Tag Archives: Washington

Straight Arrow News: Washington state agency shared license, vehicle info with ICE: Report

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A Washington state agency, the Department of Licensing, provided Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies with access to private driver’s license and vehicle information, KING 5 said in a report published on Friday, July 11. This is the case even though Washington has laws in place prohibiting local agencies from sharing personal data with the federal government if they’re using it for deportations.

A similar finding was revealed in 2018. After protests against the department sharing personal data with federal agencies, as well as legislative pressure, the Department of Licensing canceled a lot of those agreements.

KING 5 found that some of these accounts were quietly reinstated, including ones with ICE, Border Patrol and other Homeland Security entities. The news outlet wrote that this has led to a “dramatic” surge in data searches since the election of President Donald Trump, who campaigned on mass deportations.

Federal officials’ use of the Department of Licensing accounts increased by 188% since Trump was elected to a second non-consecutive term in November 2024. ICE’s account,for instance, showed searches for driver and vehicle records went from about 540 in November to 1,600 in May 2025.

The Department of Licensing said in emails to KING 5 that they are following state and federal laws, and attributed the increase in account use to significant variability” in monthly searches and a shift across “two presidential administrations with two different immigration ideologies.”

Jennie Pasquarella, the legal director of a nonprofit representing immigrants called the Clemency Project, expressed her concerns about the reopening of these accounts to KING 5.

“As ICE is ramping up their enforcement actions in our state, the last thing we want is for them to be able to search a treasure trove of information about home addresses,” she stated. “It is critical that we ensure that information is walled off so that people don’t fear accessing it.”

It’s time to roll some head in Olympia. Remove the unauthorized illegal access and fire those who permitted it.

Washington state agency shared license, vehicle info with ICE: Report
Washington state’s Department of Licensing provided ICE with access to driver’s license and vehicle information: Report

https://san.com/cc/washington-state-agency-shared-license-vehicle-info-with-ice-report

Daily Beast: Trump Celebrates Civil War Win With Brutal Message to GOP

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Donald Trump is once again reminding Republicans where disloyalty gets you.

The president celebrated on Sunday night shortly after GOP Senator Thom Tillis announced he would not seek re-election next year. A day earlier, the North Carolina Republican had voted against advancing Trump’s signature spending package—the so-called “big, beautiful bill”—incurring the president’s wrath. Trump quickly slammed Tillis in Truth Social posts and threatened to back a primary challenger.

“Great News! “Senator” Thom Tillis will not be seeking reelection,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after Tillis bowed out.

In a follow-up post, Trump suggested that Republicans who oppose his legislative priorities could pay a political price.

Given Trump’s nosediving approval ratings, coupled with the millions losing benefits, e.g. healthcare coverage, thanks to the Big Fat Ugly Bill, the 2026 midterms are expect to be a major rout of Republicans.

Trump Celebrates Civil War Win by Threatening Entire GOP
The president issued a brazen reminder to any who dare to defy him.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-celebrates-civil-war-win-with-brutal-message-to-gop

Rolling Stone: J.D. Vance Thinks Black Lives Matter Should ‘Celebrate’ Trump

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Trump has called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate” and called its supporters “thugs”

Vice President J.D. Vance, who previously spread conspiracy theories about the Black Lives Matter movement, said Saturday that its leaders and supporters should celebrate President Donald Trump because he’s “done more to save Black lives than any leader in our country.” 

Trump has called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate” and called its supporters “thugs.” In 2020, Trump deployed the National Guard on people in Washington, D.C. protesting the police murder of George Floyd. He also allegedly said of the protesters, “Can’t you just shoot them?”

In 1973 Trump was sued in federal court for refusing to rent apartments to blacks. Why should blacks celebrate such a bigot?

J.D. Vance Thinks Black Lives Matter Should ‘Celebrate’ Trump
Vice President J.D. Vance wrote that Black Lives Matter supporters should celebrate Donald Trump after Trump negotiated a peace agreement in Africa.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/j-d-vance-black-lives-matter-trump-1235375033

Mirror: Texas man born on U.S. Army Base abroad deported to country he’s never been to and left stateless

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A man from Texas claims that he was locked up in an ICE detention center for months before being sent to his father’s home country, where he has never been before.

A Texas man is currently stranded in Jamaica after getting deported for being born on a U.S. Army base in Germany.

