Tag Archives: Congress

Mediaite: House Democrat Hits Back at ICE After Being Accused of Doxxing Federal Agent and Joining a ‘Violent Mob’

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Tom “Pugsley” Homan, one of America’s ugliest & most patheticly dim-witted apparatchiks ever!

Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA) hit back at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the weekend after being accused of doxxing a federal agent and joining a violent mob.

ICE wrote on X Sunday, “Rep. Salud Carbajal was part of a violent mob of protestors attempting to obstruct federal law enforcement as they executed a criminal search warrant at a marijuana facility. He cites “peaceful” protestors, when in fact these rioters were launching rocks at officers, injuring at least one ICE employee who was left bloody.” The federal agency added:

According to agents on the ground, the congressman doxed that same ICE employee by sharing his business card with members of the violent mob.

THIS is precisely the rhetoric that has led to orchestrated attempts to murder officers and a 700% increase in officer assaults.

May the congressman’s constituency always remember he chooses violence over the rule of law.

Carbajal, who represents Santa Barbara County, hit back at ICE on Sunday evening, writing, “This is a blatant attempt to distort what occurred in Carpinteria. DHS and ICE conducted their raid using a disturbing and disproportionate level of force, both on the farm workers they were targeting and the peaceful protesters who gathered to defend their neighbors.” He added:

I witnessed agents, in full military gear, fire smoke canisters and other projectiles into a crowd of peaceful civilians. Just before I arrived at the scene, witnesses told me the agents threw a stun grenade into the crowd. Several civilians were injured, including a child.

This aggressive behavior in a normally quiet part of the Central Coast sparked alarm across our community, prompting a flood of calls and messages to my office from concerned citizens. I went to the scene to seek answers and represent my constituents.

ICE’s claims of “doxxing” and “violent mobs” are familiar deflection tactics designed to distort public perception and to evade accountability for their aggressive actions in our community.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche replied to ICE’s statement, saying, “We take all allegations of inciting violence or doxing of federal employees very seriously—no one is above the law, and members of Congress are no exception. We are reviewing reports from the protest. If substantiated, we will pursue every appropriate legal avenue to protect our law enforcement officers and uphold the rule of law.”

Meanwhile, many on X roasted ICE for suggesting that sharing a business card is doxxing. “That is quite the thin reed to go after the congressman. Sharing someone’s business card is not “doxxing” them, and there’s no evidence that the person who threw the rock was targeting that person or even interacted with the member of Congress,” replied Trump critic and immigration activist Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.

For God’s sakes, sharing a business card is NOT doxxing. If you don’t want your business card passed around, don’t hand it out. It really is that simple, even if some dimwits like Tom “Pugsley” Homan are just too retarded to get. Pugsley must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel for something to whine about.

House Democrat Hits Back at ICE After Being Accused of Doxxing Federal Agent and Joining a ‘Violent Mob’
“ICE’s claims of “doxxing” and “violent mobs” are familiar deflection tactics designed to distort public perception and to evade accountability”
House Democrat Hits Back at ICE After Being Accused of Doxxing Federal Agent and Joining a ‘Violent Mob’

Washington Post: ICE declares millions of undocumented immigrants ineligible for bond hearings

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A memo from ICE’s acting director instructs officers to hold immigrants who entered the country illegally “for the duration of their removal proceedings,” which can take months or years.

The Trump administration has declared that immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally are no longer eligible for a bond hearing as they fight deportation proceedings in court, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

In a July 8 memo, Todd M. Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told officers that such immigrants should be detained “for the duration of their removal proceedings,” which can take months or years. Lawyers say the policy will apply to millions of immigrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border over the past few decades, including under Biden.

In the past, immigrants residing in the U.S. interior generally have been allowed to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge. But Lyons wrote that the Trump administration’s departments of Homeland Security and Justice had “revisited its legal position on detention and release authorities” and determined that such immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody.” In rare exceptions immigrants may be released on parole, but that decision will be up to an immigration officer, not a judge, he wrote.

The provision is based on a section of immigration law that says unauthorized immigrants “shall be detained” after their arrest, but that has historically applied to those who recently crossed the border and not longtime residents.

Lyons, who oversees the nation’s 200 immigration detention facilities, wrote that the policy is expected to face legal challenges.

ICE did not respond to requests for comment. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott issued similar guidance last week; that agency also did not respond to questions.

The sweeping new detention policy comes days after Congress passed a spending package that will allocate $45 billion over the next four years to lock up immigrants for civil deportation proceedings. The measure will allow ICE to roughly double the nation’s immigrant detention capacity to 100,000 people a day.

Since the memos were issued last week, the American Immigration Lawyers Association said members had reported that immigrants were being denied bond hearings in more than a dozen immigration courts across the United States, including in New York, Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia. The Department of Justice oversees the immigration courts.

“This is their way of putting in place nationwide a method of detaining even more people,” said Greg Chen, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “It’s requiring the detention of far more people without any real review of their individual circumstances.”

Immigration hawks have long argued that detaining immigrants is necessary to quickly deport those who do not qualify for asylum or another way to stay in the United States permanently. They say detaining immigrants might also discourage people from filing frivolous claims, in hopes of being released as their cases proceed in the backlogged immigration courts.

“Detention is absolutely the best way to approach this, if you can do it. It costs a lot of money obviously,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors enforcement. “You’re pretty much guaranteed to be able to remove the person, if there’s a negative finding, if he’s in detention.”

In its 2024 annual report, however, ICE said it detains immigrants only “when necessary” and that the vast majority of the 7.6 million people then on its docket were released pending immigration proceedings. Keeping them detained while their case is adjudicated has not been logistically possible, and advocates have raised concern for migrants’ health and welfare in civil immigration detention.

Immigrants are already subject to mandatory detention without bond if they have been convicted of murder or other serious crimes, and this year the Republican-led Congress added theft-related crimes to that list after a Georgia nursing student, Laken Riley, was killed by a man from Venezuela who had been picked up for shoplifting and not held for deportation.

Immigration lawyers say the Trump administration is expanding a legal standard typically used to hold recent arrivals at the southern border toa much broader group — including immigrants who have lived in the United States for decades. Many have U.S. citizen children, lawyers say, and likely have the legal grounds to defend themselves against deportation.

Forcing them to remain in detention facilities often in far-flung areas such as an alligator-infested swamp in Florida or the Arizona desert would make it more difficult to fight their cases, because they will be unable to work or easily communicate with family members and lawyers to prepare their cases.

“I think some courts are going to find that this doesn’t give noncitizens sufficient due process,” said Paul Hunker, an immigration lawyer and former ICE chief counsel in the Dallas area. “They could be held indefinitely until they’re deported.*

ICE is holding about 56,000 immigrants a day as officers sweep the nation for undocumented immigrants, working overtime to fulfill Trump’s goal of deporting 1 million people in his first year. Officials have reopened family detention centers that the Biden administration shuttered because ofsafety concerns, stood up soft-sided facilities such as one in the Everglades, and begun deporting immigrants with little notice to alternative countries such as conflict-ridden South Sudan.

