A young woman clings to a tree as masked men try to peel her off. The men wrench one of the woman’s arms behind her back, then stuff her into the back of an unmarked SUV as bystanders film and shout. She was selling food outside a Home Depot in West Los Angeles when federal agents chased her down and arrested her.
Videos of aggressive immigration raids like this have become commonplace as the Trump administration pursues its goal of deporting millions of people over the next four years.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is arresting people in front of their kids during school dropoffs, on the way to church, and at routine check-ins at immigration offices. Communities are pushing back, leading to clashes with police and protests. These raids are remaking the country.
REVEAL notes the above as an introduction to their audio report (use the link, I can't find the MOTHER JONES report on YOUTUBE). Convicted Felon Donald Chump continues to carry out war against this country as he persecutes immigrants and those who look like they might be immigrants. He's been thundering threats at Chicago for months now. It's all a con game and a distraction from one of the world's biggest liars, a man bound and determined to destroy this country and to destroy our democracy.
Governor JB Pritzker's office served up a few key points:
Here are the facts Donald Trump should read and the White House should include in their next press release:
- Chicago does not even make the list for Most Dangerous Places in the U.S., according to U.S. News & World Report.
- Illinois ranks in the top half of states with the lowest violent crime rates in the country.
- Gov. Pritzker’s Reimagine Public Safety Act (RPSA) invested $250 million evidence-based programs to reduce gun violence.
- The Peacekeeper Program, which trains residents to mediate and de-escalate conflicts, has resulted in a 41% reduction in gun violence in targeted Chicago and suburban Cook County neighborhoods
- Over 90% of communities in Chicago that received state funding experienced declines in total firearm victimizations in July 2025 as compared to July 2024.
- Chicago is on track to have the lowest number of homicides in decades with violent crime trending downward across categories as well.
- Murders and shooting incidents are both down by more than 30% in the past year and have been cut roughly in half since 2021.
Read more about Illinois public safety efforts and facts here.
As Ryan Cooper (THE AMERICAN PROSPECT) points out:
But not every opponent is a mewling coward. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker recently demonstrated this with a firm stand against Trump’s planned invasion of the state.
The idea was to whip up one of Trump’s usual unhinged rants about crime in Chicago—it’s a “hellhole,” he claimed, the “MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD”—as a pretext for sending in Texas National Guard troops, along with ICE agents, to do some of his classic autocratic theater. As we saw in Washington, D.C., armed soldiers would be standing around doing nothing much in particular, except deeply unsettling passersby, while ICE goons would set about black-bagging random brown day laborers at Chicago hardware stores.
It should be emphasized that sending National Guard troops from one state to another without the governor’s permission is wildly illegal, and arguably an act of war.
Pritzker—unlike D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been hiding under the bed—was having none of it. In a bracing speech, he pointed out the obvious. “This is not about fighting crime. This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals.” (The actual murder capital of the world is Colima, Mexico, whose homicide rate is nine times higher than Chicago’s. As my colleague Harold Meyerson recently pointed out, Jackson, Mississippi has a murder rate 5.5 times that of Chicago, but that didn’t stop the state’s governor from sending his National Guard troops to D.C.) “Look around you right now. Does this look like an emergency? Look at this. Go talk to the people of Chicago who are enjoying a gorgeous afternoon in this city. Ask the families buying ice cream on the Riverwalk,” Pritzker added.
Ryan's right to applaud JB. I've known JB for years and would gladly vote for him. That said, I think we're holding out false hope if we honestly think Chump knows how to read. Maybe if JB stamped "Epstein" on it and sent it over to AG Pam Bondi's office, it might get read? Of course, if it was read, she would then immediately 'loose' it, right?
Juliana Kim (NPR) notes that Chump is floating an APOCOLYPSE NOW assault on Chicago. I guess it's a senior moment? He's that divorced from reality? People's lives are at stake and he's trying to act like it's a movie.