Jermaine Thomas was dragged onto a deportation flight by immigration agents last week over a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he did not qualify for U.S. citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Thomas was born in 1986 on a U.S. Army Base in Germany, where his Jamaican-born father had served for nearly two decades. However, the military brat says he has never visited the Caribbean island before.

Now, he is stranded there by a fluke without citizenship to any country, rendering him stateless. He is unsure how long he will be trapped there and, in the meantime, is unsure how to find employment, especially since he struggles to understand the native dialect. 

Long article, he almost got deported to Nicaragua instead of Jamaica. Click on links below to read the entire article:

Texas man born on U.S. Army Base deported to country he’s never been to
A man from Texas claims that he was locked up in an ICE detention center for months before being sent to his father’s home country, where he has never been before.

https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/texas-man-born-us-army-1230810

News Nation: Doxing strikes nerve among federal agents

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Democrats push back against masked agents arresting immigrants, but Republicans worry about officers’ safety

Doxing has already struck a nerve among federal agents in El Paso supporting immigration operations.

“I have experienced that with one of my employees, who was photographed during an operation. It was put out on Instagram, and the individual who had posted that had indicated that ‘the community needs to remind him where he came from,’” said Jason T. Stevens, HSI special agent in charge in El Paso.

What is clearly free speech for some can translate into a threat to others.

“My employee felt such a threat that he completely changed his appearance to be able to protect his family when he’s off-duty and out in the community with them,” Stevens said at a recent Senate committee hearing in Washington, D.C.

FBI Deputy Assistant Director Jose Perez said doxing – the act of publishing someone’s private information online without consent – can not only hurt the target but also their loved ones.

“The doxing poses tremendous vulnerability,” said Perez, who heads the Criminal Investigative Division. “One example […] In this incident, the agent was being threatened also with pictures of his children to back down on the operations that are ongoing. It is a significant threat that we are concerned with.”

Dox them all — the masked Gestapo thugs terrorizing neighborhoods and disappearing people off the streets get no sympathy from me!

Let the First Amendment rule!

News Nation: Doxing strikes nerve among federal agents

https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/border-coverage/doxing-strikes-nerve-among-federal-agents

Associated Press: A judge resisted Trump’s order on gender identity. The EEOC just fired her

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The federal agency charged with protecting workers’ civil rights has terminated a New York administrative judge who opposed White House directives, including President Donald Trump’s executive order decreeing male and female as two “immutable” sexes.

In February, Administrative Judge Karen Ortiz, who worked in the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s New York office, called Trump’s order “unethical” and criticized Acting Chair Andrea Lucas — Trump’s pick to lead the agency — for complying with it by pausing work on legal cases involving discrimination claims from transgender workers. In an email copied to more than 1,000 colleagues, Ortiz pressed Lucas to resign.

Judge Ortiz probably should have been a bit for discrete, but thank you for standing up for what is right.

A judge resisted Trump’s order on gender identity. The EEOC just fired her
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has fired New York administrative judge Karen Ortiz, who has openly criticized the agency’s compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive order defining male and female as “immutable” sexes.

https://apnews.com/article/transgender-discrimination-trump-gender-eeoc-28901a16c60b789404ebaa18f7ecf73b

Raw Story: DOJ slams judge’s ‘clear error’ and fights release in wrongful deportation case

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President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice on Tuesday opposed the release of a migrant it already acknowledged was wrongly deported to El Salvador, and accused a magistrate judge of committing a “clear error.”

In March, Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to the country despite a 2019 court order barring his removal due to fear of persecution. He was imprisoned without trial in a notorious maximum security prison and was subsequently criticized as an “administrative error.” The Supreme Court delivered a confusing order that the government must “facilitate” his return.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration argued that the magistrate judgeerred by rejecting established precedent. The government said she misinterpreted the word “involves” regarding a youth when she wrongly denied a detention hearing.

Picking nits over nothing! Our tax dollars at waste!

DOJ slams judge’s ‘clear error’ and fights release in wrongful deportation case

https://www.rawstory.com/kilmar-abrego-garcia-2672427174

Newsweek: Former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra: They Created a Crisis in LA To Cover for a Catastrophe in D.C. | Opinion

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This month, Californians filled the streets of Los Angeles to peacefully demand justice for SEIU President David Huerta—who was violently detained by ICE during an immigration protest—and for so many hardworking immigrant families across our state. The response? Tear gas. Rubber bullets. National Guard troops unnecessarily deployed to flex federal muscle. And a United States senator literally wrestled to the ground for daring to ask basic questions.

