NBC News: A DHS staffer faces serious punishment for accidentally adding a reporter to a group email

The episode, which hasn’t been previously reported, raises questions about unequal punishment for inadvertent leakers in the Trump administration.

The bigwigs run interference for one another. The little people get the shaft.

It’s what happened to a longtime Department of Homeland Security employee who told colleagues she inadvertently sent unclassified details of an upcoming Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation to a journalist in late January, according to former ICE chief of staff Jason Houser, one former DHS official and one current DHS official. (The two officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they do not want to endanger their current or future career opportunities.)

But unlike Waltz and Hegseth, who both remain in their jobs, the career DHS employee was put on administrative leave and told late last week that the agency intends to revoke her security clearance, the officials said.  

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has largely rallied around Waltz and Hegseth, with Trump on Wednesday calling it “all a witch hunt.” 

A DHS staffer faces serious punishment for accidentally adding a reporter to a group email

Mediaite: Democratic Senator Warns Trump Putting Country Under ‘Quasi-Martial Law’ After ‘Chilling’ Cloak-And-Dagger Arrest

The video is really chilling. And this should matter to every single American. Okay, first of all the president doesn’t need the Alien Enemies Act in order to remove from this country. People who pose a threat to the nation, people who have engaged in criminal behavior or who have coordinated with terrorist groups, he has that power under existing law to remove from the country non-citizens. So he doesn’t need this authority.

What he is trying to do is put America on a war footing. This is an act that has only been exercised three times in American history. During the war of 1812, during the First World War, and during the Second World War. It is a wartime authority, and what you really worry about is the president continuing to move forward in exercising wartime powers in order to suspend additional elements of the constitution.

He, of course, has shown affection for something called the Insurrection Act, which would put the military in charge of everyday law enforcement in this country.

You are watching along multiple channels this massive slide away from democracy and democratic norms. And so that video is chilling because a the president doesn’t need that act to be able to remove a threat, but it speaks to his willingness to try to put America in a kind of quasi-martial law that ultimately will come to be a threat, not just to green card holders, but to American citizens as well.

So it’s a really worrying time and everybody in America should care what’s happening.

Chris Murphy: Trump ‘Putting’ U.S. Under ‘Quasi-Martial Law’

USA Today: Trump slashes homeland security civil rights jobs in ‘Black Friday’ cuts

Former DHS immigration detention ombudsman: “I think we’ll see people die in custody as a result.”

Homeland Security is eliminating those employees whose job is to keep them operating honestly and legally:

In a move aimed at reducing “roadblocks” to its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration has fired most employees within the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and two separate DHS ombudsman offices, a senior DHS official confirmed late Friday.

The actions come amid other changes at DHS that critics say will curtail oversight of immigration efforts by President Donald Trump even as legal challenges intensify over their constitutionality.

A senior DHS official told USA TODAY that the RIF or “reduction in force” efforts were done “to eliminate redundant and counterproductive roles while reallocating resources to frontline enforcement, where they are most effective.”

Michelle Brané, who served in the Biden administration as the immigration detention ombudsman within DHS, called the cuts a “recipe for disaster.”

Brané said she believes roughly 200 people lost their jobs in what she called “Black Friday” cuts.

“They’re eliminating all the oversight bodies within the Department of Homeland Security at a time when they are being more aggressive than ever and making more mistakes than ever,” Brané said. “I think we’ll see people die in custody as a result.”

Trump slashes homeland security civil rights jobs in ‘Black Friday’ cuts

ABC News: Man deported under Alien Enemies Act because of soccer logo tattoo: Attorney

An attorney representing a migrant sent to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act says her client was deported due to a soccer logo tattoo, according to court declarations submitted Wednesday night.

Linette Tobin is representing Jerce Reyes Barrios, a professional soccer player from Venezuela who protested the Maduro regime in February and March 2024 and was detained and tortured after one of the demonstrations.

Man deported under Alien Enemies Act because of soccer logo tattoo: Attorney