Tag Archives: Joe Biden

Daily Mail: DHS under fire for controversial staffer comments

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The Department of Homeland Security is defending the First Amendment rights of a staffer who has come under fire for posts and political commentary related to the Capitol riot. Before joining DHS, Eric Lendrum (pictured right) likened the political fallout conservatives faced from the January 6, 2021 rally to slavery and the Holocaust.

He slammed Democrats for ‘cowering’ under their desks as thousands of angry Americans descended on the Capitol that day. ‘There’s something so gratifying about seeing the images of these members of Congress — especially the Democrats — crouching under their chairs, putting on those stupid, like, bubble masks, those anti-gas bubble masks, and then taking selfies,’ Lendrum said on an episode of his podcast The Right Take just days after the riot.

He also said in a 2021 blog post on the conservative website American Greatness: ‘American conservatives are, right now, on a course for being every bit as ostracized and alienated from broader society as Jews were in the years leading up to Nazi Germany.’ The junior-level speechwriter at DHS also shared anti-immigrant rhetoric on multiple platforms before joining the second Donald Trump administration. In an October 2022 podcast episode, he endorsed the far-right ‘great replacement theory,’ which is a belief that nonwhite immigrants are diminishing the influence of white people across the world.

While a spokesperson for DHS declined to comment on the social media activity of a junior staffer before joining the agency, they instead sent the Daily Mail a link to the text of the First Amendment of the Constitution when asked for comment. Lnedrum did not respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment on the reports detailing his online activity. Lendrum published on American Greatness until March 2025.

n his post-riot rant in 2021, he said conservative Americans are facing oppression like that faced by enslaved black people in America and Holocaust victims. ‘It has been said that the most surefire way to create an authoritarian regime is to completely dehumanize a significant portion of the population, so that their subsequent enslavement by the state will not face any larger resistance. It was true during slavery, it was true during the Holocaust, and it is true now,’ he wrote.

Lendrum has a relatively low profile, his employer and previous social media activity was first reported by NOTUS on Monday. The last time Lendrum posted to his X account was on the president’s birthday on June 14 this year when he published an image of himself alongside Trump. Lendrum has only 449 followers on X as of time of publication and appears to mostly use it recently to repost messages from Trump cabinet officials and allies. But he has used his X account in the past to share anti-immigrant sentiments.

He expressed lament with a New York Post headline saying that veterans were kicked out of hotels to make way for providing shelter to illegal ‘migrants’ during President Joe Biden’s term. ‘They are not migrants. They are not ‘undocumented.’ They are an invading army. The largest invasion in American history,’ Lendrum wrote on May 13, 2023 in a post to X. He added: ‘And what are you supposed to do with an invading army? Crush it, by any means necessary.’ Lendrum also claimed that asylum seekers are ‘scum.’

Before joining DHS, Lendrum also had a short stint as a press assistant at the Department of the Interior during Trump’s first term. ‘If I could work more closely with him, that is the one case in which I would ever go back into government work. Government work is not fun,’ Lendrum said in December 2022. And now, he’s back in Washington, D.C. for Trump’s second term working for one of the largest and most influential agencies in the federal government. A DHS speechwriter is responsible for preparing a myriad of public content for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and her deputy. This includes ‘speeches, talking points, editorials, Congressional testimony, video scripts, web content and other written content,’ according to a description of the job.

DHS under fire for controversial staffer comments
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/dhs-under-fire-for-controversial-staffer-comments/ss-AA1KN9Jf

Raw Story: CNN right-winger gets shut down as he uses ‘2 different sets of facts’ to defend Trump

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A conservative commentator was hit with a quick fact check on CNN after excusing President Donald Trump’s interference in the Texas redistricting mess.

Border Patrol agents poured into downtown Los Angeles as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats outlined plans to redraw California’s congressional map in response to a Republican push to do the same in Texas to their own advantage, and conservative journalist Rob Bluey told “CNN This Morning” that the situations in the two states were completely different.

“It’s important also to point out that we’re talking about two different sets of facts,” Bluey said. “The whole situation in Texas stemmed from a lawsuit and a decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.”

Fellow panelist Sabrina Singh, a former deputy Pentagon press secretary under Joe Biden, quickly pushed back.

“That’s still caught up in the courts,” she said. “What Gov. [Greg] Abbott is taking a Sharpie pen and just redoing the maps. That’s not from the lawsuit that’s been brought.”

Bluey argued the GOP governor’s actions were justified by changes to the state’s population since the last census was conducted five years ago.

