Rios was among more than a dozen teens from across Chicago who participated in a roundtable discussion last week about how immigration enforcement and the threat of a National Guard deployment was affecting their mental health.
They expressed feelings of powerlessness, frustration, fear and a deepening desire to become more involved with their communities. The students, representing more than 10 schools across the city, also shared ways they can avoid becoming overwhelmed.
The event was held in the Loop and organized by Communities United along with Voices of Youth in Chicago Education, Mikva Challenge and Hana Center.
It's a feeling children and young adults are dealing with around the country. Hannah Gross (NJ SPOTLIGHT NEWS) reports:
“It’s hard to learn when you’re afraid,” she said.
This increased anxiety and fear can make it difficult to concentrate in school, said Jennifer Durham, a professor of school psychology at Rutgers University. And that fear doesn’t just impact undocumented students, but whole school communities, she said. Some people are worried about friends or family members being deported and others may be worried about getting arrested or bullied because of their appearance.
More than 40% of New Jersey students live with an immigrant, the second-highest rate after California. And over 10% of K-12 students have a parent who is an undocumented immigrant.
“It ups the anxiety level for everyone,” Durham said.
Which brings us back to the idiots praising Bill Maher. He didn't need to invent "Carol." Chump's deported at least 200,000 people so far this year. He could have addressed the three US children -- one with cancer -- deported to Honduras. He could have noted the deportation of high schooler Maykol Bogoya-Duarte. He could have noted California's Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez. But facts and real people were too much for lazy ass Bill Maher. Inventing someone saves him time from actually having to research what he's going to be talking about. The stupidity is killing us.
with this from WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY:
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Chicago has a long, proud history of activism and is considered by many the birthplace of community organizing. So it's no surprise that there's fierce opposition in the city to increased immigration enforcement. On Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement - or ICE - said it made 400 arrests since it launched Operation Midway Blitz two weeks ago. Resistance in the city is attracting many who are becoming politically active for the first time, as Jessica Pupovac reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting) No more suspicion (ph)...
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) No more suspicion (ph)...
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: ...(Chanting) From fascist politicians.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: ...(Chanting) From fascist politicians.
JESSICA PUPOVAC: Outside an ICE processing facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, armed federal agents in tactical gear and gas masks recently stared down about 50 demonstrators. Jose Richter (ph) stood toward the front, wearing a pro-Second Amendment hat. He was in his work clothes, a black security guard uniform with an American flag on the sleeve.
JOSE RICHTER: I do security at Navy Pier.
PUPOVAC: Have you been to many protests?
RICHTER: No. This is my first one.
PUPOVAC: Richter is a U.S. Army veteran, born in Mexico and adopted by a U.S. family as a child. He has legal status but said he's standing up for those who don't.
RICHTER: I never seen this, how they discriminate if you're Latino and looking at you like a criminal. That's not right. My old friends, they got deported already. They went to court. Not even 10 minutes, they were out of the courthouse, sent back to Mexico. And it shouldn't be like that. We're not in Russia. They need to stop it.
PUPOVAC: The Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration has sparked a wave of new organizing here and inspired many first-time activists like Richter and Kevin Naglich. Naglich used to work in cybersecurity. Now he's devoting most of his time to resisting Trump's second-term agenda, including his call for mass deportations.
Since September 8th, Chump has sent ICE into a war against Chicago. People don't really seem to get that. We're the United States -- not the Divided States. We're not supposed to be at war with one another and certainly not while a member of the "state's rights" party occupies the White House. But here we are. Laws violated, democracy trashed. All the signs that Chump's been here. Nicole Acevedo (NBC NEWS) reports:
Nearly a week after a Mexican immigrant was fatally shot by an immigration officer during a traffic stop in the Chicago area, his family in Mexico and community members continue to seek answers as they call for more transparency in the probe looking into the sequence of events surrounding his death.
The Mexican Consulate in Chicago and local police confirmed the the FBI is leading the investigation into the death of 38-year-old Silverio Villegas González, a single father of two boys.
A spokesperson for the FBI Chicago Field Office did not confirm or deny their involvement in the investigation, but told NBC News in an email that "as a general matter, we examine the facts with consideration of federal criminal statutes. We then proceed as appropriate, whether by investigating or referring the matter to the relevant partners."
