While there are more than three months left in the fiscal year, one estimate has found that the agency is already $1 billion over budget, according to Axios. Legislators in both parties have raised concerns about the speed at which the agency is spending its funds, which may prompt President Donald Trump to seek additional funds from other agencies to support his deportation efforts.
A former US Navy veteran said President Donald Trump’s “stupid” military parade birthday bash is reminiscent of “Nazi Germany” as he slammed the White House’s egregious cuts to the US Department of Veterans Affairs and its unnecessary deployment of the National Guard and Marines to the immigration protests in Los Angeles.
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“It’s a page out of a dictator’s playbook. It’s not America; it’s not what we do. Everybody knows we have the best trained, strongest and most lethal military in the world. We don’t need to have a parade about it. That’s what dictators like North Korea and Russia do. Even back to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.” Embrich added President Trump wants the “world to be in terror of the US military” but it contradicts America’s reputation as a liberator.
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The parade will likely cost upwards of $100 million if you take into account fuel for the tanks and aircrafts used in the event, the travel and meal expenses for soldiers, the inevitable damage the armored vehicles will do to the streets and “god knows what other incendiary problems will come from this,” he said.
Former US Navy vet says Trump’s ‘stupid’ military parade echoes ‘Nazi Germany’
The military parade in DC will coincide with several “no Kings” protests aimed at pushing back against President Donald Trump’s seemingly authoritarian actions during his second term in the Oval Office.
The Homeland Security Department ignited further controversy Wednesday, posting an image on X of Uncle Sam – a historical personification of the US often used in military recruitment campaigns – encouraging people to inform on illegal immigrants.
The iconic figure – dressed in his signature stars and stripes – is pictured nailing up a poster that displays a telephone hotline and reads: “Help your country and yourself… Report all foreign invaders.”
Far-right influencer C.Jay Engel had posted the same image days earlier and celebrated its adoption by the Trump administration.
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Engel has described Jewish people as having “largely operated at odds with the Old American way of life” and posted on social media that “(only) the Christian faith can sustain us through the coming night.”
He has called for a “counter-revolution” to return America to its “Anglo-Protestant” roots by expelling immigrants of non-European origin.
The administration’s endorsement of his poster comes with officials using increasingly incendiary anti-immigration rhetoric to justify mass deportations demanded by Trump.
Trump admin. shares troubling propaganda from Christian nationalist: “Report all foreign invaders”
Trump sparked new controversy over his immigration policies after sharing Christian nationalist propaganda as part of a campaign targeting “foreign invaders.”
A raid in Montebello, Calif., has stirred fears that federal agents are detaining and racially profiling U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent.
They swept into the Southern California car lot last Thursday at 4:32 p.m. — masked and armed Border Patrol agents in an unmarked white S.U.V.
One agent soon twisted Jason Brian Gavidia’s arm and pressed him against a black metal fence outside the lot where he runs an auto body shop in Montebello, a working-class suburb east of the Los Angeles city limits. Another officer then asked him an unusual question to prove whether he was a U.S. citizen or an undocumented immigrant.
“What hospital were you born at?” the Border Patrol agent asked.
Mr. Gavidia, 29, was born only a short drive from where they were standing, in East Los Angeles. He did not know the hospital’s name. “I was born here,” he shouted at the agent, adding, “I’m an American, bro!”
Mr. Gavidia was eventually released as he stood on the sidewalk. But another U.S. citizen, Javier Ramirez, 32 — Mr. Gavidia’s friend and co-worker — had been forced facedown to the ground by two agents in the car lot. Mr. Ramirez was put inside a van and driven to a federal detention center, where he remains in custody. Mr. Ramirez’s lawyer said that officials at the detention center had denied his request to speak to his client.
“I know enough to know this is not right at all,” Mr. Gavidia said in an interview. “Latinos in general are getting attacked. We’re all getting attacked.”
The episode on Thursday was captured on video by Mr. Gavidia’s friend and the car lot’s security cameras, and described in interviews with Mr. Gavidia, Mr. Ramirez’s lawyer and another man who was at the shop during the raid.
This is America? Sooner or later one of their victims will kill some of these thugs in self defense.
The spokesperson said one person had attempted to flee the scene, had assaulted an agent in the process and was arrested for having assaulted and interfered with agents. Another person was detained on the street for investigation for interference but was released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen. And a third person, the official said, was determined to be “an illegal alien” and was taken into custody without incident.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Border Patrol as well as Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement that Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem, the homeland security secretary, “has been clear: If you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Payback is coming. It’s only a matter of time before the victims start responding with force of their own. The ICE thugs will get no sympathy from me.
As agents questioned Mr. Gavidia on the sidewalk, they pressed him against the fence and he repeatedly and loudly told them he could show identification to prove his citizenship. They dropped his arms and he reached for his California driver’s license.
The agents then confiscated both his license and his cellphone, Mr. Gavidia said. He pleaded with them for several minutes and the officer eventually returned his phone but never gave his license back, Mr. Gavidia said.
F*ck*ng ICE pigs stole his ID.
“That’s the new gang of L.A. right there,” he said on the video, adding: “This is not fair at all, bro. We’re all American here, man.”
