Tag Archives: immigration crackdown

New York Times: He Raised Three Marines. His Wife Is American. The U.S. Wants to Deport Him.

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After three decades in California, Narciso Barranco was arrested by agents while weeding outside an IHOP, stirring outrage and a fight to stop his deportation.

Before dawn on June 21, Narciso Barranco loaded his weed trimmer, lawn mower and leaf blower into his white F-150 pickup. He had three IHOP restaurants to landscape and then seven homes. His goal was to finish in time to cook dinner with his wife, Martha Hernandez.

It was a cool Saturday morning in Tustin, Calif., about 35 miles south of Los Angeles. After wrapping up work at the first IHOP, Mr. Barranco stopped to buy a wheel of fresh white cheese. He returned home and left it on the kitchen counter for Ms. Hernandez before driving seven minutes to an IHOP in Santa Ana.

He paid no attention to the Home Depot across the parking lot. Later, he would wish he had been more aware.

Migrants for decades have gathered outside the big-box stores, hoping a contractor or homeowner might offer a day’s work. But under President Trump’s immigration crackdown, Home Depot has become a prime target for federal agents under pressure to round up undocumented people like Mr. Barranco, who slipped across the border from Mexico more than 30 years ago.

Mr. Barranco, 48, was weeding between bushes when men in masks descended on him. He raised the head of his weed trimmer as he retreated. The authorities would say they believed he was attacking them; Mr. Barranco’s family said he was scared and just trying to move away, not to harm anyone. But in a tweet, the Department of Homeland Security would cite that moment to justify what happened next.

Mr. Barranco’s memory of his arrest is fragmented: the blinding sting of pepper spray; beefy federal agents taking him down and pinning him to the pavement; their relentless blows; the pain radiating from his left shoulder.

He didn’t dispute that he was in the country unlawfully. Still, he pleaded his case to the agents as they wrenched his arms behind his back.

“I have three boys in the Marines,” he recalled blurting out in English.

Surely that would count for something?

Mr. Trump’s mass deportation project is forcing many Americans to confront the question of what kind of country they want.

According to polls, Americans strongly agree that immigrants without legal status should be deported if they have been convicted of a violent crime. But support for Mr. Trump’s immigration sweeps begins to erode when people are asked about the much larger group of undocumented immigrants with no police record who have worked and raised families in the United States.

The arrest of Mr. Barranco, a Latino man doing a job that many other Latinos in California do, quickly became a rallying point for those who believe enforcement actions have gone too far. A slight man with a reserved demeanor, Mr. Barranco had built a life in the shadows, tending the lawns and flower beds of Southern California’s suburban homes and commercial properties. He had no criminal record.

All three of his sons are United States citizens, having been born in California. Alejandro, 25, was a combat engineer who deployed to Afghanistan to assist with the U.S. withdrawal. Jose Luis, 23, was released from military duty last month and plans to study nursing. Emanuel, 21, is still in the Marines, based in San Diego. The sons could have sponsored him for a green card but were discouraged by the time it would take and the thousands of dollars it would cost.

Ms. Hernandez, Mr. Barranco’s wife and the stepmother of the three young men, is also an American citizen.

Walter Salaverria, the IHOP operations director who hired Mr. Barranco, described him as “humble, hardworking, not just about the money.”

He added, “If I had 50 restaurants, I would give them to him.”

For years, many Americans have relied on immigrants to do the jobs they avoided — cleaning, building, picking fruits and vegetables, manicuring lawns and gardens. Under previous Republican and Democratic administrations, undocumented people who worked hard and stayed out of trouble could largely expect to be left alone.

Now that masked federal agents are pepper spraying these people and tackling them in the streets, some Americans are thinking of them differently — or perhaps thinking of them for the first time.

After the agents subdued Mr. Barranco, they shoved him, hands shackled behind his back, into an unmarked vehicle. He was soon transferred to a van with another immigrant who said he had been snatched as he left the Home Depot.

Mr. Barranco said an agent flung water on his bloody face and head. He said he pleaded with the agent to tie his hands in front of him because his shoulder hurt. “I was crying,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I won’t run. Just tie my hands in front; I can’t stand the pain.’”

By nightfall, he was crammed into a constantly lit basement in downtown Los Angeles with 70 other men. The air was thick with stench and despair. There was one exposed toilet. Some men slept standing, he said.

Mr. Barranco left a tearful voice mail message for Alejandro, informing him that he had been arrested and didn’t know where he was being held. His wallet and cellphone were still inside his truck outside the IHOP. Could someone retrieve them?

Two days later, after locating his father, Alejandro drove to Los Angeles and waited nearly four hours to see him, only to be turned away, like dozens of others, when visitation hours ended.

When Alejandro finally laid eyes on his father the next day, Mr. Barranco was disheveled and dirty, still in the same long-sleeve shirt and jeans he was wearing when he was arrested. Father and son met across a glass partition.

“My father looked defeated,” recalled Alejandro, who kept his composure as he tried to assure his father that the family was “taking care of everything.”

Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, had agreed to escort Alejandro and was allowed to meet Mr. Barranco without a barrier. Mr. Perez asked Mr. Barranco if he could hug him since his son could not.