With law enforcement releasing little information about the ongoing probe, some community members in the Chicago area feel like they "have to stitch this together" themselves, with "no expectation of a real investigation," Brandon Lee, an organizer with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "The community is expected to do their own."
Speaking to Telemundo Chicago from Mexico, Jorge Villegas González, Silverio's brother, said his family "wants justice to be done."
We could consult the footage from the body cam; however, the ICE agent "was not wearing a body camera." How convenient, right?
They've been caught on camera multiple times where they stop someone and surround him or her and then while he answers the questions one ICE agent asks, another steps behind the one being questioned and shoves him/her into the ICE agent asking questions. That's not an accident. They do intentionally because then they can lie further and claim assault.
This has been captured on camera repeatedly.
If that happened once to real officer of the law -- one with actual training -- that officer would be kicked off the force.
But there is no real oversight of ICE or its actions. The editors of AMNY write:
No fewer than a dozen elected officials — people chosen by the voters to seats in government to represent their interests — came to 26 Federal Plaza on Thursday seeking answers about ICE’s treatment of immigrant detainees being held there.
They were not only denied entry to the 10th-floor holding area, where many detainees are supposedly being held despite ICE’s continued denials, but the lawmakers also staged a protest over the federal agency’s continued obfuscation about the fate of the immigrants in its custody.
For their trouble, ICE agents arrested these elected officials, including City Comptroller Brad Lander — whom agents arrested in an infamously hostile way back in June. Lander and the other lawmakers did not resist arrest on Sept. 18, cooperated with officials, and were released within a couple of hours with summonses in hand.
Through a cynical lens, the episode could be written off as political theater — a number of state and city lawmakers putting on a show for photo ops and headlines. However, this seemed to be a desperate attempt to get answers while ICE continues to leave the city’s elected officials in the dark about what’s going on at Federal Plaza.
It is no secret that ICE has used the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza as a facility to detain immigrants it seized outside courtrooms for the past few months. The leaked video showed these individuals living in tight quarters and squalid conditions in an area not fit for use as a holding cell.
City, state, and elected officials have repeatedly attempted to inspect the 10th floor, only to be repeatedly turned away by ICE. The ACLU of New York sued the federal government to stop the mass holdings, and won a federal court order directing ICE to provide suitable accommodations and to avoid holding large numbers of people in small, squalid quarters.
FAFO is the phase so many are now on. The Black woman running for president wasn't holding hate rallies where speakers attacked Puerto Rico, for example, or trashed immigrants. But some immigrants clung to Chump. On TABITHA SPEAKS POLITICS, Tabitha loves to play the video of an immigrant population in Florida with their little song about how "I will vote . . . for Donald Trump. I will vote . . . for Donald Trump." And you did. And now you hate what he's doing. And let's not just pick on immigrants here, there were elected officials (US House Rep Rashida Tlaib, for example) and national con artists (Jill Stein and Norman Solomon) who did their part to put Chump in the White House as well. But we remain stuck in the FAFO phase. Phillip Martin (WGBH) reports from Massachusetts:
Sinvalda Oliveira of Marlborough says she voted for Donald Trump for president in 2024 because she wanted to see a tighter border and fewer immigrants flooding into the country.
But the Brazilian immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen says she didn’t expect Trump’s campaign promise to remove “criminals” from the country to expand to local Brazilian construction workers, nannies and house cleaners, including one of her own friends.
“He was just sitting inside his car in the parking lot of his apartment. And they detained him and they deported him,” she said.
Now the 56-year-old longtime aesthetician says her business is floundering, many of her clients are staying home and she’s worrying about the future.
“If these raids keep going, we’re all going to go broke,” Oliveira told GBH News recently. “All the bakeries, all of the markets, we’re not making enough money to pay our employees. It’s crazy. It is horrible. It’s not right.”
No, it's not right. And, yes, the whole country suffers due to your stupidity. (In fairness, the stupidity and the lies from the media led to a lot of people being confused -- see, for example, Ava and my "Media: How Amy Goodman harmed immigrants and helped elect Chump" from January about how the Goody Whore miscovered immigration -- intentionally miscovered the topic.)
