Taking DHS to task

 "To look evil in the eye and fight it."

No integrity. No shame.

In defiance of these hearings, ICE is ramping up.

They should be under investigation

 

Would you have ever imagined ICE wasn't brutal ENOUGH?

Apparently, LA cops got the message...

My god.  Look at this bat-wielding goon beating and driving people like cattle.

 

Chicago: Neighbors protecting neighbors

 

In America, you now have to carry identifying papers

You know. Like Nazi Germany.

So we asked a legal expert, what documents should people be carrying when stopped by agents?

“That is a really good question, especially in light of all the rights violations that ICE is doing. It’s hit or miss,” said Veronica Garcia, a senior staff attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. “There’s what you should carry and whether they’re going to take your proof of what you’re carrying as truth [...] .”

Under federal law, registered foreign nationals, such as green card holders, must carry proof of registration with them at all times. Prior to a second Trump administration, this was rarely enforced.

  Chicago Tribune

It's not just green card holders any more.

[N]umerous U.S. citizens and others have reported being detained, including a 44-year-old U.S. citizen who said agents zip-tied her and questioned her after work at a downtown bar earlier this month, and a Rogers Park man who agents fined $130 for not carrying his legal papers with him when they questioned him about his legal status last week.

The woman, Maria Greeley, told the Tribune she had a copy of her passport with her. But because she’s Latina, she said the agents told her she “doesn’t look like” a Greeley and called her a liar. The agents let her go after an hour, she said.

No consequences for Trump goons

 

America has fallen

 

So Trump is making laws now?

Border Patrol moving into Chicago

 

Police state

 

UPDATE 06/25/2025:

What could possibly go wrong?

A retired US Army lieutenant colonel is organizing an armed convoy next week to the Texas border to, he says, hunt down migrants crossing into the US from Mexico. Hundreds of people already say they are coordinating travel plans for the convoy on Telegram as tensions continue to rise between the state and federal government over immigration.

Pete Chambers, the lieutenant colonel who says he was a Green Beret, appeared on far-right school-shooting conspiracist Alex Jones’ InfoWars show on Thursday to outline plans for the Take Back Our Border convoy, which has been primarily organized on Telegram.

“What gets us to the enemy quickly is find, fix, and finish,” Chambers told Jones. “That’s what we did in Syria when we took out ISIS really quick. Now we don’t have the authorities to finish, so what we can do is fix the location of where the bad guys are and pair up with law enforcement who are constitutionally sound.”

While this kind of right-wing chatter doesn’t always amount to anything, on Telegram the main Take Back Our Border channel now has over 1,000 members and is being used as a place to plan and share information about the convoy, as well as three rallies taking place in Texas, California, and Arizona next week.

[...]

One group member suggested others bring “kits” to the planned rallies so that “if stuff goes down you will be able to protect yourselves and help out.”

[...]

A promotional video for the convoy on the website begins with alarms sounding and the words “invasion alert” flashing over what appears to be night-vision footage of people crossing the border.

[...]

The convoy will reportedly begin on Monday, January 29, and participants currently say they are planning on driving to Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, where the Texas National Guard is currently in a standoff with the US Border Patrol.

  Wired

And perhaps Joe Biden should have federalized the Texas National Guard as soon as Abbott used them to defy a Supreme Court ruling.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 01/29/2024: They don't want to fix things, Part whatever...

The Oklahoma Republican Party approved a resolution Saturday condemning and censuring Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) for his role as a chief negotiator in the Senate border security talks between Democrats and Republicans.

The resolution — a copy of which was posted on X, formerly Twitter — by state Sen. Dusty Deevers (R) said, “Senator Lankford playing fast and loose with Democrats on our border policy not only disfranchises legal immigrants seeking citizenship but it also puts the safety and security of Americans in great danger.”

Senate negotiators have been working for weeks to negotiate a compromise on border and immigration policy that is meant to address the number of migrants who come across the U.S. border with Mexico.

[...]

