Tag Archives: Undocumented immigrants

Washington Post: DHS moves to bar aid groups from serving undocumented immigrants

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The Department of Homeland Security is now barring states and volunteer groups that receive government funds from helping undocumented immigrants, according to a Washington Post analysis of updated guidelines and interviews with Federal Emergency Management Agency employees. The new rules also require groups to cooperate with immigration officials and enforcement operations.

Several disaster assistance groups, FEMA employees and emergency management experts said the new requirements in the department’s fiscal 2025 aid contracts would make it harder for nonprofits to help the most vulnerable people in the aftermath of a disaster. Some members of the national volunteer disaster group network also questioned whether the new requirements are constitutional and point out that they seem to violate some local and state laws that prevent asking about a person’s immigration status.

By accepting the federal grants and awards, the new documents state, volunteer organizations that help after disasters must agree to not “operate any program that benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration.”

That could put groups that provide food, housing, mental health support and other assistance in disaster-stricken states in the position of having to verify aid recipients’ legal status before providing assistance, experts said.

“There is no historical context for this,” said Scott Robinson, an emergency management expert and FEMA historian who teaches at Arizona State University. “The notion that the federal government would use these operations for surveillance is entirely new territory.”

The affected contractors include faith-based groups and nonprofits such as the Salvation Army and the Red Cross, which states usually rely on to set up shelters and deliver basic assistance. They often serve communities with large Latino populations, where people often have trouble getting federal aid because they are uninsured or live in multigenerational households so they can’t all apply to FEMA. They serve those who have lost their homes or incomes after a catastrophic event but are not in the United States legally. Such humanitarian organizations typically do not ask about religious beliefs, political affiliation or documentation status when offering aid.

The federal government first awards funds to states, which then bring in organizations once they have accepted the contract and its rules. The DHS document states an award recipient, such as a state, must make all contractors and sub-recipients follow its terms.

In a statement, acting FEMA press secretary Daniel Llargues said any recipient of a DHS or FEMA grant “is required to follow the DHS Standard Terms & Conditions,” noting most funding is awarded directly to states, tribes and territories.

Another new section of the document states all award recipients must comply with federal statutes that prohibit state and local governments from keeping information about a person’s immigration status from DHS. They are also barred from “harboring, concealing, or shielding from detection illegal aliens”; have to agree to “provide access to detainees, such as when an immigration officer seeks to interview a person who might be a removable alien”; and not leak or publicize an enforcement operation.

“This is likely to have a chilling effect on any undocumented person” seeking assistance, Robinson said, adding that it might even deter someone who fears their legal status may be questioned.

While the federal government has always had wide-ranging authority when setting conditions for grants, a review of contracts going back to 2016, the first year they were posted, found past DHS contracts for federal assistance have not had any language about undocumented immigrants. One FEMA official said the new regulations move away from past terms that focused on civil rights and “place more emphasis on exclusionary powers the government has.”

These standards are not just limited to nonprofits but could apply to all applicants, sub-applicants and even other federal agencies that work with FEMA, such as search-and-rescue groups, said a former senior FEMA official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter.

Officials at disaster volunteer organizations across the U.S., many of whom embed all across communities after major hurricanes, floods or fires, said they were caught off guard by the new conditions. Several members raised concerns that federal contracts cannot make nonprofits violate local laws that protect people’s privacy. The bulk of disaster volunteer groups that work with the federal government are also faith-based organizations, which some groups said could create constitutional concerns.

“We see this as a free-exercise issue under our First Amendment rights,” said Peter Gudaitis, the executive director of New York Disaster Interfaith Services. “First, the federal government has never attempted to tell the nonprofit sector who we can and cannot serve. Further, as a faith-based organization we have the right to determine who we serve.”

The new terms and conditions also target diversity, equity and inclusion policies, stating that the department’s awards cannot be used “to advance or promote DEI and/or DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility) or discriminatory equity ideology.”

To meet the needs of the communities they serve, nonprofits often hire Spanish speakers and people of color, and Gudaitis and other members of the nation’s disaster volunteer network questioned whether the anti-DEI provision would affect this approach.

There are states and cities that don’t allow such organizations to ask about a person’s immigration status. In New York, for example, disaster workers can register anyone in any affected Zip code regardless of their citizenship.

These groups, represented by a broader umbrella group called National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, are grappling with the new requirements, said the Rev. David Guadalupe, the organization’s interim president who also runs Puerto Rico’s volunteer disaster aid group. Each group will have to make an independent decision as to whether they can and will abide by these terms when a state asks them to assist, he said. That could put many groups in a very difficult position, he said, and goes against an ethos to serve anyone in need.

“Their shared mission is to serve all disasters’ survivors with compassion and dignity, especially those most vulnerable, and to work together to help communities recover,” he said.

The network reached out to the administration on Monday about the new terms and is awaiting a reply, Guadalupe said. It is hosting a town hall next week to discuss the new policy and how its members “will proactively prepare for impacts” on the funds they rely on to manage disasters, according to an email obtained by The Post.

These groups often work with states through FEMA’s Disaster Case Management Program. In its description of the program, DHS notes, “without federal support, the state may be inundated and unable to address the size and scope of the needs or unable to sustain the length of time the services are needed.”

There are already strict rules surrounding federal assistance that states and subrecipients, such as volunteer groups and nonprofits, have to follow. These entities have to cooperate with compliance reviews and investigations; they are audited several times a year; and, according to the conditions, have to give “DHS access to examine and copy records, accounts, and other documents and sources of information related to the federal award and permit access to facilities and personnel.”

If a state rejects these conditions, an agency official explained, it would be ineligible for FEMA funds.

Nonprofits and disaster response groups worry that the terms could have a ripple effect on mixed-status households, where the parents might be undocumented but their children are citizens, which means they would be entitled to federal disaster assistance.

“So will our government now deprive a household with a citizen member of assistance because undocumented people live in the household, too?” asked a state VOAD chair who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “Is the federal government saying that a disaster case manager can’t even advise someone where to get help if they are undocumented or their family is? Is that really what we’ve come to?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/08/27/dhs-fema-undocumented-immigrants-aid-groups-grants

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DHS moves to bar aid groups from serving undocumented immigrants

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dhs-moves-to-bar-aid-groups-from-serving-undocumented-immigrants/ar-AA1Ll1Yi

Washington Post: Democrats are pushing back against crackdown on sanctuary cities

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Some responded with strongly worded letters. Others spoke out publicly, accusing Attorney General Pam Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors.