Immigration lawyers say the new ICE policy is similar to a position that several immigration judges in Tacoma, Washington, have espoused in recent years, denying hearings to anyone who crossed the border illegally.

The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project in Seattle filed a lawsuit in March on behalf of detainees challenging the policy, arguing that their refusal to consider a bond hearing violated the immigrants’ rights.

The original plaintiff in the case, Ramon Rodriguez Vazquez, has lived in Washington state since 2009, works as a farmer and is the “proud grandfather” of 10 U.S. citizens, court records show. His eight siblings are U.S. citizens who live in California.

He also owns his home, where ICE officers arrested him in February for being in the United States without permission. In April, a federal judge in Washington found that he has “no criminal history in the United States or anywhere else in the world” and ordered immigration officers to give him a bond hearing before a judge. A judge denied him bond and he has since returned to Mexico, his lawyer said.

But that decision does not apply nationwide, lawyers said.

Aaron Korthuis, a lawyer in the case, said Rodriguez is typical of the type of immigrants who now face prolonged detention as they fight deportation in immigration courts. He called the government’s new interpretation of bond hearings “flagrantly unlawful.”

“They are people who have been living here, all they’re doing is trying to make a living for their family,” Korthuis said in an interview. He said the policy “is looking to supercharge detention beyond what it already is.”

ICE declares millions of undocumented immigrants ineligible for bond …
archived 15 Jul 2025 00:05:00 UTC

https://archive.is/vMvoj#selection-673.0-847.222

Reuters: Two-thirds of the DOJ unit defending Trump policies in court have quit

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The U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies – such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University – has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters.

Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch have voluntarily left the unit since President Donald Trump’s election in November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list compiled by former Justice Department lawyers and reviewed by Reuters.

The tally has not been previously reported. Using court records and LinkedIn accounts, Reuters was able to verify the departure of all but four names on the list. 

Reuters spoke to four former lawyers in the unit and three other people familiar with the departures who said some staffers had grown demoralized and exhausted defending an onslaught of lawsuits against Trump’s administration.

“Many of these people came to work at Federal Programs to defend aspects of our constitutional system,” said one lawyer who left the unit during Trump’s second term. “How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?”

Critics have accused the Trump administration of flouting the law in its aggressive use of executive power, including by retaliating against perceived enemies and dismantling agencies created by Congress.

The Trump administration has broadly defended its actions as within the legal bounds of presidential power and has won several early victories at the Supreme Court. A White House spokesperson told Reuters that Trump’s actions were legal, and declined to comment on the departures.

“Any sanctimonious career bureaucrat expressing faux outrage over the President’s policies while sitting idly by during the rank weaponization by the previous administration has no grounds to stand on,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement. 

The seven lawyers who spoke with Reuters cited a punishing workload and the need to defend policies that some felt were not legally justifiable among the key reasons for the wave of departures. 

Three of them said some career lawyers feared they would be pressured to misrepresent facts or legal issues in court, a violation of ethics rules that could lead to professional sanctions.

All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics and avoid retaliation. 

A Justice Department spokesperson said lawyers in the unit are fighting an “unprecedented number of lawsuits” against Trump’s agenda.

“The Department has defeated many of these lawsuits all the way up to the Supreme Court and will continue to defend the President’s agenda to keep Americans safe,” the spokesperson said. The Justice Department did not comment on the departures of career lawyers or morale in the section.

Some turnover in the Federal Programs Branch is common between presidential administrations, but the seven sources described the number of people quitting as highly unusual. 

Reuters was unable to find comparative figures for previous administrations. However, two former attorneys in the unit and two others familiar with its work said the scale of departures is far greater than during Trump’s first term and Joe Biden’s administration.

Heading for the Exit

The exits include at least 10 of the section’s 23 supervisors, experienced litigators who in many cases served across presidential administrations, according to two of the lawyers.

A spokesperson said the Justice Department is hiring to keep pace with staffing levels during the Biden Administration. They did not provide further details.

In its broad overhaul of the Justice Department, the Trump administration has fired or sidelined dozens of lawyers who specialize in prosecuting national security and corruption cases and publicly encouraged departures from the Civil Rights Division. 

But the Federal Programs Branch, which defends challenges to White House and federal agency policies in federal trial courts, remains critical to its agenda. 

The unit is fighting to sustain actions of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency formerly overseen by Elon Musk; Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship and his attempt to freeze $2.5 billion in funding to Harvard University.

“We’ve never had an administration pushing the legal envelope so quickly, so aggressively and across such a broad range of government policies and programs,” said Peter Keisler, who led the Justice Department’s Civil Division under Republican President George W. Bush.

“The demands are intensifying at the same time that the ranks of lawyers there to defend these cases are dramatically thinning.”

The departures have left the Justice Department scrambling to fill vacancies. More than a dozen lawyers have been temporarily reassigned to the section from other parts of the DOJ and it has been exempted from the federal government hiring freeze, according to two former lawyers in the unit.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not comment on the personnel moves.

Justice Department leadership has also brought in about 15 political appointees to help defend civil cases, an unusually high number. 

The new attorneys, many of whom have a record defending conservative causes, have been more comfortable pressing legal boundaries, according to two former lawyers in the unit. 

“They have to be willing to advocate on behalf of their clients and not fear the political fallout,” said Mike Davis, the head of the Article III Project, a pro-Trump legal advocacy group, referring to the role of DOJ lawyers in defending the administration’s policies.

People who have worked in the section expect the Federal Programs Branch to play an important role in the Trump administration’s attempts to capitalize on a Supreme Court ruling limiting the ability of judges to block its policies nationwide. 

Its lawyers are expected to seek to narrow prior court rulings and also defend against an anticipated rise in class action lawsuits challenging government policies. 

Lawyers in the unit are opposing two attempts by advocacy organizations to establish a nationwide class of people to challenge Trump’s order on birthright citizenship. A judge granted one request on Thursday.

Facing Pressure

Four former Justice Department lawyers told Reuters some attorneys in the Federal Programs Branch left over policy differences with Trump, but many had served in the first Trump administration and viewed their role as defending the government regardless of the party in power. 

The four lawyers who left said they feared Trump administration policies to dismantle certain federal agencies and claw back funding appeared to violate the U.S. Constitution or were enacted without following processes that were more defensible in court.

Government lawyers often walked into court with little information from the White House and federal agencies about the actions they were defending, the four lawyers said.

The White House and DOJ did not comment when asked about communications on cases.

Attorney General Pam Bondi in February threatened disciplinary action against government lawyers who did not vigorously advocate for Trump’s agenda. The memo to Justice Department employees warned career lawyers they could not “substitute personal political views or judgments for those that prevailed in the election.”

