Tag Archives: ICE

Associated Press: US deportation flights hit record highs as carriers try to hide the planes, advocates say

Posted on by
Reply

Immigration advocates gather like clockwork outside Seattle’s King County International Airport to witness deportation flights and spread word of where they are going and how many people are aboard. Until recently, they could keep track of the flights using publicly accessible websites.

But the monitors and others say airlines are now using dummy call signs for deportation flights and are blocking the planes’ tail numbers from tracking websites, even as the number of deportation flights hits record highs under President Donald Trump. The changes forced them to find other ways to follow the flights, including by sharing information with other groups and using data from an open-source exchange that tracks aircraft transmissions.

Their work helps people locate loved ones who are deported in the absence of information from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which rarely discloses flights. News organizations have used such flight tracking in reporting.

Tom Cartwright, a retired J.P. Morgan financial officer turned immigration advocate, tracked 1,214 deportation-related flights in July — the highest level since he started watching in January 2020. About 80% are operated by three airlines: GlobalX, Eastern Air Express and Avelo Airlines. They carry immigrants to other airports to be transferred to overseas flights or take them across the border, mostly to Central American countries and Mexico.

Cartwright tracked 5,962 flights from the start of Trump’s second term through July, a 41% increase of 1,721 over the same period in 2024. Those figures including information from major deportation airports but not smaller ones like King County International Airport, also known as Boeing Field. Cartwright’s figures include 68 military deportation flights since January — 18 in July alone. Most have gone to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The work became so demanding that Cartwright, 71, and his group, Witness at the Border, turned over the job this month to Human Rights First, which dubbed its project “ICE Flight Monitor.”

“His work brings essential transparency to U.S. government actions impacting thousands of lives and stands as a powerful example of citizen-driven accountability in defense of human rights and democracy,” Uzrz Zeya, Human Rights First’s chief executive officer, said.

The airlines did not respond to multiple email requests for comment. ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which would not confirm any security measures it has taken.

La Resistencia, a Seattle-area nonprofit immigration rights group, has monitored 59 flights at Boeing Field and five at the Yakima airport in 2025, surpassing its 2024 total of 42.

Not all are deportation flights. Many are headed to or from immigration detention centers or to airports near the border. La Resistencia counted 1,023 immigrants brought in to go to the ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington, and 2,279 flown out, often to states on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“ICE is doing everything in its power to make it as hard as possible to differentiate their contractors’ government activities from other commercial endeavors,” organizer Guadalupe Gonzalez told The Associated Press.

Airlines can legally block data

The Federal Aviation Administration allows carriers to block data like tail numbers from public flight tracking websites under the Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed program, or LADD, said Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for FlightRadar24.

“Tail numbers are like VIN numbers on cars,” Gonzalez said.

Planes with blocked tail numbers no longer appear on websites like FlightRadar24 or FlightAware. The tracker page identifies these them as “N/A – Not Available” as they move across the map and when they are on the tarmac. Destinations and arrival times aren’t listed.

Carriers have occasionally used LADD for things like presidential campaigns, but in March, FlightRadar24 received LADD notices for more than a dozen aircraft, Petchenik said. It was unusual to see that many aircraft across multiple airlines added to the blocking list, he said. The blocked planes were often used for ICE deportations and transfers, he said.

Of the 94 ICE Air contractor planes that La Resistencia was tracking nationwide, 40 have been unlisted, Gonzalez said.

Similar things happened with the call signs airlines use to identify flights in the air, Gonzalez said.

Airlines use a combination of letters in their company name and numbers to identify their planes. GlobalX uses GXA, for example. But in the past few months, the ICE carriers have changed their regular call signs, making it more difficult to locate their immigration activates, he said.

US deportation flights hit record highs as carriers try to hide the planes, advocates say
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flights reach record highs, the airlines running the trips have taken steps to make it more difficult to track the planes used to carry shackled people across the country and around the world.

https://apnews.com/article/ice-deportation-immigration-flights-f61941d31adf43a6a01cccc720f3bb01

Independent: They donated millions to Trump — now, ICE detention providers are reaping the rewards

Posted on by
Reply

Private contractors run many of ICE’s largest detention facilities. Now, with a push to deport more and more immigrants, these companies stand to win big under Trump.

Two issues here:

  1. Congress must have the power to regulate and/or ban campaign activity by corporations and PACS. This will require a constitutional amendment.
  2. We need to stop the expansion of detention facilities for immigrants.

