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Washington Post: Pentagon plan would create military ‘reaction force’ for civil unrest

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Documents reviewed by The Post detail a prospective National Guard mission that, if adopted, would require hundreds of troops to be ready around-the-clock.

The Trump administration is evaluating plans that would establish a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” composed of hundreds of National Guard troops tasked with rapidly deploying into American cities facing protests or other unrest, according to internal Pentagon documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour, the documents say. They would be split into two groups of 300 and stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, with purview of regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively.

Cost projections outlined in the documents indicate that such a mission, if the proposal is adopted, could stretch into the hundreds of millions of dollars should military aircraft and aircrews also be required to be ready around-the-clock. Troop transport via commercial airlines would be less expensive, the documents say.

The proposal, which has not been previously reported, represents another potential expansion of President Donald Trump’s willingness to employ the armed forces on American soil. It relies on a section of the U.S. Code that allows the commander in chief to circumvent limitations on the military’s use within the United States.

The documents, marked “predecisional,” are comprehensive and contain extensive discussion about the potential societal implications of establishing such a program. They were compiled by National Guard officials and bear time stamps as recent as late July and early August. Fiscal 2027 is the earliest this program could be created and funded through the Pentagon’s traditional budgetary process, the documents say, leaving unclear whether the initiative could begin sooner through an alternative funding source.

It is also unclear whether the proposal has been shared with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“The Department of Defense is a planning organization and routinely reviews how the department would respond to a variety of contingencies across the globe,” Kingsley Wilson, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We will not discuss these plans through leaked documents, pre-decisional or otherwise.”

The National Guard Bureau did not respond to a request for comment.

While most National Guard commands have fast-response teams for use within their home states, the proposal under evaluation by the Trump administration would entail moving troops from one state to another.

The National Guard tested the concept ahead of the 2020 election, putting 600 troops on alert in Arizona and Alabama as the country braced for possible political violence. The test followed months of unrest in cities across the country, prompted by the police murder of George Floyd, that spurred National Guard deployments in numerous locations. Trump, then nearing the end of his first term, sought to employ active-duty combat troops while Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and other Pentagon officials urged him to rely instead on the Guard, which is trained to address civil disturbances.

Trump has summoned the military for domestic purposes like few of his predecessors have. He did so most recently Monday, authorizing the mobilization of 800 D.C. National Guard troops to bolster enhanced law enforcement activity in Washington that he said is necessary to address violent crime. Data maintained by the D.C. police shows such incidents are in decline; the city’s mayor called the move “unsettling and unprecedented.”

Earlier this year, over the objections of California’s governor and other Democrats, Trump dispatched more than 5,000 National Guard members and active-duty Marines to the Los Angeles area under a rarely used authority permitting the military’s use for quelling insurrection. Administration officials said the mission was necessary to protect federal personnel and property amid protests denouncing Trump’s immigration policies. His critics called the deployment unnecessary and a gross overreach. Before long, many of the troops involved were doing unrelated support work, including a raid on a marijuana farm more than 100 miles away.

The Trump administration also has dispatched thousands of troops to the southern border in a dramatic show of force meant to discourage illegal migration.

National Guard troops can be mobilized for federal missions inside the United States under two main authorities. The first, Title 10, puts troops under the president’s direction, where they can support law enforcement activity but not perform arrests or investigations.

The other, Title 32, is a federal-state status where troops are controlled by their state governor but federally funded. It allows more latitude to participate in law enforcement missions. National Guard troops from other states arrived in D.C. under such circumstances during racial justice protests in 2020.

The proposal being evaluated now would allow the president to mobilize troops and put them on Title 32 orders in a state experiencing unrest. The documents detailing the plan acknowledge the potential for political friction should that state’s governor refuse to work with the Pentagon.

Some legal scholars expressed apprehension about the proposal.

The Trump administration is relying on a shaky legal theory that the president can act broadly to protect federal property and functions, said Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice who specializes in legal issues germane to the U.S. military’s domestic activities.

“You don’t want to normalize routine military participation in law enforcement,” he said. “You don’t want to normalize routine domestic deployment.”

The strategy is further complicated by the fact that National Guard members from one state cannot operate in another state without permission, Nunn said. He also warned that any quick-reaction force established for civil-unrest missions risks lowering the threshold for deploying National Guard troops into American cities.

“When you have this tool waiting at your fingertips, you’re going to want to use it,” Nunn said. “It actually makes it more likely that you’re going to see domestic deployments — because why else have a task force?”

The proposal represents a major departure in how the National Guard traditionally has been used, said Lindsay P. Cohn, an associate professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. While it is not unusual for National Guard units to be deployed for domestic emergencies within their states, including for civil disturbances, this “is really strange because essentially nothing is happening,” she said.

“Crime is going down. We don’t have major protests or civil disturbances. There is no significant resistance from states” to federal immigration policies, she said. “There is very little evidence anything big is likely to happen soon,” said Cohn, who stressed she was speaking in her personal capacity and not reflecting her employer’s views.

Moreover, Cohn said, the proposal risks diverting National Guard resources that may be needed to respond to natural disasters or other emergencies.