Democratic state and local officials are forcefully pushing back against threats from Attorney General Pam Bondi that their jurisdictions could be stripped of federal funding or they could face criminal prosecution if they don’t back away from “sanctuary” policies friendly toward suspected undocumented immigrants.

Bondi last week sent a letter to leaders of more than 30 Democratic-led cities, counties and states that accused the jurisdictions of interfering with federal immigration enforcement.

Some responded with their own strongly worded letters. Others seized the moment to speak out in a public show of resistance, accusing Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors amid the political divide over President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration tactics.

But what happens next remains deeply unclear, according to those Democratic officials, who have described the events of the past week as startling and unprecedented, even against the backdrop of the tumultuous launch of the second Trump term. They are staying mum so far about how much they are coordinating with each other to combat potential actions by the administration.

In Seattle, Mayor Bruce Harrell (D), who is seeking a second term, told The Washington Post that the Aug. 13 letter from Bondi warned that his “jurisdiction” had been “identified as one that engages in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement.” It did not reference his city by name, mention specific local laws or policy, or cite Seattle’s crime rates, which Harrell pointed out are “down in all major categories.”

Days later, he was standing behind Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson (D), who had received a nearly identical letter.

“A letter like this cannot be normalized,” Ferguson said Tuesday, speaking to reporters at the state Capitol in Olympia. He called the attorney general’s threats a “breathtaking” tactic aimed at pressuring elected officials to “bend a knee” to Trump.

Ferguson told Bondi in a letter that his state “will not be bullied or intimidated by threats and legally baseless accusations.”

On the opposite coast, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) stepped onto the plaza outside City Hall for a news conference that quickly took on the feel of an anti-Trump rally.

“Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures,” said Wu, the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants. “Boston follows the law, and Boston will not back down from who we are and what we stand for.”

The Trump administration’s intensifying efforts to identify and deport suspected undocumented immigrants include the deployment of thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in U.S. cities as they seek to meet a directive from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to make at least 3,000 arrests a day.

Bondi and other Trump administration officials have insisted on cooperation from state and local officials, including access to law enforcement facilities and, in some cases, officers as they seek to step up deportation efforts.

Trump last week ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to D.C. and has sought to expand federal control over D.C. police, claiming the city was not doing enough to stem violent crime. He has indicated that cities like Baltimore, Chicago and New York could be next, likening them to urban hellscapes ruined by crime and lawlessness. All three cities are listed as sanctuary jurisdictions on federal government websites.

On Thursday, Trump reiterated his pledge to pursue similar crime crackdowns in Democratic-led cities.

In an interview last week with Fox News, Bondi suggested a takeover could be on the table for any city the administration deems out of compliance with federal immigration laws. “You better be abiding by our federal policies and with our federal law enforcement, because if you aren’t, we’re going to come after you,” she said.

Numerous city and state officials in their letters to Bondi questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s threats against their jurisdictions, with some pointedly critical of Trump’s actions in D.C. and in Los Angeles, where the president — despite the opposition of state and local officials — activated National Guard troops amid protests over the administration’s immigration arrests.

Responding to a letter sent to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), Ann Spillane, the governor’s general counsel, noted federal courts had repeatedly upheld an Illinois law that restricts state law enforcement involvement in immigration enforcement. Spillane said that Illinois officers’ primary focus is fighting crime and that they routinely cooperate with federal law enforcement on those issues. “We have not observed that type of coordination with local law enforcement in Washington, D.C. or Los Angeles,” Spillane wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Post.

Bondi’s letters also arrived at the offices of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston (D). Trump homed in on the state during the presidential race last year, baselessly claiming one of its cities had been overrun by Venezuelan gangs.

Johnston’s city has already lost millions in federal grants intended for migrant shelters, and the Justice Department sued him, Polis, and other state and local officials in May over what it called “disastrous” sanctuary policies. Colorado law bars local police officers from asking a person for their immigration status, arresting someone based only on that status and giving that personal information to federal authorities.

“It is immaterial to whether or not you were doing 55 in a 45, where you were born, and so we don’t ask for that information,” Johnston said. “We don’t have that information.” On Thursday, he remained adamant that Denver had not violated any laws. Bondi’s allegations, he said, are “false and offensiveOn Thursday, Trump reiterated his pledge to pursue similar crime crackdowns in Democratic-led cities.

In an interview last week with Fox News, Bondi suggested a takeover could be on the table for any city the administration deems out of compliance with federal immigration laws. “You better be abiding by our federal policies and with our federal law enforcement, because if you aren’t, we’re going to come after you,” she said.

Numerous city and state officials in their letters to Bondi questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s threats against their jurisdictions, with some pointedly critical of Trump’s actions in D.C. and in Los Angeles, where the president — despite the opposition of state and local officials — activated National Guard troops amid protests over the administration’s immigration arrests.

Responding to a letter sent to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), Ann Spillane, the governor’s general counsel, noted federal courts had repeatedly upheld an Illinois law that restricts state law enforcement involvement in immigration enforcement. Spillane said that Illinois officers’ primary focus is fighting crime and that they routinely cooperate with federal law enforcement on those issues. “We have not observed that type of coordination with local law enforcement in Washington, D.C. or Los Angeles,” Spillane wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Post.

Bondi’s letters also arrived at the offices of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston (D). Trump homed in on the state during the presidential race last year, baselessly claiming one of its cities had been overrun by Venezuelan gangs.

Johnston’s city has already lost millions in federal grants intended for migrant shelters, and the Justice Department sued him, Polis, and other state and local officials in May over what it called “disastrous” sanctuary policies. Colorado law bars local police officers from asking a person for their immigration status, arresting someone based only on that status and giving that personal information to federal authorities.

“It is immaterial to whether or not you were doing 55 in a 45, where you were born, and so we don’t ask for that information,” Johnston said. “We don’t have that information.” On Thursday, he remained adamant that Denver had not violated any laws. Bondi’s allegations, he said, are “false and offensive.”

In his letter to Bondi, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) questioned Bondi’s demand that he identify how he’s working to eliminate laws, policies and practices that she claimed impede federal immigration enforcement.