“No,” replied Mr. Barranco. “I smell so badly. I haven’t been able to shower.” The lawyer embraced him anyway. Mr. Barranco wept.

The next day, Mr. Barranco was transferred to a privately run detention center in the high desert, about two hours away.

Mr. Barranco was born in a village in Mexico, one of five children of campesinos who subsisted on the maize, beans, squash and tomatoes that they grew.

In 1994, he trekked through the desert to the border and sneaked undetected into Arizona. He made his way to California and began taking whatever work there was, in construction, restaurants, landscaping.

“I planned to save and return to Mexico,” Mr. Barranco said.

He married, and three boys came along, the first in 1999.

“I decided that if I took my kids to Mexico, they’d end up like me,” he said. “I thought, Here, I can work and ensure they have a better life.”

By 2002, Mr. Barranco had landed a job with a large landscaping company that offered benefits like health insurance. He began filing taxes.

The company trained him to properly prune trees, among other skills, and he became certified as an irrigation technician working on sprinkler systems. He was sometimes dispatched to Disneyland late at night to trim hedges. He later struck out on his own and built his client roster.

As his boys moved through elementary and middle school, Mr. Barranco, who only has a few years of formal education, took parenting workshops to support their success. In 2012, he received a Certificate of Congressional Recognition for his “faithful commitment and hard work” on behalf of his children’s education. That same year, after completing a nine-week “parental involvement program,” he earned a certificate guaranteeing that his sons would be admitted to any California state college after high school.

“Any opportunity to do something good to help them, I tried to take advantage,” he said.

Mr. Barranco and his first wife divorced in 2015. A few years later, he met Ms. Hernandez, then 58, at a Public Storage facility in Santa Ana where he kept some of his tools. He helped her haul a bed that she had kept there, and he gave her his number. Two weeks later, he helped her move more furniture and then called to check in on her. A friendship flourished.

“I was lonely, he was lonely,” said Ms. Hernandez, a widow whose children were grown. “We enjoyed each other’s company.”

On Mother’s Day in 2021, he joined her family for brunch. Mr. Barranco’s shrimp ceviche was a hit with her two sons and her parents. So was he.

“He was quiet at first,” her oldest son, Rigo Hernandez, now 40, recalled, “but there was a warmth about him that spoke louder than words.”

On Feb. 18, 2023, with the Pacific Ocean as their backdrop, they were married in a small ceremony officiated by Mr. Hernandez.

By then, all three of Mr. Barranco’s sons were in the Marine Corps.

“My father brought us up to respect this country and to appreciate the opportunities we would have,” Alejandro said.

Footage taken by bystanders of Mr. Barranco’s arrest went viral. The videos show several agents standing above him while others hold him down. One agent, kneeling at his side, strikes Mr. Barranco repeatedly in the head, neck and left shoulder as he groans. The agents force him into an S.U.V. with the aid of a metal rod.

The Department of Homeland Security posted a seven-second video of Mr. Barranco wielding the weed trimmer as agents pepper sprayed him. “Perhaps the mainstream media would like our officers to stand there and be mowed down instead of defending themselves?” Tricia McLaughlin, a department spokeswoman, wrote on X. The agency did not respond to a request for any additional comment beyond the post on X.

When Alejandro saw the videos, he flung his cellphone in anger.

The family gathered to make a plan. Alejandro, the only son released from active duty at the time, would take the lead in speaking out. Mr. Hernandez, Ms. Hernandez’s son, would contact federal and state lawmakers.

The family started a GoFundMe to raise money for a lawyer. The page featured photographs of the Barranco boys in uniform. In one image, Mr. Barranco is at a memorial service to fallen soldiers.

Alejandro began fielding news media requests. He tried to be measured in his comments. He said his father was a productive member of the community who hadn’t hurt anyone. The use of force by agents was excessive, unjustified and unprofessional, he said.

He said he felt betrayed by the country that he and his brothers loved and were willing to die for.

“There are many people in the military with immigrant parents like my dad,” Jose Luis said. “I never thought this could happen to him.”

The brothers expressed regret that they hadn’t managed to sponsor their father for a green card, which they were eligible to do as Americans and as servicemen.

“We saw a lawyer who wanted $5,000 just to start the process,” Alejandro recalled. He added, “Everyone was so busy in the military.”

Mr. Barranco recalls being transported to the immigration detention center in Adelanto, Calif., with an Asian man, an African man and a fellow Latino. They arrived at the lockup, which can hold nearly 2,000 immigrants, before sunrise and waited all day to be processed.

In a barrackslike pod, he was assigned to I-33 “low,” the bottom bed of a metal-framed bunk. He received three blue shirts, two pairs of pants and one pair of underwear. His neighbor, in bunk I-32 low, eventually gave him an extra pair.

He counted 172 men in the room.

“I befriended several people,” Mr. Barranco said, producing a list with the names and cellphone numbers of eight detainees.

Mr. Barranco’s family deposited money into his account so he could make phone calls and buy items like chips, coffee and instant noodles to supplement the unappetizing institutional food, he said.

He shared both his phone and his commissary credit with detainees whose families did not know their whereabouts or who could not afford the expensive calls and items. One was an Iranian man whose wife was about to give birth.