Four of the lawyers Reuters spoke with said there was a widespread concern that attorneys would be forced to make arguments that could violate attorney ethics rules, or refuse assignments and risk being fired. 

Those fears grew when Justice Department leadership fired a former supervisor in the Office of Immigration Litigation, a separate Civil Division unit, accusing him of failing to forcefully defend the administration’s position in the case of Kilmar Abrego, the man wrongly deported to El Salvador.

The supervisor, Erez Reuveni, filed a whistleblower complaint, made public last month, alleging he faced pressure from administration officials to make unsupported legal arguments and adopt strained interpretations of rulings in three immigration cases.

Justice Department officials have publicly disputed the claims, casting him as disgruntled. A senior official, Emil Bove, told a Senate panel that he never advised defying courts.

Career lawyers were also uncomfortable defending Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms, according to two former Justice Department lawyers and a third person familiar with the matter.

A longtime ally of Bondi who defended all four law firm cases argued they were a lawful exercise of presidential power. Judges ultimately struck down all four orders as violating the Constitution. The Trump administration has indicated it will appeal at least one case.

Not everybody wants to continue hanging out with a bunch of losers!

Two-thirds of the DOJ unit defending Trump policies in court have quit
Seven lawyers who spoke with Reuters cited a punishing workload and the need to defend policies that some felt were not legally justifiable among the key reasons for the wave of departures.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/two-thirds-doj-unit-defending-trump-policies-court-have-quit-2025-07-14

NBC News: Immigrants in overcapacity ICE detention say they’re hungry, raise food quality concerns

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As the Trump administration ramps up immigration arrests, recent detainees and advocacy groups are raising concerns about food in ICE facilities nationwide.

Immigrants being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in at least seven states are complaining of hunger, food shortages and spoiled food, detainees and immigration advocates say. They say some detainees have gotten sick; others say they have lost weight. In one facility, an incident involving detainees reportedly broke out in part because of food.

The food problems come amid overcrowding at ICE facilities tied to the Trump administration’s push to quickly ramp up immigration arrests. While capacity data isn’t publicly available for every ICE detention facility, nationwide figures on the availability of beds show a system beyond its overall capacity. As of mid-June, ICE was detaining nearly 60,000 people, almost 45% above the capacity provided for by Congress.

Although many of ICE’s detention centers are run by private contractors, the problems are happening all over the country regardless of who’s running a given facility, advocates say. A former ICE official told NBC News it is difficult for a facility to stay stocked with the right amount of food when, on any given day, it may face an unexpected surge of new detainees. While the agency can move money around to cover the cost of detaining more immigrants, planning for unexpected daily spikes can be difficult for facilities and could lead to food being served late or in small quantities, the former ICE official said.

On top of that, there are now fewer avenues for detainees to submit concerns while they are in ICE custody, advocates say, pointing to recent job cuts to an independent watchdog within the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency.

“We haven’t seen any company-specific trends,” said Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practice and policy counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “It just goes to the overall detention system and how overcrowded the detention system is as a whole.”

Alfredo Parada Calderon, a Salvadoran man who has been detained for almost a year, says he has recently had meals that have left him feeling hungry.

Detainees have sometimes been given flavorless meat that is so finely ground that it is almost liquefied, he told NBC News from the Golden State Annex detention facility in California.

“It looks like little, small pebbles, and that will be the ounces that they give you,” he said, referring to meat portions he has had in meals.

Jennifer Norris, a directing attorney at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center with clients at multiple California detention centers, said it has gotten several complaints from clients in other facilities about the food being “inedible” and in one case “moldy.” The complaints come as some centers reach capacity with recent arrests, she said.

A woman named Rubimar, who asked that she and her husband, Jose, be identified by their first names only because he was deported Wednesday and fears fallout in Venezuela as a result of talking to the media, said Jose was detained by ICE in El Paso, Texas, for about three months and had complained about a lack of food there.

“He tells me many are given two spoonfuls of rice and that many are still hungry,” Rubimar said in an interview before Jose was deported to Venezuela.

Russian immigrant detainee Ilia Chernov said the conditions, including food, have gotten worse since he was detained at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana on July 24, 2024.

“The portions got smaller,” Chernov said through a Russian translator. “I have to deal with hunger, so I am getting used to the hunger. So I have lost weight.”

DHS said Winn Correctional Center has received no complaints from Russian detainees. However, Chernov’s lawyers said he has submitted complaints about food to ICE in writing, at least one as recently as April.

The detainees’ complaints are consistent with what advocates say they are hearing from other detainees and their lawyers across the country.

Liliana Chumpitasi, who runs a hotline for detainees at the immigration advocacy group La Resistencia in Washington state, said she gets 10 to 20 calls a day from ICE detainees complaining about conditions. They have told her that the meals used to be delivered on a regular schedule, such as 6 a.m. for breakfast and noon for lunch, but that now breakfast may not come until 9 a.m. and dinner is often not served until midnight. Some detainees have also said meals are now half the size they were last year, she said.

According to ICE’s food service standards, detainees are required to be served three meals a day, two of which are supposed to be hot, and with “no more than 14 hours between the evening meal and breakfast.”

Congress has funded ICE to detain up to 41,500 people, including facilities, food, staffing and supplies. But as of the week of July 7, ICE had over 57,000 detainees in its facilities across the country, according to ICE data. However, there is an expectation that more space will be added with the passage this month of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which allocates $45 billion for ICE detention centers until the end of September 2029. According to an estimate by the American Immigration Council, that amount could “likely fund an increase in ICE detention to at least 116,000 beds” per year.

Two other former ICE officials said the agency can hold more people than Congress has funded it for but only for short periods. A current senior ICE official, who asked not to be named to freely discuss ongoing funding issues, said the agency has pulled money from other parts of DHS to continue funding detention through Sept. 30.

Asked about specific allegations of food scarcity and substandard food, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told NBC News in a statement, “Any claim that there is lack of food or subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false.”

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment and have opportunity to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” McLaughlin said. “Meals are certified by dieticians. Ensuring the safety, security and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE.”

‘Improper food handling practices’

In Tacoma, Washington, at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, Chumpitasi fears the increase in people being held there has contributed to poor food safety.

Seven food violations have been found there in 2025 so far, compared with two in 2024 and one in 2023, according to inspection data by the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. According to ICE data, 1,081 people were detained there as of June 23, compared with 719 at the end of fiscal year 2024 and 570 at the end of fiscal year 2023. (The federal government’s fiscal year runs through Sept. 30.)

