A federal judge ruled that Donald Trump acted illegally when he commandeered the California national guard and ordered thousands of troops to Los Angeles amid protests over immigration raids. The troops return to the control of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, at noon on Friday.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem has asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to instruct soldiers deployed to Los Angeles to help arrest rioters, even though the military is generally barred from domestic law enforcement.
In a leaked letter, [Bimbo #2] Noem asked Hegseth on Sunday to have the Pentagon give “direction to [Department of Defense] forces to either detain, just as they would at any federal facility guarded by military, lawbreakers under Title 18 until they can be arrested and processed by federal law enforcement, or arrest them,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kristi-noem-asked-pete-hegseth-to-give-bombshell-order-to-troops-in-la
A Florida pastor who has lived in the United States for more than two decades was detained by federal agents during his annual immigration check-in.
Maurilio Amizael Ambrocio Mendez, 42, from Guatemala, was detained at the ICE field office in Tampa on April 17 at around 9 a.m., according to his family. He is currently being held at the Glades County Detention Center.
Ambrocio Mendez had been attending annual ICE appointments for the past 12 years under a court-issued “stay of removal,” a form of supervision allowing him to remain in the country despite a deportation order.
According to his daughter, 19-year-old Ashley Ambrocio, Ambrocio Mendez had always complied with the conditions of his supervision.
https://www.newsweek.com/florida-pastor-detained-ice-immigration-appointment-2080717
An irate Stephen [“Goebbels”] Miller threatened senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials with termination unless their offices upped their game and started detaining at least 3,000 migrants a day.
The White House deputy chief of staff also warned that leaders of field offices ranking in the bottom 10 percent for migrant arrests were at risk of being fired, NBC News reports, citing unnamed sources.
Senior US immigration officials over the weekend instructed rank-and-file officers to “turn the creative knob up to 11” when it comes to enforcement, including by interviewing and potentially arresting people they called “collaterals”, according to internal agency emails viewed by the Guardian.
Officers were also urged to increase apprehensions and think up tactics to “push the envelope” one email said, with staff encouraged to come up with new ways of increasing arrests and suggesting them to superiors.
“If it involves handcuffs on wrists, it’s probably worth pursuing,” another message said.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler is demanding a congressional investigation after an aide at his Manhattan office was handcuffed and detained by Department of Homeland Security officers.
The incident, which occurred on May 28, began after the staffer saw federal agents detaining migrants outside a courtroom located in the same building as the New York Democrat’s office, according to The New York Times.
Robert Gottheim, Nadler’s chief of staff, told The New York Times in an interview that staff members had invited immigration rights advocates who witnessed the detentions to the office.
Nadler alleged in a CNN interview on June 2 that the officers had “barged” into his office because the officers were “upset” that his staff members watched them detain immigrants.
“And they were upset that my staff invited some of the observers up to my office. They then came up to the office and demanded entrance. One of my staff members said, you can’t come in here, you need a warrant. They said, ‘No, we don’t need a warrant,’ which is incorrect,” Nadler said.
Nadler further claimed that one of the officers pushed his aide and she pushed back, and was then shackled. Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin alleged in a statement that the aide “became verbally confrontational and physically blocked access to the office.”
In a video shared by Gothamist, a New York City-focused news website that first reported the incident, an officer with the Federal Protective Service, part of the Department of Homeland Security, can be seen handcuffing an apparently distressed staffer. Another officer had confronted a second Nadler aide, who asked for a warrant.
Nadler further claimed that one of the officers pushed his aide and she pushed back, and was then shackled. Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin alleged in a statement that the aide “became verbally confrontational and physically blocked access to the office.”
In a video shared by Gothamist, a New York City-focused news website that first reported the incident, an officer with the Federal Protective Service, part of the Department of Homeland Security, can be seen handcuffing an apparently distressed staffer. Another officer had confronted a second Nadler aide, who asked for a warrant.
Trump Border Czar Tom Homan told reporters outside the White House on Thursday that assaults and doxing of ICE agents is way up, happening every day across the country, and that the administration of President Donald Trump plans to “take action” on it.
Speaking with reporters in an impromptu Q&A on Thursday, Homan covered a variety of Homeland and Border topics, including increasing numbers of reported assaults and instances of doxing — the exposing of personal details – of federal immigration enforcement agents.
The Trump administration knew that the vast majority of the 238 Venezuelan immigrants it sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador in mid-March had not been convicted of crimes in the United States before it labeled them as terrorists and deported them, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security data that has not been previously reported.’
President Donald Trump and his aides have branded the Venezuelans as “rapists,” “savages,” “monsters” and “the worst of the worst.” When multiple news organizations disputed those assertions with reporting that showed many of the deportees did not have criminal records, the administration doubled down. It said that its assessment of the deportees was based on a thorough vetting process that included looking at crimes committed both inside and outside the United States. But the government’s own data, which was obtained by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and a team of journalists from Venezuela, showed that officials knew that only 32 of the deportees had been convicted of U.S. crimes and that most were nonviolent offenses, such as retail theft or traffic violations.
The data indicates that the government knew that only six of the immigrants were convicted of violent crimes: four for assault, one for kidnapping and one for a weapons offense. And it shows that officials were aware that more than half, or 130, of the deportees were not labeled as having any criminal convictions or pending charges; they were labeled as only having violated immigration laws.
As for foreign offenses, our own review of court and police records from around the United States and in Latin American countries where the deportees had lived found evidence of arrests or convictions for 20 of the 238 men. Of those, 11 involved violent crimes such as armed robbery, assault or murder, including one man who the Chilean government had asked the U.S. to extradite to face kidnapping and drug charges there. Another four had been accused of illegal gun possession.
Democrats are demanding answers about a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plan to purchase a new $50 million jet for Secretary Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem.
The jet, slotted in as a line item to the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) budget, comes as the department argues its current plane is beyond its operational usage hours.
“Reports indicate this jet would cost $50 million and replace one of the two Gulfstream jets already at your disposal. Funding the acquisition of this new jet would come at the cost of other USCG investments, including sorely needed modernization of the USCG’s aging aircraft fleet used by service members for search and rescue and other critical missions,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) wrote in a letter to [Bimbo #2] Noem alongside Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.).
Both Democrats sit on the House Homeland Security panel. Thompson is the panel’s ranking member.
“Simply put, your purchase of a new jet would directly diminish the availability of other USCG aircraft to carry out critical missions,” the two wrote.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5325718-dhs-jet-funding-coast-guard
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)
Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.
The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.