One day, Mr. Barranco bought 10 packets of noodle soup mix and distributed them. Someone handed him a pencil. It gave him an outlet for his anguish, he said.

He began to scrawl on scraps of paper he found. Prayers. Feelings. Names.

Mr. Barranco had no idea that his arrest had prompted protests and galvanized volunteers across Orange County.

Strangers delivered food, flowers and messages of support to his home.

Six days after his arrest, the Orange County Rapid Response Network, in coordination with his family, held a candlelight vigil and a peaceful march to honor Mr. Barranco and denounce indiscriminate immigration sweeps. Thousands of dollars flowed into the GoFundMe, enough to hire Lisa Ramirez, an immigration lawyer, to seek Mr. Barranco’s release, fight his deportation case and help him gain legal status in the United States.

Given that he is a father to a veteran, “Narciso could have been an American citizen by now,” Ms. Ramirez said.

Ms. Ramirez submitted a request to the government for “parole in place,” a program that allows undocumented parents of U.S. military members to remain lawfully in the country and work while they await approval for permanent residency.

Mr. Barranco’s wife, Ms. Hernandez, a U.S. citizen, offered another path, but one that would have required him to return to Mexico to complete the process. He would be separated from his family, likely for years, with no assurance he would be allowed to return.

Ms. Ramirez filed a motion for a bond hearing in immigration court. It included the birth certificates of his sons and proof of their military service, as well as the accolades from the school district and Congress for his parental involvement and other evidence of his good moral character.

Mr. Barranco had his hearing after 19 days in lockup. The government asked the judge to hold him without bond, as is common. Ms. Ramirez asked the judge to release him on the minimum bond of $1,500, arguing that he had three U.S.-born military sons and was not a flight risk.

The prosecutor requested a $13,000 bond. The judge set it at $3,000.

After his release five days later, Mr. Barranco stopped at an In-N-Out for a cheeseburger combo and vanilla shake.

Mr. Barranco made public remarks a few days after that at a news conference in downtown Santa Ana.

“To the community, I don’t have the words to truly express what I feel in my heart,” he said in Spanish, choking up. “So I can just say thank you for standing with my family and my children, for being by their side.” He also shared a message of hope for families of detainees.

Since his release, Mr. Barranco has mostly stayed home, venturing out on Sundays for church. Alejandro and Jose Luis, two of his sons, are covering his jobs.

He is alone while Ms. Hernandez is at work much of the day. His companions are Revoltosa, a cockatoo who has a predilection for perching on his right shoulder, and Snoopy, his small, fluffy white dog.

“They relieve my stress,” he said.

At 8 a.m. each day, he logs into a two-hour online English class. The ankle monitor he was fitted with before leaving Adelanto has since been removed. But three times a week, he must check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

At 11:10 a.m. on a recent Thursday, during an interview for this article, his phone buzzed. His expression tensed as he entered a code and took a selfie, part of the monitoring protocol. Agents have also shown up at his door without notice.

He spends time in the garden, caring for his heirloom tomatoes, squash, peppers and cucumbers. A guava tree has recently taken root. He also tends the geraniums, jasmine and day lilies. In the kitchen, he puts his culinary talents to work preparing carne asada, ceviche and other dishes.

Mr. Barranco has also been keeping a journal. During an interview, he opened to the first page and read aloud. “At 4 a.m. on a Saturday, the routine of a poor gardener began. Then … ” His voice faltered and his face crumpled.

He tried to continue.

“Something happened that never could have been expected,” he said and then slammed the journal shut. “I can’t,” he said.

As of Tuesday, his lawyer had yet to receive acknowledgment from the government that his application for parole in place was under review.

He Raised Three Marines. His Wife Is American. The U.S. Wants to Deport Him.
After three decades in California, Narciso Barranco was arrested by agents while weeding outside an IHOP, stirring outrage and a fight to stop his deportation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/us/narciso-barranco-ice-deport-marines-trump.html

Associated Press: LA police fired over a thousand projectiles at protesters in a single day

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Los Angeles police officers fired over 1,000 projectiles at protesters on a single day in June as demonstrators pushed back against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and decision to deploy the National Guard to the nation’s second largest city.

The police department released a state-mandated report Monday on use of force against protesters that included numbers on bean bags, rubber and foam rounds, and tear gas deployed during days of protests in Los Angeles.

On June 6, police fired 34 rounds at about 100 people. On June 8, police fired 1,040 projectiles at about 6,000 people, including 20 rounds of CS gas, a type of tear gas. Six injuries were reported as a result of those projectiles.

There were 584 police officers responding that day, the department said. Protesters had blocked off a major freeway and set self-driving cars on fire.

The report was concerning to Josh Parker, deputy director of policy at the New York University School of Law Policing Project.

“The sense that I got from that data is that if that’s how you police a protest, then you’re policing it wrong,” Parker said.

The protests have put the use of these types of munitions by law enforcement under scrutiny. After journalists were shot, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order that blocked LA police from using rubber projectiles and other munitions against reporters.

A protester who was hit and lost a finger filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city of LA and county sheriff’s department.