One morning in mid-April, the facility contacted the local Health Department to report 57 cases of suspected foodborne illness, with symptoms including diarrhea, stomachache and bloating, according to the Health Department. After an investigation, the department concluded that reheated collard greens that had been served at the facility had tested positive for Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning. The collard greens were a substitute food for that day and not posted on the day’s menu, according to health department documents. Food poisoning caused by Bacillus cereus is often related to leftover food that has been improperly cooled or reheated.

The Health Department went back to the Northwest Processing Center for an unannounced visit and found “several improper food handling practices.” It worked with the staff there to correct them, and as of June 18 the facility had passed inspection.

Asked about that, McLaughlin said in an email, “While the Health Department was notified, the on-site medical team concluded that there was no evidence linking the illness to a specific food item, as claimed by the detainees.”

‘I am getting used to the hunger’

Over the past month, the American Immigration Lawyers Association has received at least a dozen food-related complaints from advocacy groups and lawyers representing detainees across the country, according to Dojaquez-Torres.

“The common complaint is that there is just not enough food,” she said in an interview. “What I am hearing is that there are extended periods of time when people are not being fed, and when they are, they are being given chips or a slice of bread.”

“We have been getting reports from around the country from our members … and conditions have been declining rapidly,” she said. She also said that some detainees haven’t been given beds and that some have said they aren’t given access to showers.

In early June, a “melee” broke out in Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, because of conditions inside the facility, which included “paltry meals served at irregular hours,” according to The New York Times, which spoke to several lawyers representing detainees inside the facility and family members.

Geo Group pushed back against the Times’ reporting in an emailed statement at the time, saying, “Contrary to current reporting, there has been no widespread unrest at the facility.”

DHS also denied allegations of food issues at the Newark immigration detention facility when NBC News asked about them.

“Allegations that there are chronic food shortages at Delaney Hall are unequivocally false. The facility regularly reviews any detainee complaints. The Food Service Operations Director conducted a review of food portions and detainees are being fed the portions as prescribed by the nutritionist, based on a daily 2400 to 2600 caloric intake,” McLaughlin said.

DHS didn’t respond to a follow-up question about how recently the food service operations director — or any oversight body reviewing food in ICE detention facilities nationwide — had last visited and made an assessment.

In late May, Rubimar said, her husband, Jose, had called and told her that the gas at his facility wasn’t functioning and that they had been given only a bag of tuna to eat in the meantime. But even before that, she said, her husband said the food was “too little.”

McLaughlin said a dietitian had recently approved the meal plan at the El Paso Service Processing Center and indicated “the total caloric intake for ICE detainees at the facility was 3,436 per day — which exceeds the average daily recommended minimums.”

LaSalle Corrections, which operates the Winn Correctional Center, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The GEO Group, which operates the ICE facilities in Newark and Tacoma, as well as the Golden State Annex and many others nationwide, didn’t respond to specific allegations about food service and instead provided this statement: “We are proud of the role our company has played for 40 years to support the law enforcement mission of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Over the last four decades, our innovative support service solutions have helped the federal government implement the policies of seven different Presidential Administrations. In all instances, our support services are monitored by ICE, including on-site agency personnel, and other organizations within the Department of Homeland Security to ensure strict compliance with ICE detention standards.”

Reduced oversight

Beyond overcrowding, immigration advocates also blame the alleged food issues at detention facilities in part on cutbacks to a team of inspectors inside DHS.

The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, an office that previously oversaw conditions inside ICE and ICE-contracted facilities, was entirely or mainly shuttered this year after the “majority of the workforce” was issued reduction-in-force notices, according to ongoing litigation regarding the cuts.

“One of the things that made the [Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman] is that we actually had case managers in the facilities and they were accessible to the detainees,” a former DHS employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about future government employment. “They would actually go into the kitchen [to see] if there were deficiencies and work with kitchen management.”

Karla Gilbride, a lawyer with Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group suing the Trump administration over the firings of people in the office, said the office has been completely dismantled.

“That is our position, that they have shut down the office. They put everyone on leave. They were told to stop interacting with everyone who filed complaints” from detention, Gilbride said.

The former DHS employee said the dismantling of the ombudsman’s office means detainees have fewer options if they have complaints or concerns about things like food, overcrowding, sanitation, access to legal counsel and clean clothes.

“At the end of the day, it really just means that there are less people to sound an alarm,” the former DHS employee said.

McLaughlin didn’t respond to requests for comment about the dismantling of the ombudsman’s office. DHS has maintained in court filings that the ombudsman’s office remains open and that efforts to restaff certain positions affected by the layoffs are underway.

In a status report filed in court in early July, government lawyers said they are onboarding three new employees at the ombudsman’s office and that files have been created for all new complaints since the end of March.

There have been way too many of these complaints about insuffieient and low quality food at the ICE detention centers. Outside investigation (international Red Cross?) is needed.

Immigrants in overcapacity ICE detention say they’re hungry, raise food quality concerns
As the Trump administration ramps up immigration arrests, recent detainees and advocacy groups are raising concerns about food in ICE facilities nationwide.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/immigrants-overcapacity-ice-detention-say-hungry-raise-food-quality-co-rcna214193

Reuters: In California strawberry fields, immigration raids sow fear

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Flor, a Mexican migrant, picks strawberries in the agricultural town of Oxnard, but immigration roundups in recent weeks have infused the farmworker community in the strawberry capital of California with stress and fear. 

Flor said the raids are taking a toll on the farmworkers’ children, who fear that their parents will be detained and deported and some are depressed. Flor, who has a permit to work in the fields, is a single mother of three U.S. citizen daughters and when she picks them up in the afternoon she feels a palpable sense of relief.

“It hurts my soul that every time I leave the house they say, ‘Mommy, be careful because they can catch you and they can send you to Mexico and we will have to stay here without you,'” said Flor, who asked that only her first name be used. 

“You arrive home and the girls say, ‘Ay Mommy, you arrived and immigration didn’t take you.’ It is very sad to see that our children are worried.”

President Donald Trump has increased immigration enforcement since taking office in January, seeking to deport record numbers of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Farmers, who depend heavily on immigrant labor, have warned raids could damage their businesses and threaten the U.S. food supply.

Trump has said in recent weeks that he would roll out a program that would allow farmers to keep some workers, but the White House has not yet put forward any plan. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Tuesday that there would be “no amnesty.”

The Trump administration has arrested twice as many alleged immigration offenders as last year, but the number of farm workers specifically remains unclear. An immigration raid at marijuana farms near Los Angeles on Thursday prompted protests.

Many Oxnard residents have not left their houses for three or four weeks and some simply don’t show up for work, Flor said.

“It is really sad to see,” Flor said. “We have senior citizens who work with us and when they see immigration passing where we are working , they begin to cry because of how fearful they are. They have been here many years and they fear they could be sent to their home countries. Their lives are here.” 

Flor has little hope that the circumstances will improve.

“The only hope we have is that the president touches his heart and does an immigration reform,” she said. 

