District Judge Jennifer Thurston has ordered the release of Syrian asylum seeker Salam Maklad and barred her rearrest without constitutional safeguards. Advocates have raised concerns that contested grant rules are disrupting essential services, while officials have noted that the cases have tested federal authority.
In addition to Thurston’s decision, U.S. District Judge William Smith has blocked new Justice Department grant conditions related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and transgender rights. Both rulings represent legal blows to the Trump administration, as they directly challenge and overturn key policy actions.
Both rulings, issued this month, limit the administration’s ability to enforce its immigration and social policy priorities. Critics say this highlights judicial checks on executive authority despite Republican control in Congress and the White House.
Thurston wrote, “Respondents are PERMANENTLY ENJOINED AND RESTRAINED from re-arresting or re-detaining Ms. Maklad absent compliance with constitutional protections, which include at a minimum, pre-deprivation notice—describing the change of circumstances necessitating her arrest—and detention, and a timely bond hearing.”
Thurston added, “At any such hearing, the Government SHALL bear the burden of establishing, by clear and convincing evidence, that Ms. Maklad poses a danger to the community or a risk of flight, and Ms. Maklad SHALL be allowed to have her counsel present.”
Thurston ordered Maklad’s release after an ICE check-in triggered her detention, noting she has no criminal history and is not a flight risk. She barred ICE from rearresting Maklad without notice of changed circumstances and a timely bond hearing.
Smith granted preliminary relief to 17 nonprofits challenging updated Office on Violence Against Women grant terms. He found the conditions likely arbitrary under federal law.
Smith wrote, “On the one hand, if the Court does not grant preliminary relief, then the Coalitions will face real and immediate irreparable harm from the challenged conditions, conditions which the Court has already concluded likely violate the APA.”
Smith added, “This could result in the disruption of important and, in some cases, life saving services to victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. On the other hand, if the Court grants preliminary relief, then the Office will simply have to consider grant applications and award funding as it normally does.”
Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman said, “The Justice Department should be exploring what they can be doing to keep people and communities safe, not threatening funding for local and community organizations with proven results.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-suffers-double-legal-blow/ss-AA1KGtBW
The nation’s capital is the scene of a high-stakes legal and political showdown after D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb fired a shot across the bow of the federal government, declaring the city is “not legally obligated” to comply with an executive order aimed at dismantling its sanctuary policies.
The clash began Thursday when Attorney General Pam [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi issued an executive order that sought to end the city’s protections for undocumented immigrants and place the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) under federal control. The order even named Drug Enforcement Administrator chief Terrence C. Cole as the new head of the MPD.
But in a swift and sharp rebuke, Schwalb penned a letter to MPD Chief Pamela Smith, urging her to ignore [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi’s directive. “It is my opinion that the [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi order is unlawful, and that you are not legally obligated to follow it,” Schwalb wrote in a letter shared by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on social media.
Schwalb’s letter reinforced the local chain of command, reminding Chief Smith that she was “duly appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the Council” and that MPD members must follow her orders—not those from a federally appointed official.
The dramatic back-and-forth unfolds as the Trump administration continues its federal takeover of the city, citing rampant crime as the justification for deploying federal law enforcement and National Guard troops.
Earlier on Thursday, Chief Smith had already signaled a shift, issuing a memo that increased cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). That memo, praised by Department of Homeland Security officials as an “important first step,” still maintained some restrictions, prohibiting officers from arresting individuals solely on immigration warrants.
But [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi’s subsequent order went much further, rescinding not only those restrictions but also putting the federal government in charge of the city’s police force—a move that local leaders say oversteps federal authority and infringes on D.C.’s limited autonomy.
The Department of Justice and the MPD have remained silent on the matter, leaving the city in a state of legal limbo. The outcome of this unprecedented dispute could have far-reaching implications, setting a precedent for the balance of power between the federal government and local jurisdictions across the nation.
ICE has joined the Trump cabinet in the group chat disaster club.
Law enforcement officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies accidentally added a stranger to their group chat, exposing highly sensitive information about a manhunt, according to a 404 Media report published Thursday.
The blunder echoes the infamous Signal chat fiasco, in which a journalist was inadvertently included in a text chain where top members of the Trump administration discussed impending air strikes in Yemen.
The ICE messages, which discuss an active search for a convicted attempted murderer slated for deportation, were sent via MMS, or Multimedia Messaging Service, and were not end-to-end encrypted like messages on Signal or WhatsApp.