For many workers or organizations reliant on the federal government, President Donald Trump’s return to office has meant jobs, funding and entire agencies slashed, as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claims to have cut $202 billion.

But one industry has seen exponential growth — and expects even more to come: immigration detention.

“Private prison companies have been so giddy since last November, about the prospect of making billions of dollars at the expense of every American,” Stacy Suh, director at Detention Watch Network, told The Independent.

And the companies made sure to help Trump get elected.

America’s two leading detention companies, Geo Group and CoreCivic, were among the Trump campaign’s most notable donors last year, with executives and subsidiaries donating a total of $2.7 million to the president’s campaign and associated political action committees.

CoreCivic even bestowed over $500,000 towards Trump’s inauguration this year, while Geo Group contributed to his 2016 inauguration fund.

Trump’s Big, Beautiful, Bill set aside an unprecedented$45 billion for ICE to boost immigration detention. As the two largest detention powerhouses in the U.S., both Geo Group and CoreCivic stand to win big.

As soon as Trump won the election last November, CoreCivic’s share price saw a huge spike, nearly doubling from $13.63 per share to $22.13 per share in just one week.

GeoGroup’s share price jumped from $15.13 to $25.05 in the same post-election period.

This is likely because the privately-run facilities house 86 percent of the detained immigrant population, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

Yet just 6 percent of Americans believe that ICE detention centers should be run privately, an exclusive poll for The Independent can reveal, with the majority saying facilities should be run by federal or state governments, according to Prolific.

Over 60,000 people are currently held in immigration detention across the U.S., according to ICE records seen by The New York Times.

That number has already jumped by 54 percent since Trump’s return, with average detention populations under the Biden administration around 39,000, according to TRAC.

But though the government may determine their future, the 20 largest ICE detention centers are all operated by private companies, according to TRAC’s data in January.

GeoGroup and CoreCivic are the leading operators, both in terms of facilities operated and their capacity. Other private firms, like Lasalle Corrections and Management & Training Corporation (MTC), also have contracts to run ICE facilities.

CoreCivic runs the biggest detention centre in the country — Adams County Correctional Facility in Natchez, Missouri, with over 2,100 detainees on average each day. The new federal facility at Fort Bliss may soon take the cake, however, with a capacity of 5,000 people.

Both CoreCivic and GeoGroup provide both traditional prison incarceration services, and immigration detention services, to federal and state governments.

But with a slowdown in incarceration and greater focus on rehabilitation in recent years, prison contracts have been drying up — and increased immigration detention contracts has become more foundational to their business models.

One of Trump’s first actions in office was also to end the Biden-era ban on private prison providers, allowing companies like GeoGroup and CoreCivic to once again contract with the Department of Justice.

When asked for comment about its reliance on punitive policies by the new administration to build its business, CoreCivic noted that it does not enforce immigration laws, or arrest anyone, or have any say over an individual’s deportation — but it acknowledged that Trump’s policies does provide it with growth opportunities.

“As the current administration is exploring all options available to them to address the increasing demand for detention services and capacity, we expect that those options will include the high-quality solutions CoreCivic provides,” Ryan Gustin, director of Public Affairs at CoreCivic, told The Independent.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for GeoGroup told The Independent that “simply put, our facilities are never overcrowded.”

But Freedom of Information Act requests by TRAC last month revealed that several facilities run by GeoGroup were significantly overcapacity on at least one day this year.

This includes GeoGroup’s Pine Prairie processing centre in Louisiana, which has a contractual maximum of 500 people but held 1,311 detainees at some point in 2025.

Immigration operations make up over a third of revenue for both Geo Group and Core Civic, latest financial reports show, making ICE their largest governmental partner.

“We are proud of the role our company has played for 40 years to support [ICE’s] law enforcement mission, over seven different Presidential Administrations,” a GEO Group spokesperson told The Independent.

Geo Group has been awarded nearly $8 billion in federal contracts over successive governments, according to the federal database, in addition to state contracts.

Over half of this ($4.4 billion) was awarded by ICE for immigration detention services.

Meanwhile CoreCivic has been awarded over $8.3 billion in federal contracts over time, with a quarter ($2 billion) of those being ICE contracts to run detention facilities.

