Tag Archives: Maame E. Frimpong

Newsweek: Trump supporter detained by ICE Agents regrets vote: “Were all brainwashed”

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A California man who voted for President Donald Trump has spoken out after being detained by immigration agents.

Brian Gavidia, a 29-year-old American citizen from Montebello, joined a lawsuit challenging immigration enforcement tactics after federal agents detained him on June 12, NBC 4 Los Angeles reported.

“I truly believe I was targeted because of my race,” Gavidia told the outlet, adding elsewhere in the interview, “We were all brainwashed.”

“While conducting a lawful immigration enforcement operation in Montebello, CA, Brian Gavidia was arrested for assaulting a law enforcement officer and interfering with agents during their duties,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek.

“Javier Ramirez was detained on the street for investigation for interference and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants,” she added.

Why It Matters

Millions of Americans voted for Trump in support of his promise to carry out widespread deportations of migrants living in the U.S. illegally, particularly those with criminal records. As immigration enforcement efforts ramp up across the country, concerns are mounting that the Trump administration is not, as it pledged, targeting the “worst first.”

Newsweek has documented several cases of Trump supporters being affected by the immigration raids.

What To Know

Gavidia voted for Trump, believing that his administration’s immigration agenda would target criminals, not everyday citizens, NBC 4 Los Angeles reported.

He told the outlet that during an immigration enforcement operation in the San Gabriel Valley, a federal agent pushed him against a wall and demanded proof of citizenship, asking him the name of the hospital where he was born.

Footage circulating on social media shows Gavidia shouting, “I was born here in the states, East LA bro!”

The video shows agents, who are wearing vests with “Border Patrol Federal Agent” on them, holding Gavidia’s hands behind his back.

Agents allegedly confiscated his Real ID and phone. Gavidia was later released and recovered his phone, but he said he never received his ID.

Convinced he was targeted because of his Latino heritage, Gavidia now rejects his prior support for the president.

“I believe it was a mistake because he ran on lies,” Gavidia said. “He said criminals.”

“If this was going to happen, do you think we would have voted? We’re humans. We’re not going to destroy our community. We’re not going to destroy our people,” he continued.

“We were all manipulated. We were all brainwashed,” Gavidia told NBC 4 Los Angeles. “And now look at us. We are all suffering because of it, and I feel guilty 100 percent.”

Gavidia is among seven plaintiffs in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that resulted in a court order limiting when federal agents can initiate immigration enforcement.

The filing requested that the court prohibit raids conducted without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. It also said agents concentrated operations in places where Latino workers were often found, such as local car washes and outside Home Depot locations.

California has been a key battleground state for immigration enforcement operations after Trump ordered federal agents to ramp up arrests in Democratic cities.

On August 1, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a temporary restraining order, originally issued by a federal judge, that placed limits on how the federal government could carry out immigration enforcement operations in Southern California.

An attorney for the Trump administration argued before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, seeking a stay of the temporary restraining order while the case was appealed. The panel denied the request.

The decision upholds a July 11 ruling granting a restraining order sought by immigrant rights advocates to limit federal immigration enforcement in Los Angeles and other areas of Southern California. Under Judge Maame E. Frimpong’s directive, officers and agents may not detain individuals unless they have reasonable suspicion that the person is in the United States in violation of immigration law.

What People Are Saying

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek: “Any allegations that individuals have been ‘targeted’ by law enforcement because of their skin color are FALSE. What makes someone a target is if they are in the United States illegally. These types of disgusting smears are designed to demonize and villainize our brave ICE law enforcement. This kind of garbage has led to a more than 1,000 percent increase in the assaults on ICE officers. Politicians and activists must turn the temperature down and tone down their rhetoric.

“DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted, and officers do their due diligence. We know who we are targeting ahead of time. If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement is trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability.

“We will follow the President’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets.”

Brian Gavidia told NBC 4 Los Angeles: “I believe I was racially profiled. I believe I was attacked because I was walking while brown. Where is the freedom? Where is the justice? We live in America. This is why I’m fighting today. This is why I’m protecting the Constitution.”

What Happens Next

Despite the legal restrictions, immigration raids continue. The Trump administration has appealed the Ninth Circuit’s decision that upheld the temporary restraining order. The case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, which will decide whether to lift or uphold the restrictions limiting broad-based immigration enforcement in Los Angeles.

Trump supporter detained by ICE Agents regrets vote: “Were all brainwashed”
“I truly believe I was targeted because of my race,” Brian Gavidia of Montebello, California, told NBC 4 Los Angeles.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-supporter-detained-ice-agents-immigration-2112676

MSNBC: A federal judge’s ruling against ICE should be required reading for every American

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Los Angeles is a city under attack. Spurred on by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s outrage that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not been deporting enough people, ICE agents have been sweeping through the city, often clad in full military attire like a conquering army. Photographs and videos document ICE’s “arrest first and ask questions later” approach on a daily basis.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Maame E. Frimpong ordered ICE to stop “conducting roving patrols without reasonable suspicion and denying access to lawyers.” She refused to be taken in by the Trump administration’s fog of deception and disinformation. “The federal government agrees: Roving patrols without reasonable suspicion violate the Fourth Amendment and denying access to lawyers violates the Fifth Amendment,” she wrote. “What the federal government would have this Court believe — in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case — is that none of this is actually happening.”

Frimpong’s ruling should be required reading for every American. She modeled the kind of resistance that is essential in the face of the administration’s concerted attack on facts, truths and common sense. Her “believe what you see, not what they say” response sets an example for all Americans who wish to resist an authoritarian takeover in this country.

