The Common Ills: The Snapshot

Monday, October 20, 2025

The Snapshot

Monday, October 20, 2025. Trump's war on immigrants is illegal and hidden but Americans across the country rebuked Chump's attacks on democracy in Saturday protests that the whole world saw.

J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam (PRO PUBLICA) report on how Convicted Felon Donald Chump weaponized immigration to turn ICE into his secret gestapo police:

The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, created by Congress and led largely by lawyers, investigated allegations of rape and unlawful searches from both the public and within DHS ranks, for instance. Egregious conduct was referred to the Justice Department.

The CRCL office had limited powers; former staffers say their job was to protect DHS by ensuring personnel followed the law and addressed civil rights concerns. Still, it was effective in stalling rushed deportations or ensuring detainees had access to phones and lawyers. And even when its investigations didn’t fix problems, CRCL provided an accounting of allegations and a measure of transparency for Congress and the public.

The office processed thousands of complaints — 3,000 in fiscal year 2023 alone — ranging from allegations of lack of access to medical treatment to reports of sexual assault at detention centers. Former staffers said around 600 complaints were open when work was suspended.

The administration has gutted most of the office. What’s left of it was led, at least for a while, by a 29-year-old White House appointee who helped craft Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint that broadly calls for the curtailment of civil rights enforcement.

Meanwhile, ICE is enjoying a windfall in resources. On top of its annual operating budget of $10 billion a year, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill included an added $7.5 billion a year for the next four years for recruiting and retention alone. As part of its hiring blitz, the agency has dropped age, training and education standards and has offered recruits signing bonuses as high as $50,000.

“Supercharging this law enforcement agency and at the same time you have oversight being eliminated?” said the former DHS official. “This is very scary.”

Michelle Brané, a longtime human rights attorney who directed DHS’ ombudsman office during the Biden administration, said Trump’s adherence to “the authoritarian playbook is not even subtle.”

“ICE, their secret police, is their tool,” Brané said. “Once they have that power, which they have now, there’s nothing stopping them from using it against citizens.”

And they have been using it against citizens, though few have bothered to notice. At THE GUARDIAN, Aaron Glantz notes:

Some of the most decorated military veterans in Congress say they are outraged after a report in the Guardian revealed US military veterans have been arrested or injured amid protests over Donald Trump’s deportation campaign and his push to deploy the national guard to American cities.

“I went to war three times for this country to defend the right of Americans to say things I may not like,” said Representative Jason Crow, a Democrat from Colorado and former army ranger who was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in Iraq as a platoon leader with the 82nd airborne division. “Now is the time for every American to speak out.”

Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois who received a Purple Heart after her helicopter was shot down over Iraq, said: “No one – especially those who have already sacrificed so much for this country – should ever be assaulted, detained or thrown in solitary confinement for peacefully protesting government overreach”.

The Guardian has identified eight instances in which military veterans have been prosecuted or sought damages after being detained by federal agents. Two of those individuals were arrested in late September protesting outside a Chicago-area Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility.

One, 70-year-old air force veteran Dana Briggs, was charged with assault after a video of an incident showed Ice agents advancing on the elderly veteran and knocking him over. The other, Afghanistan war veteran John Cerrone, was tackled by a group of Ice agents, another video shows. Cerrone was detained, held for nine hours in solitary confinement and charged with disorderly conduct.

[. . . ]

In Portland, video shows an agent grabbing Afghanistan war veteran Daryn Herzberg by the hair and slamming his face into the ground multiple times while saying, “You’re not talking s**t any more are you?” according to a Federal Tort Claims Act complaint filed by his attorney.

They operate in darkness and there is no oversight. All the American people get -- over and over -- is lies. In "Kristi Noem's perfected her lying strategy" last week, Elaine noted:

Kristi Noem is such a damn liar. C.I. was talking about that last week in the roundtable. How she lies and then lies some more and the press reports her original false claims and by the time they implode, they're having to cover something else. Jordan Green reports:

A dramatic claim by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to have arrested “the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa,” therefore putting the Trump administration in position to “eliminate” the leftwing “network,” was dismissed by both the activist the arrested woman was said to have dated and a leading expert on such leftwing groups.