Matan H. Josephy and Laurel M. Shugart (HARVARD CRIMSON) reported an hour ago that he's actually moving on Boston:
The Trump administration has begun rolling out its next surge of immigration enforcement in Boston, even as the federal government sued the city over a policy limiting police collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The surge, dubbed Operation Patriot 2.0, is expected to last several weeks, according to a Saturday report by the New York Times. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the move Saturday afternoon.
[. . .]
Reports of ICE agents near Harvard’s campus spread quickly among students Friday afternoon.
Students saw three vehicles marked with ICE lettering and the slogan “Defend the Homeland” driving in Harvard Square on Friday. The vehicles were photographed parked on Mt. Auburn Street and filmed driving toward Central Square.
Across the country, Chump's war is destroying families, civil rights and liberties and the economy. Sandra Sanchez (BORDER REPORT) notes:
The president and CEO of the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights organization says the U.S. economy and families are being “devasted” by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
Janet Murguía, president and CEO of UnidosUS, told Hispanic Latina leaders on Thursday that employees throughout the country, including the South Texas border, are afraid to go to work and families are scared to go to school and doctor’s appointments for fear ICE agents will arrest and deport them.
“The Rio Grande Valley is also seeing the impact of ICE raids and the administration’s increase in funding for mass deportations,” Murguía told about 400 people attending the Latina Leadership Conference 2025 hosted by the RGV Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
[. . .]
“We’re seeing the humanitarian impact on families that are being devastated by some of the separations and deportations. But really, the biggest point I want to make is how hard it’s hitting the economy. These raids and targeted deportations are really impacting workers and businesses in ways where folks are afraid to show up at work. They’re connected to families who may or may not have someone who’s fully documented, and they don’t want to put their families at risk. They don’t want to put their businesses at risk, and so we’re seeing the economy shut down in areas that should be thriving,” Murguía told Border Report after her keynote speech.
Chicago and surrounding areas are gearing up for whatever crimes Chump plans to attempt. Susan Sarkauskas (DAILY HERALD) reports, "At least 250 people protesting on the streets of Wheaton Saturday made one message clear -- they don’t want immigration agents arresting people in their hometown. Standing along sidewalks in front of a Jewel-Osco store at Main Street and Geneva Road, they held signs, rang bells, drummed and chanted." Wheaton is a city to the west of Chicago in Illinois. And that's a very big turnout for the seat of DeKalb county which, last November, saw 48.1% of the voters turn out for Chump (Kamala Harris won the county with 50.1% of the voters, she also carried the state). Cristobal Cavazos is quoted stating that they chose the protest site as a result of ICE grabbing a man in the parking lot there on August 1st, "We saw what ICE terrorism is doing to what the Bible says re 'the least of these'." ABC 7's Christian Piekos, Maher Kawash, Evelyn Holmes, and Rob Hughes report:
A rally and march was held Saturday evening in downtown Chicago against the anticipated surge in ICE operations. A large crowd gathered at Michigan and Ida B. Wells before marching up Michigan Avenue.
President Donald Trump says the surge in immigration enforcement activity in the Chicago area is about getting dangerous criminals off the streets.
The White House has not released any details about what's being planned. City and state leaders oppose deploying federal agents to the city.
Protests wrapped up Saturday night in the city and suburbs as federal immigration enforcement was expected to expand. The protests stayed peaceful, but demonstrators had a strong message for the president.
Massive crowds marched through downtown Chicago. At least a few thousand people protested the Trump administration.
Veronica Castro, deputy director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights said, "Our job is to take to the streets, defend our space and keep each other safe."
"Our communities are still experiencing state-sanctioned trauma as a result of this orchestrated fear campaign," Viviana Barajas of Palenque USA said.
They marched through the Loop, stopping at the U.S. citizenship and immigration services office, the federal courthouse and paused at the foot of Trump Tower to send loud messages.