“Texas has also had 2 million new residents move into the state since the last census,” he said. “The census made errors. Texas was cheated out of a seat and an electoral vote and Florida was cheated out of two because the census made errors. There were a number of problems that have happened over the last couple of years that could lead people to that conclusion that [host Audie Cornish] just made, that their vote is in some ways not [being counted].”

Cornish expressed skepticism, asking whether states should simply call for a new census and redraw their congressional maps if they didn’t like the results of the head count conducted under constitutional authority, and Bluey eagerly took the bait.

“I think states should do their own census,” Bluey said. “Maybe each state and the federal government can do this in collaboration. By the way, in the 1970s they amended the law and they said that you could do a mid-decade census, so it’s not that Donald Trump’s doing anything unusual, it’s just that the federal government hasn’t done it before.”

Singh poured cold water on Bluey’s argument, saying the president’s insistence on changing a state’s congressional map to favor his own party was indeed unusual.

“Each state has their own different constitution, but the lawsuit that you’re referring to is not why Gov. Abbott decided to draw the map, redraw the maps,” Singh said. “He decided to do that because Donald Trump put pressure on him. The lawsuit is still in the Texas courts and has not risen to the state level to redraw the map.”

CNN right-winger gets shut down as he uses ‘2 different sets of facts’ to defend Trump

https://www.rawstory.com/texas-redistricting-2673886861

Inquisitr: Trump Admin’s New Crackdown Demands Immigrants Prove ‘Good Moral Character’ Beyond Just Staying Out of Jail

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New USCIS rule gives officers sweeping power to judge applicants’ morality, from traffic tickets to tax returns

When it comes to immigrants who want to become citizens of the United States, the second-term government of Donald Trump has turned on the moral compass. Although “good moral character” has long been an essential part of the naturalization process, the DOHS is now looking into more detailed areas of an applicant’s life as opposed to just checking boxes, as has been routine for so long. 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a new directive on Friday directing officers to give much more weight to whether an applicant’s character truly embodies American values, which go beyond just avoiding jail time.

As a result, immigrants who wish to become citizens after getting a green card will have to submit to a more extensive and private assessment of their contributions, behavior, and even violations of traffic laws!

For many years, the term “good moral character” has been a part of U.S. immigration law. Naturalization applicants already had to prove they were not “habitual drunkards,” d–g traffickers, or convicted murderers.

Even so, the Trump administration wants officers to start digging deeper.

The memo encourages officers to perform a “holistic assessment” of an applicant’s life rather than just relying on a mechanical checklist that looks for serious crimes. Community involvement, caregiving responsibilities, lawful employment, time spent in the United States, tax history, and academic achievements must now be taken into account throughout the review process.

To put it simply, you might rack up moral points by raising your children, filing your taxes, and helping out at the local food bank. Yet, because of the increased scrutiny, even legally allowed behaviors that were previously thought of as trivial, such as constantly reckless driving, harassment, or “aggressive solicitation,” can now be used against you.

Officers have more discretion as a result of this change. However, they also have more freedom to reject applicants for reasons that are not going to be clear to them at the time of application or even after it gets rejected. 

According to the USCIS memo, “acts that are contrary to the average behavior of citizens in the jurisdiction where aliens reside” may be taken into account. It also means that a person’s bid for citizenship may be seriously limited by a poor driving record in California or unpaid child support in Texas — all pointing to their so-called “moral character.” 

The goal is to raise the standard for what it means to be an American. The policy seeks to “restore integrity” to the naturalization process, according to agency chief spokesman Matthew Tragesser, who spoke to ABC News. According to him, “U.S. citizenship is the gold standard of citizenship — it should only be offered to the world’s best of the best.”

Donald Trump’s larger political message (that citizenship is a privilege rather than a right and ought to be saved for people who actively uphold American values instead of just adhering to the law) is made possible by this framing.

The new policy, which puts stricter standards and gives immigration officers greater flexibility, is also in line with the administration’s ongoing attempts to restrict possible paths to citizenship.

Critics perceive a more cynical element at work, though. Joe Biden-era USCIS official Doug Rand contends the new rule was created to scare new applicants away. Rand claims that the administration is, in essence, discouraging legal immigrants from applying for citizenship by broadening the definition of “bad moral character” to include minor, non-criminal behavior.

Rand told ABC News, “They’re trying to increase the grounds for denial of U.S. citizenship by (…) torturing the definition of good moral character to encompass extremely harmless behavior.”

Between 600,000 and 1 million immigrants become citizens of the United States each year, the Irish Star reports. 

Years of legal residency, civics and English proficiency exams, and strict background checks are already part of the complex process. Now, staying true to constantly changing standards is more vital than avoiding crimes when defining “good moral character.”

