Tuesday, July 28, 2026. We are now in the sixth month of war with Iran and still no end in sight, Chump and Hegseth continue to try to juggle the numbers of service members injured and service members fallen, Epstein haunts Chump at a rally yesterday, the Tate brothers are predators linked to Chump and his son Barron, and much more.
"There's no deal," Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes in the video above, "that's going to resolve Iran's threshold issues." John Ismay (NEW YORK TIMES) observes:
Soon after the war began on Feb. 28, President Trump declared that Iran was “totally defeated and wants a deal.”
Then in March, Mr. Trump said the U.S. military would wrap up its campaign against Iran in two to three weeks. “We will be leaving very soon,” he said.
Now
the conflict is entering its sixth month and a period of deep
uncertainty. After nearly two weeks of attacks and counterattacks, Mr.
Trump has held off a major escalation. But major issues between the two
sides remain unsettled.
The cycles of fighting have resulted in staggering losses.
An
estimated 1,700 Iranian civilians have been killed in airstrikes, which
have devastated Iran’s infrastructure and deepened the country’s
economic crisis.
Eighteen U.S. service members have died in the war, which the Pentagon estimates has cost $37.5 billion.
President
Donald Trump has arrived at yet another fork in the road on Iran. But
each time he reaches such a point, his options only become more narrow
and the costs of any course of action grow.
The Trump administration explained Sunday that a pause in air strikes — now up to three nights, after 13 straight nights of attacks — was meant to create space for diplomacy. But it also warned it was “locked and loaded” for another possible escalation.
There
are some signs of diplomatic activity. Iran said it hosted talks with
Oman at deputy foreign minister level in recent days. But there’s so far
no sign the Islamic Republic will shift on its core demand, which
caused the latest flare-up with the US: its insistence on controlling
shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian
foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said in a televised press
conference that no talks were currently taking place with the US and
that Tehran “will never allow the United States to determine the timing
of war and peace.”
Trump
finds himself back in a familiar spot. He’s tried to coerce Iranian
concessions with intensified attacks. But this plan is not working any
better now than it did after the initial round of fighting. He could
increase the pressure by deploying ground troops, a move that might take
advantage of the US military edge. But this would risk significant US casualties in an already deeply unpopular war.
Nearly five months into a war he’d said would take a few weeks, Trump
keeps trying to create maneuvering space against Tehran. But all the
strategy seems to do is leave him with less room and worse choices.
The Pentagon updated its official war casualty
database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members.
The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) also introduced a new
casualty category labeled “Overseas Operations” for personnel killed and wounded “starting July 7”.
According to the updated database, the official toll for the earlier phase of the US-Iran war, known as Operation Epic Fury, now stands at 14 service members killed and more than 400 wounded in action.
These figures have been a point of contention after the Pentagon previously reduced the totals from 18 deaths and 482 wounded that had been recorded just days earlier.
The
dispute comes after the collapse of the ceasefire with Iran and the
resumption of near-daily airstrikes beginning on 6 July. Analysts and
officials have questioned whether casualties from the renewed fighting
should be counted separately from Operation Epic Fury, a move that would
be unprecedented.
The Trump administration
is seeking to classify the renewed military campaign as separate from
Operation Epic Fury, the US military’s official name for the Iran
conflict.
Chump cannot tell the truth. His default position is always one of dishonesty. He lies and then lies again. And the American people are catching on to it and they are not happy with the never ending lies. Martha McHardy (THE DAILY BEAST) notes:
A brutal new poll suggests Americans are losing patience with Donald Trump’s handling of his war on Iran.
According to a CBS News/YouGov survey of 2,193 adults, conducted
July 22-24, 57 percent of Americans say they are frustrated by the war,
which Trump launched without congressional authorization and has
already cost the U.S. at least $37.5 billion.
Overall, 61 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict, compared with just 39 percent who approve.
The findings also point to growing pessimism about the war’s direction.
Nearly
two-thirds, 63 percent, believe the conflict is going badly for the
United States, while 76 percent say it has been harder than Trump
expected. Sixty percent think the president makes the situation in Iran
sound better than it really is.