California in 2021 restricted the use of less lethal munitions until alternatives to force have been tried to control a crowd. Police cannot aim “indiscriminately” into a crowd or at the head, neck or any other vital organs. They also cannot fire solely for a curfew violation, verbal threats toward officers, or not complying with directions given by law enforcement, such as when they order an unlawful assembly to disperse.

“To see such a high number of projectiles discharged in a relatively short time period gives me grave concern that the law and those best practices were violated,” Parker said.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. LAPD was planning a “comprehensive evaluation of each use-of-force incident,” said Chief Jim McDonnell in a statement reported June 23 by the Los Angeles Times.

The days of protests in “dangerous, fluid and ultimately violent conditions” left 52 officers with injuries that required medical treatment, McDonnell said. Officers were justified in their actions to prevent further harm, he said.

Tensions escalated in downtown Los Angeles on June 8 as National Guard troops arrived to patrol federal buildings.

“Agitators in the crowd vandalized buildings, threw rocks, broken pieces of concrete, Molotov cocktails, and other objects toward law enforcement officers,” the report said.

Many protesters left by evening, but some formed a barricade of chairs on one street and threw objects at police on the other side. Others standing above the closed southbound 101 Freeway threw chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the highway.

Police issued multiple unlawful assembly orders shutting down demonstrations in several blocks of downtown Los Angeles but the crowd remained and munitions were used to bring the situation under control, the report said.

A box that read, “Other de-escalation techniques or other alternatives to force attempted,” was blank.

Parker said departments should plan for when a crowd begins throwing objects or being unruly, drawing on crowd management techniques.

“It’s important that law enforcement agencies not needlessly provoke the crowd” with aggressive language or weapons on display, he said.

Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies far outpaced the LAPD’s use of projectiles. With more than 80 deputies responding, the department deployed over 2,500 projectiles on June 8, the agency reported last week. It also said there were “hundreds to thousands” of people.

The California Highway Patrol, whose 153 officers responded to protesters blocking a major downtown freeway, estimated a crowd of about 2,000 people and used 271 rounds.

The tallies reported by LA police and deputies are high, especially considering the small number of deputies sent by the sheriff’s department, said retired LAPD Lt. Jeff Wenninger, who provides expert testimony for court cases.

“I don’t believe law enforcement officers or commanders truly understand the extent of this law, the restriction it provides,” he said. “And they just default back to old practices.”

LA police fired over a thousand projectiles at protesters in a single day
Los Angeles police officers fired over a thousand projectiles at Trump administration protesters on a single day in June.

https://apnews.com/article/lapd-immigration-protests-los-angeles-police-force-50c7211bc9b12f44a2cb9b219d01c292

ABC News: Inside the ICE crackdown in Chicago as federal agents track suspected gun traffickers [Video]

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ABC News goes inside the ICE immigration crackdown underway in Chicago, where roughly 300 agents swept through the city to track suspected Tren de Aragua gang members accused of selling guns.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/inside-the-ice-crackdown-in-chicago-as-federal-agents-track-suspected-gun-traffickers/vi-AA1MdGza

They keep repeating the same old lies over and over. The simple truth is that the majority of those detained have no criminal records.

Fox News: DHS launches major operation in Illinois targeting illegal immigrants with criminal records

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DHS launches major operation in Illinois targeting illegal immigrants with criminal records
Chicago reporter William J. Kelly joins ‘Fox & Friends First’ to discuss the Trump administration’s ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ in Illinois as Democrats continue to push back against the possibility of a Trump-sanctioned crime crackdown.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dhs-launches-major-operation-in-illinois-targeting-illegal-immigrants-with-criminal-records/vi-AA1MbtNp

Problem is, not withstanding DHS’s endless lies to contrary, most of the people rounded up in these sweeps are NOT criminals.

Reuters: US employment growth through March revised sharply lower

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  • Revision estimate comes days after weak August nonfarm payrolls
  • Job growth was stalling before Trump’s tariffs, estimate shows
  • BLS revision estimate linked to birth-death model problems

The U.S. economy likely created 911,000 fewer jobs in the 12 months through March than previously estimated, the government said on Tuesday, suggesting that job growth was already stalling before President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs on imports.

The preliminary annual benchmark revision estimate to the closely watched payrolls data from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) followed on the heels of news last Friday that job growth almost stalled in August and the economy shed jobs in June for the first time in four and a half years.

The revision estimate is equivalent to 76,000 fewer jobs per month. It implied that nonfarm payroll gains averaged about 71,000 per month, instead of 147,000. Economists had expected the estimated revision to be between 400,000 and 1 million jobs.

“This means labor market momentum is being lost from an even weaker position than originally thought,” said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING.

In addition to being hobbled by uncertainty stemming from trade policy, the labor market has also been pressured by the White House’s immigration crackdown, which has undercut labor supply. A shift by businesses to artificial intelligence tools and automation also is curbing demand for workers.

Once a year, the BLS compares its nonfarm payrolls data, based on monthly surveys of a sample of employers, with a much more complete database of unemployment insurance tax records, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data.

A final benchmark revision will be released in February along with the BLS’ employment report for January. Government statisticians will use the final benchmark count to revise payroll data for the months prior to and after March.