Officials reportedly texted an ICE “Field Operations Worksheet” on Wednesday that revealed detailed information about the person being sought—including their Social Security number—and DMV and license plate reader data, 404 Media reported.
The outlet labeled the incident a “significant data breach and operational security failure for ICE.”
404 Media reported that the group chat had six members, verifying one as an ICE official and identifying another as likely from the U.S. Marshals Service.
The Daily Beast has reached out to ICE and the U.S. Marshals Service for comment.
The person mistakenly added to the group chat is not a law enforcement official and had no connection to the manhunt, according to 404 Media. They told the outlet they were added weeks ago and assumed the messages were spam—until they received the ICE worksheet and license plate numbers.
404 Media, which said it obtained and verified screenshots from the group chat, has withheld the person’s identity to protect them from retaliation.
In Wednesday’s messages, the law enforcement officials discussed the search for their target and their next moves.
“Going to need to roll out at 1000,” one member texts the chat, called “Mass Text.”
“Copy. We can break it down at 10,” another replies.
The unintended recipient told 404 Media that the messages stopped coming shortly thereafter.
In what became known as “Signalgate,” Trump cabinet members, including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, discussed classified attack plans for airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen on a Signal chat.
On August 1st the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced new policies that could make immigrants applying for green cards through family-based petitions more vulnerable to deportation.
The changes appear in various updates to USCIS’ Policy Manual which states that immigration officials can begin removal proceedings for immigrants who lack legal status and apply to become permanent residents through family-based petitions.
According to the Policy Manual, “if USCIS determines the alien beneficiary is removeable and amenable to removal from the United States, USCIS may issue a Notice to Appear (NTA) [in immigration court] placing the beneficiary in removal proceedings. Petitioners and alien beneficiaries should be aware that a family-based petition accords no immigration status nor does it bar removal.”
The new policy went into effect immediately and applies to pending requests for a green card, and those filed on or after August 1st.
While the practical impact of this policy is yet to be seen, it provides immigration officials with more discretion to initiate removal proceedings even where a green card application is pending with USCIS, for those who entered the U.S. illegally, overstayed a U.S. visa, or otherwise failed to maintain their legal status.
These policy changes underscore the importance of maintaining underlying legal status throughout the green card process. Those who lack legal status or who lost their status during the green card process may be most at risk.
This shift is troubling because under previous administrations, green card applicants were not placed in removal proceedings while their green card applications were pending, except for cases involving serious criminal offenses.
USCIS has defended these policies stating that, “Fraudulent, frivolous, or otherwise non-meritorious family-based immigrant visa petitions erode confidence in family-based pathways to lawful permanent resident (LPR) status and undermine the immigration system in the United States. USCIS must ensure that qualifying marriages and family relationships are genuine, verifiable, and compliant with all applicable laws.”
Overtime, USCIS has become increasingly cooperative with agencies like DHS and ICE—moving from an administrative agency to an immigration enforcement agency placing a growing number of immigrants at risk of deportation.
These policies send a clear anti-immigrant message intended to intimidate and drive undocumented immigrants to self-deport. Green card applicants must not fall into this trap and instead seek legal counsel to fully understand their rights.
Since January, ICE has taken nearly 150,000 people into custody, with about 100,000 having pending charges or prior convictions. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 83% of likely voters consider deporting criminal illegal immigrants important. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has criticized ICE operations, comparing them to an unaccountable police force.
Maddow’s program showed footage of ICE arrests while she criticized the agency’s aggressive enforcement methods. She stated that “the thing we were all warning about for the last few years … is here.”
Maddow said, “We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country. And it sounds melodramatic to say it, I know, but just go with that for a minute, right?” She added, “Think in melodramatic terms. Think in cinematic terms. Imagine the cartoon-level caricature of what you think a dictatorship looks like.”
Maddow concluded by noting that ICE has been “breaking people’s car windows and snatching people off the streets and at church parking lots and courtroom hallways and taking them away with no charges.”
Conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza rejected claims of dictatorship and has supported tougher enforcement. D’Souza wrote, “If this is dictatorship, let’s have more of it. Of course it’s not.”
Critics have questioned ICE tactics and respect of civil liberties. Maddow said, “I mean, it’s secret police, right? A massive, anonymous, unbadged, literally masked, totally unaccountable internal police force that apparently has infinite funding but no identifiable leadership.”
D’Souza added, “Rather, the Left is furious, and alarmed, that its thugs are no longer in charge.”
Over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security’s X account appeared to reference an antisemitic dog whistle. And it wasn’t the first time that happened this summer.