“In a democracy, governors do not unilaterally ‘eliminate laws.’ The role of the executive is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not to pick and choose which to follow,” wrote Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president. “In Minnesota, we take pride in following the law.”

New York Mayor Eric Adams, who promised to toughen immigration enforcement in his city after the Trump administration dropped corruption charges against him this spring, did not respond directly to Bondi’s letter. The task was passed on to the city’s corporation counsel, who sent a two-paragraph letter that said the city was not thwarting federal immigration policies but operating under a “system of federalism” that means states and cities do not have to undertake federal mandates.

Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokeswoman for Adams, said the city was taking Trump’s threat to possibly target New York seriously and preparing for any scenario. But she declined to reveal what that playbook might look like.

In Washington, Ferguson, who previously served as the state’s attorney general before he was elected governor in November, said he had anticipated some dramatic action from the Trump administration. Late last year, before he was sworn into office, Ferguson spoke to state finance officials to determine how the state would fare fiscally if it lost federal funding, which makes up 28 percent of the budget.

But Ferguson did not anticipate Bondi’s threat to potentially prosecute him or any other elected official in the country over differences in policy. As attorney general, he had been the first to file a lawsuit over Trump’s 2017 executive order to ban visitors and refugees from several predominantly Muslim countries.

On Tuesday, Ferguson recalled trying to reassure his 8-year-old daughter at the time, who worried something might happen to him for challenging Trump.

“I remember telling her … ‘We’re lucky to live in a country right where your dad, or any American, can speak out against the president, where your dad can file a lawsuit against the president, say things that are pretty direct about the president, be critical,’” Ferguson recalled.

It was something they shouldn’t take for granted, he told her, because in other countries people could get sent to jail for something like that.

Eight years later, Ferguson said he didn’t know what he would say to his daughter now of that freedom to challenge a president. “Maybe I’m not so sure about that,” the governor said.

Democrats are pushing back against crackdown on sanctuary cities
Some responded with strongly worded letters. Others spoke out publicly, accusing Attorney General Pam Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/08/22/sanctuary-cities-bondi

No paywall:

Democrats are pushing back against crackdown on sanctuary cities

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/democrats-are-pushing-back-against-crackdown-on-sanctuary-cities/ar-AA1L119n

Sacramento Bee: Multiple Republicans Join Democrats on Immigration Bill

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Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and other Republican lawmakers have backed the Dignity Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at overhauling the immigration system. The legislation aims to provide legal status for undocumented immigrants, bolster border security, and reform visa policies. If passed, the act would lead to significant changes to current immigration laws, reflecting a push for comprehensive reform.

Salazar said, “It takes a lot of courage to step up and say that you might be part of the solution.” She added, “They did break the law. They are illegals or undocumented.”

Salazar stated, “But they have been in the country for more than five years, contributing to the economy. Those people, someone gave them a job, and they are needed because we need hands in order to continue being the number one economy in the world.”

The Dignity Act grants legal status to undocumented immigrants, reforms asylum screening for better legal access, sets up Latin American processing centers to reduce risky migration, creates STEM PhD work visas, and boosts ICE accountability.

The Dignity Act has received backing from several Republican lawmakers. It also gained support from Democrats like Veronica Escobar (D-TX) and Adriano Espaillat (D-NY).

Escobar (D-TX) said, “I have seen firsthand the devastating consequences of our broken immigration system, and as a member of Congress, I take seriously my obligation to propose a solution. Realistic, common-sense compromise is achievable, and is especially important given the urgency of this moment. I consider the Dignity Act of 2025 a critical first step to overhauling this broken system.”

Immigration attorney Rosanna Berardi questioned the bill’s viability, citing conflicts with enforcement policies under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Critics argued it could undermine efforts to curb unauthorized migration.

Immigration attorney Rosanna Berardi said, “Without congressional action to roll back many of the core immigration elements of H.R. 1—especially the funding and restrictions around detention, deportations, and parole—there’s really no practical space for the Dignity Act’s approach. However, I do think this framework could help create bipartisan conversations focused on creating easier work-visa access and temporary status for migrant workers in industries like agriculture, hospitality, health care and manufacturing.”

Salazar emphasized the need for a comprehensive strategy to meet labor demands and maintain economic stability. If enacted, the legislation would likely spark a reevaluation of national immigration policies.

Multiple Republicans Join Democrats on Immigration Bill

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/multiple-republicans-join-democrats-on-immigration-bill/ss-AA1L3St5

Washington Post: Democrats are pushing back against crackdown on sanctuary cities

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Some responded with strongly worded letters. Others spoke out publicly, accusing Attorney General Pam Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors.

Democratic state and local officials are forcefully pushing back against threats from Attorney General Pam Bondi that their jurisdictions could be stripped of federal funding or they could face criminal prosecution if they don’t back away from “sanctuary” policies friendly toward suspected undocumented immigrants.

Bondi last week sent a letter to leaders of more than 30 Democratic-led cities, counties and states that accused the jurisdictions of interfering with federal immigration enforcement.

Some responded with their own strongly worded letters. Others seized the moment to speak out in a public show of resistance, accusing Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors amid the political divide over President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration tactics.

But what happens next remains deeply unclear, according to those Democratic officials, who have described the events of the past week as startling and unprecedented, even against the backdrop of the tumultuous launch of the second Trump term. They are staying mum so far about how much they are coordinating with each other to combat potential actions by the administration.

In Seattle, Mayor Bruce Harrell (D), who is seeking a second term, told The Washington Post that the Aug. 13 letter from Bondi warned that his “jurisdiction” had been “identified as one that engages in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement.” It did not reference his city by name, mention specific local laws or policy, or cite Seattle’s crime rates, which Harrell pointed out are “down in all major categories.”

Days later, he was standing behind Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson (D), who had received a nearly identical letter.

“A letter like this cannot be normalized,” Ferguson said Tuesday, speaking to reporters at the state Capitol in Olympia. He called the attorney general’s threats a “breathtaking” tactic aimed at pressuring elected officials to “bend a knee” to Trump.

Ferguson told Bondi in a letter that his state “will not be bullied or intimidated by threats and legally baseless accusations.”

On the opposite coast, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) stepped onto the plaza outside City Hall for a news conference that quickly took on the feel of an anti-Trump rally.

“Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures,” said Wu, the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants. “Boston follows the law, and Boston will not back down from who we are and what we stand for.”