60% think Chump is making "the situation in Iran sound better than it really is." The American people have caught on to him.
DOGE made no sense. Lying that he's staying at war with Iran because they're going to make a nuclear bomb while at the same time giving the go-ahead to Saudi Arabia to go nuclear? You look like an idiot and a liar and a corrupt piece of garbage.
At the heart of the conflict with Iran, Chump insists, is the
nuclear capabilities of Iran. Yet at the same time, he's announced the
go-ahead for Saudi Arabia on nuclear.
How may Iranians were among the hijackers on 9/11?
Oh, that's right: Zero.
How many were from Saudi Arabia?
15.
Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.
President
Trump went to war with Iran in part to force compliance with two
longstanding American demands: Tehran must stop enriching nuclear fuel
for at least two decades, and it must allow international inspectors to
go anywhere and see anything to verify the country is not producing a
bomb.
On
Wednesday, Mr. Trump took the reverse approach to Saudi Arabia, its
close ally in the region. To seal a deal for Westinghouse and other
American companies to seize a big piece of the business in building two
nuclear reactors on Saudi territory — and more to come — it opened the
door to allowing the kingdom to begin enriching its own nuclear fuel
after two years.
And
it gave in to the kingdom’s demand that it not have to abide by an
inspection agreement that applies to more than 140 other countries.
Those rules, the Saudis said, are just too intrusive.
Now
Mr. Trump will have to make the case to Congress, and to allies
throughout the Middle East, that in loosening the nuclear standards for
one close ally, he is not ushering in a new age of proliferation,
especially in a region of the world already on fire. If the daily
missile exchanges with Iran finally give way to resumed negotiations,
there is no question Iran will seize on the concessions made to Riyadh
and insist on the same.
Even as he threatened to escalate an unlawful war
sold in part as preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, Donald
Trump opened the door to proliferation in the region on Wednesday. The
US announced that it had signed a deal
with Saudi Arabia which would potentially allow the kingdom to enrich
uranium in future and to avoid the fullest inspection rights for the
international watchdog.
Experts have long
warned that a civilian nuclear programme could create a path towards a
nuclear-armed Riyadh. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince and de
facto leader, has said
that if Tehran gets a nuclear weapon, “we will have to get one”.
Concerns are magnified by the agreement’s terms. Washington previously
argued that the “gold standard” was the United Arab Emirates’ agreement
to permanently forgo enrichment and accept full monitoring by the UN’s
International Atomic Energy Agency. Weakening it sets a precedent that
Russia or China could also cite in nuclear deals in future.
At some point, people are going to force Chump to answer about this move.
President Donald Trump lashed out at a protester screaming "pedophile protector!" while he was speaking in Michigan on Monday.
Trump
was in the Great Lakes State to speak about the economy at the GM
Proving Grounds in Milford when a demonstrator started heckling him from
the crowd over his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
MEIDASTOUCH NEWS offered video of the booing and heckling.
In January, a worker in a Ford Motor Company factory in Dearborn, Michigan, yelled
“pedophile protector” at Trump as he was touring the facility,
prompting the president to mouth an expletive and give the worker the
middle finger. Last month, a protester repeatedly shouted “pedophile” at Trump and gave him two middle fingers while he toured a Mack truck factory in Macungie, Pennsylvania.
It’s
highly doubtful that all the hecklers were Communists, and considering
how unpopular Trump’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files has been
with his supporters,
they could have even been disgruntled MAGA devotees. Trump is only
going to hear more protesters and hecklers calling him a pedophile for
the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce, has apparently been exposed in another lie about his relationship with Epstein. Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) reports:
Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with a firm once run by Commerce
Secretary Howard Lutnick may date back 11 years further than previously
known, according to a newly unearthed document flagged by independent
journalist Kaitlyn Pierce, who writes under the name Kait Justice.
Lutnick told
The New York Post last year that he had cut off all ties with Epstein
in 2005, but the Justice Department's release of Epstein-related files
quickly contradicted that claim. The files showed Lutnick visited Epstein's private island in 2012 and that the two maintained contact through at least 2018.