“Which way, American man?” the department’s official page posted Sunday, over a political cartoon from 1936 called “Uncle Sam at the Crossroads.”
The post, a recruitment ad for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alluded to the phrase “Which way, Western man?” – the title of a 1978 book steeped in antisemitic conspiracy theories and explicit threats against Jews. As a social media meme, the phrase has been used to ridicule the “woke,” feminism and immigrants.
In its own X post on Wednesday, the Anti-Defamation League called the “Which way” reference “the latest problematic ICE recruitment post from the X account of the Department of Homeland Security.” The ADL cited several problems with it, including the reference to the 1978 book by William Gayley Simpson, whom the organization calls a “white supremacist and antisemite.”
The “American man” post came a month after another controversial post from DHS reading “Remember your Homeland’s Heritage,” with both “H”s capitalized — an alignment that both progressive outlets and X’s own AI chatbot Grok theorized could be an illusion to “HH,” a shorthand for “Heil Hitler” deployed by neo-Nazis.
“HH capitalization … and a painting symbolizing white colonial expansion over Native lands mirrors known white supremacist dogwhistles,” Grok wrote in response to one user.
Multiple Trump administration officials have documented ties to antisemitic and white-supremacist circles and ideologies. Trump’s nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, announced this week, “has repeatedly appeared in front of the massive portrait of Adolf Hitler’s favorite battleship during media interviews,” the Daily Beast reported.
Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment. In a statement to CNN, spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, “Calling everything you dislike ‘Nazi propaganda’ is tiresome,” and went on to describe the intended message of the “American man” post: “Uncle Sam, who represents America, is at a crossroads, pondering which way America should go.”
The posts reflect a larger effort by DHS and ICE, who are seeing a massive budget increase and hiring spree under President Trump, to use nostalgic language and images depicting American “culture” and “heritage” as under attack from outsiders. As part of its ICE recruitment efforts, DHS has employed numerous works of art depicting frontier life and other American idylls – often without permission from the artists or their estates.
Other images used by DHS, such as John Gast’s 1872 painting “American Progress,” are positive depictions of concepts like Manifest Destiny. DHS itself does not have such a lengthy history: It was formed in 2002 in response to the 9/11 attacks, largely by consolidating offices from other departments.
Critics from groups like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights say the DHS posts use coded language and motifs popular in online white supremacist communities, with some overlap with Christian nationalism: One video overlays a Bible verse over footage of ICE agents. DHS has claimed to receive 100,000 ICE applications since launching its campaign.
But the latest post is more overt.
“Which Way, Western Man?” argues that Western and “Nordic” culture is under threat by Jews. The book includes passages on “the Jewish-led and largely Jewish-manned movement of Communism” and “the Jewification of the West.” One chapter is titled “The Necessity of Eugenics.”
The book has since been re-published by National Vanguard Books, a neo-Nazi group that also publishes the white nationalist novel/manifesto “The Turner Diaries.”
Mike Rothschild, a Jewish researcher of conspiracy theories, wrote on X that the post was “a clear reference” to the book, which he described as “a work of staggering racism and antisemitism that argues Jews must be ‘put out and kept out’ of western society.”
The ADL also objected to DHS’s use of the 1936 cartoon by Frank Lea, which depicts Uncle Sam puzzling over signs pointing to “Inflation,” “Depression” and “Opportunity.” The DHS version replaces those signs with ones reading “Cultural Decline,” “Invasion” and “Law & Order.” Text overlaid on the image reads, “America needs you. Join ICE now.”
The alterations, the ADL said, “basically equate migrants in the U.S. with ‘cultural decay’ and ‘invasion.'” The Jewish civil rights group concludes, “A U.S. government agency should not resort to using such language and imagery for any purpose, let alone recruiting people to serve.”
Liberal Jews, largely pro-immigrant thanks to their own families’ immigrant backgrounds, have increasingly spoken out against ICE’s migrant roundup tactics, including raids at houses of worship. A recent detention center opened in the Everglades has also drawn comparisons to concentration camps.
Pam Nadell, a historian whose forthcoming book is a history of American antisemitism, told JTA that when it came to both posts, “I see the antisemitism.”
“Think of who they’re appealing to, who might be likely to want to join ICE and come and get rid of the immigrants,” Nadell said. She also saw significance in using a New Deal-era cartoon but replacing the name of Franklin Roosevelt’s anti-poverty program with “Cultural Decline.” Roosevelt’s critics, she said, were often antisemitic.