The whole country suffers now. Anthony Callahan (WSWS) reports:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has instituted a policy of mass arrests and deportations of Michigan immigrants under Trump’s executive orders claiming the need to rid the country of “the worst of the worst” criminals. A report published September 4 by the Detroit News directly refutes these lies. By far, most immigrants arrested in Michigan have been innocent of any crime. Close to two-thirds, or 65 percent, of the more than 3,100 people Detroit ICE arrested from January to July had no convictions. Most had never been charged with a crime.
The Deportation Data Project, a database maintained by lawyers and academics using Freedom of Information Act requests to ICE and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), shows that only approximately 35 percent of these immigrants were convicted of any crime. The remaining 65 percent of the arrests targeted people who either had pending criminal charges, that is, had not yet pled guilty or been convicted of a crime, or had no criminal history whatsoever.
While many immigrant families are unable to speak publicly, those who have spoken have shed light on the unspeakable brutality being meted out to people who happen to have been born in other countries and are seeking to make a life in the US.
As part of its report, the News spoke with Taicha, an autoworker at the Lansing General Motors plant, whose Haitian husband has been detained since August. The case is an example of the egregious violations of democratic rights taking place. Taicha is a lawful permanent resident of the United States. Her husband, Mike entered the United States in October 2023, using the CBPOne mobile app to apply for asylum. He was granted permission to live and work in the US. In 2024, he applied for Temporary Protective Status (TPS), but his application was still pending in June when Trump ended the program.
Chump's actions are illegal but apparently the Supreme Court has no disregarded the Constitution. While federal courts continue to find the administration's actions to be breaking the law when appeals go up to The Crooked Court presided over by lead Crook John Roberts, Chump gets his way.
Kyle Cheney and Myah Ward (POLITICO) report:
Immigrants are increasingly turning to federal district courts — which historically have not handled immigration matters — as a last resort, citing violations of their legal and constitutional rights. Their lawsuits have led to dozens of recent rulings from gobsmacked judges who say the administration has violated the law and due process rights and is threatening to do so for millions more. The pileup of decisions is growing daily.
One judge called the administration’s reinterpretation of the law to prioritize detention “radical.” Another said it had resulted in “arbitrary” arrests and turned routine immigration proceedings into an unsustainable “game of detention roulette” in service of Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Another called the administration “willfully blind” to the plain meaning of long-standing immigration laws. Another said the administration’s position “defies logic.”
“The Government’s discretion in matters of immigration is deep and wide, but surely its chop does not overcome the banks of due process enshrined in the Constitution,” said U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin, a Maryland-based appointee of Joe Biden.
In many cases, judges are ordering detainees immediately released from custody, so long as they vow to continue attending immigration court proceedings and remain in contact with immigration officials. They are still likely to be deported, but the judges say they may not be held indefinitely in detention facilities while they await the outcome of their proceedings.
In other cases, judges are requiring the administration to at least give immigrants a chance to seek bond from immigration judges — a fighting chance to win release from ICE custody that the administration has tried to deny.
Meanwhile, the Center for American Progress notes:
On July 4, 2025, President Donald Trump signed into law a massive, partisan budget bill: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). This bill—which congressional Republicans passed—makes devastating cuts to programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that help Americans meet their basic needs while giving massive tax breaks to the wealthy.1 The OBBBA—combined with other changes to the Affordable Care Act enacted by the president and congressional Republicans—will leave 15 million more people without health insurance and cause about 4 million people to have their food assistance terminated or cut substantially.2
However, the harmful impacts of the law don’t stop there. The new law provides an unprecedented increase in funding to implement the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda with zero accountability, after congressional Republicans rejected multiple requests to amend the bill to place checks on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) use of these funds.3 The law provides $45 billion—available through fiscal year 2029—to dramatically expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention capacity to 100,000 beds.4 Additionally, the law appropriates nearly $30 billion for ICE personnel and enforcement operations.5 It pushes ICE’s overall annual budget of around $9.9 billion in fiscal year 2024 to $28 billion.6 The OBBBA will nearly triple ICE’s budget with this infusion of additional funding while taking away valuable support for vulnerable populations, including more than $1 trillion in cuts to medical care for children, the elderly, and disabled people.7 Even prior to the OBBBA, ICE and its contractors have operated without sufficient accountability and oversight.8 This funding increase will only enhance the Trump administration’s cruel immigration actions without making Americans safer.