“It is interesting, Republicans, four months ago, would not give funding for Ukraine, for Israel and for our southern border because we demanded changes in policy. So we actually locked arms together and said, ‘We’re not going to give money for this. We want a change in law,'” [Lankford] said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“And now, it’s interesting, a few months later, when we’re finally getting to the end, they’re like, ‘Oh, just kidding, I actually don’t want a change in law because of presidential election year,'” he added.

  The Hill

At least

Roberts and Barrett sided with the "liberals" - i.e., the ones trying to hold this country together as it was set up by the founders to be.

UPDATE 09:01 pm:

This is a crap function of the Supreme Court (including the Shadow Docket).  They should ALWAYS have to provide their reasoning.

UPDATE 01/23/2024:

Cruelty is the point

UPDATE 01/15/2024:

Another GOP hearing SNAFU

They're good at hanging themselves in House hearings.

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari testified before the House Oversight Committee in a hearing on Tuesday that was supposed to be about staffing the border patrol, but took a turn as many of the Democrats on the panel grilled Cuffari about information regarding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who is the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, joined the hearing and grilled Cuffari regarding past allegations he had altered reports from his office and did not alert Congress in a timely fashion that the Secret Service was not complying with DHS information requests.

“Your duty under the Inspector General Act is to immediately report flagrant and serious abuses that are taking place. You were aware, at least as early as May of 2021, that the Secret Service had erased thousands of text messages that were sent before and during the January 6th violent attack on the Capitol, the Congress, and the vice president,” Raskin began, adding:

But you failed to notify Congress for 14 months, for a year and two months that the Secret Service was refusing to comply with your requests for information. So why didn’t you immediately report as you’re statutorily bound to do these serious and flagrant failures to answer your questions about the disappearance of thousands of texts that were sent during January 6th?

[...]

[W]e have documents showing that just six weeks after the initial request for documents from the Secret Service, you canceled requests to the Secret Service for phone records and text messages. Why did you do that?” Raskin followed up.

“If I recall correctly, and I mentioned during my prepared remarks here, DHS was delaying or denying us access to relevant information,” Cuffari replied.

“But did you report that to Congress at that point or ask for a report to Congress?” Raskin asked.

[...]

"[W]hat I don’t understand is your office revived the request that you nullified six weeks after originally making it. Five months later, in December of 2021 is what the paper trail reveals. But what I don’t understand is your statutory duty to immediately inform Congress about this flagrant abuse.”

[...]

You published your semiannual report where there was going to be a reference to the Secret Service’s obstruction of this investigative path. And you removed that. Why was the reference to the Secret Services obstruction deliberately deleted from the June 22nd semiannual report of the inspector general?” Raskin asked.

[...]

“Did you sign off on the decision to remove this reference from the report?” Raskin insisted.

[...]

“I signed off on the removal and I signed a letter specifically to the January 6th Oversight Committee and to this oversight committee,” Cuffari answered.

“But why did you remove it?” Raskin demanded.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) then jumped in and told Raskin his “time is expiring” and then tried to redirect the hearing the border patrol.

  Mediaite

Luckily, the Freedom Caucus is unable to be embarrassed, because they are incredibly bad at conducting hearings.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Biden backtracking

After a backlash from Democrats and human rights activists, the White House abruptly reversed course on Friday on the number of refugees it will allow into the United States, a reflection of President Biden’s continuing struggle with immigration policy.

At midday on Friday, the administration had said it would limit the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year to the historically low level of 15,000 set by the Trump administration, breaking an earlier pledge to greatly increase that number and let in more than 60,000 people fleeing war and persecution.

But that announcement drew immediate criticism from Democratic leaders.

[...]

Maintaining the Trump-era admissions level would leave thousands of refugees who have been approved to travel to the United States stranded in camps around the world. Roughly 35,000 refugees have already been vetted by the U.S. government and are prepared to travel to the United States.

[...]

“Facing the greatest refugee crisis in our time, there is no reason to limit the number to 15,000,” [Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the majority whip,] said. “Say it ain’t so, President Joe.”

Just hours later, the White House put out a statement saying it expected to increase the cap next month. It did not comment when asked to specify the number.