The proposal envisions a rotation of service members from Army and Air Force National Guard units based in multiple states. Those include Alabama, Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee, the documents say.

Carter Elliott, a spokesperson for Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), said governors and National Guard leaders are best suited to decide how to support law enforcement during emergencies. “There is a well-established procedure that exists to request additional assistance during times of need,” Elliott said, “and the Trump administration is blatantly and dangerously ignoring that precedent.”

One action memo contained in the documents, dated July 22, recommends that Army military police and Air Force security forces receive additional training for the mission. The document indicates it was prepared for Hegseth by Elbridge Colby, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for policy.

The 300 troops in each of the two headquarters locations would be outfitted with weapons and riot gear, the documents say. The first 100 would be ready to move within an hour, with the second and third waves ready within two and 12 hours’ notice, the documents note, or all immediately deployed when placed on high alert.

The quick-reaction teams would be on task for 90 days, the documents said, “to limit burnout.”

The documents also show robust internal discussions that, with unusual candor, detail the possible negative repercussions if the plan were enacted. For instance, such short-notice missions could “significantly impact volunteerism,” the documents say, which would adversely affect the military’s ability to retain personnel. Guard members, families and civilian employers “feel the significant impacts of short notice activations,” the documents said.

The documents highlight several other concerns, including:

• Reduced Availability for Other Missions: State-Level Readiness: States may have fewer Guard members available for local emergencies (e.g., wildfires, hurricanes).

• Strain on Personnel and Equipment: Frequent domestic deployments can lead to personnel fatigue (stress, burnout, employer conflicts) and accelerated wear and tear on equipment, particularly systems not designed for prolonged civil support missions.

• Training Disruptions: Erosion of Core Capabilities: Extensive domestic deployments can disrupt scheduled training, hinder skill maintenance and divert units from their primary military mission sets, ultimately impacting overall combat readiness.

• Budgetary and Logistical Strains: Sustained operations can stretch budgets, requiring emergency funding or impacting other planned activities.

• Public and Political Impact: National Guard support for DHS raises potential political sensitivities, questions regarding the appropriate civil-military balance and legal considerations related to their role as a nonpartisan force.

National Guard planning documents reviewed by The Post

Officials also have expressed some worry that deploying troops too quickly could make for a haphazard situation as state and local governments scramble to coordinate their arrival, the documents show.

One individual cited in the documents rejected the notion that military aviation should be the primary mode of transportation, emphasizing the significant burden of daily aircraft inspections and placing aircrews on constant standby. The solution, this official proposed, was to contract with Southwest Airlines or American Airlines through their Phoenix and Atlanta operations, the documents say.

“The support (hotels, meals, etc.) required will fall onto the general economy in large and thriving cities of the United States,” this official argued. Moreover, bypassing military aircraft would allow for deploying personnel to travel “in a more subdued status” that might avoid adding to tensions in their “destination city.”

Pentagon plan would create military ‘reaction force’ for civil unrest
Documents reviewed by The Post detail a prospective National Guard mission that, if adopted, would require hundreds of troops to be ready around-the-clock.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/08/12/national-guard-civil-unrest

Ken Klippenstein: Leaked DC Troop Deployment Order

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Discontent Among National Guard Ordered to DC Appears Widespread

District of Columbia National Guardsmen have been involuntarily ordered to report to duty at the DC Armory tomorrow through September 25, according to a copy of the order I obtained. Their purpose is to “protect federal property” and “support federal and District law enforcement,” the order says.

The directive follows Trump’s executive order this morning declaring a “crime emergency” in DC, for which reason Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a press conference that he would be deploying the National Guard. Though it wasn’t clear from their remarks what specifically the Guard’s mission would be, the order leaked to me shows that it will include the same federal protection and support to law enforcement mission as in the National Guard deployment to Los Angeles (which I also reported on extensively).

 “They are taking advantage of the fact that DC is not a state,” Joseph Nunn, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, told me. “DC has even less control over its own affairs than other non-state US territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands.”

Unlike all U.S. states, DC doesn’t have a governor; so the president doesn’t need to seek their consent to activate the National Guard there.

 “All but one of them are by default, under the command and control of their state governor or territorial governor — the sole exception is DC,” Nunn said.

Concerning as that seems, Guardsmen I spoke to regard the deployment as pointless political theater. (California Guardsmen made the same point to me about their deployment earlier this summer.)

“Huge waste of time and money when their focus is [supposed to be] saving money,” a DC National Guard source told me.

If the nearly half dozen Guardsmen I’ve spoken to about the deployment are at all representative, frustration with the order is widespread. (The memo I obtained, along with other details, leaked almost immediately.) As in the case of Los Angeles, the soldiers seemed most incensed by how performative and unnecessary they saw the mission as. This opposition apparently led some but not all Guardsmen to decline other requests to deploy voluntarily.

“I said no immediately because it’s like signing up for the Gestapo,” the Guard source said. “But I’m sure people will volunteer because they need the money or benefits from being on orders over 30 days.”

Defense One: How Trump’s DC takeover could supercharge surveillance

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The emergency declaration, combined with new tech, will give government broad new abilities to watch and monitor citizens.