In response to the Trump administration’s arbitrary demand that DHS arrest 3,000 immigrants per day, ICE has operated with impunity.9 The administration has essentially dismantled congressionally created watchdog agencies that provided oversight of DHS, including monitoring immigration detention and ensuring the protection of detainees’ civil rights.10 Unless Congress steps up and demands accountability for the slush fund, DHS under the Trump administration now has at its disposal the additional funding provided by the OBBBA. This funding will be used to further escalate the Trump administration’s unprecedented and indiscriminate deportation agenda that separates families, detains students and children, and terrorizes communities. Although we are already seeing the effects of the administration’s cruel, anti-immigrant policies, the full extent of the economic and human impact on families and communities will only multiply as these funds are expended.
Senate Judiciary Committee report: Trump Administration appears to have ended presumption of release, is detaining more and more pregnant women in facilities ill-equipped to manage their well-being and safety;
ICYMI: Senator Murray Leads Colleagues in Reintroducing Legislation to Prevent the Shackling and Mistreatment of Pregnant Women in ICE and CBP Custody
***LETTER HERE***
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee, and Senator Blumenthal (D-CT), a member of the Judiciary Committee, led 27 of their Senate colleagues in a new letter expressing grave concerns about the prevalence and treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. In their letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the lawmakers urgently requested that ICE stop detaining pregnant women absent exceptional circumstances, and asked the Department to provide information about the number of pregnant women in its custody and the treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women who are in ICE detention—as well as answers to a long list of additional oversight questions no later than September 26th.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) study published in 2020 found that between 2016 and 2018, ICE detained pregnant women over 4,600 times. As Congress increased its oversight into the detention of pregnant women, that number dropped to just 158 pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women detained in the first half of Fiscal Year 2024. After President Trump took office this year, the Administration stopped providing reports to Congress on the number of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in their custody.
“We write to express grave concerns about the prevalence and treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. A recent Senate Judiciary Committee site visit and media reports point to the alarming detention of a significant number of pregnant women in ICE custody. We urgently request that ICE cease detaining pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women absent exceptional circumstances and that the agency provide information about the number and treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in its custody,” the senators wrote. In their letter, the senators referenced reporting on 911 calls recorded from ICE facilities involving pregnant women in “distress, bleeding or suffering severe pain,” as well as a recent Senate Judiciary Committee staff visit to the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, LA that found 14 pregnant women—a shockingly large number—detained at the time of the visit, with many of them receiving little to no medical care.
“Medical research links ICE detention to high rates of pregnancy complications, with physicians finding serious risks to both fetal and maternal health. These already serious risks are heightened by the deteriorating conditions inside detention facilities, including severe overcrowding, reports of inadequate food and water, and lack of emergency medical care,” the senators continued. “At this time, we do not know how many pregnant women are in ICE custody, whether U.S. citizen babies have been born in ICE custody, and what provisions have been made for mothers’ and children’s health, safety, and wellbeing.”
“ICE’s own standards are unambiguous on the detention, monitoring, and treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in detention. ICE Directive 11032.4, Identification and Monitoring of Pregnant, Postpartum, or Nursing Individuals (2021 Pregnancy Directive), states that ICE should not detain pregnant, postpartum, or nursing individuals except under very limited circumstances,” the senators wrote. “If detention of these individuals is deemed absolutely necessary, the directive provides detailed requirements for ensuring that they are monitored closely, kept in suitable facilities, and given access to both routine and emergency health care… Given the urgent nature of pregnant women’s health and safety needs, we request that you ensure all detention facilities are in full compliance with current law and the 2021 Pregnancy Directive.”