“ICE’s budget now is larger than many militaries around the world, while our hospitals and schools remain underfunded, and people are losing their access to health care and food benefits,” said Suh.

The Independent contacted ICE for comment for this article but did not get a response.

Federal contracts from ICE have been steadily increasing since Trump’s first term (with for a brief time during the peak of the pandemic), according to the federal spending database, rising from $137.5 million awarded in 2016 to $463.4 million in 2025 so far.

ICE contracts awarded since January alone include $353.5 million to GeoGroup, $148 million to CoreCivic, and $313 million to CSI Aviation — ICE’s deportation flight contractor.

“There is more and more incentivization to cage people in immigration detention. The more people that they detain, the more their business grows,” Suh said. “Financial Incentives are really the bedrock of incarceration.”

And now, documents seen by The Washington Post reveal that ICE is planning to more than double detention capacity, from around 50,000 to more than 107,000 by January 2026.

These plans include opening or expanding 125 facilities before the end of the year – with over $1 billion in contracts each year between CoreCivic and GeoGroup, according to the Post’s analysis of ICE documents.

Already, both detention giants have seen a flood of new or amendedcontracts and have opened up new facilities to expand their capacity.

What’s more, ICE has issued nine of these contracts without allowing competitive bids, citing a national emergency at the Mexico border — meaning that CoreCivic secured the deal to reopen its contentiousLeavenworth facility without competition, according to PBS.

“We stay in regular contact with ICE and all our government partners to understand their changing needs, and we work within their established procurement processes. It is our policy to respect these processes,” Gustin told The Independent of CoreCivic’s contracts.

Since January alone, several facilities have been opened up to hold more immigrants in detention as ICE ramps up its raids.

In the Michigan town of Baldwin, former prison North Lake Correctional Facility has now reopened as an immigration center operated by Geo Group, to the tune of $70 million in annual revenue. The 1,800-bed facility opened in June despite facing significant pushback from residents and local protests.

And just last week, a tense dispute broke out at a local board meeting in Mason, Tennessee, over the reopening of a CoreCivic facility as an immigration detention center. Residents crowded the meeting and chanted outside in protest of the contract, which was ultimately approved, according to reports in the Tennessee Lookout.

“If ICE expansion plans are fully realized, that’s a massive shift in resources. It’s also a massive transformation in the very fabric of American society and how it operates,” Suh told The Independent.

“Communities across the country are rightly outraged about detention expansion happening on their doorstep. People are saying, ‘No, we don’t want detention in our community. We don’t want our neighbors to be torn apart away from their loved ones’.”

They donated millions to Trump, now ICE detention providers are reaping the rewards
Private contractors run many of ICE’s largest detention facilities. Now, with a push to deport more and more immigrants, these companies stand to win big under Trump. Alicja Hagopian reports.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-donors-ice-immigration-detention-private-funding-b2812474.html

ABC News: Inside the facility where ICE officers train as Trump administration ramps up hiring

Posted on by
Reply

As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ramps up hiring, one of the first stops new officers make is to a training center just outside of Savannah, Georgia.

The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) is preparing to train up to 10,000 new ICE officers, as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s deportation efforts, and members of the media were given access to see the “lifecycle of a recruit.”

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, a graduate of the FLETC training course in 2007, told ABC News the agency is confident they’ll be able to staff up 10,000 new officers by the end of the year.

“We are taking a whole of government approach,” he told ABC News. “We have to be cognizant of who we are hiring, but I think it is an achievable goal.”

The process starts with a security screening and background check, once that passes, the entire time can take as little as eight weeks from training to an officer is on the street, according to ICE.

Only 8 weeks of training are need to become an ICE goon with gun & badge. That is pathetic.

The training center is run by former ICE Acting Director Caleb Vitello, who said the agency cut the Spanish language portion of the training to speed up the hiring timeline.

Instead, ICE uses Spanish language software in the field which is faster, according to Vitello.

We’ve already seen videos of detainees being abused as ICE pigs refuse to use their translation software.

“The recruits here know the staff training them are professionals, and experts in the job they do,” Lyons said while standing outside of the recruit obstacle course.

Both Lyons and Vitello stressed that they did not want to compromise the quality of officers for quantity. The training academy runs more classes and goes six days a week, according to ICE, and they have four different sites around the country in which they run training.

Lyons said ICE can be picky about who is recruited because of the more than 121,000 applications the agency has received.