President Trump’s declaration of a “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C., will further entwine the U.S. military—and its equipment and technology—in law-enforcement matters, and perhaps expose D.C. residents and visitors to unprecedented digital surveillance. 

Brushing aside statistics that show violent crime in D.C. at a 30-year low, Trump on Monday described a new level of coordination between D.C. National Guard units and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, ICE, and and the newly federalized D.C. police force. 

“We will have full, seamless, integrated cooperation at all levels of law enforcement, and will deploy officers across the district with an overwhelming presence. You’ll have more police, and you’ll be so happy because you’re being safe,” he said at a White House press conference. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, standing beside Trump, promised close collaboration between the Pentagon and domestic authorities. “We will work alongside all DC police and federal law enforcement to ensure this city is safe.” 

What comes next? The June 2020 deployment of National Guard units to work alongside D.C. police offers a glimpse: citywide use of sophisticated intelligence-gathering technologies normally reserved for foreign war zones.

Some surveillance platforms will be relatively easy to spot, such as spy aircraft over D.C.’s closely guarded airspace. In 2020, authorities deployed an RC-26B, a military-intelligence aircraft, and MQ-9 Predator drones. The FBI contributed a Cessna 560 equipped with “dirtboxes”: devices that mimic cell towers to collect mobile data, long used by the U.S. military to track terrorist networks in the Middle East.

Other gear will be less obvious.The 2020 protests saw expanded use of Stingrays, another type of cellular interception device. Developed to enable the military to track militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, Stingrays were used by the U.S. Secret Service in 2020 and 2021 in ways that the DHS inspector general found broke the law and policies concerning privacy and warrants. Agency officials said “exigent” circumstances justified the illicit spying.

Now, with federal agencies and entities working with military personnel under declared-emergency circumstances, new gear could enter domestic use. And local officials or the civilian review boards that normally oversee police use of such technologies may lack the power to prevent or even monitor it. In 2021, the D.C. government ended a facial-recognition pilot program after police used it to identify a protester at Lafayette Square. But local prohibitions don’t apply to federalized or military forces. 

Next up: AI-powered surveillance 

How might new AI tools, and new White House measures to ease sharing across federal entities, enable surveillance targeting?

DHS and its sub-agencies already use AI. Some tools—such as monitoring trucks or cargo at the border for contraband, mapping human trafficking and drug networks, and watching the border—serve an obvious public-safety mission. Last year, DHS used AI and other tools to identify 311 victims of sexual exploitation and to arrest suspected perpetrators. They also helps DHS counter the flow of fentanyl; last October, the agency cited AI while reporting a 50 percent increase in seizures and an 8 percent increase in arrests.

TSA uses facial recognition across the country to match the faces and documents of airline passengers entering the United States in at least 26 airports, according to 2022 agency data. The accuracy has improved greatly in the past decade, and research suggests even better performance is possible: the National Institute of Standards and Technology has shown that some algorithms can achieve 99%-plus accuracy under ideal conditions. 

But conditions are not always ideal, and mistakes can be costly. “There have been public reports of seven instances of mistaken arrests associated with the use of facial recognition technology, almost all involving Black individuals. The collection and use of biometric data also poses privacy risks, especially when it involves personal information that people have shared in unrelated contexts,” noted a Justice Department report in December. 

On Monday, Trump promised that the increased federal activity would target “known gangs, drug dealers and criminal networks.” But network mapping—using digital information to identify who knows who and how—has other uses, and raises the risk of innocent people being misidentified. 

Last week, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request concerning the use of two software tools by D.C.’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Called Cobwebs and Tangles, the tools can reveal sensitive information about any person with just a name or email address, according to internal documents cited in the filing.

Cobwebs shows how AI can wring new insights from existing data sources, especially when there are no rules to prohibit the gathering of large stores of data. Long before the capability existed to do it effectively, this idea was at the center of what, a decade ago, was called predictive policing. 

The concept has lost favor since the 2010s, but many law-enforcement agencies still pursue versions of it. Historically, the main obstacle has been too much data, fragmented across systems and structures. DHS has legal access to public video footage, social media posts, and border and airport entry records—but until recently, these datasets were difficult to analyze in real time, particularly within legal constraints.

That’s changing. The 2017 Modernizing Government Technology Act encouraged new software and cloud computing resources to help agencies use and share data more effectively, and in March, an executive order removed several barriers to interagency data sharing. The government has since awarded billions of dollars to private companies to improve access to internal data.

One of those companies is Palantir, whose work was characterized by the New York Times as an effort to compile a “master list” of data on U.S. citizens. The firm disputed that in a June 9 blog post: “Palantir is a software company and, in the context of our customer engagements, operates as a ‘data processor’—our software is used by customers to manage and make use of their data.”

In a 2019 article for the FBI training division, California sheriff Robert Davidson envisioned a scenario—now technologically feasible—in which AI analyzes body-camera imagery in real time: “Monitoring, facial recognition, gait analysis, weapons detection, and voice-stress analysis all would actively evaluate potential danger to the officer. After identification of a threat, the system could enact an automated response based on severity.”

The data DHS collects extends well beyond matching live images to photos in a database or detecting passengers’ emotional states. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, for instance, handles large volumes of multilingual email. DHS describes its email analytics program as using machine learning “for spam classification, translation, and entity extraction (such as names, organizations, or locations).”