Senator Murray has long fought against the mistreatment of pregnant women in detention, and leads legislation—the Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act—that would provide permanent safeguards for pregnant and postpartum women in ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody. She first introduced the legislation in 2018 during the 115th Congress, and reintroduced it in 2019—on the heels of a Washington Post report about a woman in ICE custody whose pregnancy ended in a stillbirth after she went into labor prematurely—2023, and 2025 alongside Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia (D, TX-29), who leads companion legislation in the House of Representatives.
“In defiance of medical evidence counseling against their detention, ICE is horrifically detaining pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in conditions that compromise their physical and mental health,” said Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, Senior Policy Counsel for the National Immigration Law Center. “It is clear that ICE is ill-prepared to meet even the minimum healthcare and safety standards for pregnant women in their custody. The National Immigration Law Center calls on Secretary Noem to immediately halt the detention of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women, resume transparent reporting, and ensure full compliance with federal law and agency directives. The health and dignity of these women must no longer be compromised.”
“U.S. policy makes clear that pregnant, postpartum, and lactating women should not be detained — yet ICE continues to ignore these protections,” said Zain Lakhani, Director of Migrant Rights and Justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “We continue to hear reports of pregnant women being held in dangerous conditions without adequate food or medical care, putting their health and lives at risk. These harms are occurring in a black box, where we know precious little about immigrant women’s access to healthcare and nutrition. We thank Senators Murray and Blumenthal for demanding that the Department of Homeland Security end this inhumane practice and call for vital transparency around their access to services. Together we must shine a light on detention conditions and ensure these women and their babies are treated with safety, dignity, and humanity.”
In addition to Murray and Blumenthal, the following 27 senators also signed onto the letter to Secretary Noem: Michael Bennet (D-CO), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NM), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
The full text of the letter is available HERE and below.
Secretary Noem:
We write to express grave concerns about the prevalence and treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. A recent Senate Judiciary Committee site visit and media reports point to the alarming detention of a significant number of pregnant women in ICE custody. We urgently request that ICE cease detaining pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women absent exceptional circumstances and that the agency provide information about the number and treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in its custody.
Medical research links ICE detention to high rates of pregnancy complications, with physicians finding serious risks to both fetal and maternal health. These already serious risks are heightened by the deteriorating conditions inside detention facilities, including severe overcrowding, reports of inadequate food and water, and lack of emergency medical care. According to one media investigation, since January 2025, at least four 911 calls have been recorded from ICE detention facilities involving pregnant women in “distress, bleeding or suffering severe pain”– including one involving a facility staff member. A recent Senate Judiciary Committee staff visit to the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana revealed that 14 pregnant women—a shockingly large number—were detained at the time of the visit. Women reported receiving little to no medical care and insufficient nutrition; some reported having never been seen by a physician in the facility, despite efforts to get care. The report shares an anecdote of “a pregnant woman who had a miscarriage while detained and was allegedly still bleeding when she was deported.”
Since the start of the Trump administration, accurate information about the number of pregnant women in ICE custody has been difficult to ascertain. Until this year, ICE provided semiannual reports to Congress on the number and treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in immigration detention; however this previously required reporting has now ceased. Moreover, the effective closure of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman means that there is little visibility and independent oversight of the treatment of vulnerable populations, including pregnant women. At this time, we do not know how many pregnant women are in ICE custody, whether U.S. citizen babies have been born in ICE custody, and what provisions have been made for mothers’ and children’s health, safety, and wellbeing.
ICE’s own standards are unambiguous on the detention, monitoring, and treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in detention. ICE Directive 11032.4, Identification and Monitoring of Pregnant, Postpartum, or Nursing Individuals (2021 Pregnancy Directive), states that ICE should not detain pregnant, postpartum, or nursing individuals except under very limited circumstances. If detention of these individuals is deemed absolutely necessary, the directive provides detailed requirements for ensuring that they are monitored closely, kept in suitable facilities, and given access to both routine and emergency health care. ICE recently reaffirmed its commitment to the health and safety of detained pregnant women in the 2025 revisions to its National Detention Standards.
In response to our concerns that pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women may not be receiving necessary monitoring, health care, and treatment, we request answers to the following questions by September 26, 2025.