The Trump administration’s intensifying efforts to identify and deport suspected undocumented immigrants include the deployment of thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in U.S. cities as they seek to meet a directive from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to make at least 3,000 arrests a day.

Bondi and other Trump administration officials have insisted on cooperation from state and local officials, including access to law enforcement facilities and, in some cases, officers as they seek to step up deportation efforts.

Trump last week ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to D.C. and has sought to expand federal control over D.C. police, claiming the city was not doing enough to stem violent crime. He has indicated that cities like Baltimore, Chicago and New York could be next, likening them to urban hellscapes ruined by crime and lawlessness. All three cities are listed as sanctuary jurisdictions on federal government websites.

On Thursday, Trump reiterated his pledge to pursue similar crime crackdowns in Democratic-led cities.

In an interview last week with Fox News, Bondi suggested a takeover could be on the table for any city the administration deems out of compliance with federal immigration laws. “You better be abiding by our federal policies and with our federal law enforcement, because if you aren’t, we’re going to come after you,” she said.

Numerous city and state officials in their letters to Bondi questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s threats against their jurisdictions, with some pointedly critical of Trump’s actions in D.C. and in Los Angeles, where the president — despite the opposition of state and local officials — activated National Guard troops amid protests over the administration’s immigration arrests.

Responding to a letter sent to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), Ann Spillane, the governor’s general counsel, noted federal courts had repeatedly upheld an Illinois law that restricts state law enforcement involvement in immigration enforcement. Spillane said that Illinois officers’ primary focus is fighting crime and that they routinely cooperate with federal law enforcement on those issues. “We have not observed that type of coordination with local law enforcement in Washington, D.C. or Los Angeles,” Spillane wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Post.

Bondi’s letters also arrived at the offices of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston (D). Trump homed in on the state during the presidential race last year, baselessly claiming one of its cities had been overrun by Venezuelan gangs.

Johnston’s city has already lost millions in federal grants intended for migrant shelters, and the Justice Department sued him, Polis, and other state and local officials in May over what it called “disastrous” sanctuary policies. Colorado law bars local police officers from asking a person for their immigration status, arresting someone based only on that status and giving that personal information to federal authorities.

“It is immaterial to whether or not you were doing 55 in a 45, where you were born, and so we don’t ask for that information,” Johnston said. “We don’t have that information.” On Thursday, he remained adamant that Denver had not violated any laws. Bondi’s allegations, he said, are “false and offensive.”

In his letter to Bondi, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) questioned Bondi’s demand that he identify how he’s working to eliminate laws, policies and practices that she claimed impede federal immigration enforcement.

“In a democracy, governors do not unilaterally ‘eliminate laws.’ The role of the executive is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not to pick and choose which to follow,” wrote Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president. “In Minnesota, we take pride in following the law.”

New York Mayor Eric Adams, who promised to toughen immigration enforcement in his city after the Trump administration dropped corruption charges against him this spring, did not respond directly to Bondi’s letter. The task was passed on to the city’s corporation counsel, who sent a two-paragraph letter that said the city was not thwarting federal immigration policies but operating under a “system of federalism” that means states and cities do not have to undertake federal mandates.

Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokeswoman for Adams, said the city was taking Trump’s threat to possibly target New York seriously and preparing for any scenario. But she declined to reveal what that playbook might look like.

In Washington, Ferguson, who previously served as the state’s attorney general before he was elected governor in November, said he had anticipated some dramatic action from the Trump administration. Late last year, before he was sworn into office, Ferguson spoke to state finance officials to determine how the state would fare fiscally if it lost federal funding, which makes up 28 percent of the budget.

But Ferguson did not anticipate Bondi’s threat to potentially prosecute him or any other elected official in the country over differences in policy. As attorney general, he had been the first to file a lawsuit over Trump’s 2017 executive order to ban visitors and refugees from several predominantly Muslim countries.

On Tuesday, Ferguson recalled trying to reassure his 8-year-old daughter at the time, who worried something might happen to him for challenging Trump.

“I remember telling her … ‘We’re lucky to live in a country right where your dad, or any American, can speak out against the president, where your dad can file a lawsuit against the president, say things that are pretty direct about the president, be critical,’” Ferguson recalled.

It was something they shouldn’t take for granted, he told her, because in other countries people could get sent to jail for something like that.

Eight years later, Ferguson said he didn’t know what he would say to his daughter now of that freedom to challenge a president. “Maybe I’m not so sure about that,” the governor said.

Democrats are pushing back against crackdown on sanctuary cities
Some responded with strongly worded letters. Others spoke out publicly, accusing Attorney General Pam Bondi of trying to unlawfully bully governors and mayors.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/08/22/sanctuary-cities-bondi

Also here without the paywall:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/democrats-are-pushing-back-against-crackdown-on-sanctuary-cities/ar-AA1L119n

San Francisco Chronicle: ICE arrests of people with no criminal convictions have surged in Northern California

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As it has nationwide, ICE is arresting far more suspected immigration violators this summer than before

ICE arrests in Northern California have surged this summer, a Chronicle analysis of deportation data shows. That’s in keeping with national trends.

The Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), claimed on Friday that they are “cleaning up the streets,” targeting what they continued to call the “WORST OF THE WORST” — including “illegal alien pedophiles, sex offenders, and violent thugs.”

But the numbers tell a more complicated story.

Since the beginning of 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested roughly 2,640 people in its San Francisco “area of responsibility” — a 123% increase compared to the final seven months of the Biden administration. The pace picked up dramatically in June and July.

That area spans a large portion of California, from Kern County northward, and also includes Hawaii, Guam, and Saipan. The Chronicle’s analysis focused only on arrests made within California.

Notably, under the Trump administration, arrests of people without criminal convictions have risen sharply. Many of those taken into custody have only pending criminal charges — or none at all. In June, about 58% of arrests involved individuals with no prior convictions. That figure dipped slightly to 56% in July, but just a few months earlier, the numbers were far lower: In December, before President Donald Trump took office, only 10% of arrests involved people without a criminal conviction.

Among those without a conviction, ICE has arrested a large number of individuals whose only suspected violation is entering the country illegally or overstaying their visa. Although administration officials often call these undocumented immigrants “criminals,” being in the U.S. without legal status is a civil violation, not a crime. 