Another DHS tool analyzes social-media posts to gather “open-source information on travelers who may be subject to further screening for potential violation of laws.” The tool can identify additional accounts and selectors, such as phone numbers or email addresses, according to DHS documentation.

Meanwhile, ICE’s operational scope has expanded. The White House has increased the agency’s authority to operate in hospitals and schools, collect employment data—including on non-imigrants, such as “sponsors” of unaccompanied minors—and impose higher penalties on individuals seen as “interfering” with ICE activities. Labor leaders say they’ve been targeted for their political activism. Protesters have been charged with assaulting ICE officers or employees. ICE has installed facial-recognition apps on officers’ phones, enabling on-the-spot identification of people protesting the agency’s tactics. DHS bulletins sent to local law enforcement encourage officers to consider a wide range of normal activity, such as filming police interactions, as potential precursors to violence.

Broad accessibility of even legally collected data raises concerns, especially in an era where AI tools can derive specific insights about people. But even before these developments, government watchdogs urged greater transparency around domestic AI use. A December report by the Government Accountability Office includes several open recommendations, mostly related to privacy protections and reporting transparency. The following month, DHS’s inspector general warned that the agency doesn’t have complete or well-resourced oversight frameworks. 

In June, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and several co-signers wrote to the Trump White House, “In addition to these concerning uses of sentiment analysis for law enforcement purposes, federal agencies have also shown interest in affective computing and deception detection technologies that purportedly infer individuals’ mental states from measures of their facial expressions, body language, or physiological activity.” 

The letter asks the GAO to investigate what DHS or Justice Department policies govern AI use and whether those are being followed. Markey’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Writing for the American Immigration Council in May, Steven Hubbard, the group’s senior data scientist, noted that of DHS’ 105 AI applications, 27 are “rights-impacting.”

“These are cases that the OMB, under the Biden administration, identified as impacting an individual’s rights, liberty, privacy, access to equal opportunity, or ability to apply for government benefits and services,” Hubbard said.

The White House recently replaced Biden-era guidance on AI with new rules meant to accelerate AI deployment across the federal government. While the updated guidelines retain many safety guardrails, they do include some changes, including merging “privacy-impacting” and “safety-impacting” uses of AI into a single category: “high impact.”

The new rules also eliminate a requirement for agencies to notify people when AI tools might affect them—and to offer an opt-out.

Precedents for this kind of techno-surveillance expansion can be found in countries rarely deemed models for U.S. policy. China and Russia have greatly expanded surveillance and policing under the auspices of security. China operates an extensive camera network in public spaces and centralizes its data to enable rapid AI analysis. Russia has followed a similar path through its “Safe Cities” program, integrating data feeds from a vast surveillance network to spot and stop crime, protests, and dissent.

So far, the U.S. has spent less than these near-peers, as a percent of GDP, on surveillance tools, which are operated under a framework, however strained, of rule-of-law and rights protections that can mitigate the most draconian uses.

But the distinction between the United States and China and Russia is shrinking, Nathan Wessler, deputy director with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in July. “There’s the real nightmare scenario, which is pervasive tracking of live or recorded video, something that, by and large, we have kept at bay in the United States. It’s the kind of thing that authoritarian regimes have invested in heavily.” 

Wessler noted that in May, the Washington Post reported that New Orleans authorities were applying facial recognition to live video feeds. “At that scale, that [threatens to] just erase our ability to go about our lives without being pervasively identified and tracked by the government.”

How Trump’s DC takeover could supercharge surveillance
The emergency declaration, combined with new tech, will give government broad new abilities to watch and monitor citizens.

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2025/08/how-trumps-dc-takeover-could-supercharge-surveillance/407376

Daily Beast: MAGA Couple Regrets Trump Vote After Terrifying Border Patrol Stop

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The husband and wife, both citizens, were stopped on their way to a dentist appointment.

The joke’s on you, bubba!

What do you expect when you vote for a bigoted racist with 34 felony convictions?

Two Trump voters allege that Border Patrol agents racially profiled them after they were stopped and questioned on the way to the dentist.

George and Esmeralda Doilez, both U.S. citizens, were driving to an appointment in Southern California on Wednesday when a dark SUV started to follow them.

George told a San Diego NBC affiliate that the SUV put on a siren, pulled them over, and a group of masked Border Patrol agents got out to question them.

The Doilezes told NBC7 that they had been scoping out potential camping sites in the area on the way to the dental appointment.

George and Esmeralda voted for Trump in 2020, both of their first time voting, and again in 2024.

In a video of the interaction, a Border Patrol agent questions George through the car window.

“If you have a dentist appointment, it probably wasn’t the best idea to be out in the middle of nowhere,” the agent tells him.

“We have the right to travel anywhere we want to travel,” George says.

“You’re absolutely right, you do, and I actually have the right and authority to stop you,” the agent replies. “It’s called reasonable suspicion.”

The stated reason for the stop was that a “known alien” had been detected in the area, which is about 9 miles from the Southern Border. The agent said the Doilezes had aroused suspicion by making several U-turns.

But the couple said they thought the true rationale for the stop was their skin color.