Economists have attributed the revisions to the “birth-and-death” model, a method the BLS uses to try to estimate how many jobs were gained or lost because of companies opening or closing in a given month. These companies are not initially available for sampling.

Though economists at Goldman Sachs agreed the labor market had softened materially, they cautioned the revision estimate was too excessive. They noted the QCEW was prone to upward revisions and might have difficulties accounting for unauthorized immigrants.

“Our own model of net job gains from firm births and deaths, one of the key points of uncertainty in monthly payrolls growth that the benchmarking process corrects for, suggests a downward revision of around 550,000, or 45,000 per month, via that channel,” they wrote in a note.

“While the BLS’ birth-death adjustment for nonfarm payrolls was probably too generous in second half of 2024, we estimate that the overstatement has since narrowed to around 10,000 jobs per month, cautioning against extrapolating too much from the benchmark revision.”

Last year, the preliminary estimate was for payrolls to be revised down by 818,000 jobs in the 12 months through March 2024. Payrolls were in the end only downgraded by 598,000.

‘ACCURATE, INDEPENDENT AND TRUSTED’

Leisure and hospitality employment was estimated to be revised down by 176,000 jobs over the 12 months through March. Trade, transportation, and utilities payrolls could be slashed by 226,000 positions, while professional and business services employment was projected to be reduced by 158,000 jobs.

Manufacturing employment could be lowered by 95,000 jobs. Government employment was estimated to be cut by 31,000 positions. Modest upgrades were estimated for only the transportation and warehousing, and utilities industries.

U.S. financial markets were little moved by the report.

Economists continued to expect the Federal Reserve would resume cutting interest rates next Wednesday, with a quarter-point reduction, after pausing its easing cycle in January because of uncertainty over the impact of tariffs.

With the consumer price data on Thursday expected to show inflation pressures building in August, the estimated revisions could fan fears of stagflation.

The monthly employment report is based on data derived from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program, which surveys about 121,000 businesses and government agencies, representing about 631,000 individual worksites. The QCEW data is derived from reports by employers to the state unemployment insurance programs, and represents about 95% of total employment.

Sharp downgrades last month to May and June employment figures totaling 258,000 jobs angered Trump, who fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, accusing her, without evidence, of faking the employment data. Trump has nominated E.J. Antoni to replace McEntarfer.

Antoni, who has penned opinion pieces critical of the BLS and even suggested suspending the monthly employment report, is viewed as unqualified by economists across the political spectrum. The National Association for Business Economics on Monday urged “policymakers, business leaders, and the economics community to stand with BLS and ensure that America’s statistics remain accurate, independent, and trusted worldwide.”

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer blamed the estimated revision on what she said was a failure by leaders at the statistical agency “to improve their practices” during former President Joe Biden’s administration, “utilizing outdated methods that rendered a once-reliable system completely ineffective.”

But the BLS, like other statistical agencies, has suffered from years of inadequate funding under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

“Any political retaliation due to today’s release will harm the ability for BLS to provide timely and unbiased statistics,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

US employment growth through March revised sharply lower

https://www.reuters.com/business/us-payrolls-benchmark-revision-estimate-suggests-labor-market-weaker-than-2025-09-09

Washington Post: ICE begins immigration crackdown in Massachusetts, DHS says

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The Trump administration has launched an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Massachusetts, saying it would target what it called “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” in the state.

The Department of Homeland Security provided few details on the scale of the latest operation, called Patriot 2.0. But in a statement Saturday, the department said that it followed “the success of Operation Patriot in May.” The earlier ICE raids resulted in nearly 1,500 arrests across Massachusetts, including dozens of migrant workers on Martha’s Vineyard.

“If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return,” the statement said.

The Massachusetts operation comes as the Trump administration has signaled it is preparing to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago — a move that local leaders have strongly opposed.

On Thursday, the administration sued Boston and its leaders for allegedly refusing to cooperate with immigration authorities, adding to a string of similar lawsuits against so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has defended the city’s laws, describing the lawsuit Thursday as an “unconstitutional attack on our city.” The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ICE operation Saturday.

In its statement Saturday, DHS said “sanctuary policies like those pushed by Mayor Wu not only attract and harbor criminals but also place these public safety threats above the interests of law-abiding American citizens.”

Trump’s border czar Tom Homan vowed last week to increase immigration enforcement across sanctuary cities, saying the administration was planning to “flood the zone” with thousands of agents.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem has repeatedly said that immigration officers are arresting the “worst of the worst.” But a Washington Post analysis of ICE data from June found the administration is increasingly targeting unauthorized immigrants with no criminal record as it ramps up arrests.

Federal authorities said the Massachusetts arrests in May included an alleged MS-13 gang member and someone described as a “child sex offender.” But according to community members, most of the migrants had no criminal record and were stopped on their way to work.

ICE begins immigration crackdown in Massachusetts, DHS says
The Trump administration has launched an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Massachusetts days after it sued Boston over the city’s sanctuary policies.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-begins-immigration-crackdown-in-massachusetts-dhs-says/ar-AA1M2kH7

CNN: Trump says Chicago ‘will find out why it’s called the Department of WAR’ ahead of planned crackdown

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President Donald Trump posted a meme on social media Saturday saying that Chicago “will find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” as the city’s officials brace for an immigration crackdown.