Picky? As in (1) big, (2) dumb, (3) stupid, (4) ill-trained, and (5) ill-disciplined?

ABC News observed the Special Operations Team, a 12-person elite tactical training team, clear a house that is used for training purposes. That team is deployed when the threat levels are high and when they need to serve a warrant. There is one in every field office around the country, according to ICE.

Other law enforcement agencies, such as the Bureau of Prisons, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), also train at the center.

Lyons was also asked by ABC News about the masks worn by ICE officers. He said they are necessary because of the doxxing — the malicious sharing of personal information — he says agents are facing.

“I wish our officers didn’t have to wear them,” Lyons said. “You have this crazy rhetoric where people are calling for threats against ICE officers and threats to agents.”

During the Biden administration and at the beginning of the Trump administration, Lyons said ICE officers weren’t wearing masks, but he said now the threat has increased.

“People are trying to identify them and post their photos online, dox them, threaten their families, it’s totally unacceptable,” Lyons said. “What we need is elected officials to work with us to hold these people accountable that dox ICE agents.”

Inside the facility where ICE officers train as the Trump administration ramps up hiring
The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center is preparing to train up to 10,000 new ICE officers.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/inside-facility-ice-officers-train-trump-administration-ramps/story?id=124919839

Another Bullshit ‘Assaulting An ICE Officer’ Case Falls Apart In Front Of A Grand JuryPlease expect delivery within the day.

Posted on by
Reply

The number of assaults on ICE officers was always going to increase. There’s no way it wouldn’t, not when ICE was sending out a task force composed of multiple federal law enforcement agencies daily to multiple locations in the United States, hoping to finally hit the baseline number of 3,000 arrests per day by Stephen Miller.

A massive increase in interactions was bound to result in an increase in alleged assaults. The surprising fact, however, was that the increase was so low. To hear the DHS tell it, ICE officers are being beaten to the ground daily, with spokespeople constantly posting eye-popping stats like a 690% increase in assaults. (Since then, the percentage has increased to nearly 1000%.)

But all that really meant — when the DHS decided to finally be honest about it — was that there had been 69 more assaults this year as compared to last year (79 to 10). And when you have the actual numbers, this supposed “war on ICE” looks more like ICE officers complaining a bit more than they did last year.

Well, ICE officers brought it on themselves. Their insistence on wearing masks, stripping themselves of identifying badges, driving unmarked vehicles, hanging around in courtroom hallways, chasing day laborers across Home Deport parking lots, lurking in rented moving vans, etc. all but ensured there would be the occasional violent reaction to the sudden appearance of masked kidnappers who somehow can’t manage to obtain the occasional judicial warrant.

The DHS is relying on its ever-increasing percentage to sell this skewed narrative. Unfortunately for ICE, DHS, and the DOJ, the narrative isn’t holding up in court. Not only are ICE’s tactics being shut down by federal courts, DOJ prosecutors can’t even sneak bullshit charges past grand juries — entities that are normally extremely receptive of the one-sided presentations made by government lawyers.

Late last month, the DOJ issued a press release touting one of its latest wins: the charging of DC resident Sydney Reid with assaulting ICE officers. DC US attorney, former Fox talking head Jeanine Pirro, made the announcement, using these words to describe what (allegedly) occurred during this so-called altercation:

The FBI agent was assisting two ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers outside the jail when Reid walked up close to the officers and started recording video. After multiple commands to step back, Reid tried to go around the ERO officers, placing herself between FBI agents and one of the suspects being transferred into their custody.

As Reid tried to impede the transfer, one of the ERO officers pushed her against the wall and told her to stop. Reid continued to struggle and fight with the officer. The FBI agent tried to help the officer control Reid who was flailing her arms and kicking. During Reid’s active resistance to being detained, the FBI agent’s hand was injured from striking and scraping the cement wall causing lacerations while the FBI agent was assisting ICE ERO officers.

LOL. Arm “flailing” is apparently assault, especially if an officer manages to injure themselves during the incident. This was enough for the DOJ to move forward with an attempt to secure an indictment from a grand jury. But it couldn’t even do that because the government seemingly isn’t interested in actually proving its case in court — not even in front of a court that only needs to see probable cause, rather than the much higher “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard used by criminal courts.