“Why are we not allowed to be here? Because we’re not white? Our skin doesn’t match?” George told NBC7.

The agent called a K-9 unit, which detected a small amount of legally purchased cannabis in the car.

Citing that finding as probable cause, the agents searched George and Esmeralda’s car before letting them go about 30 minutes after the encounter began.

“I’m gonna go ahead and let you off with a warning,” the agent said after he told them he could have ticketed them for having marijuana.

In the wake of the incident, which left George “terrified” and his wife “shaking and crying,” the couple said that they regretted their votes for Trump.

“I feel shame, guilt, and anger at the same time because of the promises that he made that he lied to us about, going after the worst of the worst,” Georgesaid. “He lied on those and he stole our vote.”

Despite Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policies dictating that the agency cannot lawfully detain U.S. citizens, the agencies have detained dozens of citizens—including an electrician in New York and a tow yard employee near Los Angeles—per CNN.

Echoing Doilez’s frustration with Trump’s promise to target the “worst of the worst,” internal ICE data obtained by NBC shows that about half of those in custody have been neither convicted nor charged with a crime.

“Complying is going to get you in a prison concentration camp,” George said. “That’s what it’s going to do eventually. Maybe it might be sooner than we all think.”

A spokesperson for Customs and Border Patrol said in a statement to the Beast that the incident was a “lawful stop based on reasonable suspicion” and that “the claim that the stop was based on racial profiling is baseless.”

“Border Patrol Agents acted within their legal authority throughout this incident and remained focused on CBP’s mission: securing the border,” the statement said.

MAGA Couple Regrets Trump Vote After Terrifying Border Patrol Stop
The husband and wife, both citizens, were stopped on their way to a dentist appointment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-couple-regrets-trump-vote-after-terrifying-border-patrol-stop

KTLA: 2 Los Angeles protesters charged with assaulting federal officers at immigration rally

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Resist ICE!

Support the resistance!

A federal grand jury has indicted two Southern California residents on charges that they allegedly assaulted federal officers during an anti-immigration enforcement protest last month outside a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday.

Erin Petra Escobar, 34, of the Palms neighborhood of Los Angeles, is charged with one felony count of assault on a federal officer or employee and one misdemeanor count of depredation of government property. Nick Elias Gutierrez, 20, of Hawthorne, faces two felony counts: one for assault on a federal officer or employee, and another for assault on a federal officer or employee resulting in bodily injury.

The indictment alleges that on July 17, a small group of protesters gathered outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and United States Courthouse to protest recent immigration enforcement operations. Court documents allege that Escobar was seen using a permanent marker to write on and damage federal property. When officers approached to detain her, Gutierrez allegedly grabbed an officer’s bulletproof vest straps and shook him. During the struggle to detain Gutierrez, one officer dislocated his left ring finger.

Escobar and Gutierrez were eventually arrested. While being transported to a nearby holding cell, Escobar allegedly spat into the face of one of the officers, according to prosecutors.

Both defendants are scheduled to be arraigned on August 15 in United States District Court in Los Angeles. They are currently free on a $5,000 bond.

If convicted, Escobar faces a statutory maximum sentence of eight years in federal prison for the assault charge and up to one year for the depredation charge. Gutierrez faces up to 20 years for the assault resulting in injury count and a maximum of eight years for the assault charge.

The United States Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service is investigating the case, which is being prosecuted by the Justice Department’s General Crimes Section.

An indictment contains allegations, and both defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.

2 Los Angeles protesters charged with assaulting federal officers at immigration rally
A federal grand jury has indicted two Southern California residents on charges that they allegedly assaulted federal officers during an anti-immigration enforcement protest last month outside a fed…

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/protesters-charged-assaulting-federal-officers-immigration-rally

KEYT: Nursing mother unlawfully detained by ICE, attorney says

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The attorneys for a nursing mother in the Twin Cities who has spent more than three weeks in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody argue she is unlawfully detained and will petition in federal court on Tuesday for her release.

Antonia Aguilar Maldonado, 26, has two young children who are U.S. citizens and lives in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, and was taken into custody on July 17. Gloria Contreras Edin and Hannah Brown, who are representing her pro bono, submitted a writ of habeas corpus petition challenging her continued detention.

They argue she should be released on bond in accordance with an immigration judge’s earlier decision on July 31, to which the Department of Homeland Security filed an automatic stay, which has kept her in the Kandiyohi County Jail.

“I’ve had over 1,000 cases before the immigration courts, and in all of my years and in all of my experience, I haven’t seen anything like this before, especially when someone is lactating, has small baby at home, no criminal history, and then being detained for so long,” Contreras Edin said in an interview. “It just goes against ICE’s policies. It just seems wrong.”

There is a hearing on Tuesday at 2 p.m. in St. Paul seeking emergency relief. In court filings, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Maldonado’s detention is “fully supported by statute, regulation and the Constitution” and that “her detention is lawful because she is an applicant for admission who is not ‘clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted’ to the United States,” writing that Maldonado “herself does not claim that she has lawful status to remain in the United States.”

The government is asking the judge to reject the motion for a temporary restraining order.