“In the ’30s, the attacks on the New Deal, the attacks on Roosevelt, the charges that he was controlled and manipulated by a cabal of Jews, that’s part of the right-wing attack against the New Deal,” she said. “So the fact that they’re replacing that attack with ‘Cultural Decline,’ that’s the same kind of right-wing attack. Back then, it was on the government; now it’s on civil society.”
The federal takeover of policing in Washington D.C. sparked protests near Union Station Thursday night,with demonstrators calling police and National Guard officers “Nazis.”
“You guys safe over here? You guys safe? Are you guys being murdered?” one protester was heard sarcastically asking officers. Others said they are “betraying” the country and “terrorizing the community.”
“You will never know a moment of peace,” one man said, accusing the officers of being “Nazis.”
“Sad incel car. Sad incel car, look at that,” a woman shouted as a Tesla Cybertruck is stopped.
“Y’all are the reason why our country is going downhill,” a protester shouted at officers during a traffic stop.
President Donald Trump announced the move on Monday, and the National Guard and a variety of federal agencies, including ICE and the FBI, have been patrolling and conducting operations throughout the city. Some arrests have already been made, including dozens of illegal immigrants.
Attorney General Pam [“Bimbo #2”] Bondi initially ordered that Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole be in charge of the Metropolitan Police Department as an “emergency police commissioner,” although that directive was later changed to ensure Cole worked with Mayor Muriel Bowser. [“Bimbo #2”] Bondi also ordering more compliance between local police and federal immigration authorities.
Democrats have criticized the takeover as an overreach, with members of Congress asking for a resolution to terminate the “crime emergency” that was declared by the Trump administration.
“President Trump’s incursions against D.C. are among the most egregious attacks on D.C. home rule in decades. D.C. residents are Americans, worthy of the same autonomy granted to residents of the states,” Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents D.C. as a delegate, said in a statement.
“Our local police force, paid for by D.C. residents, should not be subject to federalization, an action that wouldn’t be possible for any other police department in the country. No emergency exists in D.C. that the president did not create himself, and he is not using the D.C. Police for federal purposes, as required by law,” she added.
Meanwhile, the White House blasted the resolution, as the Trump administration said the intention is to lower crime in the capital city.
“But instead of supporting what should be a bipartisan measure to Make DC Safe Again, Democrats are burying their heads in the sand, denying there is a problem, and carrying the torch for dangerous criminals that terrorize DC communities,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital.
“D.C. residents know the reality on the ground – crime was out of control and President Trump’s actions are making the city safer. The left’s refusal to support widely popular issues with the American public – like stopping violent crime – are why their approval ratings are at historic lows and will continue to tank,” she added.
The city is suing over the action, arguing that it hinders the ability of the district to self-govern.
“We are suing to block the federal government takeover of D.C. police. By illegally declaring a takeover of MPD, the Administration is abusing its temporary, limited authority under the law. This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it,” D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb posted to X on Friday.
“The federal government’s power over DC is not absolute, and it should not be exercised as such. Section 740 of the Home Rule Act permits the President to request MPD’s services. But it can only be done temporarily, for special emergencies, and solely for federal purposes,” he added.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have reported a staggering 830% increase in violence amid the implementation of mass deportation policies under President Donald Trump. Some have spoken up regarding their experiences of violence in hopes of humanizing their work and countering hostility. ICE Officer Kristian Moreno noted that officers have been targeted for simply enforcing the law.
Speaking with Fox News host Lara Trump, Moreno said, “It has been very sad to see how we’re villainized, the names used towards us.” She added, “We got a job to do. We’re just enforcing the law. We’re not making up the law, and it’s sad, but we just keep pushing through it.”
ICE Officer Chris Sandoval noted the risks agents face, such as being photographed and doxxed. He stated that misinformation and negative views have hindered their efforts to protect vulnerable communities.
Sandoval stated, “It’s kind of unfair to where… we’re doing our job, we’re serving the country, but sometimes I see people writing and stuff, and you’re hurting your own community.”
ICE Officer Edgardo Centeno expressed concern about rising hostility toward ICE agents. He noted that working conditions in Los Angeles and New York have become troubling and condemned political rhetoric inciting violence against agents.
Centeno said, “I believe in the First Amendment, and you can express yourself all you want, but when you are enforcing, as a Congress member…[people] to go after us, then you’re crossing that line.”
Centeno added, “We should not be afraid of doing our jobs. I raised my hand to defend the Constitution, and I’ll die for it. That’s who I am, and I know my partners are the same here.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/villainized-ice-officers-respond-to-rise-in-threats/ar-AA1KDSBm
