Tag Archives: Immigration

USA Today: LA isn’t burning. ICE has terrorized many into an ominous silence. | Opinion

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The threat of ICE raids on commencement ceremonies was credible enough that our Los Angeles school district devised plans to protect students from being kidnapped as they received their diplomas.

Apparently, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi and President Donald Trump, “California is burning.” Here in Los Angeles, however, we know too well the smell of a serious conflagration ‒ and also the stench of political gas when politicians try to justify corrupt assertions of authoritarian power.

We are protesting now not because we are lawless, but because what is happening is a racially selective application of immigration laws that should have been reformed years ago. We are protesting because we still believe in decency, human dignity and respect for hard work and family.

Some protesting among us have succumbed to anger, while others have opportunistically caused mayhem the way some revelers do when the Lakers or the Dodgers win a championship.

Meanwhile the president and his ministers of cruelty, hysteria and lies are opportunistically causing far more mayhem, disrupting businesses and communities and devastating families and insulting our brave troops by gratuitously deploying them to our streets, pitting them against American civilians, trying to use the selfless members of our military as an authoritarian flex.

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LA isn’t burning. ICE has terrorized many into an ominous silence. | Opinion
California is not burning. We are protesting the racially selective application of immigration laws and unjust ICE raids.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2025/06/23/ice-raids-california-los-angeles-immigration/84174179007

LA Times: Fears of racial profiling rise as Border Patrol conducts ‘roving patrols,’ detains U.S. citizens

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Brian Gavidia had stepped out from working on a car at a tow yard in a Los Angeles suburb Thursday when armed, masked men — wearing vests with “Border Patrol” on them — pushed him up against a metal gate and demanded to know where he was born.

“I’m American, bro!” 29-year-old Gavidia pleaded, in video taken by a friend.

“What hospital were you born?” the agent barked.

“I don’t know, dawg!” he said. “East L.A., bro! I can show you: I have my f—ing Real ID.”

His friend, whom Gavidia did not name, narrated the video: “These guys, literally based off of skin color! My homie was born here!” The friend said Gavidia was being questioned “just because of the way he looks.”

In a statement Saturday, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said U.S. citizens were arrested “because they ASSAULTED U.S. Border Patrol Agents.” (McLaughlin’s statement emphasized the word “assaulted” in all-capital and boldfaced letters.)

When told by a reporter that Gavidia had not been arrested, McLaughlin clarified that Gavidia had been questioned by Border Patrol agents but there “is no arrest record.” She said a friend of Gavidia’s was arrested for assault of an officer.

As immigration operations have unfolded across Southern California in the last week, lawyers and advocates say people are being targeted because of their skin color. The encounter with Gavidia and others they are tracking have raised legal questions about enforcement efforts that have swept up hundreds of immigrants and shot fear into the deeply intertwined communities they call home.

Agents picking up street vendors without warrants. American citizens being grilled. Home Depot lots swept. Car washes raided. The wide-scale arrests and detainments — often in the region’s largely Latino neighborhoods — contain hallmarks of racial profiling and other due process violations.

Fears of racial profiling rise as Border Patrol conducts ‘roving patrols,’ detains U.S. citizens
Border Patrol agents on ‘roving patrol’ arrest U.S. citizen on assault charges. Fear of widespread racial profiling gains momentum as Home Depots and car washes raided.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-15/latinos-targeted-in-raids-u-s-citizens-detained-indiscriminate-sweeps-home-depot-lots-targeted

LA Times: Immigrant father of three Marines is violently detained, injured by federal agents, son says

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Video of a landscaper being taken down, pinned and repeatedly punched by masked federal agents in Orange County has gone viral online, and Alejandro Barranco finds it painful to watch.

The Marine veteran says his father, Narciso Barranco, was working outside of a Santa Ana IHOP on Saturday when several masked men approached him. Frightened, he began to run away, his son said. Moments later, he was on the ground, held down by the men, who struck him.

The younger Barranco told The Times on Sunday that his father was pepper sprayed and beaten, and that his shoulder was dislocated. After speaking with him Sunday at about 6 p.m., Barranco said his father had not received medical treatment, food or water after more than 24 hours in a detention facility in Los Angeles.

“I don’t think it was just, I don’t think it was fair,” Barranco said of the use of force against his father. “I don’t think they need four 200 [pounds]-plus guys to hold down a 5-6 or 5-7, 150-pound guy.”

Immigrant father of three Marines is violently detained, injured by federal agents, son says
Narciso Barranco, a landscaper in Orange County, was detained by immigration officials in a violent altercation Saturday. Barranco is the father of three Marines.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-22/father-of-3-marines-violently-detained-federal-agents

Gazette: ‘I feel betrayed,’ U.S. Marine says of seeing his father punched by federal immigration agent

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A former Marine says he feels “betrayed” by the U.S. after seeing a video on social media of his father being pinned to the ground and repeatedly punched by a federal immigration agent in Santa Ana on Saturday.

The post of the blows to his father also helped to spark a demonstration with dozens of protesters demanding the agents leave Santa Ana, as well as an online fundraiser to raise money for the man’s legal expenses.