There’s been no sign of the National Guard in Chicago but the city is braced for it.
Friday, Senator Dick Durbin's office issued the following:
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), a combat Veteran and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, today announced seven amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2026 to push back against the Trump Administration’s threats to deploy the military to cities across the country, including Chicago. These amendments would enhance congressional oversight over President Trump’s expansive use of the military for law enforcement operations in American cities, including without the consent or request of a state’s elected officials.
“Deploying the military to Chicago without the request or consent of Illinois’ elected leaders is a clear violation of the law by the President. Chicago does not need to be ‘saved’ by President Trump, and this is nothing more than a shameless scare tactic,” said Durbin. “President Trump continues to abuse his power as Commander in Chief, but Senator Duckworth and I are pushing for stronger oversight over his actions.”
“I’m proud to join Senator Durbin in sponsoring these amendments that will help ensure our military can remain focused on its core missions and prevent Donald Trump—or any President—from politicizing and misusing our Armed Forces for their own gain,” said Duckworth. “Forcing the military, uninvited, into our cities to intimidate Americans in their own communities does not make our nation stronger, it simply distracts the military from executing its core mission of keeping our nation safe from real adversaries who wish us harm. Trump’s threats against Chicago are more unwarranted, unwanted and unjust moves straight out of the authoritarian’s playbook that will only jeopardize civil rights, undermine our military’s readiness and ultimately weaken our national security.”
The amendments that Durbin and Duckworth announced include:
- Amendment #3028 to curb misuses of military bases, installations and facilities for detentions by prohibiting the use of any military construction funds to construct, renovate or expand any facility forthe purposes of detaining migrants.
- Amendment #3209 to draw a bright line between military and policing by prohibiting individuals from simultaneously serving as an employee in the Department of Defense and in any civilian law enforcement entity, except if they are members of the Reserves and National Guard and hold law enforcement roles solely in their civilian capacities.
- Amendment #3210 to protect civil rights and prevent misuse of military by requiring the President to notify Congress and justify in writing before providing access to military equipment—including surveillance equipment—bases or facilities to support law enforcement, and require Congressional approval to extend any such support longer than 30 days. This amendment would make it harder forPresident Trump to use military bases for detention, provide military surveillance equipment to support police or DHS, and claim it is legal to deploy the military to American cities because they are only in support roles to law enforcement. In recent months, the Trump Administration has dedicated expensive DOD platforms, assets and facilities for support to law enforcement, including designating military bases in five states for DHS support, including Ft. Bliss which was once used for Japanese internment, and pulling expensive military systems away from their normal missions to assist DHS with surveillance within the United States along the border.
- Amendment #3596 to prohibit DoD non-reimbursable support to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the purposes of immigration enforcement activities. The Trump Administration’s expansive use of the military for immigration operations, both domestically and overseas at Guantánamo Bay, has raised significant civil liberties concerns and risks eroding trust in the military. It is also a costly diversion of military resources that undermines readiness, as the Department of Defense (DOD) has provided such immigration enforcement support to DHS on a non-reimbursable basis, effectively forsaking the intent behind such Congressionally directed defense funds.
- Amendment #3774 to prohibit the use of DoD funds for any activities that would violate the Posse Comitatus Act or that would infringe on powers reserved to the States under the Constitution.
- Amendment #3775 to ensure applicability of the Posse Comitatus Act on the National Guard. This amendment would close an unintended loophole President Trump has abused to deploy National Guard troops across state lines for law enforcement support and absent invocation of emergency authorities under the Insurrection Act.
- Amendment #3773 to prohibit the use of funds for any DoD deployment of National Guard forces under Title 32 authorities in a state or federal territory over the objections of the chief executive.