The president of the United Farm Workers union, Teresa Romero, said they are working on organizing workers so they “really stick together” as the fear persists.

“What the administration wants to do is deport this experienced workforce that has been working in agriculture for decades. They know exactly what to do, how to do it,” Romero said.

A White House official told Reuters that Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration agenda, decided in January not to heavily target farms because the workers would be difficult to replace.

When asked on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ on Sunday about people afraid of possible arrest even if they have legal immigration status, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan was unapologetic about the crackdown.

“It’s not OK to enter this country illegally. It’s a crime,” Homan said. “But legal aliens and U.S. citizens should not be afraid that they’re going to be swept up in the raid(s).”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

“Came for a Dream”

The farmworkers get up at around 4 a.m. local time (1100 GMT) and then wake up their children, who Flor says are suffering with the roundups.

“It is sad to see our community suffering so much. We are just workers who came for a dream, the dream we had for our children,” Flor said.

Flor’s daughters are 10, 7, and 2 – and the 10-year-old wants to be a police officer. 

“And it breaks my heart that she might not fulfill her dream because they detain us and send us to Mexico,” Flor said. “It makes me very sad to see how many children are being separated from their parents.”

While some politicians in California have been outspoken about the immigration raids, Flor said they have not come out to the fields or come to learn about the workers’ plight. 

“I would like to invite all the politicians to come and see how we work on the farms so they can get to know our story and our lives,” said Flor. “So they can see the needs we have.” 

Romero said they are working with representatives in Congress on a legislative bill called the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would protect the workers and has the support of at least 30 Republicans. Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren of California has introduced the bill to Congress, but it may not pass until the next Congress takes over in 2027. 

“We are not going to give up,” said Romero. “Si se puede (yes we can).”

Flor earns about $2,000 a month, a salary that often does not go far enough. She pays $1,250 for rent each month and pays the nanny that helps care for the girls $250 per week. Sometimes, she doesn’t have enough food for the children. 

She also says the back-breaking harvest work means she cannot spend enough time with her children.

“My work also means that I cannot dedicate enough time to my children because the work is very tough, we are crouched down all day and we lift 20 pounds every few minutes in the boxes,” Flor said. 

Romero said she has talked to some of the children affected by the raids. 

“I have talked to children of people who have been deported and all they say is ‘I want Daddy back,’” she said.

“It is affecting children who are U.S. citizens and who do not deserve to be growing up with the fear they are growing up with now,” Romero added. “Unless we get this bill done, this is what is going to continue to happen to these families and communities.”

In California strawberry fields, immigration raids sow fear
“We have senior citizens who work with us and when they see immigration passing where we are working, they begin to cry because of how fearful they are,” said Flor, a Mexican migrant who picks strawberries in the agricultural town of Oxnard.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/california-strawberry-fields-immigration-raids-sow-fear-2025-07-14

CNN: Florida lawmakers allowed into ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ say detainees packed into cages

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Deep in the hazardous and ecologically fragile Everglades, hundreds of migrants are confined in cages in a makeshift tent detention facility Florida’s Republican governor calls “safe and secure” and Democratic lawmakers call “inhumane.”

Two days after filing a lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for being “unlawfully denied entry” to inspect conditions at the facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” members of Congress and state representatives were given a limited tour Saturday to inspect conditions after calling the lack of access a “deliberate obstruction meant to hide what’s really happening behind those gates,” according to a joint statement from lawmakers.

They said they heard detainees shouting for help and crying out “libertad”— Spanish for “freedom” — amid sweltering heat, bug infestations and meager meals.

“They are essentially packed into cages, wall-to-wall humans, 32 detainees per cage,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents Florida’s 25th Congressional District, said during a news conference following their tour.

The families of some of the detainees have also decried conditions in the facility, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials defend it as offering higher detention standards than many US prisons.

Lawmakers Shown Empty Cells

On the tour, the lawmakers said they were not allowed to visit areas where migrants are currently being detained but instead were shown cells not yet being used.

Wasserman Schultz said each cage contained three small toilets with attached sinks, which detainees use for drinking water and brushing their teeth, sharing the same water used to flush the toilets.

When they toured the kitchen area, Wasserman Schultz said government employees were being offered large pieces of roast chicken and sausages, while the detainees’ lunch consisted of a “gray turkey and cheese sandwich, an apple and chips.”

“I don’t see how that could possibly sustain them nutritionally or not make them hungry,” Wasserman Schultz said. “And when you have hungry people, obviously their mood changes.”

Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who was also on the tour, said the lawmakers were concerned about reports of unhygienic conditions due to toilets not working and “feces being spread everywhere,” but were denied access from viewing units where migrants are currently detained.

They were also not permitted to view the medical facilities, with officials citing HIPAA laws, despite lawmakers being allowed to examine the medical facilities at other detention facilities, he said.

“It is something everyone, whether you’re Democrat, Republican or anything, should be deeply ashamed of,” Frost said. “Immigrants don’t poison the blood of this nation. They are the blood of this nation.”

US Rep. Darren Soto said lawmakers also witnessed evidence of flooding, highlighting serious concerns of what could happen to detainees if there’s severe weather during what forecasters said may be a busy hurricane season.

“What we saw in our inspection today was a political stunt, dangerous and wasteful,” Soto said after the tour. “One can’t help but understand and conclude that this is a total cruel political stunt meant to have a spectacle of political theater and it’s wasting taxpayer dollars and putting our ICE agents, our troops and ICE detainees in jeopardy.”

Detained Migrant’s Family Reports Difficult Conditions, No Access to Lawyer

About 900 people are currently detained at the facility, Wasserman Schultz said during the news conference but it has the capacity to hold 3,000 people, with room for more, according to Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

The wife of a 43-year-old Guatemalan man currently detained at “Alligator Alcatraz” told CNN her husband is enduring harsh conditions similar to those described by lawmakers who toured the facility. After more than two weeks in detention, she said, he has yet to see a lawyer.

“There are too many mosquitoes … He’s in a really bad condition. The power goes off at times because they’re using generators,” the woman told CNN in an interview Tuesday.

“The detainees are being held in tents, and it is very hot there. They’re in bad conditions. … There’s not enough food. Sick people are not getting medication. Every time I ask about his situation, he tells me it’s bad,” she said.

The Guatemalan woman said she, her husband, and their 11-month-old baby went fishing on June 25 in the Everglades. A Florida wildlife officer approached them and asked for documents. Her husband had a valid driver’s license, she said, but when the officer realized she didn’t have any documents proving she was in the country legally, the officer called immigration authorities who detained the whole family.

After spending seven-and-a-half hours in what she describes as a “dirty holding cell,” she and her baby – a US citizen – were released, but her husband was detained. She now wears an ankle bracelet.