Arrests of convicted criminals are also up, though not as sharply. Those convictions varied widely — from serious and violent crimes like child sexual assault, homicide, and drug trafficking, to lesser charges such as traffic violations and low-level misdemeanors.

ICE officers raided a home in East Oakland on Tuesday and detained at least six people, including a minor and a person with a severe disability, according to an immigration attorney. In June, Oakland police confirmed to the Chronicle that ICE alerted them of its activity, but ICE did not provide additional details. 

Also, for the first time in the Bay Area, ICE detained two U.S. citizens during a protest on Aug. 8, outside the agency’s San Francisco field office at 630 Sansome St. Aliya Karmali, an Oakland immigration attorney, told Mission Local that she hasn’t seen “ICE arresting [U.S. citizen] protestors in the Bay since entering the legal field nearly 20 years ago.”

The picture is similar nationwide. National data from the Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University indicates that the number of people detained by ICE — excluding those arrested by Customs and Border Protection — saw a 178% increase between Jan. 26 and July 13. 

Since the beginning of 2025, ICE arrests of people with no criminal convictions has skyrocketed, with a 370% increase from the end of January to mid-July. In June, ICE held more people for immigration violations than for pending charges for the first time — a trend that continued into July.  

Reports indicate that ICE has been targeting workers in mostly Latino neighborhoods and on jobsites — sometimes based on vague tips from people claiming they saw undocumented immigrants, but often with no clear reason at all. It has also arrested thousands of people in public places. 

Though the administration views the increased immigration enforcement as necessary for public safety or border security, many believe the arrests are fueling fear, separating families, disrupting labor markets and local economies, and doing little to actually solve the country’s broader immigration problems.

“It seems like they’re just arresting people they think might be in the country without status and amenable to deportation,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, in a June Reuters story.

ICE arrests of people with no criminal convictions have surged in Northern California
As it has nationwide, ICE is arresting far more suspected immigration violators this summer than before.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/ice-arrests-deport-data-20818148.php

Washington Post: Trump claims credit for fixing Social Security as it barrels to insolvency

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Many of the president’s claims were misleading and ignored months of turmoil at the embattled agency.

President Donald Trump marked the 90th anniversary of Social Security on Thursday with an Oval Office signing of a proclamation that the safety net was “more resilient than ever before,” thanks to him. He claimed improvements to the program’s customer service. He also misleadingly declared that he had checked off his campaign promise to eliminate taxes on benefits for seniors.

But Social Security is barreling toward insolvency faster than before because of Trump’s tax bill and immigration policies, according to experts. The agency has faced tumult since the U.S. DOGE Service came in with a grand scheme to root out fraud and overhaul the program, causing disruptions and frustrations within the agency.

And despite the repetition of “no tax on Social Security” from Trump and his allies, the law ultimately signed by the president did not eliminate taxes on seniors’ benefits.

The Oval Office event — largely ceremonial — offered the president a chance to repeat his commitments to older Americans on the anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act into law. Trump was joined by Commissioner Frank Bisignano, who has led the agency since May.

“I made a sacred pledge to our seniors that I would always protect Social Security, and under this administration we’re keeping that promise and strengthening Social Security for generations to come,” Trump said.

However, Republicans have not yet provided a solution to put off Social Security’s impending shortfalls.

Natalie Ihrman, a Social Security spokeswoman, said the agency is “committed to working with Congress and other stakeholders to strengthen these vital SSA programs and continue to provide secure retirement and support in times of disability for millions of Americans.”

The trust fund will be insolvent by 2033, the program’s trustees said in June, if Congress doesn’t act. And after the passage of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, the chief actuary said the law could hasten Social Security’s insolvency date.

In addition, experts have warned that Trump’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants — who pay into the system but are barred from receiving benefits — will further deplete the program.

Penn Wharton’s budget model has projected that if the government deports 10 percent of undocumented immigrants annually over the next 10 years, Social Security will lose $133 billion in funds over that period of time.

In his comments Thursday, Trump repeated a baseless claim that immigrants were getting benefits and asserted that nearly 275,000 immigrants were removed from the agency’s rolls. The agency did not provide information about the president’s claims that immigrants were getting benefits, but it said, “SSA updated the Social Security records of about 275,000 individuals no longer holding legal status, ensuring people ineligible to receive benefits are not improperly paid.”

Most federal public benefits — such as Social Security — are available only to U.S. citizens and certain categories of legal immigrants.

Trump also praised himself for keeping a campaign promise to eliminate taxes on Social Security.

“I signed One Big Beautiful Bill and allowed no tax on Social Security for our great seniors,” Trump said.

But the law didn’t create an exemption on taxes on Social Security benefits. It added a temporary $6,000 deduction for seniors who earn as much as $75,000 a year, or $12,000 for joint filers earning as much as $150,000.

Ihrman of SSA said the law “provides historic tax relief to America’s seniors.”

The White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates that 88 percent of older adults will not pay taxes on their benefits because of the bill, up from 64 percent under previous law.

Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, said the council’s estimate relies on the assumption seniors would use their standard deduction to reduce their tax liability on Social Security benefits rather than their total income. The policy center has estimated that about half of recipients will pay at least some income taxes on their benefits.

“What he’s saying is just wrong,” Gleckman said of Trump’s claim.

Trump and Bisignano also touted achievements in customer service, specifically claiming recent reductions in wait times for the 1-800 phone line and at field offices as well as the elimination of scheduled maintenance times for the website.

Bisignano came into the agency in May after the cost-cutting U.S. DOGE Service implemented changes that led to customers complaining of dropped calls, the website repeatedly crashing and thousands of workers leaving the agency.

One of Bisignano’s early efforts to address the overwhelmed phone line was to move field office workers to answer calls.

Advocates have said it is harder to tell what customer service is like since the agency has taken down many of its public-facing performance metrics.

To trumpet the phone performance, the agency has said it reduced the “average speed to answer,” which does not count the time callers wait for a call back, even though the agency rolled out the callback feature last year.

The agency also said it cut wait times at field offices, a statistic repeated by Trump on Thursday.

That is misleading, according Jessica LaPointe, president of Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees. After the agency rolled out a new system of assigning appointments to people walking into field offices in December, the time people wait in the lobby of field offices went down because they were no longer getting their issues handled when they showed up.

“Now you wait 20 minutes in the lobby to get to the window and then you’re given an appointment and you are waiting then months to get your business finished, from start to finish,” LaPointe said.