The sudden shifts come as the United States struggles with a surge of unaccompanied children and teenagers at the Mexican border, and growing concerns that the increase has already overwhelmed the refugee branch of the Department of Health and Human Services.

  NYT

Check out this podcast on the border situation:

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

The least objectionable element in this sad episode is that the president is reneging on a campaign promise. After all, he can still boost the cap later in his term, although his having surrendered on the issue this time around weakens his bargaining position in the future. What is really galling is that the administration is accepting—and, thereby endorsing—an immigration cap that arose out of the xenophobia and white supremacist polices of the previous administration*. I wouldn’t drink out of the same water fountain as Stephen Miller, let alone sign aboard his immigration policies. What could this president possibly be thinking?

[...]

It was the first serious political peril the administration has faced since it took office, and I don’t think anyone was ready for it. Which is no excuse. This is just plain, ordinary cowardice. We had a right to expect better.

  Esquire

Cleaning up Trump's mess

The Biden administration said Friday it will end a Trump-era policy that let U.S. border agents collect information about the immigration status of people who came forward to care for unaccompanied migrant children so it could potentially deport them.

The policy, which began in 2018, allowed the Department of Homeland Security to identify and deport those would-be caregivers who were in the country illegally. It meant that immigrant parents who came to the U.S. and then later sent for their children to cross the border faced possible deportation when they tried to pick up their children from Health and Human Services custody.

While the policy had been largely disabled through subsequent directives, Biden administration officials told reporters the message of officially rescinding the policy "will have a real impact in terms of people trusting us and coming forward."

  NBC

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Death in detention

Maria Puga has been telling the story for more than a decade now. On May 28, 2010, her husband, Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, suffered a brutal and ultimately fatal beating at the hands of U.S. homeland security personnel at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on the southern edge of San Diego.

The father of five was hogtied at a secure facility while at least eight agents and officers from the nation’s three border and immigration enforcement agencies punched and kicked him; a crowd of their colleagues circled around and watched. They knelt on his neck and body. Crying out for help, Hernandez was repeatedly tased while handcuffed. He suffered five broken ribs, internal organ hemorrhage, and bruising on his face and torso. He died of cardiac arrest and brain damage three days later. The coroner’s office ruled the case a homicide. Despite the federal agents erasing the video taken by eyewitnesses, the violent episode was caught on film and broadcast on national television. No agents or officers were punished, let alone charged for the killing.

[...]

Last week, [Puga's family submitted] affidavits from three former senior Department of Homeland Security officials directly involved in Hernandez’s case to the commission. Those officials accuse the Border Patrol as well as current and former officials at the highest levels of DHS of engaging in obstruction of justice to protect the agents involved in Hernandez’s death and the reputation of their agency.

This was not an isolated incident, the former officials alleged in the affidavits, which were filed with the commission and shared with The Intercept. Instead, it was emblematic of an entrenched pattern in matters involving the Border Patrol, particularly in cases of lethal force.

[...]

“What’s important to understand is that the people who are involved in this case have risen in the ranks,” Andrea Guerrero, executive director of Alliance San Diego and an attorney for the Hernandez family, told The Intercept. “This is an ongoing threat to the safety of border communities and to the security of the nation when we have this level of impunity, unchecked, at the highest levels of this agency.”

[...]

The Inter-American Commission system is best known for its role in examining incidents of state violence, massacres and enforced disappearances in Latin America. Last July, the commission ruled that it had the authority to hear the Hernandez case, marking the first time in its 61-year history that a U.S. law enforcement agency has stood accused of an extrajudicial killing.

  Intercept

Jesus wept

“Border Patrol Agents Rescue Woman in Labor,” the release from Customs and Border Protection read on Friday.

What border officials didn’t mention was that, just hours after their purported rescue, they separated the Honduran immigrant from her newborn and detained her pending possible removal, according to lawyers and advocates.

Border agents responding to a 911 call Wednesday night found the woman shortly after she’d delivered her baby alone in a field in Eagle Pass, Texas. The officials first transported mother and child to a nearby hospital, then the child was airlifted to a neonatal intensive care unit in San Antonio, hours from where they held her mother in custody.