- As of the date of receipt of this letter, how many women currently in ICE custody are known to be pregnant, postpartum, and nursing? Please provide totals for each category. How many of those women currently are in their third trimester of pregnancy? For the purposes of defining “postpartum,” please use the number of women in the one-year period following the end of pregnancy.
- Section 5.4 of the 2021 Pregnancy Directive requires that pregnant,
postpartum, and nursing women receive weekly evaluations to determine
whether continued detention is appropriate.
- What is the process for conducting these evaluations and what criteria are used? From January 1, 2025 to the date of receipt of this letter, how many pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women have been released pursuant to one of these screenings? Who is conducting these evaluations and are they reported to ICE headquarters? If yes, what office?
- From January 1, 2025 to the date of receipt of this letter, how many have remained in ICE custody? Of those pregnant women who received determinations to remain in custody, how many were in their third trimester?
- Have any women given birth in ICE facilities from January 1, 2025 to the date of receipt of this letter, including both live and stillborn births? If so, how many live and stillborn births and in which facilities? In that same time frame, how many miscarriages have occurred?
- All children born on U.S. soil, including at ICE detention facilities, are U.S. citizens. For any child born in ICE custody, what is the process for allowing their mothers to secure U.S. birth certificates and other vital documents? Have any women been deported before having an opportunity to seek and obtain a birth certificate for their child?
- How many pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women have been deported since January 1, 2025? Please provide the monthly total.
- Section 2 of the 2021 Pregnancy Directive requires that pregnant,
postpartum, and nursing women be detained in facilities that are
suitable for their physical and mental health needs.
- What ICE facilities currently detain pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women? Please provide a list by facility name and location.
- What are the criteria for determining if a facility is suitable for pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women? Of the pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in ICE custody, how many were detained in facilities that have been deemed suitable according to these criteria from January 1, 2025 to the date of receipt of this letter? What ICE office determined those facilities were suitable and when was that determination made?
- How many women since January 1, 2025 have been transferred into a suitable facility once it is discovered that they are pregnant, postpartum, and nursing? How many of these transfers occurred because the woman was pregnant?
- Since January 1, 2025, how many approved referrals for offsite obstetrics and gynecology services have been completed? How many inpatient hospitalizations related to active labor and birth for ICE detainees have occurred since January 1, 2025?
- Please describe pregnant women’s access to prenatal and postnatal health care in all ICE facilities that detain pregnant women, including routine medical examinations, treatment for pregnancy complications, and access to medical specialists such as OB/GYNs.
- Please describe the provisions for ensuring safe labor and delivery, including an opportunity for mother and child to bond immediately after birth.
- Current law (Section 528 of P.L. 118-47) and Section 2.3 of the 2021 Pregnancy Directive severely curtails the use of restraints on pregnant women at any time and prohibits them entirely during active labor and delivery. If restraints are used, documented medical approval is required. Since January 1, 2025, have any pregnant women been placed in restraints? If yes, how many and at which locations have restraints been used on pregnant women?
- Please describe any provisions for ensuring that pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women have access to a diet that meets the U.S. government recommended dietary guidelines for pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women, which includes including fruits, dairy products, vegetables, to support a healthy pregnancy and ensure their safety after birth.
Given the urgent nature of pregnant women’s health and safety needs, we request that you ensure all detention facilities are in full compliance with current law and the 2021 Pregnancy Directive. We also request as a sign of your agency’s commitment to the care of all individuals in your custody that you immediately resume semiannual reporting on Pregnant, Postpartum, and Lactating Individuals in Immigration Detention.
We look forward to receipt of this reporting and responses to our questions.
###
Maya Yang and Robert Mackey (GUARDIAN) explain:
The FBI reportedly recorded Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover agents who were posing as business contractors last year.
A new report from MSNBC on Saturday reveals that the agents recorded Homan, six weeks before the 2024 election, allegedly promising to assist in securing government contracts across the border security industry during Trump’s second term.
Six sources familiar with the matter told MSNBC that the FBI and justice department – then run by Joe Biden’s administration – had intended to hold off and assess whether Homan would follow through on his alleged promises after he was appointed as Trump’s border czar. However, the investigation stalled after Trump took office, and in recent weeks, officials appointed by Trump decided to close the case, according to MSNBC.
[. . .]