For reference, that’s between 1 and 2 percent of the total population of the United States.
The “No Kings” protests in every state may have been the biggest day of demonstrations in American history, a data analyst has suggested.
“Based on hundreds of crowd-sourced records of No Kings Day event turnout, and extrapolating for the cities where we don’t have data yet, it looks like roughly 4-6M people protested Trump across the U.S. yesterday,” independent data journalist G Elliott posted to X Sunday.
‘No Kings’ Was Biggest Protest in U.S. History: Data Analyst
For reference, that’s between 1 and 2 percent of the total population of the United States.
Masked and unidentified ICE agents lurking near schools and homeless shelters spark fear and confusion in majority-Latino enclaves outside New York.
Run, scum, run!
See scum run!
Run, run, run!
A dozen or more masked men, some with long guns, tried to enter a men’s homeless shelter without identifying themselves in a rural town with a long-standing immigrant community on eastern Long Island in New York. Officials from the local police department later admitted they didn’t know where the masked men came from — only adding to local residents’ concerns.
At the same time, 50 miles to the west, six unmarked cars with masked agents from U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, parked within hundreds of feet of an elementary school in a working-class town with a large Latino population. In response, a group of residents gathered to shame the agents, accusing the agents with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, of lying in wait to snatch the parents of students when school let out.
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On Long Island, the two federal raids on Tuesday saw emergency communiqués from schools to parents, incorrect information distributed to area media by local authorities, a confrontation with angry demonstrators, and a car accident.
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Late Tuesday morning in Westbury, in western Nassau County, parents and nearby residents noticed what they immediately recognized as unmarked federal agent vehicles parked within feet of Park Avenue Elementary School, two eyewitnesses told The Intercept. One of those residents, Allan Oscar Sorto, picked up his phone and began streaming live on Facebook.
As he streamed, a dozen or so people began congregating near the cars, two Nissan Altimas and several Ford SUVs with flashers. People can be heard explaining that they’ve seen these cars around the neighborhood in recent weeks, part of immigration raids. Now the sight of the cars parked so close to the elementary school seemed to spark heightened outrage and fear that federal immigration agents were lurking to surprise parents going to pick up their children from school.
Sorto, from nearby Hempstead, estimated that there were four cars near the school, some within 10 feet of the schoolyard fence, and two other cars on the next block. Another eyewitness, who asked not to be named out of fear of law enforcement retaliation, told The Intercept that he could see uniformed HSI agents sitting in all the cars, most masked.
“No son padres ustedes?” a woman in the video says to the closed window of one of the parked Nissans: “Are you not parents?”
People on the sidewalk yelled at the cars in Spanish and English. “Show your face!” “You feel proud?” “None of us are criminals, we work, we pay taxes like you do.” “Leave the school grounds!”
The Westbury residents’ fears seemed well-founded, considering reports from around the country….
The Car Crash:
In Westbury, the HSI agents didn’t respond to the gathered crowd. After a few minutes, the agents drove away. A commotion erupted down the road, off-camera, and onlookers began rushing toward the corner.
One of the Nissans, carrying two of the HSI agents, had crashed into a black pickup truck that happened to be passing through the intersection. Three eyewitnesses told The Intercept that the agents’ car had sped away. Two of the witnesses believe the Nissan blew a stop sign, causing the crash. (Nassau County police referred questions about the accident to ICE, which did not respond to an inquiry.)
After the accident, the crowd gathered around the scene, according to the video stream. The two agents got out of the crashed car, seemingly panicked and, witnesses told The Intercept, appearing to avoid eye contact with bystanders. The agents got into another HSI vehicle.
A third agent, an unmasked man with a black polo shirt covering his tactical vest, stood near the crashed car, remaining stoic as people questioned him on the livestream.
“You’re looking for criminals in the school?” one bystander asked, as the agent remained expressionless.
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Soon, the federal agents left, leaving the smashed Nissan with the passenger side airbag deployed behind, and many in the crowd dispersed.
The driver of the pickup truck involved in the accident was placed in a stretcher and left in an ambulance….
“Now you’re clogging up the street and people have to work,” one of the remaining bystanders can be heard to say during the stream. “How is this making America great again?”
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The Long Island newspaper Newsday first reported the Westbury incident with a quote from Nassau County police that the action was not immigration-related and that the agents were not working for ICE on Tuesday afternoon.
Late Tuesday, however, an ICE spokesperson issued a statement that contradicted the Nassau police.
“ICE Homeland Security Investigations Long Island personnel were conducting an operation associated to an ongoing federal investigation,” the statement said. “During the operation special agents were confronted by multiple anti-law enforcement agitators, which prohibited the enforcement action. ICE HSI personnel departed the location and, shortly thereafter, a member of the law enforcement team was involved in a motor-vehicle collision.”
Homeless Shelter Raid:
A week earlier, ICE raids using another Long Island fire department sparked outrage in the community. The fire department subsequently issued a statement that fire officials were not previously informed that ICE would be using their parking lot.