“We should respect the fact that our country can and should enforce immigration laws. I think that’s important,” Contreras Edin said. “But I also think that we should recognize an element of humanitarian interests and concerns, right? We don’t want a US citizen baby being deprived of his mother’s milk. This is about a mother and a baby.”

Maldonado came to the U.S. as a teenager in 2017 and had a removal order in 2019 for failing to attend a hearing. But an immigration judge reopened her case last year after finding she wasn’t given notice of that court appearance, her attorney said.

Since then, she has been doing “everything right,” Contreras Edin explained, and filed for asylum, obtained work authorization and has no criminal history. Her arrest on July 17 came as a surprise.

“In my practice during removal proceedings, someone like Ms. Maldonado would have normally been released on a bond and then proceed with a non-detained docket, and would have been allowed to appear before an immigration judge while being able to be with her family and her children,” she said.

Contreras Edin described her client as depressed and distraught and said she has to pump breast milk and dump it in the sink.

“She’s imagining the wailing of her baby every night, and that’s what she goes to bed to, and now her milk is turning green,” she said.

Her children are currently staying with relatives.

When asked about Maldonado’s case, a spokesperson for ICE provided the following statement to WCCO: “By statute, we have no information on this person.”

Contreras Edin said she is hopeful a judge will authorize the release of Maldonado, pointing to a similar case involving a Turkish graduate student at the University of Minnesota who was detained by ICE and later released.

Nursing mother unlawfully detained by ICE, attorney says | News Channel 3-12
By Caroline Cummings Click here for updates on this story TWIN CITIES, Minnesota (WCCO) — The attorneys for a nursing mother in
Nursing mother unlawfully detained by ICE, attorney says

NBC News: U.S. citizen detained by ICE in L.A. says she wasn’t given water for 24 hours

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Andrea Velez was charged with assaulting a federal officer while he was attempting to arrest a suspect. The DOJ later dismissed her case.

A U.S. citizen who was detained by immigration agents and accused of obstructing an arrest before her case was ultimately dismissed said she is still traumatized by what happened.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained Andrea Velez in downtown Los Angeles on June 24. She was charged with assaulting a federal officer while he was attempting to arrest a suspect.

The Justice Department dismissed her case without prejudice. It did not immediately reply to a request for comment Tuesday.

Velez, a production coordinator for a shoe company, recalled seeing federal agents when her mother and sister dropped her off at work.

“It was like a scene,” she told NBC Los Angeles. “They were just ready to attack and chase.”

Velez said someone grabbed her and slammed her to the ground. She said that she tried to tell the agent, who was in plainclothes, that she was a citizen but that he told her she “was interfering with what he was doing, so he was going to arrest me.”

“That’s when I asked him to show me his ID, his badge number,” she said. “I asked him if he had a warrant, and he said I didn’t need to know any of that.”

A federal criminal complaint alleged that an agent was chasing a man and that Velez stepped into the agent’s path and extended her arm “in an apparent effort to prevent him from apprehending the male subject he was chasing.”

The complaint said Velez’s arm hit the agent in the face.

Velez said she denied any wrongdoing and insisted she was a U.S. citizen. She was taken to a detention center in downtown Los Angeles, where she gave officers her driver’s license and her health insurance card, but she was still booked into jail, she said.

She said she spent two days in the detention center, where she had nothing to drink for 24 hours.

Velez said that the ordeal traumatized her and that she has not been able to physically return to work.

“I’m taking things day by day,” she told NBC Los Angeles.

Her attorneys told the station that they are exploring legal options against the federal government.

Her story echoes those of others who have said they were wrongfully detained by immigration agents under President Donald Trump’s push for mass deportations.

Job Garcia, a Ph.D. student and photographer, said he was immigration agents tackled him and threw him to the ground for recording a raid at a Home Depot in Los Angeles. He was held for more than 24 hours before his release. In July, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said it was seeking $1 million in damages, alleging that Garcia was assaulted and falsely imprisoned.

In June, a deputy U.S. marshal was briefly detained in the lobby of a federal building in Tucson, Arizona, because he “fit the general description of a subject being sought by ICE,” the U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement.

And in May, Georgia college student Ximena Arias-Cristobal was granted bond after she was detained by immigration agents after local police pulled over the wrong car during a traffic stop.

U.S. citizen detained by ICE in L.A. says she wasn’t given water for 24 hours
Andrea Velez was charged with assaulting a federal officer while he was attempting to arrest a suspect. The DOJ later dismissed her case.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna224493

Democracy Now: Community Organizer Slams “Fascist ICE Agents” After Arrest of U.S. Citizen Documenting Raids

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Click one of the links below to read the transcript.

Community Organizer Slams “Fascist ICE Agents” After Arrest of U.S. Citizen Documenting Raids
As immigration raids and arrests continue to terrorize communities across the United States, we look at grassroots efforts to fight back. ICE has faced widespread backlash over the arrest of community advocates swept up while documenting raids across the country, many of them U.S. citizens. In Los Angeles, nurse and community activist Amanda Trebach was released from federal custody this weekend without criminal charges, after she was violently arrested early Friday morning while recording the operations of federal immigration agents in the area. Trebach, who is part of the community group Unión del Barrio, was released Saturday after intense community pressure.
“This is just another example of the Trump administration and their fascist ICE agents — or whoever they are, because they’re unidentified — violating the rights and breaking the law that they’re supposed to protect,” says Ron Gochez, an organizer with Unión del Barrio.