Lutnick and Epstein were also discovered to have been “in business together as recently as 2014,” per CBS News, with the two of them both signing onto a deal to acquire stakes in a now-defunct technology company called Adfin.
Lutnick was explicitly asked
by the House Oversight Committee in May whether he was aware of any
other business dealings between Epstein and Cantor Fitzgerald, the
financial services firm he once ran before handing off control to his
sons after joining the Trump
administration. Lutnick said, “to the best of my recollection,” there
were no other business dealings between Epstein and Cantor.
Justice, while searching through millions of Epstein-related files, stumbled upon a telling FedEx invoice that she suggested may undercut that claim.
“I did not expect to find Epstein in Cantor’s records,” Justice wrote in a report published Monday on her Substack.
The invoice is dated July 27, 2001, and reveals that Darren Indyke – once Epstein’s personal lawyer – had sent an overnight envelope from Epstein’s office in New York City, New York, to a Robert F. Mace
at Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, located on the 104th floor of the One
World Trade Center. Mace was Cantor’s employment lawyer, and would be
killed in the 9/11 attacks just 53 days after being sent the envelope
from Epstein.
“The invoice clearly doesn’t tell us what the
envelope contained, but it does place Epstein’s office in direct contact
with Lutnick’s firm 11 years before the relationship Lutnick described
to Congress supposedly began,” Justice wrote.
“Cantor’s customer
and trading records could show whether Epstein or any of his companies
had an account there, what they bought or sold through the firm and when
the relationship actually began.”
Months ago, former Attorney General Bill Barr went on Tara Palmeri's YOUTUBE program. And as he spoke, it was obvious -- at least to me -- that Barr was lying and covering something up.
So Barr's father hired Epstein decades ago (1974). Hmm. And an e-mail accuses Bill Barr of being present while Epstein raped a woman.
Bill Barr has not been honest about Epstein.
Barr is from Chump's first administration. Pete Hegseth is from Chump's current administration. Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) notes:
Republican
senators are increasingly voicing doubts about Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth's leadership as the war with Iran stretches into its fifth month
with no resolution in sight.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) delivered the sharpest public rebuke, telling The Hill he no longer has confidence in President Donald Trump's Pentagon chief, describing him as erratic, insecure and inexperienced.
“I
don’t have any confidence in him anymore," said Tillis, who is
retiring. "I think he’s all over the place — he’s accelerating the
retirement or forcing out some of the most distinguished leaders in the DOD that we have."
“I
think he’s got a massive insecurity complex, he has a lack of
experience in large organizations, he micromanages too much," Tillis
added. "He’s lost my confidence."
A
crisis of confidence is building within the Senate GOP conference,
according to Tillis, with other senators likely just one incident away
from speaking out themselves.
That sentiment was echoed privately by other Republicans.
It’s not exactly strange that elements of the Magaverse have embraced Andrew Tate. What’s strange is that the Democrats do not seem interested in holding the Trump movement to account for it.
Andrew Tate, the misogynist influencer who is accused by numerous women around the world and now by British prosecutors of rape and strangulation, as well as assault, sex trafficking, possession of
child abuse images and extreme pornography, and various other forms of
gender violence and exploitation, was arrested in Miami last week, along
with Tristan, his brother and sidekick. Or I should say, they were
rearrested: the men were previously charged in Romania, where they were
under house arrest until, following some conveniently timed diplomatic
moves from the Trump administration, they were allowed to leave the
country and resettled in the US. When asked if the Trump administration had secured their release from Romania back then, the Tates’ lawyer said:
“Do the math. These guys are on the plane.” Now, finally, they are
awaiting extradition to the UK, where they are dual citizens.
The Tate brothers have long made their living by
making provocative, contemptuous statements about women online. But in
June, the New Yorker’s Heidi Blake published a long investigation
that centered not on what the Tates have said, but on what they’re said
to have done – detailing a long and documented history of alleged sex
trafficking, violence and sexual assault along with a disturbing pattern
of police mismanagement, incompetence and indifference that allowed the
men to go free. The Tates denied wrongdoing in that piece; their lawyer
called the new British charges against them “garbage”.