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning … Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” the post reads. Trump signed an executive order Friday to rebrand the Pentagon as the “Department of War.”

The post includes what appears to be an artificially generated image of the president wearing a hat and sunglasses, with the Chicago skyline in the background, accompanied by text reading “Chipocalypse Now.”

Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Saturday called Trump’s post “not normal.”

“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal,” Pritzker wrote on X. “Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

It comes as Trump has ramped up his rhetoric against the country’s third most-populous city. CNN previously reported the Trump administration’s plans to conduct a major immigration enforcement operation in Chicago, and that officials there were bracing for it to begin as early as Friday.

In recent days, personnel from Immigration and Border Protection as well as Customs and Border Protection have begun trickling into the city, White House officials told CNN.

The Trump administration has also reserved the right to call in the National Guard if there is a reaction to the operation that warrants it, the officials said. The Chicago operation is being modeled off of a similar operation carried out in Los Angeles in June. A judge ruled this week that the June deployment broke federal law prohibiting the military from law enforcement activity on US soil in most cases; the Trump administration has appealed.

White House officials have made clear the Chicago immigration crackdown is distinct from the idea the president has floated to use federal law enforcement and National Guard troops to carry out a broader crime crackdown in the city, similar to the operation in Washington, DC.

When asked by a reporter Tuesday about sending National Guard troops into the city, Trump said, “We’re going,” adding, “I didn’t say when. We’re going in.”

Democratic officials who represent Chicago and Illinois also condemned Trump’s post Saturday.

“The President’s threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution,” wrote Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on social media. “We must defend our democracy from this authoritarianism by protecting each other and protecting Chicago from Donald Trump.”

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth described Trump’s post on X as “Stolen valor at its worst,” writing, “Take off that Cavalry hat, you draft dodger. You didn’t earn the right to wear it.”

Rep. Mike Quigley, who represents part of Chicago, said Saturday afternoon on CNN that the post is an example of Trump “edging more and more toward authoritarianism.”

“This is a scary time. For those who haven’t paid attention, it’s time to watch what this president is doing,” Quigley said.

Trump says Chicago ‘will find out why it’s called the Department of WAR’ ahead of planned crackdown | CNN Politics
It comes as Trump has ramped up his rhetoric against the country’s third most-populous city. CNN previously reported the Trump administration’s plans to conduct a major immigration enforcement operation in Chicago.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/06/politics/trump-chicago-war-meme-post

Reuters: These Trump voters back his immigration crackdown, but some worry about his methods

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While Trump supporters are happy to see criminals deported, they are split over methods for detaining immigrants.

Juan Rivera voted for President Donald Trump, hoping that the president’s efforts to rid the United States of illegal immigration would improve safety in the Southern California city where the 25-year-old content creator lives.

Neighborhoods near Rivera’s home in San Marcos that used to be frequented by migrants with “violent tendencies” do feel much safer now, he said. But he also said he’ll “never forget” seeing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pull over a truck of Latino workers and haul the men into their cars without asking for identification, leaving the empty truck behind.

Some of Rivera’s family members work for U.S. Border Patrol. Other relatives who are in the process of establishing legal residency in the United States “are scared of going to work because they fear that they’re going to get pulled over by immigration,” he said.

Overall, however, Rivera gave the Trump administration very high marks on its handling of immigration because “there’s a lot more public safety.”

Seven months into his second term, Trump’s signature issue – immigration – is still helping buoy his overall sinking approval ratings, making up for a downturn in support for his economic policies. A group of 20 Trump voters Reuters has interviewed monthly since February, including Rivera, illuminated the complex views behind the numbers.

Reuters asked the voters to rate the Trump administration’s handling of immigration on a scale of 1 to 10. Sixteen gave it a rating of 7 or higher, and none rated it below 5.

They universally support Trump’s tightening of U.S. border security to prevent further illegal immigration and his efforts to expel immigration offenders with violent criminal records. But there was less consensus about how Trump is going about the crackdown.

“President Trump was elected based on his promise to close the border and deport criminal illegal aliens,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in an emailed statement. “The Trump Administration will continue carrying out the largest mass deportation operation in history.”

The 20 voters were selected from 429 respondents to a February 2025 Ipsos poll who said they voted for Trump in November and were willing to speak to a reporter. They are not a statistically representative portrait of all Trump voters, but their ages, educational backgrounds, races/ethnicities, locations and voting histories roughly correspond to those of Trump’s overall electorate.

Seven of the voters said they worried about the means Trump was using to achieve his goals, with some recoiling at the way authorities are rounding up immigrants for deportation.

“I agree that you have to have an immigration policy and enforce it. I don’t agree with kidnapping people off the street,” said Virginia Beach-based retiree Don Jernigan.

Jernigan, 75, said that footage of ICE raids he has seen on ABC and Fox News “reminds me of Nazi Germany. And you would rarely hear me say that name, Nazi, okay? But it does, the way they snatch people.”

Other voters, such as Will Brown, 20, a student at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, urged the administration to pursue even more ambitious deportation goals.