Her husband later told her he remained in detention at the Dania Beach Jail, near Fort Lauderdale, for eight days, before being transferred to “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Once transferred, he was unable to take a shower for six days and there were not enough facilities for washing hands, she said. On Friday, he was woken up at 3 a.m. to take a shower because of the number of people waiting for their turn, she said.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Florida detention facility, did not immediately reply to CNN’s request for comment about specific allegations about conditions there.

In a written statement posted on X Tuesday, DHS said, “ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens. All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members.”

“Alligator Alcatraz” Set Up In Just Eight Days

In little over a week, workers transformed the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport from an 11,000-foot runway into a temporary tent city President Donald Trump toured last week.

Trump raved about the facility’s “incredible” quick construction during his visit and pointed to the detention center as an example of what he wants to implement “in many states.”

The project was fast-tracked under an executive order from DeSantis, who framed illegal immigration as a state emergency.

Florida lawmakers allowed into ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ say detainees packed into cages | CNN
Deep in the hazardous and ecologically fragile Everglades, hundreds of migrants are confined in cages in a makeshift tent detention facility Florida’s Republican governor calls “safe and secure” and Democratic lawmakers call “inhumane.”

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/12/us/alligator-alcatraz-lawmaker-tour-conditions

Immigrants in overcapacity ICE detention say they’re hungry, raise food quality concerns

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As the Trump administration ramps up immigration arrests, recent detainees and advocacy groups are raising concerns about food in ICE facilities nationwide.

Immigrants being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in at least seven states are complaining of hunger, food shortages and spoiled food, detainees and immigration advocates say. They say some detainees have gotten sick; others say they have lost weight. In one facility, an incident involving detainees reportedly broke out in part because of food.

The food problems come amid overcrowding at ICE facilities tied to the Trump administration’s push to quickly ramp up immigration arrests. While capacity data isn’t publicly available for every ICE detention facility, nationwide figures on the availability of beds show a system beyond its overall capacity. As of mid-June, ICE was detaining nearly 60,000 people, almost 45% above the capacity provided for by Congress.

Although many of ICE’s detention centers are run by private contractors, the problems are happening all over the country regardless of who’s running a given facility, advocates say. A former ICE official told NBC News it is difficult for a facility to stay stocked with the right amount of food when, on any given day, it may face an unexpected surge of new detainees. While the agency can move money around to cover the cost of detaining more immigrants, planning for unexpected daily spikes can be difficult for facilities and could lead to food being served late or in small quantities, the former ICE official said.

On top of that, there are now fewer avenues for detainees to submit concerns while they are in ICE custody, advocates say, pointing to recent job cuts to an independent watchdog within the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency.

“We haven’t seen any company-specific trends,” said Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practice and policy counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “It just goes to the overall detention system and how overcrowded the detention system is as a whole.”

Alfredo Parada Calderon, a Salvadoran man who has been detained for almost a year, says he has recently had meals that have left him feeling hungry.

Detainees have sometimes been given flavorless meat that is so finely ground that it is almost liquefied, he told NBC News from the Golden State Annex detention facility in California.

“It looks like little, small pebbles, and that will be the ounces that they give you,” he said, referring to meat portions he has had in meals.

Jennifer Norris, a directing attorney at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center with clients at multiple California detention centers, said it has gotten several complaints from clients in other facilities about the food being “inedible” and in one case “moldy.” The complaints come as some centers reach capacity with recent arrests, she said.

A woman named Rubimar, who asked that she and her husband, Jose, be identified by their first names only because he was deported Wednesday and fears fallout in Venezuela as a result of talking to the media, said Jose was detained by ICE in El Paso, Texas, for about three months and had complained about a lack of food there.

“He tells me many are given two spoonfuls of rice and that many are still hungry,” Rubimar said in an interview before Jose was deported to Venezuela.

Russian immigrant detainee Ilia Chernov said the conditions, including food, have gotten worse since he was detained at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana on July 24, 2024.

“The portions got smaller,” Chernov said through a Russian translator. “I have to deal with hunger, so I am getting used to the hunger. So I have lost weight.”

DHS said Winn Correctional Center has received no complaints from Russian detainees. However, Chernov’s lawyers said he has submitted complaints about food to ICE in writing, at least one as recently as April.

The detainees’ complaints are consistent with what advocates say they are hearing from other detainees and their lawyers across the country.

Liliana Chumpitasi, who runs a hotline for detainees at the immigration advocacy group La Resistencia in Washington state, said she gets 10 to 20 calls a day from ICE detainees complaining about conditions. They have told her that the meals used to be delivered on a regular schedule, such as 6 a.m. for breakfast and noon for lunch, but that now breakfast may not come until 9 a.m. and dinner is often not served until midnight. Some detainees have also said meals are now half the size they were last year, she said.

According to ICE’s food service standards, detainees are required to be served three meals a day, two of which are supposed to be hot, and with “no more than 14 hours between the evening meal and breakfast.”

Congress has funded ICE to detain up to 41,500 people, including facilities, food, staffing and supplies. But as of the week of July 7, ICE had over 57,000 detainees in its facilities across the country, according to ICE data. However, there is an expectation that more space will be added with the passage this month of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which allocates $45 billion for ICE detention centers until the end of September 2029. According to an estimate by the American Immigration Council, that amount could “likely fund an increase in ICE detention to at least 116,000 beds” per year.

Two other former ICE officials said the agency can hold more people than Congress has funded it for but only for short periods. A current senior ICE official, who asked not to be named to freely discuss ongoing funding issues, said the agency has pulled money from other parts of DHS to continue funding detention through Sept. 30.

Asked about specific allegations of food scarcity and substandard food, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told NBC News in a statement, “Any claim that there is lack of food or subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false.”

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment and have opportunity to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” McLaughlin said. “Meals are certified by dieticians. Ensuring the safety, security and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE.”

‘Improper food handling practices’

In Tacoma, Washington, at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, Chumpitasi fears the increase in people being held there has contributed to poor food safety.

Seven food violations have been found there in 2025 so far, compared with two in 2024 and one in 2023, according to inspection data by the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. According to ICE data, 1,081 people were detained there as of June 23, compared with 719 at the end of fiscal year 2024 and 570 at the end of fiscal year 2023. (The federal government’s fiscal year runs through Sept. 30.)

One morning in mid-April, the facility contacted the local Health Department to report 57 cases of suspected foodborne illness, with symptoms including diarrhea, stomachache and bloating, according to the Health Department. After an investigation, the department concluded that reheated collard greens that had been served at the facility had tested positive for Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning. The collard greens were a substitute food for that day and not posted on the day’s menu, according to health department documents. Food poisoning caused by Bacillus cereus is often related to leftover food that has been improperly cooled or reheated.

The Health Department went back to the Northwest Processing Center for an unannounced visit and found “several improper food handling practices.” It worked with the staff there to correct them, and as of June 18 the facility had passed inspection.