Trump claims credit for fixing Social Security as it barrels to insolvency
Many of the president’s claims were misleading and ignore months of turmoil at the embattled agency.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/08/14/trump-social-security-90th-annniversary

Also here:

Trump claims credit for fixing Social Security as it barrels to insolvency
Many of the president’s claims were misleading and ignore months of turmoil at the embattled agency.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ar-AA1Ky5eX

Related article:

Social Security predicted to run out of money sooner due to Trump bill

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/social-security-predicted-to-run-out-of-money-sooner-due-to-trump-bill/ar-AA1K6mMw

Newsweek: Nurse in US for 40 Years Self-Deports—’It’s Really Gotten Insane’

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Matthew Morrison, a 69-year-old Irish immigrant and nurse in Missouri who became an immigration example in the late 1990s, left for Ireland on July 21 after living in the United States for 40 years due to fears of removal by the Trump administration.

Why It Matters

Morrison’s self-deportation has brought further attention to the complicated realities faced by long-term undocumented immigrants in the U.S., especially those with historic convictions or high-profile political backgrounds. His case, uniquely tied to historic U.S.–Ireland relations, was previously referenced during the Clinton administration as part of U.S.’s efforts to support the Northern Ireland peace process.

Morrison’s departure also underscores the anxiety and uncertainty experienced by noncitizens who fear changes in immigration enforcement policies, particularly those perceived to be at higher risk during political shifts.

What To Know

Morrison worked for roughly 20 years as a psychiatric nurse supervisor in Missouri, including stints at a children’s hospital and several state mental health facilities. He also presented at the St. Louis County Police Academy on topics including mental health and de-escalation tactics.

He told The Marshall Project that he voluntarily left the U.S. due to fear of detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under President Donald Trump‘s administration.

“I would bite the dust in an ICE holding cell,” Morrison said prior to going home to Ireland. “There is nothing to stop them from deporting me to Ecuador, South Sudan or whatever. It’s really gotten insane here. It’s crazy what they are doing now, the Trump administration. You know what I mean?”

Morrison told The Marshall Project that although his work authorization expires in October, he didn’t want to spend the next few months in anxiety worrying about being deported.

On July 21, he and his wife reportedly boarded a one-way flight from Cleveland to Dublin and left behind a life in the St. Louis area that includes grown children, grandchildren and friends.

“I’ve come full circle,” Morrison said. “I came here as an immigrant and I am leaving as an immigrant, despite everything in between. The whole thing is a crazy, stressful situation.”

Morrison first arrived in the U.S. in the mid-1980s after serving time in prison in Northern Ireland due to his involvement with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during “The Troubles.”

In 1985, he married his American pen pal, Francie Broderick, and had two children, Matt and Katie. Morrison later remarried to his current wife, Sandra Riley Swift.

He once served as a symbolic figure in American–Irish diplomacy. The former member of IRA previously spent 10 years in prison, convicted of attempted murder in a 1976 raid on a British barracks. Other ex-IRA men, all in the New York area, faced deportation for similar reasons.

In 1995, Morrison’s wife flew to Belfast while President Bill Clinton was in the region, attempting to garner his attention and protect him from deportation, according to the Associated Press. By 1997, the family received more than $70,000 in donations to help with legal fees.

The case for Morrison and others like him drew support from local and international lawmakers, notably due to IRA members being characterized by the U.S. government as terrorists.

The Missouri Legislature passed a resolution in 1996 urging the Immigration and Naturalization Service to drop deportation proceedings against him. Members of the Derry City Council in Northern Ireland followed suit across party lines, approving a resolution urging Clinton to suspend his deportation.

Morrison’s struggle won support from countless Americans, including neighbors in this suburban St. Louis community to state legislators to members of Congress.

The Irish Northern Aid, a nonprofit organization that helps families of Irish political prisoners, and the Ancient Order of Hibernians also have come to his defense.

In 2000, the Clinton administration ultimately terminated the deportation process against Morrison and five others. Then-Attorney General Janet Reno said in a statement that she had been advised by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to drop deportation proceedings to “support and promote the process of reconciliation that has begun in Northern Ireland.”

Clinton at the time said the termination was “in no way approving or condoning their past criminal acts.” However, the ex-president echoed the sentiment of contributing to peace in Europe.

What People Are Saying

Matthew Morrison’s son, Matt, 37, to The Marshall Project about his father’s scheduled check-in with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in June in St. Louis: “We were terrified that they were just going to take him right there…He has to live under that fear of somebody knocking on the door and dragging him out of the house, just like they did in Derry when he was young. I hate it. I am just worried about him. Until recently, I hadn’t heard him cry about it.”

Morrison’s daughter, Katie, to The Marshall Project: “Even though he’s still alive, I feel like I am grieving. It’s a huge loss for me and my children.”

What Happens Next?

Swift has a house in St. Charles, Missouri, as well as family in the U.S., The Marshall Project reported. After helping Morrison transition into an apartment in the town where he grew up, she wrote in a social media post that she’s going to travel between both countries for a while.

Nurse in US for 40 years self-deports—“It’s really gotten insane”
“I’ve come full circle,” Matthew Morrison said. “I came here as an immigrant and I am leaving as an immigrant, despite everything in between.”

https://www.newsweek.com/immigration-deportation-ice-nurse-irish-army-2108527

San Francisco Chronicle: Trump asks SCOTUS to allow profiling in California ICE raids

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Any attorney who files or argues in favor of this appeal should be disbarred!

Any justice who votes in favor of this appeal should impeached and removed!

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow officers to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants in Southern California because of how they look, what language they’re speaking and what kind of work they’re doing, factors that federal judges have found to be baseless and discriminatory.

Last month’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Maame Frimpong, upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California,” D. John Sauer, the Justice Department’s solicitor general, said Thursday in a filing with the Supreme Court. “This Court should end this attempted judicial usurpation of immigration-enforcement functions” and suspend the injunction while the case is argued in the lower courts, Sauer wrote.

The Central District, which includes Los Angeles County and six other counties, has nearly 20 million residents, more than any other federal court district in the nation. It became the focus of legal disputes over immigration enforcement after President Donald Trump took control of the California National Guard in June and sent thousands of its troops to the streets in Los Angeles to defend immigration agents against protesters of workplace raids.