Brown, who said he “couldn’t be more of a fan of Stephen Miller,” the White House aide credited with designing Trump’s immigration policy, noted that the deportation rate of Trump’s second term so far lagged that of the last two Democratic administrations. “Honestly, I don’t think they’re doing enough,” he said.

REALITY DIVIDE

The voters’ attitudes towards traditional news outlets heavily affected their view of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“If you get your information from one source, ICE is devils incarnate, and if you get it from another source, they’re superheroes,” said Gerald Dunn, 66, a martial arts instructor in upstate New York.

Dunn said he rarely reads or watches news from mainstream outlets because “everything is so exaggerated.” Instead, he browses headlines and watches YouTube videos to stay informed.

He has heard reports of ICE agents detaining non-criminal immigrants, but said such incidents are blown out of proportion.

“You’re going to arrest people wrongfully, and it turns out they shouldn’t have been arrested. That doesn’t mean you don’t arrest anybody.”

In the Chicago suburbs, municipal office secretary Kate Mottl, 62, said she is thrilled with Trump’s immigration policy. She does not believe news outlets that report immigrants without a criminal record are being swept up in raids.

Mottl was dismayed to learn that some immigrants without legal status she knows are afraid of being deported under Trump.

“I tell them, ‘you shouldn’t be worried about that because you’re not a bad person. You’re not committing crimes,’” she said, adding that she feared they were being misinformed by the news sources they watch.

CLEARER PATHWAY TO LEGAL STATUS

Fourteen of the 20 voters said they hoped Trump would improve the immigration system and vetting process to help deserving foreigners with the potential to contribute to the U.S. economy legalize their status more easily in the United States.

Like Mottl, Lesa Sandberg of St. George, Utah, said she knows undocumented immigrants “who are raising their families here, who are working, who are contributing to our economy and our society. And my heart goes out to them.”

Sandberg, 57, who runs an accounting business, rents properties and works for a former Republican congressman’s political action committee, said she is glad to see the administration cracking down on immigrants with criminal backgrounds.

But when it comes to the immigrants in the U.S. illegally she considers friends, she said, “I would never call ICE on them … [it’s] that whole concept of when we know people in the situation, feelings are different about it because we know how bad it is for them.”

David Ferguson, 53, a mechanical engineer and account manager in western Georgia, said some of the foreign students in his daughter’s graduate school program want to stay and work in the United States but fear they won’t be able to re-enter if they visit their home countries, despite having valid visas.

Some immigrants really do “want to have long-term residency and be productive members of our society. Let’s give them a path for that,” he said.

Ferguson said he doesn’t think an amnesty program is necessarily the solution. But Juan Rivera, the Trump voter in southern California, thinks it could attract wide support.

“It’s actually a really big sentiment I’ve been hearing from a lot of local Republican elected officials, that the Trump administration [should] offer amnesty the way that Reagan did,” said Rivera, who does Latino outreach advocacy for his county’s Republican Party.

His own father was able to become a U.S. citizen after former Republican President Ronald Reagan signed legislation in 1986 granting amnesty to about 3 million immigrants without legal status, according to Rivera.

He said he hopes Trump moves the country toward “an immigration system that balances security with humanity.”

These Trump voters back his immigration crackdown, but some worry about his methods

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/these-trump-voters-back-his-immigration-crackdown-some-worry-about-his-methods-2025-09-02

Fortune: More than half of industries are already shedding workers, a ‘telling’ sign that’s accompanied past recessions, top economist says

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The U.S. economy isn’t in a recession yet, but the number of industries cutting back on headcount is concerning, and future revisions to jobs data could show employment is already falling, according to Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi.

In a series of X posts on Sunday, he followed up his warning from last weekend that the economy is on the brink of a recession.

This time, Zandi pointed out that the start of a recession is often unclear until after the fact, noting that the National Bureau of Economic Research is the official arbiter of when one begins and ends.

According to the NBER, a recession involves “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.” It also looks at a range of indicators, including personal income, employment, consumer spending, sales, and industrial production.

Zandi said payroll employment data is by far the most important data point, and declines for more than a month consecutively would signal a downturn. While employment hasn’t started falling yet, it’s barely grown since May, he added.

Payrolls expanded by just 73,000 last month, well below forecasts for about 100,000. Meanwhile, May’s tally was revised down from 144,000 to 19,000, and June’s total was slashed from 147,000 to just 14,000, meaning the average gain over the past three months is now only 35,000.

Because recent revisions have been consistently much lower, Zandi said he wouldn’t be surprised if subsequent revisions show that employment is already declining.

“Also telling is that employment is declining in many industries. In the past, if more than half the ≈400 industries in the payroll survey were shedding jobs, we were in a recession,” he added. “In July, over 53% of industries were cutting jobs, and only healthcare was adding meaningfully to payrolls.”

Last week, Zandi said data often sees big revisions when the economy is at an inflection point, like a recession. And on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook similarly noted that large revisions are “typical of turning points” in the economy. 

For now, the Atlanta Fed’s GDP tracker points to continued growth, and the third-quarter forecast even edged up to 2.5% from 2.1% last week, though that’s still a slowdown from 3% in the second quarter.