But if anyone thought the Tates’ misogynistic influencer career was
mere bluster, the Blake investigation offered a formidable bit of
counterevidence: she painted a picture of the men acting exactly the way
that they talked.
In a world where people
take misogyny as seriously as they claim to, the Tates would long ago
have been ostracized, and condemned, for their hatefully sexist rhetoric
and alleged violence against women. In this world, they got rich, and
ingratiated themselves to powerful figures in the Republican party.
Tate
is a natural fit on a Maga right that has served to unite its many
different factions – from Christian conservatives to Silicon Valley
eugenicists, to beer-chugging barstool denizens, conspiracy mongers, and
the male hosts of multi-hour podcasts – around a foundation of male
supremacy. Contempt for women is the uniting force on the American
right, more uniform across the competing styles within the movement even
than the hatred of immigration or devotion to the prerogatives of
capital. Donald Trump cemented the presidency, after all, when he was
revealed to have bragged about “grab[bing]” women “by the pussy” and
still maintained his base of support. In the decade that followed, his
domineering, narcissistic, vulgar style of masculinity, and the
alternately belittling and hateful treatment of women that accompanies
it, have come to be seen on the right as a feature, not a bug. Other men
within the Maga movement now imitate Trump’s style of misogyny with a
gleeful competitiveness; the coalition welcomes men who collect harems
of women to breed their children, those who have been multiply accused
of sexual abuse and those who decry our right to vote. Andrew Tate, in this milieu, is not an exception. He is the rule.
But
just because Tate’s style of masculinity is popular on the right – in
which sex is seen to elevate men’s status at women’s expense, in which
women’s aspirations to education, skilled work, dignity, public
participation, or even mere decency are mocked; and in which men’s
mistreatment of women is the key way for them to gain the esteem of
other men – does not mean that it is popular with the public. Tate’s
version of vulgar, avowed, preening misogyny has a constituency of
Republican politicians and unlikable teenage boys; it does not have a
constituency among the majority of the American public.
Why are Democrats
not making the Tates into symbols of Maga’s hateful and bizarre
cultural project, of Trump’s personal alleged affinity for sexual
misconduct, or of the antisocial, anti-democratic and anti-equality
stances of the Maga movement?
The
Tates were allowed into this country for some strange reason. And
Chump's protected them ever since until the weekend before last.
They're wanted for so many charges and Great Britain is asking that they
be handed over to them. Alex Woodward (INDEPENDENT) notes:
Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari is urging the House Oversight Committee to investigate the Tatebrothers' connections to individuals in the administration's orbit, including Barron Trump.
Ansari
specifically requested Barron Trump testify about his knowledge or
involvement with Andrew and Tristan Tate, who are accused of sexual
abuse and trafficking.
The manosphere influencers were arrested
in Miami following a U.K. extradition request for serious trafficking
and sexual abuse allegations, with the White House not expected to block
their extradition.
But Barron Trump was reportedly a fan of Andrew Tate and spoke to him over Zoom in 2024, according to The New York Times.
Donald Trump Jr. also reportedly met Tate at Trump Tower in 2017, and
Alina Habba, a former attorney to the president who briefly served as
the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, described herself as a “big
fan” during a January 2025 podcast appearance.
Ansari is also
seeking records from the Department of Justice and State Department
regarding communications between U.S., British, and Romanian authorities
concerning the Tate brothers' investigation and extradition.
Donald
Trump Jr., who once called Andrew Tate a friend and publicly defended
him against previous criminal allegations, has said nothing about the
arrests. Neither has his younger brother Barron Trump, who had also been
friendly with Andrew. Candace Owens, a conservative commentator who
backed both brothers on her popular show, has also stayed silent.
Privately,
people close to Donald Jr. have played down his relationship with the
Tates; one person said he had not spoken with anyone in the
administration about their arrests.