Trump Admin’s New Crackdown Demands Immigrants Prove ‘Good Moral Character’ Beyond Just Staying Out of Jail
The Trump admin tightens citizenship rules, expanding ‘good moral character’ reviews for immigrants.

The Atlantic: The President’s Police State

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Trump is delivering the authoritarian government his party once warned about.

For years, prominent voices on the right argued that Democrats were enacting a police state. They labeled everything—a report on homegrown extremism, IRS investigations into nonprofits—a sign of impending authoritarianism. Measures taken by state governments to combat the spread of COVID? Tyranny. An FBI search of Mar-a-Lago? The weaponization of law enforcement.

Now that a president is actually sending federal troops and officers out into the streets of the nation’s cities, however, the right is in lockstep behind him. This morning, Donald Trump announced that he was declaring a crime emergency, temporarily seizing control of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department and deploying the D.C. National Guard to the nation’s capital.

“This is liberation day in D.C.,” Trump said. Nothing says liberation like deploying hundreds of uniformed soldiers against the wishes of the local elected government. District residents have made clear that they would prefer greater autonomy, including congressional representation, and they have three times voted overwhelmingly against Trump. His response is not just to flex power but to treat the District of Columbia as the president’s personal fiefdom.

Trump’s move is based on out-of-date statistics. It places two officials without municipal policing experience in positions of power over federalization and the MPD, and seems unlikely to significantly affect crime rates. What the White House hopes it might achieve, Politicoreports, is “a quick, visually friendly PR win.” Trump needs that after more than a month of trying and failing to change the subject from his onetime friend Jeffrey Epstein.

But what this PR stunt could also do is create precedent for Trump to send armed forces out into American streets whenever he declares a spurious state of emergency. Some of Trump’s supporters don’t seem to mind that fact: “Trump has the opportunity to do a Bukele-style crackdown on DC crime,” Christopher Rufo, the influential conservative personality, posted on X, referring to Nayib Bukele, the Trump ally who is president of El Salvador. “Question is whether he has the will, and whether the public the stomach. Big test: Can he reduce crime faster than the Left advances a counternarrative about ‘authoritarianism’? If yes, he wins. Speed matters.”

Rufo seems to view everything in terms of a political battle to be won via narratives; the term authoritarianism appears to mean nothing to him, and maybe it never meant anything to others on the right who assailed Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Democratic governors. It does have a real meaning, though, and Bukele is its poster boy. Despite the constitution having banned it, he ran for a second term in office; his party then changed the constitution to allow “indefinite” reelection. Lawmakers in his party also brazenly removed supreme-court justices, and his government has forced journalists into exile and locked up tens of thousands of people without due process. This is apparently the America that Chris Rufo wants.

To justify the crackdown, Trump has cited an alleged carjacking attempt that police records say injured the former DOGE employee Edward “Big Balls” Coristine. But MPD has already arrested two Maryland 15-year-olds for unarmed carjacking. That’s good news. Carjacking is a serious crime and should be punished. But Trump has used the incident to claim that violent crime is skyrocketing in Washington. This is, put simply, nonsense. During a press conference today, Trump cited murder statistics from 2023, and said that carjackings had “more than tripled” over the past five years. He didn’t use more recent numbers because they show that these crimes are down significantly in Washington. Murder dropped 32 percent from 2023 to 2024, robberies 39 percent, and armed carjackings 53 percent. This is in line with a broad national reduction in crime. MPD’s preliminary data indicate that violent crime is down another 26 percent so far this year compared with the same timeframe in 2024, though as the crime-statistics analyst Jeff Asher writes, this drop is probably overstated.

Trump’s descriptions of Washington as a lawless hellscape bear little resemblance to what most residents experience. Not only is D.C. not “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World,” as Trump claims, but his prescription seems unlikely to help. He said he is appointing Attorney General Pam Bondi and Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, to help lead the federalization effort and MPD, but neither has any experience with municipal policing. They have not said what they will do differently. If the administration deploys its forces to high-profile areas such as the National Mall, they won’t have much impact on violent crime, because that’s not where it happens; if they go to less central areas with higher crime rates, they won’t get the PR boost they seek, because tourists and news cameras aren’t there.

Throughout his two presidencies, Trump has treated the military as a prop for making statements about which issues he cares about—and which he doesn’t. He deployed the D.C. National Guard during protests after the murder of George Floyd in summer 2020. Earlier this summer, he federalized the California National Guard and sent Marines to Los Angeles to assist with immigration enforcement, but they were sent home when it became clear that they had nothing to do there. Yet according to testimony before the January 6 panel, Trump did not deploy the D.C. National Guard when an armed mob was sacking the U.S. Capitol in 2021 to try to help Trump hold on to power.

