Saturday, June 21, 2025

These aren't arrests, these are kidnappings

Let's start with some good news in a land with so little of late, CK Smith (SALON) reports:

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian-born Columbia University graduate and activist, walked free Friday after a federal judge ordered his release from immigration detention.

Khalil was held for 104 days in a Louisiana facility under a rarely used section of immigration law, after participating in a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Columbia. Though he faced no criminal charges, his detention drew widespread criticism from civil liberties groups who said the government was targeting political speech.

U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz, presiding in New Jersey, ruled that the government presented no evidence Khalil posed a flight risk or public threat. He also issued an injunction to block Khalil’s deportation while his constitutional challenge proceeds.


Convicted Felon Donald Chump is destroying the country on a daily basis and his attack on immigrants -- and those mistaken for immigrants is harming the country.  It's harming morale, it's harming the economy.  Casey Stegall (KDFW) reports:

 

State Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller says stepped-up immigration enforcement is taking a toll on the industry. 

As the effects are being felt not just here in Texas, but beyond, federal immigration officials say they’re just doing their jobs.

ICE Effects on Agriculture Industry

Local perspective:

Just 40 miles or so south of Dallas sits Lee Calvert’s 2,000-acre Ellis County family farm.

Calvert knows he’s lucky, not having to rely on farmhands to check the chores off, because those who do say absenteeism among hired migrant help has disrupted their entire operations.

Big picture view:

Recent video posted to immigration-rights groups’ social media channels shows federal agents conducting raids on California farms.


 Levi Sumagaysay and Lauren Hepler (CALMATTERS) note realities in California:


Brandon Mejia usually spends his weekends conducting a symphony of vendors serving pupusas, huaraches and an array of tacos at his two weekly 909Tacolandia pop-up events.

Half food festival, half swap meet, the events draw 100-plus vendors a week in Pomona and San Bernardino. They offer a way to “legalize” street food — vendors get a reliable location, cities collect taxes and enforce health codes — while patrons enjoy delicacies from all over Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Spanglish music plays, people dance and kids flock to facepainting and pony rides.

But in the past week, that’s all come to a screeching halt. As the Trump administration ramps up immigration raids in California, some restaurants, worried about their workers or finding that customers are staying home more, are closing temporarily. Many street vendors are going into hiding, and some food festivals and farmers markets have been canceled.

Mejia called off all Tacolandia events last week. His mind raced about whether agents would come for his vendors as videos surfaced on social media of taqueros, farm workers and fruit vendors vanishing in immigration raids around LA and neighboring Ventura County. 


The whole country's suffering due to Chump's inhumanity but border states are especially suffering.  And lies are needed to continue Chump's inhumanity.  That's what's behind preventing members of Congress and other officials from carrying out their legal duties to visit and, yes, inspect detention facilities holding immigrants.  They don't want the the truth to get out.  Because the truth is not just unpretty, it's also illegal.  Valerie Gonzalez (LOS ANGELES TIMES) reports:


Adults fighting kids for clean water, despondent toddlers, and a child with swollen feet denied a medical exam: These first-hand accounts from immigrant families at detention centers included in a motion filed by advocates Friday night are offering a glimpse of conditions at Texas facilities.

Families shared their testimonies with immigrant advocates filing a lawsuit to prevent the Trump administration from terminating the Flores settlement agreement, a 1990s-era policy that requires immigrant children detained in federal custody be held in safe and sanitary conditions.

The agreement could challenge President Trump’s family detention provisions in his massive tax and spending bill, which also seeks to make the detention time indefinite and comes as the administration ramps up arrests of immigrants nationwide.

“At a time when Congress is considering funding the indefinite detention of children and families, defending the Flores Settlement is more urgent than ever,” Mishan Wroe, a senior immigration attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, said in a statement Friday.


ICE has 21 detention centers in Texas and over 200 nation wide. Protests continued this weekend.  The Party for Socialism and Liberation held a rally in Atlanta today.  Athens wasn't the only city holding a protest this weekend.  Gabe Chavez (KRQE) reports:


Friday night, hundreds took to the streets of downtown Albuquerque to protest federal immigration enforcement in the country. Most of downtown was shut down for the evening, with protesters calling for an end to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in America.

The sound of strumming guitars and chants for change filled the air as downtown Albuquerque was packed with protesters expressing their anger toward the federal government. One speaker emphasized, “It’s important to have the community together at a time like this when our neighbors and our families are in stress and are scared of even going out in public because ICE is not only detaining criminals but legal citizens.”


 Julie Watson, Jake Offenhartz and Claire Rush (AP) note, "More Americans are witnessing people being hauled off as they shop, exercise at the gym, dine out and otherwise go about their daily lives as President Donald Trump's administration aggressively works to increase immigration arrests. As the raids touch the lives of people who aren’t immigrants themselves, many Americans who rarely, if ever, participated in civil disobedience are rushing out to record the actions on their phones and launch impromptu protests."  Trevor Hughes (USA TODAY) adds, "Immigrant-rights advocates have reported harsher enforcement in rural farming communities and big cities alike, and note that federal statistics show more than 40% of ICE detainees have no criminal record. Trump and administration officials say they are targeting violent criminals and gang members, though Americans are also seeing vineyard workers, car-wash attendants and building contractors snatched up, in many cases by masked men and women refusing to identify themselves, ratcheting up tensions."