Asked
by The Times about his retweeting of Tristan Tate on Saturday, Roger
Stone, a prominent Republican operative, said he did so before the news
of their arrests. And Paolo Zampolli, a special envoy for Mr. Trump who
had hosted the Tates at a party in Washington two days before the
arrests, said he hadn’t realized the extent of the allegations against
them.
“I didn’t know they were arrest material,” Mr. Zampolli said in an interview.
The shift was as swift as it was cold. Standing before reporters in the
briefing room on Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt
was asked a direct question: Would President Donald Trump
or his administration intervene to stop the extradition of Andrew and
Tristan Tate to the United Kingdom on 59 charges of rape, sex
trafficking, assault and extreme pornography? Her single-word response
— “No” — denied the brothers, who have been championed by many MAGA media figures as examples of white male persecution, a lifeline.
On Thursday, federal marshals in Miami took the Tates into custody. In addition to the charges they face in the U.K., the brothers remain embroiled in grave human-trafficking and minor-exploitation proceedings in Romania and investigations in Florida about new allegations.
In
the days since their arrest, their attorney Joseph McBride — who has
also represented Jan. 6 defendants — has insisted the arrest is
political persecution, and he has been amplifying supportive commentary
online from media figures with close ties to the Trump
administration. MAGA influencer and white nationalist Nick Fuentes wrote
that it would be a “national humiliation” if Trump agreed to extradite
the brothers to Britain over what he called “trumped up ‘Me Too’
charges.” Other far-right influencers reportedly joined in, but to no avail.
Trump’s
refusal to intervene in the Tates’ extradition fight is a much-delayed
correction. For years, the brothers were treated by the MAGA ecosystem
not as alleged traffickers facing serious criminal scrutiny, but as
useful avatars of male grievance and anti-feminist rebellion. That
bargain is now boomeranging in the direction of a different Trump:
Barron.
The
key to understanding how the Tate brothers rose to such political
heights — and why their collapse now threatens to drag the president’s
youngest son into a potentially damaging congressional spotlight — can
be found in the conservative media ecosystem that laundered Andrew Tate
into a right-wing icon.
When
mainstream platforms like YouTube, Meta and TikTok finally moved to
deplatform the Tate brothers in 2022, the right-wing media apparatus
stepped in to grant Tate a second — and far more dangerous — life.
Tucker Carlson first gave Tate a platform on Fox News back in 2022 and
later hosted a long, sympathetic interview. Elon Musk reinstated Tate’s X
account, restoring his reach to over 11 million followers while
repeatedly tweeting defenses that hand-waved sex trafficking allegations
as political distractions. The late Charlie Kirk chimed in
on behalf of Tate: “What he says is so powerful. Our society is
configured towards collapsing the American man.” MAGA podcaster Candace
Owens dedicated hours of airtime to declaring the Tates’ innocence while
launching vicious smear campaigns against their victims.
Why is it that whenever a story of a predator emerges, they somehow have an established relationship with Donald Chump?
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Feinberg was former head of private
equity firm Cerberus; conflicts could be impacting military contracting
decisions related to secretive $185 billion missile program
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), wrote to
Department of Defense (DoD) Deputy Secretary Stephen Feinberg pressing
him on his conflicts of interest related to major DoD contracts. Senator
Warren urged Feinberg to cut all ties with his former firm, Cerberus,
recuse himself from any Cerberus-related matters for his entire time at
DoD, and increase transparency of contracting decisions for the Golden
Dome missile defense program at DoD.
Senator Warren has raised concerns with Secretary Feinberg continuing
financial relationship with Cerberus, and that of his immediate family,
and the fact that he had hired multiple key DoD staff with Cerberus
ties. Mr. Feinberg has not yet provided a response.
New reporting reveals
Feinberg has “unprecedented control over the Pentagon’s vast
procurement network, and a remarkable new ability to invest in defense
companies with taxpayer dollars.” At least three companies reportedly
linked to Cerberus have received Golden Dome contracts during Feinberg’s
tenure.
“These new reports make it even more important that you make the
commitments that I asked of you in my April letter, and that you provide
answers to my questions,” said Senator Warren.