Good policing is important because citizens deserve the right to live in safety. Recent drops in crime in Washington are good news because the district’s residents should be able to feel safe. But Trump’s militarization of the city, his seizure of local police, and his lies about crime in Washington do the opposite: They are a way to make people feel unsafe, and either quiet residents’ dissent or make them support new presidential power grabs. Many of Trump’s defenders are angry when he’s called an authoritarian, but not when he acts as one.

The President’s Police State
Trump is delivering the authoritarian government his party once warned about.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/08/trump-national-guard-dc/683839

NPR: Trump administration has gutted an agency that coordinates homelessness policy

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Meanwhile as Trump whines about the homeless on the streets ….

A tiny agency that coordinates homelessness policy across the federal government has been effectively shut down, with all its staff put on administrative leave.

“The irony here is that the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness is designed for government efficiency,” said Jeff Olivet, the body’s most recent executive director under President Biden.

Congress created it in 1987, he said, “to make sure that the federal response to homelessness is coordinated, is efficient, and reduces duplication across federal agencies.”

There were fewer than 20 employees and a budget of just over $4 million. But President Trump included it in an executive order last month on whittling parts of the federal bureaucracy to the “maximum extent” allowed by law.

Legally, the homeless agency’s authorization continues until 2028. But DOGE, the cost-cutting team overseen by Elon Musk, told its employees Monday that they’d be put on leave the next day, according to an email from one employee that was shared with NPR.

The agency helped cities manage record-high homelessness

Part of the agency’s mandate is to help states and localities manage homelessness, and Olivet said that under his leadership, it focused on the record-high number of people living outside.

“Even at a time where we saw overall homelessness going up in many places,” he said, “in those communities like Dallas and Phoenix and Chicago and others, we were able to see significant reductions, or at least not increases in unsheltered homelessness.”

The agency also coordinated an intensive push to bring down homelessness among veterans, making sure they were provided housing and healthcare. Over a decade, Olivet said, veterans homelessness dropped by more than half.

“The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness has been vital in shaping effective policy to end homelessness,” Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said in a statement.

But the Trump administration plans to take a dramatically different approach to the problem.

Shutting down the agency will make it easier for Trump to shift homelessness policy

For decades, since the first Bush administration, there was bipartisan support for getting people housing first and then offering whatever mental or addiction treatments they needed. But there’s been a growing conservative backlash to that as homelessness rates have steadily risen.

During Trump’s first term, his appointee tried to steer the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness more toward treatment options than permanent housing. But the executive director is the only political appointee at the small agency, and all others are career staff.

“He was really working against the current,” said Devon Kurtz of the Cicero Institute, a conservative think tank. “Ultimately, the inertia of it was such that it continued to be sort of a single mouthpiece for housing first.”

Kurtz supports a dramatic shift away from a housing first policy, and thinks that can happen more easily without the homeless agency.

It’s not clear if there will be a legal challenge to the move. Democratic members of Congress objected to Trump’s targeting of the agency, calling it “nonsensical.”

“At a time when housing costs and homelessness are on a historic rise, we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to ensuring every American has a safe and stable place to rest their head at night,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri said in a statement to NPR. “Unfortunately, attacks on the [agency], along with damaging cuts to federal housing programs and staff, and the President’s tumultuous tariffs, will only exacerbate this country’s housing and homelessness crisis.”

… the whine continues!

Trump administration has gutted an agency that coordinates homelessness policy
All staff were put on leave at the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. Congress created the entity in 1987 and, among other things, it helped drive down veterans homelessness.

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/16/nx-s1-5366865/trump-doge-homelessness-veterans-interagency-council-on-homelessness-staff-doge

Guardian: Trump Burger owner in Texas faces deportation after Ice arrest

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Roland Beainy from Lebanon, who opened chain of restaurants in support of president, says charges ‘not true’

The owner of a Donald Trump-themed hamburger restaurant chain in Texas is facing deportation after immigration authorities under the command of the president detained him.

Roland Mehrez Beainy, 28, entered the US as “a non-immigrant visitor” from Lebanon in 2019 and was supposed to have left the country by 12 February 2024, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spokesperson told the Guardian.

Citing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Texas’s Fayette County Record newspaper reported that Beainy applied for legal status after purportedly wedding a woman – but the agency maintained there is no proof he ever lived with her during the alleged marriage.

Ice said its officers arrested Beainy on 16 May – five years after he launched the first of multiple Trump Burger locations – and placed him into immigration proceedings, an agency statement said.

“Under the current administration, Ice is committed to restore integrity to our nation’s immigration system by holding all individuals accountable who illegally enter the country or overstay the terms of their admission,” the agency’s statement also said.