Asked about that, McLaughlin said in an email, “While the Health Department was notified, the on-site medical team concluded that there was no evidence linking the illness to a specific food item, as claimed by the detainees.”

‘I am getting used to the hunger’

Over the past month, the American Immigration Lawyers Association has received at least a dozen food-related complaints from advocacy groups and lawyers representing detainees across the country, according to Dojaquez-Torres.

“The common complaint is that there is just not enough food,” she said in an interview. “What I am hearing is that there are extended periods of time when people are not being fed, and when they are, they are being given chips or a slice of bread.”

“We have been getting reports from around the country from our members … and conditions have been declining rapidly,” she said. She also said that some detainees haven’t been given beds and that some have said they aren’t given access to showers.

In early June, a “melee” broke out in Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, because of conditions inside the facility, which included “paltry meals served at irregular hours,” according to The New York Times, which spoke to several lawyers representing detainees inside the facility and family members.

Geo Group pushed back against the Times’ reporting in an emailed statement at the time, saying, “Contrary to current reporting, there has been no widespread unrest at the facility.”

DHS also denied allegations of food issues at the Newark immigration detention facility when NBC News asked about them.

“Allegations that there are chronic food shortages at Delaney Hall are unequivocally false. The facility regularly reviews any detainee complaints. The Food Service Operations Director conducted a review of food portions and detainees are being fed the portions as prescribed by the nutritionist, based on a daily 2400 to 2600 caloric intake,” McLaughlin said.

DHS didn’t respond to a follow-up question about how recently the food service operations director — or any oversight body reviewing food in ICE detention facilities nationwide — had last visited and made an assessment.

In late May, Rubimar said, her husband, Jose, had called and told her that the gas at his facility wasn’t functioning and that they had been given only a bag of tuna to eat in the meantime. But even before that, she said, her husband said the food was “too little.”

McLaughlin said a dietitian had recently approved the meal plan at the El Paso Service Processing Center and indicated “the total caloric intake for ICE detainees at the facility was 3,436 per day — which exceeds the average daily recommended minimums.”

LaSalle Corrections, which operates the Winn Correctional Center, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The GEO Group, which operates the ICE facilities in Newark and Tacoma, as well as the Golden State Annex and many others nationwide, didn’t respond to specific allegations about food service and instead provided this statement: “We are proud of the role our company has played for 40 years to support the law enforcement mission of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Over the last four decades, our innovative support service solutions have helped the federal government implement the policies of seven different Presidential Administrations. In all instances, our support services are monitored by ICE, including on-site agency personnel, and other organizations within the Department of Homeland Security to ensure strict compliance with ICE detention standards.”

Reduced oversight

Beyond overcrowding, immigration advocates also blame the alleged food issues at detention facilities in part on cutbacks to a team of inspectors inside DHS.

The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, an office that previously oversaw conditions inside ICE and ICE-contracted facilities, was entirely or mainly shuttered this year after the “majority of the workforce” was issued reduction-in-force notices, according to ongoing litigation regarding the cuts.

“One of the things that made the [Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman] is that we actually had case managers in the facilities and they were accessible to the detainees,” a former DHS employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about future government employment. “They would actually go into the kitchen [to see] if there were deficiencies and work with kitchen management.”

Karla Gilbride, a lawyer with Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group suing the Trump administration over the firings of people in the office, said the office has been completely dismantled.

“That is our position, that they have shut down the office. They put everyone on leave. They were told to stop interacting with everyone who filed complaints” from detention, Gilbride said.

The former DHS employee said the dismantling of the ombudsman’s office means detainees have fewer options if they have complaints or concerns about things like food, overcrowding, sanitation, access to legal counsel and clean clothes.

“At the end of the day, it really just means that there are less people to sound an alarm,” the former DHS employee said.

McLaughlin didn’t respond to requests for comment about the dismantling of the ombudsman’s office. DHS has maintained in court filings that the ombudsman’s office remains open and that efforts to restaff certain positions affected by the layoffs are underway.

In a status report filed in court in early July, government lawyers said they are onboarding three new employees at the ombudsman’s office and that files have been created for all new complaints since the end of March.

Immigrants in overcapacity ICE detention say they’re hungry, raise food quality concerns
As the Trump administration ramps up immigration arrests, recent detainees and advocacy groups are raising concerns about food in ICE facilities nationwide.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/immigrants-overcapacity-ice-detention-say-hungry-raise-food-quality-co-rcna214193

AOL: US Justice fires several more employees from Jack Smith’s team, sources say

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U.S. Attorney General Pam [Bimbo #3] Bondi on Friday fired several more Justice Department employees who worked for Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate President Donald Trump’s retention of classified records and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to five people familiar with the matter.

About 20 lawyers, support staff and U.S. Marshals who worked on Smith’s probe were terminated, according to one of the sources.

At least two of the people fired were prosecutors who most recently worked in other U.S. Attorneys’ offices in Florida and North Carolina, three of the sources told Reuters.

The Justice Department since January has been dismissing employees who worked on matters involving Trump or his supporters, citing Trump’s executive powers under the U.S. Constitution.

A spokesperson for Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fourteen attorneys who worked on Smith’s team were fired on January 27 because of work on cases against Trump, becoming some of the department’s earliest employees who were dismissed. Department leadership told those attorneys in termination letters that they could not be trusted to carry out Trump’s agenda because of their work on Smith’s probe.

Including the people fired on Friday, at least 37 people who worked on Smith’s team have been terminated since Trump took office on January 20.

The Justice Department in recent months has also fired people who handled casework involving defendants who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.

In late June, three prosecutors, one of whom had worked on cases involving the Proud Boys, were fired. Earlier this month, [Bimbo #3] Bondi also fired a career veteran of the department who served as a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington.

In late January, the Justice Department also fired probationary prosecutors who had worked on January 6 cases.

Smith brought two criminal cases against Trump in 2023, accusing him of illegally retaining national security documents and plotting to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Both were dropped before Trump returned to office.

The politicization of the Department of Justice into a machine of revenge for King Donald and his cronies continues unabated.

US Justice fires several more employees from Jack Smith’s team, sources say
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday fired several more Justice Department employees who worked for Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate President Donald Trump’s retention of classified records and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to five people familiar with the matter. About 20 lawyers, support staff and U.S. Marshals who worked on Smith’s probe were terminated, according to one of the sources. The Justice Department since January has been dismis

https://www.aol.com/news/us-justice-fires-nine-more-021501413.html

CNN: Florida lawmakers allowed into ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ say detainees packed into cages

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Deep in the hazardous and ecologically fragile Everglades, hundreds of migrants are confined in cages in a makeshift tent detention facility Florida’s Republican governor calls “safe and secure” and Democratic lawmakers call “inhumane.”

Two days after filing a lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for being “unlawfully denied entry” to inspect conditions at the facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” members of Congress and state representatives were given a limited tour Saturday to inspect conditions after calling the lack of access a “deliberate obstruction meant to hide what’s really happening behind those gates,” according to a joint statement from lawmakers.