In addition to her requests for ethics commitments, Senator Warren
asked Feinberg to share a list of Cerberus-backed or Cerberus-affiliated
companies that have bid on the Golden Dome contract, explain DoD’s
criteria for awarding Golden Dome contracts, and explain his role in
awarding Golden Dome contracts.
Senator Warren has led the fight to root out corruption and close the
revolving door between government officials and the private sector:
In May 2026, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Scott (R-Fla.) introduced the Banning Lobbying And Safeguarding Trust (BLAST) Act, a bipartisan bill to impose a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress.
In April 2026, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) pressed Secretary Hegseth
on allegations that Trump administration officials are engaging in
possible insider trading by placing bets on the Iran War through
prediction markets.
In February 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Andy Kim
(D-N.J.), along with Representatives Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and Deborah Ross
(D-N.C.) pressed the Inspectors General (IGs) of 16 key agencies
to open investigations into senior Trump officials who were recently
lobbyists or “shadow lobbyists” and may be using their roles to benefit
their former employers and clients.
In January 2026, Senators Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Andy Kim (D-N.J.), pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth
on potential conflicts of interest surrounding the awarding of multiple
lucrative Department of Defense (DoD) contracts and loans to companies
associated with President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
In December 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) pressed the Trump administration
to follow through on promises to limit defense companies stock buybacks
and incentivize them to increase research and development spending.
In December 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called for then-Attorney General Pam Bondi
to recuse herself from the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s review of any
Warner Bros. merger due to potential conflicts of interest related to
her former employer, lobbying firm Ballard Partners.
In November 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Dr. Robert
Kadlec, nominee to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear,
Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs at the Department of Defense
(DoD) with concerns over his past management failures
and conflicts of interest during his time at the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS), where he served as Assistant Secretary of
Health and Human Services for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). Those
allegations include exercising improper political pressure on career
officials to financially benefit his former clients.
Senator Warren’s Department of Defense (DoD) Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act,
with now-Senator Andy Kim (D-N.J.), would limit the influence of
contractors on the military, constrain foreign influence on retired
senior military officers, and assert greater transparency over
contractors and their interaction with DoD.
In July 2025, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), wrote to former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin seeking an explanation and further information
on his recent decision to start a strategic advisory firm. Austin had
publicly promised Senator Warren during his 2021 confirmation process
that he would not become a lobbyist after his government service ended.
In May 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Mr. Michael Obadal, nominee for Under Secretary of the Army, with concerns about his refusal to divest
from major defense contractors. Obadal previously held between $250,000
and $500,000 in Anduril stock, and had refused to divest from ahead of
his confirmation.
In March 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate
Armed Services Committee, wrote to Mr. John Phelan, nominee to be
Secretary of the Navy, with concerns regarding his “serious conflicts of
interest,” given his financial investments in defense contractors.
Senator Warren asked Mr. Phelan to make a number of commitments related to his conflicts of interest ahead of the committee vote on his nomination.
In March 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Deputy Defense Secretary Nominee Stephen Feinberg, urging him to recuse himself
from all matters related to Ligado Networks. Mr. Feinberg’s private
equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, is heavily invested in Ligado,
which has a pending $39 billion lawsuit against the Department of
Defense (DoD) over highly sought-after telecommunications spectrum space
that the military has said is “essential for its various satellite
communications, radars and navigation systems” usage.
In December 2020, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) reintroduced the Anti-Corruption & Public Integrity Act, to strengthen ethics laws and crack down on government officials’ conflicts of interest across the government.
This week, we published an investigation into David Brouillette,
the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who reportedly killed
25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine earlier
this month. That investigation revealed a long history of alleged
violence against Brouillette’s ex-wives and children. “To be honest, I
was surprised anyone would give that man a gun,” a former friend said of
Brouillette.
On July 22, the advocacy group Ohio Immigrant Alliance released a list of 59 active and former ICE and CBP agents
charged with sexual and violent crimes between 2007 and 2026.
Brouillette is no outlier, said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the
Ohio Immigrant Alliance and author of the report. “But we have no way
of knowing the full extent of the problem, because the agency doesn’t
even look at family court records.”