“This is true regardless of what restaurant you own or political beliefs you might have.”

In remarks to the Houston Chronicle, Beainy denied Ice’s charges against him, saying: “Ninety percent of the shit they’re saying is not true.” He is tentatively scheduled for a hearing in immigration court on 18 November.

Trump Burger gained national attention after Beainy opened the original location in Bellville, Texas, in 2020, the same year Trump lost his bid for a second presidential term to Joe Biden. Replete with memorabilia paying reverence to Trump as well as politically satirical menu items targeting his enemies, Beainy’s chain expanded to other locations, including Houston.

Trump won a second presidency in January, and his administration summarily began delivering on promises to pursue mass deportations of immigrants. Political supporters of Trump in the US without papers, at least in many cases, have not been spared.

One case which generated considerable news headlines was that of a Canadian national who supported Trump’s plans for mass deportation of immigrants – only for federal authorities to detain her in California while she interviewed for permanent US residency and publicly describe her in a statement as “an illegal alien from Canada”.

In another instance, Ice reportedly detained a Christian Armenian Iranian woman who lost her legal permanent US residency, or green card, after a 2008 burglary conviction and incarcerated her at a federal detention facility in California despite her vocal support of Trump. Her husband, with whom she is raising four US citizen children, subsequently blamed the couple’s plight on Biden’s “doing for open borders”, as Newsweek noted.

Beainy’s detention by Ice is not his only legal plight, according to the Houston Chronicle. He sued the landlord of a Trump Burger location in Kemah, Texas, whom Beainy claimed forcibly removed staff and took over the restaurant.

The landlord responded with his own lawsuit accusing Beainy of unpaid debts and renamed the Kemah restaurant Maga Burger.

In 2022, Beainy told the Houston Chronicle he endured threats to have Trump Burger burned down when the first one opened its doors. But the brand had since gained a loyal following and a portion of its profits were set aside to aid Trump’s fundraising, Beainy said to the outlet.

“I would love to have [Trump’s] blessing and have him come by,” Beainy said at the time. “We’re hoping that he … sees the place.”

Trump Burger owner in Texas faces deportation after Ice arrest
Roland Beainy from Lebanon, who opened chain of restaurants in support of president, says charges ‘not true’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/09/trump-burger-ice-arrest

Independent: Trump administration tried to reopen deportation proceedings for man who was long dead: ‘They’re very negligent’

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Government rushes to reopen years-old removal proceedings to boost Trump’s mass deportation agenda

Thousands of immigrants who have legally lived and worked in the United States for years have assumed they would be protected against their removal from the country after their cases were frozen.

But the Trump administration is stripping immigrants of their legal status and reopening removal proceedings as the Department of Homeland Security expands its mass deportation machine.

Homeland Security isn’t even checking to see whether these immigrants targeted for deportation are even alive, let alone legally protected from removal, according to California immigration attorneys speaking to The Los Angeles Times.

An immigration judge had closed removal proceedings against construction worker Helario Romero Arciniega, who was severely beaten with a metal sprinkler head and qualified for a special visa for victims of crime.

Earlier this year, the government reopened removal proceedings against him. He died in January, according to the LA County Coroner’s Office.

“They don’t do their homework,” immigration attorney Patricia Corrales told the newspaper. “They’re very negligent in the manner in which they’re handling these motions to re-calendar.”

Corrales, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service and Homeland Security attorney, told The Independent that the government’s recent motions to recalendar removal proceedings that were administratively closed — and not active — are “boilerplate motions” and “DHS doesn’t do their homework” and are “lazy or negligent in the information they provide to the court.”

“My client was in removal proceedings before he passed away. He was alive when his removal proceedings were administratively closed,” she added.

DHS filed a motion to recalendar on July 10 and “failed to mention an important detail,” she told The Independent.

“So, DHS was negligent in failing to even do some basic research to determine whether my client was alive or moved or anything,” she said.

In another case, Adan Rico, a new father studying to be an HVAC technician, said he had no idea the government restarted deportation proceedings against him.

His original lawyer had died, and “if it wasn’t for his daughter calling, I would have never found out my case was reopened,” Rico told The LA Times. “The Department of Homeland Security never sent me anything.”

A statement from Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Donald Trump’s administration is “once again implementing the rule of law” and accused former President Joe Biden of indefinitely delaying cases that left “criminals” stay in the country illegally.

“Now, President Trump and Secretary Noem are following the law and resuming these illegal aliens’ removal proceedings and ensuring their cases are heard by a judge,” she said in a statement shared with The Independent.