It's not just immigrants, of course.  To target, you have to racially profile.  And that means US citizens get roughed up and kidnapped by ICE.  People like US citizen Job Garcia.  He attends Claremont Graduate University.  Vivian Chow (KTLA5) reports:

That morning, he arrived at the store to pick up a delivery order when armed agents suddenly surrounded the parking lot. Realizing what was happening, he picked up his cellphone and began recording the activity. 

“At the end of the parking lot, they started gathering around a van with a gentleman inside, probably in his 50s or 60s,” Garcia told KTLA’s Mary Beth McDade.

In the video, agents are heard telling the man to step out of his truck before they used a baton to smash the driver’s side window.

“They broke his window and that’s when all the bystanders who were recording said, ‘You have no right to be doing that!’” Garcia said.

Garcia and several others walked over to the man being detained and began informing him of his rights. Video showed one federal agent growing agitated and stepping forward as yelling could be heard from bystanders. 

“That’s when he lunged at me,” Garcia said. “I’m still recording, so he pushes me and puts both hands on me and I push his hand off and he didn’t like that.”


Going to work is a 'crime' in Chump Land.  Whether it's at Home Depot or Walmart.  Laurie Perez (CBS NEWS) reports:


The young man who was wrestled to the ground, Adrian Andrew Martinez, is a U.S. citizen, according to his family.

A video of the incident shows Martinez, in a blue Walmart vest, appearing to talk to the Customs and Border Patrol agents before one of them pushed him back. In the middle of the exchange, the man who was recording, Oscar Preciado, had his phone knocked out of his hand. 

After picking it up to start recording again, Preciado captured the federal agents wrestling Martinez to the ground. Preciado said the agents tried to grab him, too. 

"He grabbed me by the neck and put the other hand behind my leg," Preciado said. "Luckily, I was able to get him off of me and kept recording ... I told him I'm recording this and that's when he smacked my hand to get my phone out of my hand." 


It's bad enough that ICE roughed the kid up and kidnapped him, they also lied about him because all ICE has to offer now is lies.  They lied about it.  As did others in law enforcement.  Rachel Uranga and Brittny Mejia (LOS ANGELES TIMES) note, "L.A.'s top's prosecutor, Bill Essayli, posted on X that Martinez 'was arrested for an allegation of punching a border patrol agent in the face after he attempted to impede their immigration enforcement operation'."  But that's not what happened. 

Heaven forbid more Americans grasp what jack-booted-thugs ICE is now made up of.   Gina Silver (FOX 11) reports:


FOX 11 obtained security camera footage from the store, which showed the entire confrontation. 

In the video, Martinez can be seen pulling up to the agents' truck with his car. He gets out and moves a janitor's cart. One agent then throws the cart to the ground, before shoving Martinez twice, knocking him to the ground. Martinez gets up, and is shoved to the ground by a second agent. He gets up again and continues arguing, and then agents take him down.

"To say that he is the aggressor is absolutely untrue," said defense attorney Dmitry Gorin after watching the security footage.


He did nothing wrong.  He was physically attacked and he was kidnapped -- ICE agents are out of control.  They need to be brought to heel.  Friday, 20-year-odl Adrian Martinez was finally released. Lily Dallow (KTLA5) quotes Adrian's attorneys stating, "We're very grateful our client will be released today.  Adrian did nothing wrong, and was standing up for an elderly janitorial worker when he was violently assaulted and abducted by masked federal agents."

And now you grasp why they attacked Oscar Preciado -- because he was recording the truth.  Can't have witnesses to this illegal abuse, to this criminal action. 


I don't know how to break this to ICE agents but there is no buy-back for your soul.  Once you sell it, that's it.  You are going down a path that leads to drug addiction and suicide.  There is no pride to be found at the end of the road you are own.  For your own health, you need to quit working for ICE.  

And you know what I'm saying is right, that's why you're wearing masks -- because you're beyond the law now and you have to hide.  Ray Sanchez and Alisha Ebrahimji (CNN) report:


It has become the new calling card of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown: Federal officers, often masked and not wearing uniforms or displaying badges, arresting people outside courtroom hearings, during traffic stops and in workplace sweeps.

“I never saw anyone wearing a mask,” John Sandweg, an acting director of Immigration Customs and Enforcement under President Barack Obama and a former acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, said of the dozens of ride-alongs he attended during his tenure.     

[. . .]

“The way that they’re carrying on without any visible identification – even that they’re law enforcement, much less what agency they’re with – it really is pretty unprecedented to see at this scale, and I think it’s very dangerous,” said Scott Shuchart, a senior ICE official during the Biden administration.     


And people aren't going to be silent about this.  Lily Dallow (KTLA5) notes:

Huntington Park Mayor Arturo Flores released a statement Saturday, condemning what he called “masked abductions” amid immigration raids across Los Angeles County, and directing police to intervene in unlawful or unauthorized operations.

“These are not lawful arrests. These are abductions,” said Mayor Flores. “For more than a week, we have witnessed families being torn apart, children left without parents, and residents vanishing without explanation. Men dressed in tactical gear, operating unmarked vehicles without displaying credentials or agency affiliation, have infiltrated our neighborhoods in direct violation of our community’s values, civil rights, and the basic principles of due process.”


The following sites updated:


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