‘I feel betrayed,’ U.S. Marine says of seeing his father punched by federal immigration agent
A former Marine says he feels “betrayed” by the U.S. after seeing a video on social media of his father being pinned to the ground and repeatedly punched by a

https://www.gazettextra.com/news/nation_world/i-feel-betrayed-u-s-marine-says-of-seeing-his-father-punched-by-federal-immigration/article_c9e9aee3-0eb1-51d3-9834-3b7a2ecfceae.html

Guardian: ‘Ticking time bomb’: Ice detainee dies in transit as experts say more deaths likely

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Guardian reporting reveals confusing and contradictory events surrounding death of Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado

A 68-year-old Mexican-born man has become the first Ice detainee in at least a decade to die while being transported from a local jail to a federal detention center, and experts have warned there will likely be more such deaths amid the current administration’s “mass deportation” push across the US.

Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado’s exact cause of death remains under investigation, according to Ice, but the Guardian’s reporting reveals a confusing and at times contradictory series of events surrounding the incident.

The death occurred as private companies with little to no oversight are increasingly tasked with transporting more immigration detainees across the US, in pursuit of the Trump administration’s recently-announced target of arresting 3,000 people a day.

“The system is so loaded with people, exacerbating bad conditions – it’s like a ticking time bomb,” said Amilcar Valencia, executive director of El Refugio, a Georgia-based organization that works with detainees at Stewart detention center and their families.

Avellaneda Delgado lived most of the last 40 years in the US, raising a large family, working on tobacco and vegetable farms – and never gaining legal immigration status. He was arrested in Statenville, Georgia on 9 April due to a parole violation – and died on 5 May in the back of a van about half-way between the Lowndes county jail and Stewart detention center.

His family say their search for answers has been frustrating, and have hired an attorney to help. Two of Avellaneda Delgado’s six children who lived with their father told the Guardian he had no health conditions before being detained – but somehow was put in a wheelchair during the weeks he spent in jail, and was unable to speak during a family visit. The Guardian learned that he was given medications while in jail.

‘Ticking time bomb’: Ice detainee dies in transit as experts say more deaths likely
Guardian reporting reveals confusing and contradictory events surrounding death of Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/22/ice-detainee-death-georgia

LA Times: Letters to the Editor: It’s nice that Dodger Stadium denied federal agents, but it’s not enough

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To the editor: While it’s nice that the Dodger Stadium grounds denied entry to federal agents, it is but a gesture (“Federal agents denied entry to Dodger Stadium parking lot: Here is what really happened,” June 19). The ownership, management and players of the Dodgers owe the people of Los Angeles and this nation a public letter of apology for having attended the White House and bowed to the authority of President Trump, despite his daily inhumane and antidemocratic words and actions. Not a single one of them had the courage to speak up on that day.

To the editor: I haven’t been to a Dodgers game since Sandy Koufax, but as an ex-Angeleno, I just might have to buy season tickets next year for the brave stand the Dodgers took on June 19 against federal immigration agents.

It wasn’t performative, it was restorative. And it is inspiring to watch a large, powerful organization stand up to power and injustice and to agents wearing masks.

To the editor: I applaud the Dodgers for denying federal agents entry into the stadium grounds. There was no reason for their presence there.

We must, however, remember that in the late 1950s, Walter O’Malley and the Dodgers evicted many innocent Mexican Americans so they could build their stadium. We must remember our history to preserve our future.

That last one really hit the nail on the head!

Letters to the Editor: It’s nice that Dodger Stadium denied federal agents, but it’s not enough
‘Unless fans cling to willful ignorance, these guys aren’t heroes,’ writes an L.A. Times reader. ‘They are just egocentric show-offs.’

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2025-06-22/its-nice-that-dodger-stadium-denied-federal-agents-but-its-not-enough

SF Gate: Portrait of a California family torn apart by ICE

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‘They always get picked up on their way to work’

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a longtime Oxnard worker, Albino Mandujano Eutimio, in May, the sudden action changed the lives of his family, who continue to reel and adjust in his absence today.

“He called me from the detention center and asked if I could take my brothers, Nico and Lalo, to handle his jobs while he’s detained,” his daughter, Adriana Mandujano, told SFGATE. Leaving no time to grieve, she had rides to arrange, bills to pay, and urgent plans to make to support her father, now held at the Desert View Annex in Adelanto.

Her father was detained in the morning, on his way to retrieve a machine he had left at a job site the day before. It was a strategy that ICE has used before. 

“They always get picked up on their way to work,” said Elizabeth Ramirez Barragan, the immigration attorney representing the Oxnard worker and a California immigration legal fellow with the Mixteco Indígena Community Organizing Project, or MICOP. The morning Mandujano Eutimio was arrested, she said, was no accident, adding that “ICE usually conducts raids as early as 5 a.m. because they know that’s when people are heading out to work.”

Mandujano Eutimio, who is undocumented but has been in the country for over 25 years, has built his livelihood by servicing restaurants, shopping plazas, commercial buildings and apartments across Camarillo and Los Angeles, removing graffiti, pressure washing, cleaning windows, deep cleaning, doing carpentry and whatever else clients needed.