(The Customs and Border Protection release incorrectly said the call came Thursday, as appeared in earlier reporting, and agents apparently provided the hospital with the wrong date of birth.)

“They told her she was going to be sent back to Mexico without her baby,” said Amy Maldonado, who is legally representing the mother.

[...]

After The Times story published, Customs and Border Protection released the mother, who Saturday morning reunited with her newborn in the San Antonio neonatal unit, lawyers and advocates confirmed.

[...]

Hours later, Austin Skero, chief patrol agent for the Del Rio sector, responded in a tweet to The Times, saying that agents had to separate the mother and baby due to the San Antonio hospital’s COVID-19 policy for the neonatal unit, which the hospital immediately disputed.

[...]

“That is definitely not the hospital policy,” [Leni Kirkman, spokesperson for University Hospital in San Antonio,] said. “We do not separate babies and parents.”

[...]

“To ensure a safe care environment, University Hospital is currently permitting one visitor per day between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. with the exception of individuals deemed necessary to the patient’s care. Visitors deemed necessary to the patient’s care include:

1-2 parents or guardians for pediatric and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients
1 support person for labor & delivery/postpartum patients”

[...]

Amy Cohen, a child psychiatrist and executive of nonprofit Every Last One, who first learned about the case from a friend of the family, said the hospital informed her that the baby has to be in the hospital for another seven to 10 days and was “in distress” when born. The mother has since received medical care at the San Antonio hospital as well; Customs and Border Protection “had her sleep on the floor at the detention center,” Cohen said.

[...]

Almost exactly three weeks ago, Cohen responded to a similar case of a mother who had an emergency birth for a ruptured uterus, and Customs and Border Protection kept her apart from her baby for roughly four days, Cohen said. She’s since been released from detention.

[...]

The Honduran mother, whose name was not released, had sought asylum at the border in south Texas earlier this year with her older child, who is 6 years old, but border officials put them into the controversial “Remain in Mexico” program.

[...]

The mother, like hundreds of other parents waiting in refugee camps along the border, sent her 6-year-old child across alone to seek asylum three weeks ago, according to Maldonado and Cohen. The mother and her child had been kidnapped and held at gunpoint for two weeks in Nuevo Laredo, Cohen said. Advocates and experts have documented more than 1,000 cases of asylum seekers put into Migrant Protection Protocols who then have been kidnapped, raped and assaulted in Mexico while waiting for hearings in the U.S.

That child was released this week from the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the Health and Human Services agency tasked with the care of unaccompanied children, and is with the cousin in Sacramento, Cohen said. The mother and newborn, once medically cleared, are expected to join her other child and family in California.

“She was desperate,” Maldonado said of the mother’s decision to cross later herself.

[...]

The Homeland Security inspector general has [...] opened an investigation into the department’s treatment of pregnant women.

  LA Times

WTF

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

NB: actual birds in this case

Just like the White House.

The agency released a request for information (RFI) this week seeking possible solutions to the approximately 300 vultures roosting on the CBP radio towers at Kingsville, Texas. One solution includes netting to deter the birds.

  The Hill

I bet the Trump brothers have another solution.

Vultures are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the USDA notes they are known for nesting in massive numbers.

Trump will have that taken care of with an executive order and then turn his sons loose.

"They will often defecate and vomit from their roost onto buildings below that house employees and equipment," the official said. "There are anecdotes about birds dropping prey from a height of three-hundred feet, creating a terrifying and dangerous situation for those concerned."

They know. I'm rooting for the vultures.

As an aside, this article calls a group of vultures a kettle.  I've never heard that before.  I also recently learned that a group of wild turkeys is called a rafter.  That's easier to imagine the origin of than kettle.

But, according to Wikipedia, kettle might not be the proper word. "A kettle is a term that birders use to describe a group of birds wheeling and circling in the air." It might be more appropriate to call them a committee.

I wonder if the vultures in the White House also urinate on themselves to keep cool.  #PeeTape