Reid was charged with an enhanced felony assault charge, supposedly due to her “infliction of bodily injury” on the FBI agent who hurt themself while “assisting” ICE in arresting a person who began her interaction by doing nothing more harmful than simply filming them with her phone.

The DOJ has tried to indict Reid twice for this supposed “assault.” It has now failed twice, as WUSA9 reports.

Federal prosecutors twice sought a grand jury indictment against a D.C. woman accused of assaulting an FBI agent during an ICE inmate transfer — and were twice rejected, the U.S. Attorney’s Office admitted in court Thursday.

Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey revealed the denials to attorneys for Sydney Lori Reid and later granted their request to remove all bond conditions and release her on her own recognizance over prosecutors’ objections.

I’m sure someone will try to pretend these are the actions of an “activist” judge who shouldn’t be allowed to handle cases brought by this particular administration.

But the details show it’s the government that’s mostly inert, apparently assuming all it has to do is show up in front of a grand jury to obtain an indictment. Almost zero effort was made here, which makes the double-denial completely understandable:

Federal prosecutors declined to call the injured FBI agent or any of the ICE officers involved in the incident during Thursday’s hearing, however. Instead, they had an investigator with the U.S. Attorney’s Office testify about his review of video of the incident and brief conversations with the officers. The investigator, Special Agent Sean Ricardi, said he’d had no involvement in the case until he was asked to prepare for testimony Thursday morning.

When the government says “it’s our word against yours,” that’s generally enough to make people understand they’re already going up against a stacked deck. When the government fails (repeatedly, in recent weeks) to secure indictments even when it’s their word against no one’s, it’s clear the government actually has no case to present.

It would be nice to see a revised percentage from the DHS that only utilizes sustained assault allegations that result in an indictment or conviction. But we’ll never see that sort of honesty from this administration, which relies almost solely on misrepresentations of goddamn everything to push its narratives forward. There’s a war on Americans going on here, led by a super-charged ICE. But all the most powerful people can do is play the victim while trying to bully reality into better alignment with its bullshit narratives.

Another Bullshit ‘Assaulting An ICE Officer’ Case Falls Apart In Front Of A Grand Jury
The number of assaults on ICE officers was always going to increase. There’s no way it wouldn’t, not when ICE was sending out a task force composed of multiple federal law enforcement a…
Another Bullshit ‘Assaulting An ICE Officer’ Case Falls Apart In Front Of A Grand Jury

MSNBC: ‘It’s disturbing’: Trump faces backlash as ICE arrests go viral across the country

Posted on by
Reply
‘It’s disturbing’: Trump faces backlash as ICE arrests go viral across the country
Vice President For Immigration Policy And Campaigns at fwd.us Andrea Flores, President Of Brilliant Corners Research Cornell Belcher, and Senior National and Political correspondent for MSNBC Jacob Soboroff join Alicia Menendez – in for Nicolle Wallace – to discuss the brutal immigration arrests across the country that have been going viral, and the political backlash Trump has been getting.

Newsweek: ICE pushes to deport double amputee in US since age 2 after over 40 years

Posted on by
Reply

Rodney Taylor, 46, who came to the United States from Liberia at age 2 for medical treatment, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in January and is awaiting a judge’s decision on whether he will be deported.

Newsweek confirmed in the ICE detainee tracker that Taylor is currently held at the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia.

Newsweek reached out to ICE for comment via email on Thursday.

Why It Matters

Taylor’s detention and potential deportation come amid an immigration crackdown under the Trump administration, with the president having pledged to launch the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history. However, Taylor was arrested by ICE days before President Donald Trump‘s second term began.

Immigrants residing in the country both illegally and legally, with valid documentation such as green cards and visas, as well as those with criminal histories, have been detained. Many with past convictions, even from decades ago, have found themselves in ICE custody despite spending years without facing serious immigration problems. Some detainees have reported being held in inhumane and harsh conditions.

What To Know

Taylor came to the United States from Liberia as a child on a medical visa after losing both legs, according to Atlanta news station 11Alive. He has never returned to Liberia and was never granted U.S. citizenship.

On January 15, just five days before Trump took office, ICE agents, with guns reportedly drawn, arrested Taylor, his fiancée, Mildred Pierre told Fox 5 Atlanta. Taylor worked as a barber in Gwinnett County and is the father of seven children.

Taylor was arrested for burglary when he was 16, although he was later pardoned by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole in 2010.