“I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not now, nor have I ever been, the ‘founder’ of ‘Antifa’ — in Portland [Oregon], the United States, or anywhere else,” said Luis Enrique Marquez, the activist, in a statement on a website promoting a book.

“It’s an absurd claim, no matter how they try to frame it,” Stanislav Vysotsky, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Fraser Valley in British Columbia, told Raw Story.

Nonetheless, Noem’s trumpeting of the arrest of Katherine Vogel, 39, showed the administration’s determination to make headlines as it seeks to paint “antifa” activists as a danger to the American public, and Portland as the supposed base of such groups.

She's a glory hog with no accomplishments so she lies to get attention, it's really that simple.

A liar -- Kristi Noem -- supervisors liars -- ICE agents -- and reports to a liar supreme -- Donald Chump. What you've got is the political equivalent of Kransekake -- the Norwegian almond ring cake -- only instead of the dough circling itself, stacked on top of each layer, it's lies that encircle and stack up. And what ight work in a dessert is a disaster in open government.

Greg Sargent (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:

As President Donald Trump’s consolidation of authoritarian power escalates, he and his allies have been employing undisguised state-sponsored propaganda to a degree unmatched by any president in modern times. This much, one hopes, is broadly understood—even if a startling number of Americans seem unperturbed by it. But here’s something that’s less discussed: This sort of industrial-scale deception would be far more difficult to pull off if Republicans hadn’t wholly crippled Congress’s oversight function on Trump’s behalf.

All this is driven home by an interesting new letter that Senator Chris Murphy sent Friday to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about a horrifying incident that unfolded during Trump’s occupation of Chicago. A federal agent shot a woman multiple times after she allegedly menaced the agents with her car. Marimar Martinez, who didn’t have life-threatening injuries, is a U.S. citizen.

This incident has been subjected to a barrage of state-manufactured misinformation, and it turns out that MAGA influencer Laura Loomer also was involved in that effort. In response, Murphy’s letter calls on Noem to account for all these official deceptions, and to come clean on whether government information was improperly leaked to Loomer to assist in them.

In particular, just after the shooting, DHS put out a statement claiming that the agents in question had been “boxed in by 10 cars” and that Martinez’s vehicle “rammed” theirs. The statement also suggests she threatened the agents with a “semi-automatic weapon.” All this “forced” an agent to shoot Martinez, who then “drove herself to the hospital.” DHS added that she’d previously doxed agents online. In short, the shooting was wholly justified: The victim was the one doing the terrorizing—of law enforcement.

Yet these claims are undermined by the criminal complaint against Martinez. It only mentions two cars menacing the agents, not 10. It doesn’t mention her gun, let alone her threatening of the agents with one. It says she was taken to the hospital by ambulance. And as the Chicago Sun-Times reports, Martinez’s lawyer says body-cam footage even contradicts the claim that she directly threatened the officers with her vehicle and shows that the agent said, “Do something, bitch,” before opening fire.

As we've noted repeatedly, there is no oversight. They lie constantly and they get away with it. That's why last week's news out of Chicago is so important. Aaron Parnas (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) explains:

Federal immigration officers in the Chicago area will now be required to wear body cameras following recent confrontations with protesters. The decision came Thursday from U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis, who said she was “a little startled” after viewing television footage showing agents using tear gas and other aggressive tactics.

Judge Ellis, who lives in Chicago, expressed frustration about the ongoing clashes. “I live in Chicago if folks haven’t noticed,” she said in court. “And I’m not blind, right?” Her comments reflected deep concern about the images she’s seen of federal agents’ behavior during enforcement actions linked to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Just last week, Ellis issued an order requiring agents to clearly display their badges and prohibiting them from using certain crowd-control measures—such as tear gas and rubber bullets—against peaceful demonstrators and members of the press.

Despite that ruling, Ellis said she’s been troubled by new reports and footage suggesting her directives might not have been followed. “I’m getting images and seeing images on the news, in the paper, reading reports where I’m having concerns about my order being followed,” she said during Thursday’s hearing.