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/8/11/los_angeles

Law & Crime: ‘It violates my order’: Federal judge calls out DOJ for making ‘completely novel’ pro-Alina [“Bimbo #4”] Habba argument he specifically didn’t want to hear yet

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Though he refused to dismiss a drug-trafficking indictment, a federal judge said he wants to hear more about whether U.S. Attorney General Pam [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi unlawfully reappointed acting U.S. Attorney Alina [“Bimbo #4”] Habba to her role, opening the door to scrutiny of the Trump administration’s method of apparently sidestepping a court and the U.S. Senate’s blocking of certain nominations.

Chief U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania Matthew Brann, sitting by designation in the criminal cases of Julien Giraud Jr. and Julien Giraud III after the New Jersey district court declined to appoint [“Bimbo #4”] Habba itself upon the expiration of her 120-day acting limit, decided Friday that the Girauds were “not entitled to dismissal.” At the same time, the defendants made a persuasive enough case for “additional argument regarding the legality of Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba’s appointment” and the authority of the assistant U.S. attorneys under her command or supervision.

“I begin with dismissal of the indictment, which I conclude is not available, and then turn to injunctions against Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba and anyone acting under her authority, which I conclude would be appropriate if the Girauds prevail on the merits,” the judge wrote.

Regarding dismissal, Brann determined that the Girauds could not credibly argue their indictment, obtained through the Senate-confirmed then-U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger, is “somehow retroactively taint[ed]” by Habba’s appointment, whether or not that was lawful.

But the Girauds can still make their best pitch for blocking Habba, and her assistants, from prosecuting them going forward.

“The Girauds argue in the alternative that Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba should be enjoined from prosecuting their case, and that any AUSAs acting under her supervision be similarly barred. As discussed in the previous section, the Court generally agrees that this remedy would be the appropriate response to the constitutional and statutory violations the Girauds claim,” the judge wrote. “This relief raises two questions: (1) can the Court bar Ms. [“Bimbo #4”] Habba from participating in the Girauds’ prosecution, and (2) does a bar on Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba’s participation extend to AUSAs?”

“As to the first question, I conclude that the answer is yes,” Brann added.

The answer to the second question, about [“Bimbo #4”] Habba’s AUSAs, was more nuanced. Brann indicated he would not go so far as to block the whole office from prosecuting, but that he could when these prosecutors “do so under Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba’s authority” — again, if her reappointment was illegal.

“To be clear, the Court is not suggesting that it might impose the ‘officewide disqualification’ the Government fears,” the judge said. “Instead, the Court agrees that a valid remedy for the violations the Girauds’ assert, if I find that they occurred, may be to bar AUSAs from engaging in prosecutions when they do so under Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba’s authority.”

The line prosecutors or a higher-up DOJ official could still legally come to court under AG [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi’s authority, with [“Bimbo #4”] Habba in effect recusing herself and not putting her name and title on any filings, Brann said.

“The Court sees no reason why AUSAs acting directly under the delegated authority of Ms. [“Bimbo #3″] Bondi, or possibly another Department of Justice official with sufficient authority to extend Ms. Bondi’s powers to AUSAs in New Jersey, would need to be disqualified,” he explained. “Moreover, so long as it is clear that they are acting under Ms. [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi’s—and not Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba’s—authority (essentially a temporary recusal until this matter is resolved), there would appear to be no issue with all of District of New Jersey’s AUSAs moving prosecutions forward now.”

Along the way, even as the judge blasted as “misplaced” the Girauds’ challenge of Habba’s authority for relying on U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s Appointments Clause-based dismissal of special counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago prosecution of Trump, Brann also had some stern words for the DOJ.

The judge noted that he had ordered both the defendants and the DOJ to submit briefs under the assumption that [“Bimbo #4”] Habba was unlawfully appointed, yet the DOJ included an argument that said [“Bimbo #4”] Habba was lawfully appointed one way or another.

Recall that in order to keep [“Bimbo #4”] Habba as acting U.S. attorney Trump pulled her nomination. [“Bimbo #4”] Habba resigned before her acting 120-day stint technically expired and before her first assistant Desiree Leigh Grace’s appointment by court as U.S. attorney became effective.

[“Bimbo #3”] Bondi promptly fired Grace and then reinstalled Habba, citing the Federal Vacancies Reform Act when naming Habba first assistant in the U.S. attorney’s office. At the same time, just in case anyone questioned that legal authority, Habba was named a “Special Attorney to the United States Attorney General” under a federal statute governing the commission of special attorneys, giving her the power to act as a U.S. attorney through another means.

Brann said the DOJ violated his order by citing the latter authority in support of [“Bimbo #4”] Habba, putting the proverbial “cart before the horse.”

“The Government’s argument to the contrary puts the cart before the horse. It argues that no remedy is available to the Girauds by simply rejecting the premise—which I ordered them to assume—that Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba has been illegally appointed, instead contending that she is legally exercising the powers of the United States Attorney through a delegation of the Attorney General’s power to conduct and supervise ‘all litigation to which the United States . . . is a party’ as a ‘Special Attorney’ or in her role as the First Assistant United States Attorney,” he wrote.