A 9th Circuit panel upheld Trump’s commandeering of the National Guard, rejecting a lawsuit by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But Frimpong, an appointee of President Joe Biden, ruled July 11 that immigration officers were overstepping legal boundaries in making the arrests, and issued a temporary restraining order against their practices.

In a ruling Aug. 1 upholding the judge’s decision, another 9th Circuit panel said federal officers had been seizing people from the streets and workplaces based on four factors: their apparent race or ethnicity, the language they spoke or accent in their voice, their presence in a location such as a car wash or an agricultural site, and the type of work they were doing.

That would justify the arrest of anyone “who appears Hispanic, speaks Spanish or English with an accent, wears work clothes, and stands near a carwash, in front of a Home Depot, or at a bus stop,” the panel’s three judges said. They agreed with Frimpong that officers could not rely on any or all of those factors as the basis for an arrest.

But the Trump administration’s lawyers said those factors were valid reasons for immigration arrests in the Central District.

In April, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston issued a similar order against the Border Patrol, prohibiting immigration arrests in the Eastern District of California unless officers have a reasonable suspicion that a person is breaking the law. The district is based in Sacramento and extends from Fresno to the Oregon border.

“You can’t just walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Give me your papers,’” Thurston, a Biden appointee, said at a court hearing, CalMatters reported. The Trump administration has appealed her injunction to the 9th Circuit.

The administration’s compliance with the Central District court order was questioned by immigrant advocates on Wednesday after a raid on a Home Depot store near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, in which officers said 16 Latin American workers were detained. An American Civil Liberties Union attorney, Mohammad Tajsar, said the government “seems unwilling to fulfill the aims of its racist mass deportation agenda without breaking the law.”

There is ample evidence that many businesses in the district “unlawfully employ illegal aliens and are known to hire them on a day-to-day basis; that certain types of jobs — like day labor, landscaping, and construction — are most attractive to illegal aliens because they often do not require paperwork; that the vast majority of illegal aliens in the District come from Mexico or Central America; and that many only speak Spanish,” Sauer told the Supreme Court.

“No one thinks that speaking Spanish or working in construction always creates reasonable suspicion” that someone is an illegal immigrant, the Justice Department attorney said. “But in many situations, such factors — alone or in combination — can heighten the likelihood that someone is unlawfully present in the United States.”

The Supreme Court told lawyers for the immigrants to file a response by Tuesday. 

The case is Noem v. Perdomo, No. 25A169.

Trump asks SCOTUS to allow profiling in California ICE raids
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to let officers arrest suspected undocumented immigrants in Southern California because of how they look.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/scotus-immigration-california-20809308.php

LA Times: California took center stage in ICE raids, but other states saw more immigration arrests

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Ever since federal immigration raids ramped up across California, triggering fierce protests that prompted President Trump to deploy troops to Los Angeles, the state has emerged as the symbolic battleground of the administration’s deportation campaign.

But even as arrests soared, California was not the epicenter of Trump’s anti-immigrant project.

In the first five months of Trump’s second term, California lagged behind the staunchly red states of Texas and Florida in the total arrests. According to a Los Angeles Times analysis of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement data from the Deportation Data Project, Texas reported 26,341 arrests — nearly a quarter of all ICE arrests nationally — followed by 12,982 in Florida and 8,460 in California.

Even in June, when masked federal immigration agents swept through L.A., jumping out of vehicles to snatch people from bus stops, car washes and parking lots, California saw 3,391 undocumented immigrants arrested — more than Florida, but still only about half as many as Texas.

When factoring in population, California drops to 27th in the nation, with 217 arrests per million residents — about a quarter of Texas’ 864 arrests per million and less than half of a whole slew of states including Florida, Arkansas, Utah, Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Nevada.

The data, released after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the government, excludes arrests made after June 26 and lacks identifying state details in 5% of cases. Nevertheless, it provides the most detailed look yet of national ICE operations.

Immigration experts say it is not surprising that California — home to the largest number of undocumented immigrants in the nation and the birthplace of the Chicano movement — lags behind Republican states in the total number of arrests or arrests as a percentage of the population.

“The numbers are secondary to the performative politics of the moment,” said Austin Kocher, a geographer and research assistant professor at Syracuse University who specializes in immigration enforcement.

Part of the reason Republican-dominated states have higher arrest numbers — particularly when measured against population — is they have a longer history of working directly with ICE, and a stronger interest in collaboration. In red states from Texas to Mississippi, local law enforcement officers routinely cooperate with federal agents, either by taking on ICE duties through so-called 287(g) agreements or by identifying undocumented immigrants who are incarcerated and letting ICE into their jails and prisons.

Indeed, data show that just 7% of ICE arrests made this year in California were made through the Criminal Alien Program, an initiative that requests that local law enforcement identify undocumented immigrants in federal, state and local prisons and jails.

That’s significantly lower than the 55% of arrests in Texas and 46% in Florida made through prisons or jails. And other conservative states with smaller populations relied on the program even more heavily: 75% of ICE arrests in Alabama and 71% in Indiana took place via prisons and jails.

“State cooperation has been an important buffer in ICE arrests and ICE operations in general for years,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a Sacramento-based senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “We’ve seen that states are not only willing to cooperate with ICE, but are proactively now establishing 287(g) agreements with their local law enforcement, are naturally going to cast a wider net of enforcement in the boundaries of that state.”

While California considers only some criminal offenses, such as serious felonies, significant enough to share information with ICE; Texas and Florida are more likely to report offenses that may not be as severe, such as minor traffic infractions.

Still, even if fewer people were arrested in California than other states, it also witnessed one of the most dramatic increases in arrests in the country.

California ranked 30th in ICE arrests per million in February. By June, the state had climbed to 10th place.

ICE arrested around 8,460 immigrants across California between Jan. 20 and June 26, a 212% increase compared with the five months before Trump took office. That contrasts with a 159% increase nationally for the same period.

Much of ICE’s activity in California was hyper-focused on Greater Los Angeles: About 60% of ICE arrests in the state took place in the seven counties in and around L.A. during Trump’s first five months in office. The number of arrests in the Los Angeles area soared from 463 in January to 2,185 in June — a 372% spike, second only to New York’s 432% increase.

Even if California is not seeing the largest numbers of arrests, experts say, the dramatic increase in captures stands out from other places because of the lack of official cooperation and public hostility toward immigration agents.

