declaring war, has not authorized the use of military force against Venezuelan drug cartels.
Lack of explanation from the White House
Over the weekend, CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand and Zachary Cohen reported that the Pentagon abruptly canceled classified briefings to key House and Senate committees with oversight of the military, which means lawmaker have been unable to get the legal justification for the strike.
Many Americans might celebrate the idea of a military strike to take out drug dealers, and the administration is clearly primed to lean on the idea that the cartels are terrorists.
“The strike was the obvious result of designating them a terrorist organization,” said one person familiar with the Pentagon’s thinking. “If there was a boat full of al Qaeda fighters smuggling explosives towards the US, would anyone even ask this question?”
Few details
It’s not yet clear which military unit was responsible for the strike, what intelligence suggested there were drugs onboard, who was on the boat or what the boat was carrying.
“The attack on the smuggling vessel in the Caribbean was so extraordinary because there was no reported attempt to stop the boat or detain its crew,” wrote Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal advisor now at International Crisis Group for the website Just Security. “Instead, the use of lethal force was used in the first resort.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US could have interdicted the boat and made a legal case against those onboard, but it decided instead to blow up the boat. The notice to Congress makes clear the administration will continue with other strikes.
War crime? Vance doesn’t ‘give a sh*t’
“The decision to blow up the boat and kill everyone onboard when interdiction and detention was a clearly available option is manifestly illegal and immoral,” Oona Hathaway, a law professor and director of the Center for Global Legal Challenges at Yale Law School, told me in an email.
The view of the administration could be best summarized by Vice President JD Vance stating that using the military to go after cartels is “the highest and best use of our military.”
When a user on X replied that the extrajudicial killing of civilians without presenting evidence is, by definition, a war crime, Vance, himself a Yale-educated lawyer, said this:
“I don’t give a sh*t what you call it.”
That’s not an acceptable response even for some Republicans.
“Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?” wrote Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky in his own post on X. “Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation?? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”
Congress has power it likely won’t use
Congress has the power to stop Trump’s campaign against boats in the Caribbean. The War Powers Act allows lawmakers in the House and Senate to demand the president seek approval before continuing a campaign longer than 60 days. But that seems unlikely to occur at the moment.
After the strike against Iran earlier this year, Paul was the only Republican senator to side with Democrats and demand Trump seek approval for any future Iran strikes.
During his first term, seven Republicans voted with Senate Democrats to hem in Trump’s ability to strike against Iran after he ordered the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. But there were not enough votes to overcome Trump’s veto that year.
Trump’s authority to use military force without congressional approval of the Caribbean operation technically expires after 60 days after he reports on the use of force, although he can extend it by an additional 30 days, although he could also declare a new operation is underway.
The use of these kinds of tactics has likely been in the works for some time.
In February, Trump designated drug cartels, including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, as foreign terror organizations. In April, CNN reported the CIA was reviewing whether it had authority to use lethal force against drug cartels.
But the military strike against the alleged cartel boat happened as part of a broader campaign against Venezuela, including positioning US ships, aircraft and a submarine in the Caribbean, according to a CNN report.
Trump may have campaigned as a president who would end wars, but he’s governing like a president who is very comfortable using his military.
Analysis: Trump claims he can do anything he wants with the military. Here’s what the law says | CNN Politics
Having rebranded the Department of Defense as the Department of War, the president is going on offense with the US military.