“But that is explicitly a merits argument: the Girauds are only entitled to no remedy if the Court finds that Ms. [“Bimbo #4”] Habba’s appointment as a Special Attorney is valid or that Ms. [“Bimbo #3″] Bondi can delegate a First Assistant a level of authority commensurate with the United States Attorney’s,” Brann continued. “Because it violates my Order, I do not consider the argument at this stage.”

The judge added that the DOJ’s maneuvering has “extreme implications that it openly embraces,” making a full briefing and oral argument on the “completely novel question” appropriate.

“[B]y using the Special Attorney designation and delegation, Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba may exercise all of the powers of the United States Attorney without being subject to any of the statutory limitations on that office,” Brann wrote, summarizing the DOJ’s argument. “Whether the Attorney General may statutorily or constitutionally delegate all of the powers of a specific office created by separate statute and constrained by its own statutory limitations in order to evade those limitations is a completely novel question, and one that inherently implicates the Appointments Clause and thus the merits of the Girauds’ motion. I defer resolving it until it has been fully briefed.”

Federal judge dings DOJ for making pro-Alina Habba argument he specifically didn’t want to hear
Though he refused to dismiss an indictment, a judge said he wants to hear more about whether Pam Bondi unlawfully reappointed acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba.
‘It violates my order’: Federal judge calls out DOJ for making ‘completely novel’ pro-Alina Habba argument he specifically didn’t want to hear yet

Newsweek: Woman With Green Card Detained by ICE After 14 Years in US, Boyfriend Says

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A Colombian immigrant and green-card holder who has lived in Oklahoma for more than a decade and has American children has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to her boyfriend.

Newsweek reached out to ICE via email for comment.

A GoFundMe was recently created to help raise funds for legal fees pertaining to the detainment of Daniela Villada Restrepo, who lives in Oklahoma City and works in health care. She has three children, all born in the U.S. She is a lawful permanent resident, meaning she has a green card.

Why It Matters

Restrepo’s case underscores more widespread concerns by immigrants and attorneys warning caution about potential arrest and detainment, even to those without criminal records. Newsweek could not verify whether Restrepo has any type of criminal background.

President Donald Trump has pledged to launch the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, and immigrants residing in the country illegally and legally, with valid documentation such as green cards and visas, have been detained. Newsweek has reported dozens of cases involving green-card holders and applicants who were swept up in raids and various arrests.

What To Know

According to her boyfriend, Scott Sperber, ICE agents detained Restrepo on April 12 when she missed a mandatory mental health court appointment, incurring a warrant. ICE records show that she is being held at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, which Sperber claims is unable to provide her mental health therapy.

Her Facebook page says she is originally from Medellín, Antioquia, in Colombia.

“Daniela has since been held in an ICE detention center located in Alvarado, Texas, unable to complete her mental health therapy,” Sperber wrote on the GoFundMe page he started on July 23. “Prior to this detainment, Daniela has legally lived in America for almost 14 years. She was married to an American citizen for almost 10 years, and she has three children living in the United States that are American citizens.”

Newsweek reached out to Sperber via the GoFundMe page for comment.

As of the afternoon of August 4, the page had received just two donations totaling $80.

Sperber described his girlfriend as a “wonderful mother and wonderful companion who has had some trials in her life with abusive relationships. She has been fighting to heal and progress.”

She has worked for the Oklahoma State Health Department for nearly five years and as director of patient care services at The Bilingual Clinic PLLC, a business started by her ex-husband and father of her children.

“She is bilingual and has always strived to help provide the best care for those here in America with language barriers,” Sperber said. “She has a character that is caring and loving. Daniela wants, above all, to continue living here legally in the United States so she may care for her children and experience the joy of watching them grow up as any parent would.”

Daniela’s Facebook and Instagram accounts use the name “Daniela Deweber,” writing in a March post on Facebook: “Daniela Villada Restrepo is the name my parents gave me, Daniela Deweber is my married name.”

The GoFundMe was started by Sperber because of legal fees associated with Restrepo’s hopeful release, as well as limited funds due to multiple health situations.

What People Are Saying

ICE, on X on August 4: “ICE is targeting illegal aliens, not law-abiding citizens.”

What Happens Next

A lawyer has been hired in Restrepo’s case.

Sperber, who said he is just starting to recover financially following an automobile accident, is also his grandfather’s sole caregiver. The grandfather receives medical treatment for skin cancer.

“With all of these overbearing aspects of financial life at play, I do not have the adequate funds to pay for her legal fees, her awarded bond, nor to pay her attorney to continue the fight,” Sperber said. “Also, I don’t have adequate financial means to pay for all my grandfather’s health-related financial obligations.

“I am living day by day, one step at a time, and it has become so overwhelming I am finally choosing to ask for help.”

Woman with green card detained by ICE after 14 years in US, boyfriend says
The Oklahoma resident originally from Colombia was married to an American citizen and has three children living in the U.S.

https://www.newsweek.com/green-card-ice-immigration-detention-citizen-2108666