Both Durbin and Duckworth have repeatedly spoken out against President Trump’s threats to deploy troops and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Chicago. Earlier this week, Durbin and Duckworth led Illinois delegation members in demanding that President Trump abandon his plans to deploy the military to the city, and the Senators wrote to the leaders of DOJ, DHS, DOD, and the FBI to request information about the Trump Administration’s plans to send federal agents and troops to Chicago. After reports surfaced that DOD planned to use Naval Station Great Lakes to enable operations by ICE officers, the Senators requested a meeting with the Secretary of the Navy. The Senators visited Naval Station Great Lakes earlier today.
As a member of the Armed Services Committee, Duckworth also successfully secured the following amendments in the NDAA that the Committee approved in July and are set to be considered by the full Senate:
- Language to strengthen public trust of the military and enhance civil rights by requiring that servicemembers identify themselves as part of the military when assisting federal law enforcement in the United States. As the Trump Administration continues to send federal agents and our nation’s military into our communities to intimidate their fellow Americans, this provision ensures that servicemembers identify themselves properly—to avoid public misunderstanding about who is providing logistical support versus conducting arrests or law enforcement duties.
- Ensure all servicemembers know their legal obligations during deployments both at home and abroad by mandating legal training to all servicemembers, including a refresher within 90 days of any mobilization or deployment, on their responsibilities under the law of armed conflict, rules of engagement, defense support for civil authorities and standing rules for the use of force within the United States. In light of the Trump Administration’s increasing use of troops to support law enforcement within the United States, this provision will ensure troops know how to responsibly operate within the bounds of domestic laws and protect American civil rights.
A copy of Amendment #3209 is available here.
A copy of Amendment #3210 is available here.
A copy of Amendment #3773 is available here.
A copy of Amendment #3774 is available here.
A copy of Amendment #3775 is available here.
A copy of Amendment #3596 is available here.
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Protests have been taking place around the country. Thursday saw protests in Florida. Grisha Glozman (FIGHT BACK! NEWS) notes:
On Thursday, September 4, around 60 students at the University of Central Florida rallied and marched to demand the reversal of their university’s 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as the establishment of a sanctuary campus.
The rally was led by UCF Students For A Democratic Society (SDS), who were joined by the UCF Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), and UCF Students For Education in Prison (SFEP), and others.
Speakers included the vice president of SDS, Vanessa Christaldi, who told the crowd, “Students should not have to feel afraid to go to school.” Erik Feyer emphasized the need for unity among students throughout the country in order to stand up to the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrant and international students.
And people are preparing to fight for their neighbors and their friends and their family. Will Fitzgerald (SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE) notes:
Trump’s relentless attacks on immigrants are front of mind for students, teachers, and working families headed into the 2025-26 school year. Following the ramping up of ICE raids in Los Angeles last spring, as well as cases like the detention and separation of fourth-grader Martir Garcia Lara from his father, many Latino and immigrant students stayed home for graduation events at the end of last school year, fearing the crackdown. The spectre of Trump’s ICE looms just as large now as then, in the context of Trump’s authoritarian takeover of DC and stated plans to send troops into Chicago.
The fear of ICE descending upon our schools is real, and is not just circulating on high school campuses either. High-profile detentions and visa revocations on college campuses have been a clear feature of Trump’s administration, most notably with the arrest and disappearance of pro-Palestine antiwar activist Mahmoud Khalil in March. Not only this, but the rise of Trump has further emboldened far-right organizing on college campuses. Last semester, there were reports of students dressing up as ICE agents and student groups organizing events to call ICE on their undocumented classmates. This has contributed to the atmosphere of fear and disunity among students and workers that Trump’s administration has been actively stoking. From elementary schools to universities, school communities are desperately seeking ways to protect themselves and defeat Trump’s deportation agenda.
To seriously push back Trump’s deportation agenda, our schools need to become bastions of opposition to Trump’s plans for immigrant detentions and deportations. Many educators and their unions have already taken to distributing “Know Your Rights” leaflets to parents and students at school thresholds. Such was the case for Alondra Garcia, an immigrant elementary school teacher in Milwaukee who was suspended without pay for providing families with information about legal services available to them in case of deportation.