This wasn’t just an overreaction. It was a message: fall in line—or face the consequences.

At the same time, in Washington, the Trump administration is dismantling the very systems that keep our families safe and healthy. They’re firing scientists, defunding cancer research, slashing Medicaid, and replacing trusted experts with conspiracy theorists. It’s not just policy failure. It’s a campaign of calculated neglect—and political retribution aimed at states like ours that dare to push back.

…

In just six months, the Trump administration has launched a full-scale assault on these safeguards. They’ve gutted funding, laid off thousands of career scientists, and shuttered key public health teams—all while claiming these cuts are about “efficiency.”

Let’s be clear: this isn’t streamlining. It’s sabotage.

This administration didn’t just fire the experts tracking avian flu, which has now infected dozens of people in California and is spreading rapidly through livestock. They disbanded the FDA team investigating the lead-contaminated applesauce that poisoned more than 500 children. They cut NIH programs working to prevent cancer and Alzheimer’s. They even fired the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel—weeks after a measles outbreak, as pregnant women and children remain vulnerable to viruses like COVID-19—only to replace them with vaccine skeptics.

…

They Created a Crisis in LA To Cover for a Catastrophe in D.C. | Opinion
We can’t stand by while Washington plays politics with our health, our future, and our hardest-working families.

https://www.newsweek.com/former-hhs-secretary-xavier-becerra-they-created-crisis-la-cover-catastrophe-dc-opinion-2089591

CBS News: Cuts to FEMA’s storm prep program hammer communities that voted for Trump

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A CBS News investigation found two-thirds of counties that have lost funding from this FEMA program supported President Trump in the 2024 election.

The mayor of Central — a community of about 30,000 outside of Baton Rouge — Evans and his family were forced to evacuate their home by boat in 2016 when flooding from torrential rains destroyed 60% of the structures in town.

“Flood water doesn’t discriminate,” said Evans, a Republican and supporter of President Trump. ‘”Any person that flooded is shocked that it would be considered politics to do flood mitigation.”

So when he received word in April that FEMA was canceling a grant program that would provide nearly $40 million for a new flood control system in Central, he was angry. In a press release, FEMA said the program, which provided funding for infrastructure projects in storm-prone communities, was “wasteful” and had become “more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans recover from natural disasters.”

“To me, it’s a brilliant business decision,” said Evans, who said the drainage project in Central would have saved money in the long run by protecting houses that routinely sustain flood damage FEMA ultimately ends up covering. “And then they pulled the rug out from under us.”

Evans and Central aren’t alone. Amid the avalanche of cuts made in the first five months of the Trump administration, none may have red state politicians more up in arms than the cancellation of the infrastructure program, which is formally known as Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC for short.

The $4.6 billion initiative was launched under the first Trump administration, and a CBS News analysis of FEMA data revealed that two-thirds of the counties awarded grants voted for President Trump over former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election.

In other words, King Donald is giving his own fan bois the royal shaft!

https://www.cbsnews.com/femagrantcuts

Alternet: Trump just broke the law — again

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After the United States bombed Iran’s three nuclear facilities on Sunday, US President Donald Trump said its objective was a “stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror”.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed this justification, saying:

The president authorised a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interest posed by the Iranian nuclear program and the collective self-defenze of our troops and our ally Israel.

Is this a legitimate justification for a state to launch an attack on another?

I believe, looking at the evidence, it is not.

Under the UN Charter, there are two ways in which a state can lawfully use force against another state:

・the UN Security Council authorizes force in exceptional circumstances to restore or maintain international peace and security under Chapter 7

・the right of self defense when a state is attacked by another, as outlined in Article 51.

On the first point, there was no UN Security Council authorization for either Israel or the US to launch an attack on Iran to maintain international peace and security. The security council has long been concerned about Iran’s nuclear program and adopted a series of resolutions related to it. However, none of those resolutions authorized the use of military force.

With regard to self defence, this right is activated if there is an armed attack against a nation. And there’s no evidence of any recent Iranian attacks on the US.

Trump just broke the law — again

https://www.alternet.org/trump-international-courts