Rico, however, is among immigrants with removal protections under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which doesn’t come up for renewal until 2027, according to Corrales.

The Trump administration has effectively “de-legalized” more than 1 million immigrants since January.

Thousands of people who are following immigration law — including those showing up for their court-ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-ins, immigration court hearings and U.S. Customs and Immigration Services appointments — have become easy targets for arrests.

Unlike federal district courts, immigration court judges operate under the direction of the attorney general’s office.

When immigrants have appeared for their hearings, Homeland Security attorneys have moved for the cases to be dismissed, while the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the Department of Justice has issued guidance to judges to grant those motions on the spot.

Those quick dismissals mean immigrants can then be subject to removal, leading to scenes of masked ICE agents dragging people out of courtrooms across the country.

Those arrests have been condemned by immigrants’ rights groups and attorneys as a “corruption” of the courts, “transforming them from forums of justice into cogs in a mass deportation apparatus,” American Immigration Lawyers Association president Kelli Stump said earlier this year.

“The expansion of expedited removal strips more people of their right to a hearing before a judge — as our laws promise,” she added.

In April, Sirce E. Owen, acting director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, issued a memo calling the suspension of removal proceedings “de facto amnesty program with benefits” because immigrants can still have authorization and deportation protections.

Owen stated that, as of April, roughly 379,000 cases were still administratively closed in immigration courts, adding to the system’s backlog of 4 million cases.

A spokesperson for the Executive Office for Immigration Review confirmed to The Independent that immigration courts must first receive the underlying initial motion before accepting a response to that motion.

Immigration attorney Edgardo Quintanilla told The LA Times that he has received 40 cases, some dating back to the 2010s. “There is always the fear that they may be arrested when they go to the court,” he said. “With everything going on, it is a reasonable fear.”

Mariela Caravetta told the newspaper that roughly 30 clients have been targeted with new motions from the government reopening their cases in the last month, some of which have been frozen for a decade.

By law, she has only 10 days to reply, forcing her to try to track down clients who have since moved.

“People aren’t getting due process,” Caravetta said. “It’s very unfair to the client because these cases have been sleeping for 10 years.”

The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary and analysis for the independently-minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.

Trump admin tried to reopen deportation proceedings for man who was long dead
Government rushes to reopen years-old removal proceedings to boost Trump’s mass deportation agenda

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-immigration-cases-dead-ice-b2803051.html

Alternet: There’s a very simple reason why Trump will never release the Epstein files | Opinion

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Let’s get right to it, because time is not on our side, America: Donald Trump won’t order the release of the Epstein files because he is prominently featured in them.

Bare minimum, he associated with pedophiles.

Why is this so hard to understand?

Why isn’t this the end of the road for this monster?

Why isn’t this the only thread that is being pulled on right now with urgency by our bought-off and/or incompetent mainstream media?

Or did I just answer my own question?

Why isn’t every American calling (202) 224-3121 (that’s the U.S. Capitol switchboard) and demanding that Trump release the Epstein files like he said he would on the campaign trail?

Thank God, identifying and stomping out pedophiles is not yet a partisan issue in America.

An unheard of 82 percent of Americans — including 76 percent of Republicans — want these files released immediately. And while Democrats are doing what they procedurally can to get at the files, it will take time that we should all have decided by now that we do not have.

Shouldn’t Americans know, and just as soon as possible, the full details of their president’s relationship with a man who raped children? And shouldn’t THAT finally end the long, national nightmare we have endured for 10 years, while this dirty old man breaks everything in his blurry sight?

・We know without a shadow of a doubt that the man is a grotesque racist.

・We know without a shadow of a doubt he is a convicted felon, who assaults women.

・We know without a shadow of a doubt he cheats on his taxes even more than he has cheated on all his wives.

・We know without a shadow of a doubt he is a nuclear-powered liar, who is simply incapable of telling the truth, and lied 30,573 times the first time he tried to sink this country.

・We know without a shadow of a doubt he invited Russia to help him win the 2016 election, and then refused to call them on it in Helsinki.

・We know without a shadow of a doubt he is using the White House as his own personal ATM, and by many estimates has already pocketed billions of our dollars in crypto and airplanes, while taking endless vacations to his golf properties all over the world on our dime.

・We know without a shadow of a doubt he stalked girls in the dressing rooms of Miss Teen USA beauty competitions, because “(He’s) seen it all before, and (he’s) the owner of the pageant. And therefore (he’s) inspecting it.”

These are his words.

HIS WORDS.