“I thought I had a pardon from the state. It was all behind me in the past. They brought it up, and it was shocking to me,” Taylor told Fox 5 from his Stewart Detention Center cell in June. The center is owned by CoreCivic.

11Alive reported that state pardons don’t necessarily apply under federal immigration law, and this one did not meet the necessary thresholds for relief from deportation.

The news station said that Taylor applied for legal permanent status three times, but due to his juvenile conviction, the applications were denied. His family members are U.S. citizens living in America, according to 11Alive.

Pierre told 11Alive this month that Taylor’s August 12 hearing would be his final immigration hearing. Fox 5 reported that earlier this year, Taylor was held without proper medical care, with his prosthetics rubbing against him constantly.

What People Are Saying

Taylor’s fiancée, Mildred Pierre, told Fox 5 Atlanta: “There’s a truck that blocked me from the back, two cars come in the front, guns drawn, ‘Get out the car, get out the car.’ My kids were in the back crying. We didn’t know what was going on. It was like a scene from a movie.”

Sarah Owings, Taylor’s attorney, told Fox 5 Atlanta: “Mr. Taylor has a conviction, that’s true, but it was pardoned. It was pardoned, and moreover, he was only sentenced to probation and time served. He should not be subject to this type of detention. ICE has the ability to release all of them at their discretion.”

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a previous statement shared with Newsweek: “Under Secretary Noem, we are delivering on President Trump’s and the American people’s mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens to make America safe. Secretary Noem unleashed ICE to target the worst of the worst and carry out the largest deportation operation of criminal aliens in American history.”

What Happens Next

A judge has less than a month to decide whether Taylor will remain in the United States or be deported. His fiancée fears he could die if sent back to Liberia, citing his medical condition and the lack of resources there.

ICE pushes to deport double amputee in US since age 2 after over 40 years
Rodney Taylor has been in ICE detention since the beginning of this year.

https://www.newsweek.com/ice-pushes-deport-double-amputee-us-over-40-years-2117336

Slingshot News: ‘We Will Take A Look’: Sec. Kristi Noem Dodges Questions On Illegality Of Masked ICE Agents In House Hearing

Posted on by
Reply
‘We Will Take A Look’: Sec. Kristi Noem Dodges Questions On Illegality Of Masked ICE Agents In House Hearing
Secretary Kristi Noem dodged questions about the illegality of her ICE agents conducting raids with masks on during a recent House hearing.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/we-will-take-a-look-sec-kristi-noem-dodges-questions-on-illegality-of-masked-ice-agents-in-house-hearing/vi-AA1KRpQO

New York Post: White House mocks ‘unserious’ NJ Dem Rep. LaMonica McIver after she claims ‘Liberation Day’ is ‘racist’ and code for ‘white power’

Posted on by
Reply

The White House slammed New Jersey Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver on Monday after she argued that President Trump’s “Liberation Day” mantra is code for “white power.” 

McIver — who was hit with federal charges in June accusing her of assaulting and interfering with immigration officers outside a New Jersey detention center — leveled the accusation as she railed against Trump’s crime crackdown in Washington, DC, which she fears “will start a civil war” if he tries it in other Democrat-run cities. 

“I think there’s an ultimate agenda of this administration to do these types of things,” the congresswoman said of the president’s decision to take control of DC’s police department and deploy federal law enforcement and National Guard troops in the nation’s capital, during an interview on the “Defending Democracy with Marc Elias” podcast last week.

“Sic the military on the very people that they’re supposed to be protecting in these cities and then expect a certain response so that it can escalate — I truly believe that that’s what the president hopes for,” McIver argued, before calling the effort — and Trump’s “Liberation Day” for DC label — “racist.”  

“When he says, ‘Oh,’ you know, ‘it’s Liberation Day,’ and all of these things, those are, you know, ways of him saying, ‘Oh, it’s white power,’” McIver said.  

“Those are racist remarks,” she argued. “His number one targets are cities that are led by black mayors.” 

McIver went on to moan that Trump’s “number one targets are sanctuary cities that, you know, support immigration.” 

The New Jersey Democrat charged that Trump’s push to clean up DC and end sanctuary city policies “show us each and every day how much of a bigot he is.” 

The White House brushed off McIver’s allegations, mocking her “attempted catfight” outside the Newark ICE facility that landed her in trouble with the feds. 