California family torn apart by ICE after father taken on way to work
“They know that’s when people are heading out to work.”

https://www.sfgate.com/centralcoast/article/california-family-separated-by-ice-20386381.php

Independent: US citizen caught in ICE raid says arrest was worth it if others got away

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A U.S. citizen who was violently arrested in a California ICE raid and detained for 24 hours said it was all worth it if an undocumented person was able to use that moment to flee.

Job Garcia, a 37-year-old PhD student at Claremont Graduate University, was arrested during an ICE raid last Thursday at a Home Depot in Hollywood, ABC 7 reported.

Video captured an ICE agent telling Garcia, who is a U.S. citizen, “You want to go to jail? Fine, you got it.”

Garcia recalled the horrifying moment he was placed into custody by the officer: “The pressure of like, the knee on my back, and his hand on my neck, I thought like ‘Is this it for me?’”

Footage of the violent arrest, which came as ICE agents detained about 30 people at the store, quickly went viral.

Before he was detained, Garcia and several other shoppers were yelling at the officers as they targeted a man in a truck by smashing his window.

“A split second after that is when he lunged at me. I was still recording, so he pushes me, puts both hands on me, and I pushed his hand off. And then, he didn’t like that, so he grabbed my left hand,” Garcia said.

Garcia said the officers seemed surprised when he told them he was a U.S. citizen, but they still decided to arrest him. He was first taken to a holding area at Dodger Stadium, where he overheard agents discussing how many people they’d grabbed.

“Like, ‘How many bodies did you guys get today?’ And one of them said 31, and they started like, ‘Yay! It was a good day today.’ And they were like, high-fiving each other,” Garcia said.

Garcia said he also overheard officers talking about potential charges they could slap him with.

“At first it was assault of a federal agent, but only later, the narrative started switching because the video was out,” Garcia said.

This underscores the importance of citizen videos — Record! Record! Record!

US citizen caught in ICE raid says arrest was worth it if others got away
Job Garcia was arrested during an ICE raid last Thursday at a Home Depot in Hollywood

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/ice-arrest-usa-citizen-b2774799.html

Raw Story: ‘Grandmother who won’t stop talking’: GOP aides say Stephen Miller won’t hang up

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Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security Advisor, just won’t get off the phone, according to a new report.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday night that Trump 2.0 has Miller’s fingerprints all over it, with Miller “emerg[ing] as a singular figure in the second Trump administration, wielding more power than almost any other White House staffer in recent memory—and eager to circumvent legal limitations on his agenda.”

Miller has drafted or edited each of Trump’s signed executive orders, according to the report, giving him considerable influence over Trump’s second term. This comes after the president refused to give him a leading role at the Department of Homeland Security, reportedly telling aides he didn’t see Miller as leadership material, according to the report.

Also of note — Miller appears to be getting under the skin of GOP aides on Capitol Hill who say they can’t get him off the phone.

‘Grandmother who won’t stop talking’: GOP aides say Stephen Miller won’t hang up

https://www.rawstory.com/stephen-miller-2672408339

More here:

Stephen Miller Is Driving Congressional Aides Crazy With Non-Stop Calls
Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, is so involved in every aspect of the Trump administration’s efforts to radically reconfigure American democracy that congressional aides have reportedly begun complaining about his incessant phone calls. Ignoring the fact that his “outreach wasn’t always welcome,” Miller would call congressional aides for lengthy, aimless conversations about illegal immigration that contained no specific requests,…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ar-AA1H8sPE

And here:

Stephen Miller Driving Congressional Aides Crazy With Calls
A new report details just how far Miller’s reach is in the Trump administration.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stephen-miller-is-driving-congressional-aides-crazy-with-non-stop-calls

Associated Press: Vance blames California Dems for violent immigration protests and calls Sen. Alex Padilla ‘Jose’

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Vice President JD Vance on Friday accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of encouraging violent immigration protests as he used his appearance in Los Angeles to rebut criticism from state and local officials that the Trump administration fueled the unrest by sending in federal officers.

Sending in masked thugs to rough people up and kidnap Hispanics off the streets and sidewalks is exactly what the problem is. If JD Dunce is too much of an idiot to understand that, c’est la vie. We can’t fix stupid! And the demonstrations will continue until ICE either cleans up their act or is put back in their kennels.

Vance also referred to U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, the state’s first Latino senator, as “Jose Padilla,” a week after the Democrat was forcibly taken to the ground by officers and handcuffed after speaking out during a Los Angeles news conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on immigration raids.

JD Dunce is a pathetic racist pig. He served in the Senate with Sen. Padilla and knows full well what his actual name is.

Vance blames California Dems for violent immigration protests and calls Sen. Alex Padilla ‘Jose’
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Vice President JD Vance on Friday accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of encouraging violent immigration protests as he used his appearance in Los Angeles to rebut criticism from state and local officials that the Trump administration fueled the unrest by sending in federal officers. Vance also r…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/vance-blames-california-dems-for-violent-immigration-protests-and-calls-sen-alex-padilla-jose/ar-AA1H7TGD