If you're not getting why oversight is so desperately needed, Danny Postel (IN THESE TIMES) provides this overview of recent events in Chicago:

Over the last five weeks in Chicago, federal agents have shot at least two people, killing one (Silverio Villegas González, a father of two who had just dropped one of his children off at school when ICE agents shot him); descended on an apartment building with a Black Hawk helicopter and used flash-bang grenades; tear-gassed protesters and first responders; smoke-bombed a street full of people; reportedly zip-tied children and separated them from their parents for several hours in the middle of the night; shot protesters with rubber bullets; handcuffed a city council member in a hospital; and fired a chemical weapon at a TV reporter as she was driving away, burning her face.

In one of the more shocking moments in this mayhem, on September 19, agents perched on the roof of an ICE detention center in the suburban village of Broadview shot the Rev. David Black, lead pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, in the head and body with pepper-spray projectiles known as pepper balls. Just moments earlier, Black, dressed in his clerical garb, had both arms up in the air and was “praying, verbally, for the ICE officers and those detained inside,” as he later recalled to CNN.

Other protesters were shot with pepper balls during the incident. They were chanting, singing and praying — peacefully, Black stressed. “We could hear [the agents] laughing as they were shooting us from the roof,” he told CNN. “It was deeply disturbing.”

Or go with this from KNEWZ, "Presbyterian pastor from Chicago, Rev. David Black, was struck multiple times by chemical pellets fired by federal immigration agents during what witnesses describe as a peaceful protest outside an ICE detention facility in Broadview, Illinois. Knewz.com has learned that the incident, captured on video, has sparked widespread condemnation and a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which accuses ICE of using 'violent force' against unarmed demonstrators engaged in prayer and civil disobedience." Need another example? Rhian Lubin (INDEPENDENT) reports:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pointed a gun at a family, including a mother holding her 3-month-old baby, as they burst into their Oregon home, footage of the incident showed.

The video recorded by Mari Magana and posted on Facebook showed the moment ICE agents kicked down the bedroom door in the family’s apartment in Gresham, approximately 17 miles outside of Portland, Wednesday evening. The video has been shared across social media.

The baby’s grandmother, Gloria Bautista, told The Independent that her daughter has been left shaken by the ordeal.

Children across the country are being left shaken and destroyed. Alvin Buyinza (MINNESOTA SPOKESMAN-RECORDER) explains:

Fear in the Windy City grew after the Trump administration ramped up “Operation Midway Blitz.” The immigration crackdown, launched against city officials’ wishes, has led to the arrest of more than 800 undocumented immigrants since Sept. 8, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“It is a departure from everything that young people have understood from our America,” Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, says about the escalating presence and actions of immigration authorities in the city.

Aggressive tactics allegedly used by ICE agents include the use of tear gas near an elementary school, raiding a South Side apartment in a predominantly Black neighborhood, and detaining and zip-tying U.S. citizens and children, including Black folks.

DHS has denied many of these claims and has not responded to Word In Black’s request for comment.

Friday, US House Rep Ro Khann's office issued the following:

Washington, D.C.–– Today, Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17), introduced the ICE Oversight and Reform Resolution to call on immigration enforcement operations to be transparent, accountable, and consistent with constitutional protections for all people in the United States.

Recent actions from ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) federal agents, including conducting raids in unmarked vehicles,

denying members of Congress access to ICE facilities

, and more, have raised serious questions about the protections of due process and civil liberties.

“These tactics are about avoiding accountability and transparency. We need standards of conduct for ICE agents and to ensure agents cannot trample on civil and human rights. I’m proud to put forth this common sense defense of American values that we should all support,” said Rep. Ro Khanna.

“We have had enough of ICE abusing their powers and pushing the limits to continue terrorizing our communities. The ICE Oversight and Reform Resolution affirms the bare minimum expectations for our immigration enforcement officers. This resolution builds upon legislation like my own, the CLEAR ID Act, to further demand ICE officers disclose their identity, wear body cameras, get trained to de-escalate situations all to ensure safer interactions during immigration enforcement operations,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Read the full text of the bill here.