“A smaller increase in a place that has very little cooperation is, in a way, more significant than seeing an increase in areas that have lots and lots of cooperation,” Kocher said.

ICE agents, Kocher said, have to work much harder to arrest immigrants in places like L.A. or California that define themselves as “sanctuary” jurisdictions and limit their cooperation with federal immigration agents.

“They really had to go out of their way,” he said.

Trump administration officials have long argued that sanctuary jurisdictions give them no choice but to round up people on the streets.

Not long after Trump won the 2024 election and the L.A. City Council voted unanimously to block any city resources from being used for immigration enforcement, incoming border enforcement advisor Tom Homan threatened an onslaught.

“If I’ve got to send twice as many officers to L.A. because we’re not getting any assistance, then that’s what we’re going to do,” Homan told Newsmax.

With limited cooperation from California jails, ICE agents went out into communities, rounding up people they suspected of being undocumented on street corners and at factories and farms.

That shift in tactics meant that immigrants with criminal convictions no longer made up the bulk of California ICE arrests. While about 66% of immigrants arrested in the first four months of the year had criminal convictions, that percentage fell to 30% in June.

The sweeping nature of the arrests drew immediate criticism as racial profiling and spawned robust community condemnation.

Some immigration experts and community activists cite the organized resistance in L.A. as another reason the numbers of ICE arrests were lower in California than in Texas and even lower than dozens of states by percentage of population.

“The reason is the resistance, organized resistance: the people who literally went to war with them in Paramount, in Compton, in Bell and Huntington Park,” said Ron Gochez, a member of Unión del Barrio Los Angeles, an independent political group that patrols neighborhoods to alert residents of immigration sweeps.

“They’ve been chased out in the different neighborhoods where we organize,” he said. “We’ve been able to mobilize the community to surround the agents when they come to kidnap people.”

In L.A., activists patrolled the streets from 5 a.m. until 11 p.m., seven days a week, Gochez said. They faced off with ICE agents in Home Depot parking lots and at warehouses and farms.

“We were doing everything that we could to try to keep up with the intensity of the military assault,” Gochez said. “The resistance was strong. … We’ve been able, on numerous occasions, to successfully defend the communities and drive them out of our community.”

The protests prompted Trump to deploy the National Guard and Marines in June, with the stated purpose of protecting federal buildings and personnel. But the administration’s ability to ratchet up arrests hit a roadblock on July 11. That’s when a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking immigration agents in Southern and Central California from targeting people based on race, language, vocation or location without reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.

That decision was upheld last week by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But on Thursday, the Trump administration petitioned the Supreme Court to lift the temporary ban on its patrols, arguing that it “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California by hanging the prospect of contempt over every investigative stop.”

The order led to a significant drop in arrests across Los Angeles last month. But this week, federal agents carried out a series of raids at Home Depots from Westlake to Van Nuys.

Trump administration officials have indicated that the July ruling and arrest slowdown do not signal a permanent change in tactics.

“Sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don’t want: more agents in the communities and more work site enforcement,” Homan told reporters two weeks after the court blocked roving patrols. “Why is that? Because they won’t let one agent arrest one bad guy in the jail.”

U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino, who has been leading operations in California, posted a fast-moving video on X that spliced L.A. Mayor Karen Bass telling reporters that “this experiment that was practiced on the city of Los Angeles failed” with video showing him grinning. Then, as a frenetic drum and bass mix kicked in, federal agents jump out of a van and chase people.

“When you’re faced with opposition to law and order, what do you do?” Bovino wrote. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome!”

Clearly, the Trump administration is willing to expend significant resources to make California a political battleground and test case, Ruiz Soto said. The question is, at what economic and political cost?

“If they really wanted to scale up and ramp up their deportations,” Ruiz Soto said, “they could go to other places, do it more more safely, more quickly and more efficiently.”

California took center stage in ICE raids, but other states saw more immigration arrests
California arrests lag behind states such as Texas and Florida, because those states started with more arrests. They also have a stronger record of cooperation.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-10/california-was-center-stage-in-ice-raids-but-texas-and-florida-each-saw-more-immigration-arrests

Latin Times: Support for Deporting Noncriminal Immigrants Slips as Public Backs Legal Protections: Poll

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67% of respondents to the UMASS poll opposed separating undocumented immigrants from their children during enforcement proceedings

A growing share of Americans support legal protections for undocumented immigrants, while enthusiasm for broad deportations has declined, according to a new poll from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The poll found that 63% of respondents favored a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Only 37% supported deporting those without criminal records beyond immigration violations, and just 30% supported deporting undocumented immigrants who work full time and pay taxes.

Support for deporting immigrants with criminal records remains high, though it has softened slightly, dropping from 74% in April to 69% in July, the poll reveals. At the same time, 67% of respondents opposed separating undocumented immigrants from their children during enforcement proceedings, and 54% opposed deporting undocumented immigrants to foreign prisons.

Tatishe Nteta, a political science professor and director of the poll, said the findings suggest the Trump administration “should emphasize the detention and removal of undocumented immigrants with criminal records” if it wants to align with public sentiment.

Despite this stated focus, deportation records published by CBS News on July 16 show that many individuals removed under Trump’s second term did not have violent criminal records.

Between January 1 and June 24, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported approximately 100,000 people, of whom 70,583 were labeled as having criminal convictions. However, the vast majority of these were for traffic or immigration-related offenses. In fact, convictions for violent crimes were relatively rare: 0.58% for homicide, 1.2% for sexual assault, and 0.42% for kidnapping.

The administration has also touted its crackdown on gang-affiliated individuals, but only 3,256 of the deported individuals were identified as known or suspected gang members or terrorists.

In response to questions about enforcement priorities by CBS News, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said ICE has now deported about 140,000 undocumented immigrants since Mr. Trump took office. She also added that 70% of those arrested by ICE were of “illegal aliens with criminal convictions or have pending criminal charges,” but declined to detail the nature of the convictions or criminal charges, or offer further specifics.

Support for Deporting Noncriminal Immigrants Slips as Public Backs Legal Protections: Poll
67% of respondents to the UMASS poll opposed separating undocumented immigrants from their children during enforcement proceedings

https://www.latintimes.com/support-deporting-noncriminal-immigrants-slips-public-backs-legal-protections-poll-588106