Importantly, in an action initiated by Socialist Alternative members, hundreds of community members, union educators, and immigrants rights activists rallied outside of her school on the day of her suspension to defend Ms. Garcia and all immigrants under attack right now. This action helped put enough pressure on the Milwaukee Public School district to win back-pay for Ms. Garcia for her wrongful suspension and to strike the file from her personal record.
This points towards the type of rapid-response organizing and solidarity needed to protect immigrant students and community members from ICE. While it is important for immigrants to know their basic legal rights as individuals, it is more important that working-class communities, especially unionized workers and those who are native-born and with legal status, are prepared to respond to raids by ICE and local police with direct action!
At The Good Men Project, Ilana Newman notes of Colorado:
In response to increased ICE presence in the region, local groups have been holding ‘Know Your Rights’ trainings to educate both immigrants and allies about what to do if federal law enforcement is present. Garcia Waddell held one such training in Cortez, Colorado in mid-August with a group of around 40, mostly white, retirement-age community members who showed up to protect their neighbors.
Mariana Stump, an activist who lives in Cortez, has also held a Know Your Rights training for the Latino community in Montezuma County. Stump said that about 40 people attended a training in Spanish she held at a church in Cortez earlier in August and she plans to organize another one in September. “We just keep spreading the word to let the community of Cortez know that they’re not alone. We’re here to help them and support them in any hard and difficult times,” said Stump in an interview with the Daily Yonder.
Angela Clark, who helped start the Cortez immigrant support group Manos Unidad as part of Montezuma County’s Indivisible chapter, said in a Daily Yonder interview that many Latino residents didn’t attend big local events like the rodeo and the Montezuma County Fair this year out of fear of ICE activity.
In rural communities like Cortez, Latino residents have a lot of economic power and their absence will have ripple effects. “Restaurants would be closed. Hotels would not have staff,” said Clark about the economic impact of losing Latino residents. According to census data, around 3,200 Hispanic identifying people live in Montezuma County, about 12% of the population. Stump said that many residents who are afraid of ICE agents don’t want to leave the house, even to go to Walmart. To help mitigate this risk she runs errands for them.
Colorado Rapid Response Network was established in Colorado in 2016 by a coalition of organizations. The network receives calls about ICE sightings or activity and mobilizes local people to respond to and confirm any sightings. Other states, cities, and regions have their own localized rapid response networks like the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, the Florida Immigrant Coalition Hotline and the California Rapid Response Network that also includes local chapters.
Responders within these networks are trained, and have practice, dealing with federal law enforcement and enforcing immigrants’ rights. “Practice is very important, that’s how you know what to do in a stressful situation,” said Garcia Waddell. In La Plata County, Clark said a recent ICE raid led to a man fleeing by foot into the mountains, leaving his work truck behind with ICE agents who were unable to catch him.
Thursday drove home how important it is for us all to get into this fight and to speak out and show up. That's when Chump's gestapo seized nearly 500 people in one city in Georgia. Jacob Cross (WSWS) notes:
On Thursday, multiple federal agencies, including Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)—a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), carried out a massive immigration raid on the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America campus in Ellabell, Georgia.
According to HSI, the fascistic raid resulted in the kidnapping of 475 workers. In a press conference Friday, Steven Schrank, the special agent in charge of HSI in Georgia, said it was the largest single-site raid in the agency’s history.
Schrank claimed the workers had either entered the US illegally, overstayed their visas, or were violating their visas by working. He stated that most of those arrested were from Korea and that they had already been transported to an ICE concentration camp in Folkston, Georgia.