The Courthouse News Service reports that, at a hearing held Thursday, the government wanted the judge to believe “that the ICE raids were sophisticated operations, based on surveillance and information from other law enforcement agencies targeting specific individuals.” According to CNS, lawyers for the Justice Department argued that ICE could “also stop and question other individuals there who they suspected were immigrants without legal status….” That would be acceptable, a DOJ lawyer argued, based on the “totality of the circumstances.”

The government offered these claims against the weight of the evidence and out-of-court statements. In an appearance last week on Fox News, the administration’s border czar Tom Homan included “physical appearance” in the list of things that ICE takes into account during their patrols in Los Angeles. At the Thursday hearing, the American Civil Liberties Union argued that ICE was engaging in racial profiling, targeting members of the Hispanic community and ignoring people of European ancestry who might be in the country illegally. “The evidence is clear that they’re looking at race,” Mohammad Tasjar, an attorney for the ACLU of Southern California, told Frimpong. Even a lawyer for the government acknowledged that “agents can’t put blinders on.”

During the hearing, as The New York Times reported, the judge “was skeptical of the government’s assertions that it was not violating the constitutional rights of people and that agents were stopping immigrants based on ‘the totality of circumstances,’ rather than relying on race.”

That skepticism was reflected in the 52-page opinion the judge handed down one day later. Frimpong wrote that the migrants who filed suit were likely to prevail in their claim that ICE had no legitimate basis to stop and detain most of the people caught up in its military style operations in Los Angeles. She found that the ICE operation constituted a “threatening presence” that left people fearful that they were being “kidnapped.” The judge ordered that, when conducting such operations, the government must stop relying on factors such as race, ethnicity, speaking Spanish, speaking English with an accent, presence at a particular location, or type of work.

Frimpong seemed particularly disturbed by the government’s failure to “acknowledge the existence of roving patrols at all.” As she put it, “the evidence before the Court at this time portrays the reality differently.” She also noted that the government had failed to provide any evidence that what ICE is doing could pass constitutional muster, despite “having nearly a week” to do so.

This judge’s insistence that reality does in fact matter is particularly important in the face of an administration that time and again demands Americans accept whatever it says.

In the immigration context at least, that ploy seems not to be failing. A recent Gallup poll found that 79% of respondents say immigration is “a good thing” for the country versus just 20% who say it is a “bad thing.” Just a year ago, those numbers were 64% and 32% respectively. The percentage of Americans who want to see a decrease in immigration also sharply declined, from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. And 62% of Americans now disapprove of President Trump’s handling of immigration.

Judge Frimpong’s determined refusal to be deceived by the administration’s smoke and mirrors and her rebuke of ICE’s “roving patrols” shows other members of the judiciary — and the rest of the country — that the White House’s rationalizations of its immigration policy deserve not a shred of deference. It should serve as a wake-up call to all of us and a reminder of the damage the administration’s anti-immigrant crusade is doing to our constitutional order.

A federal judge’s ruling against ICE should be required reading for every American
U.S. District Judge Maame E. Frimpong refused to be deceived by the administration’s smoke and mirrors.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/ice-los-angeles-judge-ruling-profiling-immigration-rcna218624

Mediaite: Stephen Miller Through Spox Over Trump-Blocking Court Order In Late-Night Victory Dance

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After a circuit judge issued an order restraining ICE’s unconstitutional behavior, the White House’s chief fascist, Stephen Miller, is having a major meltdown.

Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) raged through a spokesperson at White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller over a new ruling blocking Trump deportation forces from certain arrests and detentions, calling Miller a “fascist cuck” through a spokesperson.

Biden-appointed Federal District Court Judge Maame E. Frimpong ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to halt indiscriminate arrests and stops in California on Friday, just after Trump border czar Tom Homan sparked outrage by claiming the right to detain people based on attributes like “physical appearance.”

Miller reacted to the news by posting an angry reaction to X/Twitter, writing:

The ruling has just been issued. A communist judge in LA has ordered ICE to report directly to her and radical left NGOs — not the president. This is another act of insurrection against the United States and its sovereign people.

That post prompted a MAGA troll-style rebuttal from Newsom’s official press office account:

This fascist cuck in DC continues his assault on democracy and the Constitution, and his attempt to replace the sovereignty of the people with autocracy. Sorry the Constitution hurt your feelings, Stephen. Cry harder.

The term “cuck” is a widely-used MAGA slur, but in this case may refer to derogatory rumors about Miller’s marriage.

Izzy Gardon, Newsom’s Director of Communications, told Mediaite that “We were inspired by the White House’s use of the term.”

Newsom used the official governor’s account to post a slightly more measured reaction earlier in the evening:

Justice prevailed today.

The court’s decision puts a temporary stop to federal immigration officials violating people’s rights and racial profiling.

California stands with the law and the Constitution — and I call on the Trump Administration to do the same.

The Trump administration has vowed to appeal the ruling.

“No federal judge has the authority to dictate immigration policy — that authority rests with Congress and the President. Enforcement operations require careful planning and execution; skills far beyond the purview (or) jurisdiction of any judge. We expect this gross overstep of judicial authority to be corrected on appeal,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson said in response to the decision.

Suck it up, fascist loser Stephen Miller, it’s only just begun!

Gavin Newsom Rages At ‘Fascist Cuck’ Stephen Miller Through Spox Over Trump-Blocking Court Order In Late-Night Victory Dance
Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) raged at Stephen Miller over a new ruling blocking Trump deportation forces from certain arrests, calling Miller a “fascist cuck”
Gavin Newsom Office Rages At ‘Fascist Cuck’ Stephen Miller Over Trump-Blocking Court Order In Late-Night Victory Dance