The Oversight and Reform Resolution includes:

DHS will require ICE and CBP personnel to wear body cameras during enforcement operations, preserving footage for oversight.
Enforcement personnel cannot conceal their identities, except when an immediate threat to safety exists.
Officers must visibly display their name, badge number, and agency affiliation during all public operations.
DHS will establish independent civilian oversight boards to review enforcement actions and recommend reforms.
All ICE and CBP personnel will be required to undergo mandatory de-escalation training.
The Department of Justice will enhance oversight of ICE to strengthen civil rights protections.

Cosponsors: Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Rep. Jonathan Jackson (IL-01), and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (TX-30).

The resolution has been endorsed by: Hindus for Human Rights, Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, and Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF)

Remember, ICE is one lie circling another. THE INTERCEPT's Akela Lacy reports:

In addition to deploying tens of thousands of federal agents from across the federal government to carry out his deportation agenda, President Donald Trump is rapidly expanding the network of state and local police going after immigrants through partnerships with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

The aggressive, nationwide law enforcement regime, all taking place under orders from the White House, amounts to what scholars, attorneys, and now a federal judge say are steps toward the creation of a national police force. And the ranks of ICE partners won’t be filled with just local cops: In at least three states, the administration is joining forces with agencies typically tasked with environmental and marine protection, lottery control, and gaming to target immigrants.

“This is quite a common tactic,” said Charis Kubrin, a professor at the University of California, Irvine who studies immigration and crime. ”There’s this idea that we’re going to get local, not just police officers, but nurses and teachers and other public officials involved in enforcing immigration laws.”

It started largely with immigration, using federal agents and a little-remarked-upon program known as 287(g) to funnel funding to local law enforcement for partnerships. The widespread ICE incursions and local police partnerships, however, have also been justified by the myth of an immigrant crime wave.

“There is this moral panic now about migrant crime. This is rhetoric that is at odds generally with what we know about immigration and crime,” Kubrin said. “The research is pretty unequivocal that these policies have no impact on public safety whatsoever.”

“We didn’t really need this increased cooperation,” she said. “The foundational assumption of this widespread immigrant criminality upon which all of these policies and practices are based, is patently not true.”

Saturday, NO KINGS protests took place across the US, in over 2700 locations, with over 7 million people participating -- which is over twice as many people who turned out for Donald Chump's January 2017 inauguration and Chump's January 2025 inauguration combined. Ouch, that as to hurt the tiny Chump who's always been such a size queen.

In that night's post ("The meaning of today's NO KINGS protests"), where there was massive turnout -- true in most states -- but in a state that had gone for Chump back in November 2024:

That's Boerne, Austin, Beaumont, Houston, San Antonio, Athens, Lufkin, Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville, Palestine, Mineola, Fort-Worth and Nacogdoches. I'm sure there are many, many more. Houston, Dallas and San Antonio are in the top ten for most populated cities in the United States.

The reason we focused on Texas is because the state went from Chump. The November election had 6.3 million people voting for Chump and 4.8 million people voting for Kamala Harris -- 56.14% for Chump, 42.46% voting for Kamala Harris.

But Texas turned out. Texas' turnout today is very bad news for Chump. San Francisco? We turned out. But that shouldn't be surprising.

We delivered 323,719 votes for Kamala and only 62,594 for Chump -- that's 80.33% of us voted for Harris in San Francisco and only 15.53% voted for Chump. So, yeah, San Francisco turned out and good for us.

But so did Texas. And that's got to really worry Chump -- as it should. The people have turned against Chump. He was headed for lame duck status after the mid-terms anyway. But today demonstrates that the people have turned against him.

This is the pushback and he has been put on notice.

Of course with a demented person like him, it may not matter that he's been put on notice. But Republicans in the House better grasp that it matters since they'll be up for re-election in a year -- and those Republican senators up for re-election better grasp it as well.

Things are getting very uncomfortable for the GOP and it's only going to get worse.

Here's some video coverage of the protests.