There are also no signs of mass layoffs as weekly jobless claims haven’t spiked, and the unemployment rate has barely changed, bouncing in a tight range between 4% and 4.2% for more than a year.

But Zandi said the jobless rate will be a “particularly poor barometer of recession” as the recent decrease in the number of foreign-born workers has kept the labor force flat.

“Also note that a recession is defined by a persistent decline in jobs — the decline lasts for at least a few months. We aren’t there yet, and we are thus not in recession,” he explained. “Things could still turn around if the economic policies weighing on the economy soon lift. But that looks increasingly unlikely.”

Wall Street is divided on what the jobs data are saying, with some analysts attributing the slowdown to weak labor demand while others blame weak labor supply amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Bank of America falls into the supply camp and said “markets are conflating recession with stagflation.” But UBS warned of weak demand, pointing out the average workweek is below 2019 levels, and said the labor market is showing signs of “stall speed.”

Last week, economists at JPMorgan also sounded the alarm on a potential downturn. They noted that jobs data show hiring in the private sector has cooled to an average of just 52,000 in the last three months, with sectors outside health and education stalling.

Coupled with the lack of any signs that unwanted separations are surging due to immigration policy, this is a strong signal that business demand for labor has cooled, they said.

“We have consistently emphasized that a slide in labor demand of this magnitude is a recession warning signal,” JPMorgan added. “Firms normally maintain hiring gains through growth downshifts they perceive as transitory. In episodes when labor demand slides with a growth downshift, it is often a precursor to retrenchment.”

More than half of industries are already shedding workers, a ‘telling’ sign that’s accompanied past recessions, top economist says
“Things could still turn around if the economic policies weighing on the economy soon lift. But that looks increasingly unlikely.”

https://fortune.com/2025/08/10/recession-warning-economic-outlook-industry-job-losses-employment-declines

Newsweek: Bill Maher confronts Dr. Phil on joining Trump admin’s ICE raids

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Comedian and television host Bill Maher pressed television personality and former clinical psychologist, Dr. Phil, on Friday about his inclusion in the Trump administration’s ongoing nationwide immigration raids.

Why It Matters

Phil McGraw or better known as Dr. Phil who is widely known for his television career, is a vocal supporter of the Trump administration. He has spoken at campaign rallies, interviewed the then-Republican candidate, and been present atImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids since Donald Trump took office in January, including operations in Chicago and Los Angeles.

The Trump administration has spearheaded a major immigration crackdown, vowing to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history. The initiative has seen an intensification of ICE raids across the country, with thousands of people detained and many deported.

What To Know

Maher, host of the HBO talk show Real Time with Bill Maher, asked his guest, Dr. Phil, about his reasoning for joining the immigration raids.

“Why are you going on these ICE raids? I don’t understand that,” Maher said. “You’re a guy who we know for so many years who has been working to put families together; to bring families who are apart and heal them. And now you’re going on raids with people who are literally separating families. Explain that to me.”

Dr. Phil quickly countered, “Well, now that’s bull****.”

Maher then interjected, “That’s not bull****…They’re not separating families?”

Dr. Phil continued, “Look, if you arrest somebody that’s a citizen, that has committed a crime or is DUI’d with a child in the backseat, do you think they don’t separate that family right then, right there? Of course they do!”

“But that’s not what’s going on,” Maher argued.

Dr. Phil then referenced part of Maher’s earlier monologue, turning to talk about how ICE agents have to wear masks because of “doxxing” concerns.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported in July that ICE agents “are facing an 830 increase in assaults from January 21st to July 14th compared with the same period in 2024.”

Dr. Phil defended the ICE agents, saying they are simply doing their jobs by carrying out the raids, saying, “They didn’t make the laws; they didn’t make that law. What are you expecting them to do, just not do their job? If you don’t like the law, change it. I don’t like that law, at all. Change the law!”

Maher then asked, “If you don’t like it then why are you going?” which drew applause from the live audience. Dr. Phil responded, “Because that is the law.”

Earlier this summer, large-scale clashes between protesters and immigration officials in Los Angeles prompted the deployment of the National Guard and U.S. Marines to the city. Dr. Phil was on the ground in Los Angeles with his TV channel, Merit TV, for the raids, while earlier in January he partook in a ride-along with border czar Tom Homan during the Chicago raids.

What People Are Saying

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement previously 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 American 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.”

A Department of Justice spokesperson previously told Newsweek: “The entire Trump Administration is united in fully enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, and the DOJ continues to play an important role in vigorously defending the President’s deportation agenda in court.”

What Happens Next?

Democratic leaders and human rights advocates have criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policies, citing reports of inhumane conditions in detention centers and during detention procedures. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has repeatedly defended the department and its facilities, and has called for expanding ICE’s detention capacity.

Raids are expected to continue as the administration pledges to deport people without proper documentation.

Bill Maher confronts Dr. Phil on joining Trump admin’s ICE raids
Maher pressed Dr. Phil on “going on” some of the Trump administration’s immigration raids.

https://www.newsweek.com/bill-maher-confronts-dr-phil-joining-trump-admins-ice-raids-2111269