“LaMonica McIver, whose claim to fame was assaulting federal agents, is an unserious person whose comments are nothing more than a political stunt, much like her attempted catfight in front of an ICE facility,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields told The Post.  

“Congress would be better off if she left, and the people of New Jersey would benefit greatly if she pursued her apparent passion for street fighting,” he added. 

McIver’s office did not respond to a request for comment. 

The congresswoman has pleaded not guilty to three counts of assaulting, resisting, impeding and interfering with federal officials related to her alleged role in the ICE facility dustup.

White House mocks ‘unserious’ NJ Dem Rep. LaMonica McIver after she claims ‘Liberation Day’ is ‘racist’ and code for ‘white power’
The New Jersey Democrat charged that Trump’s push to clean up DC and end sanctuary city policies “show us each and every day how much of a bigot he is.”

https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/us-news/white-house-mocks-unserious-nj-dem-rep-lamonica-mciver-after-she-claims-liberation-day-is-racist-and-code-for-white-power

Latin Times: New Zealand Woman Held By ICE For Weeks Along With Six-Year-Old Son: ‘Treated Like a Criminal’

Posted on by
Reply

Sarah Shaw has lived in the U.S. for more than three year

A New Zealand woman claims she is being unfairly held by ICE with her six-year-old son after being detained while attempting to re-enter the U.S. from Canada.

The woman in question is Sarah Shaw, who has lived in Washington state for more than three years. Speaking to The Guardian, she said she crossed to Canada to drop off her two eldest children at the Vancouver airport so they could take a flight to New Zealand to stay with their grandparents.

When attempting to enter the U.S. again she was detained with her son. Victoria Besancon, a friend of Shaw’s who is helping raise money for her legal fight, described the incident as “terrifying.”

“They didn’t really explain anything to her at first, they just kind of quietly took her and her son and immediately put them in like an unmarked white van,” she said. Shaw’s phone was confiscated and both she and her son were taken to a processing center in South Texas.

The outlet explained that Shaw was living in the U.S. on what is described as a “combo card” visa: one obtained through employment and another one, the I-360, which grants immigration status to survivors of domestic violence. She only realized that the latter part had not been fully approved. Her son’s was, and because of that Besancon said he is being held “illegally.”

“She gives therapy and counselling to some of our most at risk youth … and to be treated like a criminal herself has just been absolutely devastating,” Besancon said.

Shaw’s case is among many others that have made headlines throughout the Trump administration. In mid-July, an Irish tourist who overstayed his visa three days as a result of a health issue was prevented from leaving the country by ICE and detained for roughly 100 days.

Another high-profile case involved Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney, who was detained over an incomplete visa in March.

New Zealand Woman Held By ICE For Weeks Along With Six-Year-Old Son: ‘Treated Like a Criminal’
A woman from New Zealand is reportedly being held at an ICE center with her six-year-old son after being detained attempting to cross the border with Canada

https://www.latintimes.com/new-zealand-woman-held-ice-weeks-along-six-year-old-son-treated-like-criminal-588396

Boing Boing: ICE claims success recruiting “teens and seniors”

Posted on by
Reply

A recent decision to relax age restrictions has resulted in a “surge in applications” to join U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), it claims. The federal government’s force of masked goons, often seen violently detaining those it wants to deport, will soon include teenagers and seniors. Previously, applicants had to be between 21 and 40 years old. Now they can be between 18 and 65.

You’ll [“Bimbo #2”] Noem when you see ’em.

[Kristi] [“Bimbo #2”] Noem’s defense of ICE raids, which she claims target “murderers, rapists, and child pedophiles” based on “reasonable suspicion,” has been contradicted by incidents like the detention of U.S. citizen Andrea Velez in Los Angeles, who alleged racial profiling, as we previously reported.

White House border czar Tom Homan’s statement on Fox & Friends, suggesting physical appearances can justify detentions, further fueled accusations of discriminatory practices, per Yahoo News.

Another way of looking at it is that ICE couldn’t meet recruitment goals despite a vastly-enlarged budget. Why are teens and seniors signing up? Consider what happens when all this is over. Old folks won’t need another job and might appreciate free housing. Teenagers, on the other sand, don’t see consequences coming at all.

ICE claims success recruiting “teens and seniors”
Previously, applicants had to be between 21 and 40 years old. Now they can be between 18 and 65.
ICE claims success recruiting “teens and seniors”