Several hours after the men were seen at the Riverhead Fire Department, they were spotted again. Twelve to 14 of the masked men, some reportedly carrying long guns, were trying to get into a Riverhead men’s homeless shelter, according to a video shared by several immigrant advocates in the area. They would not identify themselves, a shelter employee told local news outlet RiverheadLOCAL.
A shelter resident told RiverheadLOCAL that one of the men, wearing a black U.S. Marshals vest, came to the front door seeking entry but would neither show credentials or a warrant, nor give his name. (A representative for the shelter did not respond to inquiries.)
A representative for the Riverhead Fire Department told The Intercept, “We had no idea who they were.”
Clock the links for more, it’s a long article:
ICE Agent Fled From Angry Residents Outside New York School — and Got in a Car Crash
Masked and unidentified ICE agents lurking near schools sparked fear, confusion, and a car crash in Latino-heavy New York suburbs.
Several service members told advocacy groups they felt like pawns in a political game and assignment was unnecessary
California national guards troops and marines deployed to Los Angeles to help restore order after days of protest against the Trump administration have told friends and family members they are deeply unhappy about the assignment and worry their only meaningful role will be as pawns in a political battle they do not want to join.
Three different advocacy organisations representing military families said they had heard from dozens of affected service members who expressed discomfort about being drawn into a domestic policing operation outside their normal field of operations. The groups said they have heard no countervailing opinions.
“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which represents the interests of military spouses, children and veterans.
“Families are scared not just for their loved ones’ safety, although that’s a big concern, but also for what their service is being used to justify.”
Troops and marines deeply troubled by LA deployment: ‘Morale is not great’
Several service members told advocacy groups they felt like pawns in a political game and assignment was not necessary
The White House wants the national guard to play a bigger role in immigration enforcement, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said in an interview Thursday.
The Trump administration wants to use the National Guard more broadly to enact the president’s immigration agenda, according to border czar Tom Homan, documents and people familiar with plans.
“They can’t make immigration arrests, but they can certainly augment for security, transportation, infrastructure, intelligence,” Homan said in an interview with The Washington Post.
A month before President Donald Trump federalized the California National Guard and sent them to Los Angeles as part of the government’s response to protests over immigration enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security requested more than 20,000 National Guard to aid U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The National Guard would be tasked with helping ICE catch fugitives as well as guard detention centers, process and transport migrants and other tasks, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post. Pentagon officials say they are looking into the request but have not yet decided on the number of troops it will send.
Homan said he is also open to using the National Guard to respond to protests in other places, if the situation on the ground resembles Los Angeles. The protests there have been limited to a few locations, with local leaders saying they did not think a federal response was necessary, but the Trump administration has painted a different picture.
It sounds as though Trump & Homan are intent on using the National Guard against Americans. This will not turn out well.
There’s a lot more in the article:
Trump plans broader use of National Guard in immigration enforcement
The White House wants the national guard to play a bigger role in immigration enforcement, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said in an interview Thursday.
Trump plans broader use of National Guard in immigration enforcement
The White House wants the national guard to play a bigger role in immigration enforcement, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said in an interview Thursday.
Video footage posted to Padilla’s account on X, formerly Twitter, showed the senator identifying himself, but he appeared to do so after he began approaching the podium and was blocked by agents.
“I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla said before agents pushed him into a hallway, where FBI agents forced him to the ground and placed him in handcuffs. The senator was released shortly after.
The customary lies and misrepresentations from Bimbo #2 Noem:
In an interview with Fox News, [Bimbo #2] Noem said Padilla “did not identify himself and was removed from the room.”
“This man burst into the room, started lunging toward the podium, interrupting me and elevating his voice and was stopped,” [Bimbo #2] Noem said. “Did not identify himself and was removed from the room. So as soon as he identified himself, you know, appropriate actions were taken.”
“I had a conversation with the senator after this,” she continued. “We sat down for 10 to 15 minutes and talked about the fact that nobody knew who he was. He didn’t say who he was until he already had been lunging forward, and people were trying to detain him for quite a period of time.”
[Bimbo #2] added, “He was never arrested. Nobody knew who he was when he came into the room creating a scene.”
But:
Padilla said in a video posted on his social media channels: “I introduced myself. ‘I’m Senator Alex Padilla, and I have a question.’ And it took all of a second for multiple agents to forcibly remove me from the room, to pin me on the ground and handcuff me.”
Did Senator ID himself when Kristi Noem’s guards wrestled him?
Footage on social media shows Senator Alex Padilla of California identifying himself while being blocked by agents, but not before.
On X, formerly Twitter, the Department of Defense’s Rapid Response account posted a video that appeared to show burning, graffitied police cars during protests in Los Angeles this week.
However, the fact-checking website Snopes said the image showed protests in Los Angeles following the death of George Floyd in May 2020.
The governor’s office wrote on X on Friday: “HUGE DEVELOPMENT: An official Department of Defense account is spreading fake images—from old protests—to justify Trump’s illegal militarization of Los Angeles. This isn’t just disinformation. It’s a propaganda campaign from the Pentagon.”
Gavin Newsom accuses Trump administration of spreading fake protest images
The president deployed 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles in response to anti-ICE protests.