And now we know that the shadow of doubt concerning his real relationship with Epstein and his victims is receding into the light, because this is where we are right now, good people:

Given Trump’s new-found executive powers granted to him by our corrupt Supreme Court that are fit for a king, we can be assured that if there wasn’t any damning evidence in these melting files that point to grotesque behavior with stolen children — or even better for him, there were names of his political enemies mentioned in the thing — he would have ordered these files replace the Bible in all these Christo-fascist churches as must-read material for his gurgling and snorting cult. In other words: It would be EVERYWHERE right now. There would be endless celebratory, back-patting press conferences, and Trump would order that it be read slowly, and with emphasis, on the CBS Evening News, which he recently acquired to add to his budding propaganda kingdom. You couldn’t escape it.

Except he’s doing none of this, is he?

Instead, he’s turning that certain color of rust orange, as he bends over at the waist, barrel-butt out, his 6-foot tie scraping his fat ankles, while his little, chubby hands do that weird accordion thing as he lashes out at anybody within his odious vicinity.

He’s posting INSANE distractions on his SOCIAL media channels THAT are ODDly capitalized and carrY the grammatical WAIT of a 4-year-OLD who has Trapped himself in a DOOR jam.

They have quietly moved the disgusting Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s ex-girlfriend and co-conspirator, to a cushy federal prison in Texas. WHY?

Trump has no answers, which is why we need to keep asking this question:

WHY WON’T YOU JUST SHUT UP AND RELEASE THE DAMN FILES LIKE YOU SAID YOU WOULD?

Meantime, the stink has somehow gotten even worse, because there is breaking news that it has taken only six months for Trump to destroy the solid economy Joe Biden helped meticulously build after inheriting Trump’s mess in 2021 following the attempted insurrection.

Trump inherited the strongest economy in the entire world, and has screwed it up in record time. Job growth has stalled again, and is at a 16-year low — or the last time a Democrat was fixing a battered economy left in shambles by a Republican.

Prices are rising, not falling.

Why did anybody think it would be any different this time around?

Here’a another fact that never gets enough attention: Democrats make economies and Republicans break them. Go ahead, look that up.

I could stand to hear a helluva lot more about this, too, because while billionaires are being rewarded like never before in America, the rest of us are getting royally screwed.

The numbers back this up.

Right now, though, I want to know why our president is providing safe haven for pedophiles.

Based on what we know, you’d have to be a damn fool not to believe the worst.

There’s a very simple reason why Trump will never release the Epstein files | Opinion

https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/trump-epstein-files-2673859787

Daily Beast: Trump Praises ‘Very Nice’ Loomer as Her Body Count Grows

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He calls the far-right activist, who set up an anonymous tip line to help get federal workers disloyal to Trump fired, a patriot.

A one-woman Islamophobic & bigoted security threat:

The far-right Trump mega fan has taken credit for the firings of at least 16 people who she said were not sufficiently loyal to the president. She calls it being “Loomered.”

So far, her body count includes assistant federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, National Security Agency directors Timothy Haugh and Wendy Noble, Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and Jen Easterly, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under President Biden.

Loomer, who is known for anti-Muslim rhetoric and claiming the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job,” has also set up an anonymous tip line to help her find people who are disloyal to Trump and get them fired.

Donald Trump has called conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer a “very nice person” as she wages her personal war to clean house in the Trump administration.

The far-right Trump mega fan has taken credit for the firings of at least 16 people who she said were not sufficiently loyal to the president. She calls it being “Loomered.”

So far, her body count includes assistant federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, National Security Agency directors Timothy Haugh and Wendy Noble, Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and Jen Easterly, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under President Biden.

Loomer, who is known for anti-Muslim rhetoric and claiming the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job,” has also set up an anonymous tip line to help her find people who are disloyal to Trump and get them fired.

On Sunday, the president was asked about his relationship with Loomer and the kind of influence she has over him.

“She’s very nice,” Trump told reporters.

“I mean, I know she’s known as a ‘radical right,’ but I think Laura Loomer is a very nice person. I’ve known her for a long time.”

Trump also seemed to explain her motivation for recommending that staff in his administration be “Loomered.”

“I think she’s a patriot, and she gets excited because of the fact that she’s a patriot,” Trump said. “And she doesn’t like things going on that she thinks are bad for the country. I like her.”

Last Thursday, Trump called Loomer “a very strong person” and “a great patriot” but dismissed her role in getting people in his administration fired.

“She makes recommendations on things and people, and sometimes I listen to those recommendations, like I do with everybody. I listen to everybody, and then I make a decision,” Trump said.

“She always has something to say, usually very constructive… she recommended some people for jobs.”

On Saturday, Loomer posted on X, “There is a CIA Coup of the Trump admin taking place right now,” adding, “Something is terribly wrong.”