Alaa Elassar, Isabel Rosales and Caroll Alvarado (CNN) explain, "Federal agents descended on the Hyundai site Thursday morning like it was a 'war zone,' a construction worker at the electric car plant told CNN Friday." CBS NEWS adds, "No criminal charges were announced during Friday's news conference. The sweep was conducted as part of a month-long investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices and other federal crimes, Schrank said. He described Thursday's raid as the largest enforcement operation at a single site in the history of Homeland Security Investigations, which is a unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement." 475 people arrested and the next day, at a scheduled press conference, they have no criminal charges to announce? That's because the bulk of the arrested across the country are not violent criminals. They're hard working people who are being lied about and treated as props so that Chump can scare the stupid. That's all he has left: The stupid. Smart people on money? They're dancing away from his as fast as they can -- they see him wrecking the economy and they're even more worried that he's going to start nationalizing companies. Smart people who care about children and don't want them assaulted? He's run them off as well between his support for Ghislaine Maxwell and Robert Kennedy Junior. Go down any list. It's only the deeply stupid that still cling to him. So he lies to scare them and keep control over them.
The American Immigration Council issued the following statement:
“These raids don’t make anyone safer. They terrorize workers, destabilize communities, and push families into chaos,” said Michelle Lapointe, legal director at the American Immigration Council, who is based in the Atlanta, Georgia area. “This historic raid may make dramatic headlines, but it does nothing to fix the problems in our broken immigration system: a lack of legal pathways and a misguided focus on punishing workers and families who pose no threat to our communities. Raiding work sites isn’t reform, it’s political theater at the expense of families, communities, and our economy.”
“Immigrant workers are the backbone of our economy, filling critical labor gaps in manufacturing and beyond. Nationwide, 5.7% of manufacturing workers are undocumented, and here in Georgia they make up 6.7% of that workforce. Raiding worksites instead of fixing our pathways to legal employment is cruel, wasteful, and deeply shortsighted. The chilling effect of these raids will make it less likely that people will show up to work, deepening labor shortages and hitting businesses hard at an already precarious economic moment,” said Nan Wu, director of research at the American Immigration Council.
Clea Skopeliti (GUARDIAN) points out, "The raid is the largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was created in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US in New York and Washington DC." This raid did 'accomplish' something. Debbie Elliott (NPR) notes, "South Korea's foreign minister is considering a trip to the U.S. to meet with the Trump administration after hundreds of South Korean nationals were arrested in Georgia this week at an electric vehicle battery plant." Someone might try to explain to Chump that South Korea? That's the Korea that's the US's ally and has been for decades. That's not the one you want to anger. The one we are in conflict with is North Korea which is headed by a dictator that Chump can't stop dry humping.
As a result of these criminal stunts carried out by Chump, cities are goin to protect themselves. Ana Despa and Lucas Lin (DUKE CHRONICAL) report:
In an unanimous vote Tuesday, Durham City Council passed a resolution to make Durham a “Fourth Amendment Workplace,” increasing protections for city workers against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and arrests.
The Fourth Amendment protects citizens against arbitrary searches and arrests and serves as the basis of search warrants with a probable cause of crime. The resolution directs city staff to “uphold the 4th amendment at their workplace and city agencies and report back to Council any barriers to effective training on the 4th Amendment for any departments.”
The resolution says the city has “historically pursued equity and safety for all residents” and the trust of Durhamites is essential to the city carrying out its operations. It says the threat of “unconstitutional seizure” has prevented immigrants in Durham from “safely engaging in public life, including pursuing employment and education.”
The move comes less than two months after four ICE agents appeared at the Durham County Courthouse to detain an undocumented individual charged with felony. The officers donning plain clothes did not arrest anyone, but their presence sounded alarms among Durham residents and council members alike.
Fighting back? That's what this country is doing and it's what scares the hell out of a liar like Donald Chump. He grasps that We The People are onto him and, yes, we also done with him.
The following sites updated:
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The survivors need and deserve justice18 hours ago
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Junior The Menace18 hours ago
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Idiot of the Week18 hours ago
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Sausage Egg Muffins in the Kitchen18 hours ago
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