They said they heard detainees shouting for help and crying out “libertad”— Spanish for “freedom” — amid sweltering heat, bug infestations and meager meals.

“They are essentially packed into cages, wall-to-wall humans, 32 detainees per cage,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents Florida’s 25th Congressional District, said during a news conference following their tour.

The families of some of the detainees have also decried conditions in the facility, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials defend it as offering higher detention standards than many US prisons.

Lawmakers Shown Empty Cells

On the tour, the lawmakers said they were not allowed to visit areas where migrants are currently being detained but instead were shown cells not yet being used.

Wasserman Schultz said each cage contained three small toilets with attached sinks, which detainees use for drinking water and brushing their teeth, sharing the same water used to flush the toilets.

When they toured the kitchen area, Wasserman Schultz said government employees were being offered large pieces of roast chicken and sausages, while the detainees’ lunch consisted of a “gray turkey and cheese sandwich, an apple and chips.”

“I don’t see how that could possibly sustain them nutritionally or not make them hungry,” Wasserman Schultz said. “And when you have hungry people, obviously their mood changes.”

Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who was also on the tour, said the lawmakers were concerned about reports of unhygienic conditions due to toilets not working and “feces being spread everywhere,” but were denied access from viewing units where migrants are currently detained.

They were also not permitted to view the medical facilities, with officials citing HIPAA laws, despite lawmakers being allowed to examine the medical facilities at other detention facilities, he said.

“It is something everyone, whether you’re Democrat, Republican or anything, should be deeply ashamed of,” Frost said. “Immigrants don’t poison the blood of this nation. They are the blood of this nation.”

US Rep. Darren Soto said lawmakers also witnessed evidence of flooding, highlighting serious concerns of what could happen to detainees if there’s severe weather during what forecasters said may be a busy hurricane season.

“What we saw in our inspection today was a political stunt, dangerous and wasteful,” Soto said after the tour. “One can’t help but understand and conclude that this is a total cruel political stunt meant to have a spectacle of political theater and it’s wasting taxpayer dollars and putting our ICE agents, our troops and ICE detainees in jeopardy.”

About 900 people are currently detained at the facility, Wasserman Schultz said during the news conference but it has the capacity to hold 3,000 people, with room for more, according to Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

The wife of a 43-year-old Guatemalan man currently detained at “Alligator Alcatraz” told CNN her husband is enduring harsh conditions similar to those described by lawmakers who toured the facility. After more than two weeks in detention, she said, he has yet to see a lawyer.

“There are too many mosquitoes … He’s in a really bad condition. The power goes off at times because they’re using generators,” the woman told CNN in an interview Tuesday.

“The detainees are being held in tents, and it is very hot there. They’re in bad conditions. … There’s not enough food. Sick people are not getting medication. Every time I ask about his situation, he tells me it’s bad,” she said.

The Guatemalan woman said she, her husband, and their 11-month-old baby went fishing on June 25 in the Everglades. A Florida wildlife officer approached them and asked for documents. Her husband had a valid driver’s license, she said, but when the officer realized she didn’t have any documents proving she was in the country legally, the officer called immigration authorities who detained the whole family.

After spending seven-and-a-half hours in what she describes as a “dirty holding cell,” she and her baby – a US citizen – were released, but her husband was detained. She now wears an ankle bracelet.

Her husband later told her he remained in detention at the Dania Beach Jail, near Fort Lauderdale, for eight days, before being transferred to “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Once transferred, he was unable to take a shower for six days and there were not enough facilities for washing hands, she said. On Friday, he was woken up at 3 a.m. to take a shower because of the number of people waiting for their turn, she said.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Florida detention facility, did not immediately reply to CNN’s request for comment about specific allegations about conditions there.

In a written statement posted on X Tuesday, DHS said, “ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens. All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members.”

‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Set Up In Just Eight Days

In little over a week, workers transformed the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport from an 11,000-foot runway into a temporary tent city President Donald Trump toured last week.

Trump raved about the facility’s “incredible” quick construction during his visit and pointed to the detention center as an example of what he wants to implement “in many states.”

The project was fast-tracked under an executive order from DeSantis, who framed illegal immigration as a state emergency.

Sounds like more of a coverup than a tour!

Florida lawmakers allowed into ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ say detainees packed into cages | CNN
Deep in the hazardous and ecologically fragile Everglades, hundreds of migrants are confined in cages in a makeshift tent detention facility Florida’s Republican governor calls “safe and secure” and Democratic lawmakers call “inhumane.”

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/12/us/alligator-alcatraz-lawmaker-tour-conditions

New York Times: ‘Egregious.’ ‘Brazen.’ ‘Lawless. ’How 48 JudgesDescribe Trump’s Actions, In Their Own Words

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Many Americans in positions of power, including corporate executives and members of Congress, seem too afraid of President Trump to stand up to his anti-democratic behavior. Federal judges have shown themselves to be exceptions. “Judges from across the ideological spectrum are ruling against administration policies at remarkable rates,” said Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford University.

These rulings have halted Mr. Trump’s vengeful attempts to destroy law firms, forestalled some of his budget cuts and kept him from deporting additional immigrants. Yes, the Supreme Court has often been more deferential to the president. Still, it has let stand many lower-court rulings and has itself constrained Mr. Trump in some cases.

The bipartisan alarm from federal judges offers a roadmap for others to respond to Mr. Trump’s often illegal behavior. His actions deserve to be called out in plain language for what they really are. And people in positions of influence should do what they can to stand up for American values, as many judges have done.

Here, we’ve compiled quotations from judges’ recent rulings and bench comments.

…

J. Harvie Wilkinson III, Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

Appointed by Ronald Reagan

On the refusal to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador:

“This is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone.”

Leonie M. Brinkema, Eastern District of Virginia

Appointed by Bill Clinton

On an ICE official’s inconsistent affidavit:

“This is a terrible, terrible affidavit. If this were before me in a criminal case and you were asking to get a warrant issued on this, I’d throw you out of my chambers.”

James E. Boasberg, District of Columbia District

Appointed by Barack Obama

On a judge’s order blocking deportations:

“In an egregious case of cherry-picking, defendants selectively quote only a fragment of the court’s response here to mischaracterize its position.”

Click on the links below to read what the other 45 judges had to say regarding King Donald’s legal prowess:

Opinion | ‘Egregious.’ ‘Brazen.’ ‘Lawless.’ How 48 Judges Describe Trump’s Actions, in Their Own Words
Dozens of judges, appointed by presidents of both parties, have stood up to the administration’s lawlessness.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/07/12/opinion/editorials/federal-judges-quotes-trump-administration.html?unlocked_article_code=1.V08.A1qs.Bu0IZMlwJ46a&smid=url-share