Speaking on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast on Saturday, Loomer said she has “intel agencies” inside the White House helping her find “deep state” members who have managed to “sneak inside” the FBI, Department of Defense, and the National Security Council.

Loomer said there should have been an “executive mandate” on the first day of the new Trump administration to clean house.

“If you worked for Obama or Joe Biden and you are in this administration you have 48 hours to resign or else we are going to fire you,“ Loomer told Bannon of what she believed should have been done.

“It seems like every single day I have to flag this information to the Trump administration,” Loomer said.

“I guess now the mainstream media has decided to portray me as President Trump’s Rasputin,” she added of the comparison to the Russian peasant who closely influenced the last imperial dynasty to rule Russia.

“They think that I’m some kind of villain because I’m trying to protect President Trump from all these traitors who have somehow found a way to stay inside his administration.”

Loomer said anyone following the MAGA agenda will pass her vetting system.

“If you are actually serving the president and you are doing what you’re supposed to be doing, you have nothing to be afraid of,“ she said.

“But if you are subverting the president and trying to hide your Obama holdover buddies so they can get jobs, you should be afraid because you’re going to get found and you’re going to get Loomered.”

Unfortunately Loomer and the infamous Stephen Miller are what pass for the “brains” of King Donald’s administration.

Trump Praises ‘Very Nice’ Loomer as Her Body Count Grows
He calls the far-right activist, who set up an anonymous tip line to help get federal workers disloyal to Trump fired, a patriot.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-praises-very-nice-laura-loomer-as-her-bodycount-grows

Washington Post: ICE crackdown imperils Afghans who aided U.S. war effort, lawyers say

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Two former Afghan interpreters for U.S. forces face deportation despite following immigration processes, according to attorneys for the men.

One former interpreter for U.S. forces in Afghanistan was detained by immigration agents in Connecticut last month after he showed up for a routine green card appointment. A second was arrested in June, just minutes after attending his first asylum hearing in San Diego.

As the administration seeks to fulfill President Donald Trump’s pledge to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, attorneys for the men say their clients — Afghans who fear retribution from the Taliban for their work assisting the United States in its 20-year war in Afghanistan — have found themselves in the crosshairs of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The attorneys provided The Washington Post with military contracts and certificates, asylum and visa applications, recommendation letters and other records that described both men’s work on behalf of U.S. forces during the war.

After Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, President Joe Biden’s administration moved to resettle Afghans who had worked for the U.S. government through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, which grants lawful permanent resident status and a pathway to U.S. citizenship. As of April, about 25,000 Afghans had received an SIV, and another 160,000 had pending applications, said Adam Bates, an attorney with the International Refugee Assistance Program who analyzed State Department data.

But the Trump administration is rolling back programs created to assist more than 250,000 Afghans — including the allies who worked for U.S. forces and other refugees who fled after the Taliban takeover. And while administration officials say SIV processing will continue, advocates for Afghans who served with U.S. troops fear the curtailment of programs they depend on, along with Trump’s ambitious deportation plan, jeopardizes those still vying for SIV protection.

They point to the arrests of Zia, 36, and Sayed Naser, 33, whose attorneys argue they followed proper immigration processes. The Post agreed to withhold the last names of both men because of the ongoing threats to their lives from the Taliban.

“Zia is not an outlier,” his attorney Lauren Cundick Petersen said during a news conference last month. “We’re witnessing the deliberate redefinition of legal entry as illegal for the purpose of meeting enforcement quotas.”

Matt Zeller, an Army veteran whose Afghan interpreter saved his life in a 2008 firefight, co-founded the nonprofit No One Left Behind to help resettle Afghans. He said he fears the immigration crackdown will unwind that effort.

“The Trump administration knows what’s going to happen to these folks. They’re not stupid. They understand that the Taliban is going to kill them when they get back to Afghanistan,” Zeller said. “They just don’t care.”

In response to questions from The Post, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration’s top immigration enforcement priority is “arresting and removing the dangerous violent, illegal criminal aliens that Joe Biden let flood across our Southern Border — of which there are many.”

“America is safer because of President Trump’s immigration policies,” she said.

All King Donald and his cronies care about is deporting foreigner, any foreigners.

Click one of the links below to read the rest of the article.

ICE crackdown imperils Afghans who aided U.S. war effort, lawyers say
Advocates fear President Donald Trump’s ambitious deportation plan jeopardizes Afghan interpreters and other allies who worked for U.S. troops during the war.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/08/03/afghanistan-immigrants-trump-deportations

ICE crackdown imperils Afghans who aided U.S. war effort, lawyers say
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-crackdown-imperils-afghans-who-aided-u-s-war-effort-lawyers-say/ar-AA1JOsYf