Homan was captured on video accepting $50,000 in cash at a meeting spot in Texas on 20 September 2024, according to an internal summary of the case reviewed by MSNBC and sources who spoke to the outlet.
Four sources familiar with the matter told MSNBC that multiple federal officials believed they had a solid criminal case against Homan for conspiracy to commit bribery. However, since Homan was not a public official at the time he accepted the money and Trump had not yet become president, his actions did not meet the criteria for a standard bribery charge.
Officials eventually decided to continue monitoring Homan once he joined Trump’s second presidential administration. MSNBC reports that officials had been looking at four potential criminal charges including conspiracy, bribery and two kinds of fraud, before Trump’s new justice department shut down the investigation.
Pam Bimbo Bondi and Ka$h Patel need to explain to the American people how dropping the case was "justice." Because what it looks like is they weren't interested in justice, they were just scratching one another's backs and practicing The Laws Are For Thee Not For Me.
Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.’ Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT
Robin Levinson-King (BBC NEWS) reports:
The president's post came a day after federal prosecutor Erik Siebert left his post after Trump said he wanted him to resign for failing to prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James over allegations of mortgage fraud.
The New York Times reported that Siebert had told senior justice department officials their investigations had not unearthed enough evidence to prosecute James.
James, a Democrat who won a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump in 2023, has denied the mortgage fraud allegations as "baseless" and motivated by "revenge".
This is a very dangerous moment. At THE NEW YORKER, Ruth Marcus explained:
"I want him out," President Donald Trump declared on Friday, referring to Erik Siebert, the career prosecutor he had tapped less than five months earlier to serve as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Siebert, who had been in the role in an acting capacity since January and whose nomination was pending on the Senate floor, complied in short order. His resignation was not enough for Trump, who took to his social-media platform Truth Social just after midnight to make his point: “He didn’t quit, I fired him!” Trump insisted he had acted when he was informed that Siebert had received the “UNUSUALLY STRONG support of the two absolutely terrible, sleazebag Democrat Senators, from the Great State of Virginia.” He was referring to Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, who, along with the state’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, had recommended Siebert for the post.
This odd justification—faulting Warner and Kaine for their bipartisanship—should fool no one. The source of Trump’s beef with Siebert was evident. According to numerous reports, Siebert had balked at bringing criminal charges against two of Trump’s supposed enemies: New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who had sued Trump and his company for fraud; and the former F.B.I. director James Comey, whom Trump had fired during his first term. This moment was inevitable. Trump has been proclaiming for years that his political opponents should be locked up, but there is a gulf between loudly alleging criminal behavior and amassing the evidence necessary to prove the elements of an actual crime. The difference in Trump’s second term is that he is not about to be deterred by such niceties. This time around, the lawyers aren’t going to stop him.
The Trump Administration’s modus operandi has been to flood the zone with a torrent of illegal acts. One day it uses the military to blow up boats suspected of trafficking drugs, without legal authorization and in defiance of both U.S. and international law; the next it threatens to revoke the broadcast licenses of television networks whose speech displeases the Administration. These are not discrete incidents. They are linked by the common threads of Trump’s disdain for the rule of law, his bloated conception of Presidential power, and his readiness to bend the state to his will. The scope of the assault seems intended to inure the public to the outrages it is witnessing. It is impossible, emotionally and intellectually, to be worked up about everything, everywhere, all at once.
But here we are. In the hierarchy of the Administration’s horrors, the Siebert firing is about as bad as it gets. Since Trump regained office, the Department of Justice has dismissed career prosecutors for an array of unjustified and self-serving reasons: for daring to have worked on the criminal cases against Trump; being the daughter of Comey; failing to remove personal pronouns in a signature block. It has dismissed pending cases to serve political ends, such as that of New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams. What’s happening now is worse. Dropping the criminal charges against Adams amounted to a political perversion of the justice system. But using the criminal law to punish political opponents as retribution inflicts far greater damage. Here, a potentially guilty person doesn’t walk free; an innocent person is harmed. The prospect of eventual acquittal in the case of an unjustified prosecution is of little comfort; as Trump well understands, being indicted and having to stand trial is ruinous enough. Firing a prosecutor for refusing to pursue a political opponent without a sufficient legal basis crosses the reddest of lines. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche were reported to have privately defended Siebert and questioned the viability of the case against James. On Saturday evening, Trump directed a Truth Social post at his Attorney General, demanding action. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” the President wrote. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT.” For good measure, Trump said he would nominate his former criminal-defense lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, to take Siebert’s place. “She will be Fair, Smart, and will provide, desperately needed, JUSTICE FOR ALL!” Trump wrote, of Halligan, who has been the White House staffer in charge of removing “improper ideology” from museums, as it’s described in an executive order. “Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot,” he publicly assured Bondi.
In another era, of stiffer spines and greater integrity, we would be in Saturday Night Massacre territory. On the evening of October 20, 1973, President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson refused and resigned, followed by Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. (The deed was ultimately done by the No. 3 official, Solicitor General Robert Bork; unlike Richardson and Ruckelshaus, he hadn’t assured lawmakers he could not interfere with Cox’s work.) To expect a similar display of principle from Bondi and Blanche would be to ignore their track record of servility to Trump.
Bill Essayli, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, on Saturday said he referred Gov. Gavin Newsom to the Secret Service for a “full threat assessment,” after Newsom wrote on social media a jab targeting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“We have zero tolerance for direct or implicit threats against government officials,” Essayli wrote on X, adding he “referred this matter” to the Secret Service and requested a “full threat assessment,” though it’s not immediately clear what the assessment would entail.
Essayli responded to an earlier social media post from Newsom, who wrote, “Kristi Noem is going to have a bad day today,” before signing a series of bills protecting California’s immigrant population, including a ban on face coverings for federal agents and a requirement for officers to identify themselves.
A motion needs to be made for Essayli to be disbarred.
He clearly is not qualified to hold public office (which we'll get back to) and he is clearly not qualified to practice the law.
There is no threat -- direct or implicit -- in Gavin's Tweet.
Bill Essayli is not qualified for the job he's 'holding.' Again, we'll get to it.
There have been two or three attempts on Donald Chump's life in the last two years. How is it helping Chump or the Secret Service for Essayli to being making these frivolous charges that distract from the Secret Service's main duty?
Should he be fired? I believe he has been. But before we get to that, let's note how he's never really been up to the job to begin with. From WIKIPEDIA:
The Los Angeles Times reported that Essayli struggled to secure convictions at grand juries for charges he brought against protestors during the June 2025 Los Angeles protests. By July 23, federal prosecutors brought 38 felony cases against protestors but secured only seven indictments, with many being dismissed or reduced to misdemeanor charges. Three federal law enforcement officers reported to the Times that they overheard a speakerphone conversation in the vicinity of the grand jury room in which Essayli screamed at a prosecutor to ignore the department's Justice Manual and instead to secure indictments as directed by Pam Bondi. The reporting said Essayli's low number of indictments raised concerns among legal experts over the strength of the cases he was filing.[16]
Now let's deal with 'firing.' He's no longer the practicing attorney general overseeing California. Pam Bondi named him that -- without Congressional approval -- on April 1st. Sunday will be 173 days since April 1st.
Do we get the problem or do I need to do a slow walk through? Think Alina Haba, if you're confused.
Here's what the law in question says, per the US Justice Dept:
28 U.S. Code § 546
(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the earlier of—
Get it? His 'term' has expired. Yesterday, it was 53 days after his term expired. As a California tax payer and a US tax payer, I want him to pay for every day after 120 that he has (mis)used office space. His term has expired. We should not be paying for his office space of his 'on the job' transportation (his job is over).
He has refused to follow laws and regulations which is why the cases he's brought have not resulted in convictions. He has tossed aside the laws and regulations to serve at the whims of Bimbo Bondi. That doesn't cut it. And, again, he should be disbarred.
Right now what needs to happen is Gavin Newsom needs to bring a lawsuit against him. That way, when it moves to discovery, we can find out whether it's just Essayli that's an idiot who doesn't understand the law and that's why he filed this frivolous claim against Gavin or whether Pam Bondi ordered Essayli to waste all of our time (and tax dollars and divert the attention of the Secret Service's resources to a non-issue).
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