A federal employment website
states that “all personnel employed by ICE are mandated to undergo a
comprehensive background investigation.” When asked for comment on the
Ohio Immigrant Alliance report, a Department of Homeland Security
spokesperson said “We take allegations regarding misconduct seriously
and cherish the public’s trust. We work tirelessly to uphold the rule of
law and hold ourselves accountable.”
Fifty of 59 cases the group documented
were sex crimes, many of them committed against children. And the
problem, according to their research, is getting worse: “Cases
documented in 2025 and 2026 alone account for 42.4 percent of the list —
25 out of 59 cases,” Tramonte wrote. “Compare that to 2020, the
previous peak year, which had just 6.”
BASH: Court documents reveal one of the ICE officers connected to the fatal shooting in Maine was accused of abuse by two ex-wives. One of
his ex-wives told my colleague Erin Burnett that she experienced severe
domestic violence in her marriage and that he always displayed violent
behavior, and even that, if anything ever happened to her, he'd be the
one to look at. I should say he denied the allegations. But, at
one point, a judge ordered him to temporarily relinquish any firearms.
Should someone with those issues be an ICE agent?
HOMAN: No, if those of those are facts, he -- I don't think he should ever have cleared vetting. When
they hire somebody, they put them through a vetting process and look at
all that stuff. So I know, based on that information -- that's part of
the ongoing investigation. How -- did the vetting process fail? Was that
information not available? Did they not know? So there's a
separate administrative investigation on what happened here. Did you --
did we have that information? Did we not have that information? But the
vetting process, I -- if that was factual, he would have an almost
impossible time to pass vetting.
BASH: So does that raise
questions about ICE's vetting procedures, especially as it has in the
past several months ramped up its law enforcement officers, who are
around the country looking for undocumented immigrants?
HOMAN: Well, look, ICE has about 30,000 employees. They all go through vetting. This is a kind of a rare instance. But,
again, it's under review. There's several things under review, right?
The training is under review. And I know that the acting ICE director
now, David Venturella, has added additional training, because I'm one
that supports you can't -- you can't ever have too much training.
No, it's not a rare instance. To meet the numbers, they've repeatedly let people in that they shouldn't and then there's the issue of training. The Maine shooting (murder) carried out by David Brouillette is the perfect example of that. Nancy Pena Fregoso (VANGUARD) explains:
According to the investigation, DHS
launched an aggressive campaign last year to hire 10,000 new enforcement
officers while directing ICE to increase street-level arrests of
alleged undocumented immigrants to as many as 2,000 per day. Ashley
Brouillette said her ex-husband told her he accepted a position with ICE
in November 2025.
The investigation noted that David
Brouillette joined the agency during a period when ICE significantly
reduced training requirements for new officers.
When President Trump announced an anti-crime task force for Memphis
last fall, federal and local officials never mentioned immigration
enforcement as a goal.
But the influx of federal agents into
the city has led to widespread immigration arrests — a majority without
criminal convictions, according to an Institute for Public Service Reporting data analysis.
NPR
reviewed arrest data and spoke with lawyers, immigrants, activists and
community members to piece together the task force's impact on Memphis
over the past 10 months.
It found paralyzed immigrant neighborhoods, where scenes played out reminiscent of Chicago and Minneapolis at
the height of targeted federal immigration enforcement actions. Aid
networks ramped up their work to help immigrants too fearful to leave
their homes. Hotlines rang out with calls from panicked immigrants. And
routine traffic stops led to immigration arrests.
All of this has happened without the glare of the national spotlight
and amid muted public outcry, as local and state leaders have largely
cooperated with the federal government.
Meanwhile, Trump has
said he has plans for similar task forces elsewhere, particularly in
Republican-led states where he has more political buy-in.
t was just after 8am on 16 August and Francisco
Longoria, who runs a party supply business, was driving his truck down a
suburban southern California
street to deliver a jumper for a water slide. But this ordinary
Saturday morning turned into a nightmare when, suddenly, three unmarked
vehicles stopped his truck and four masked men jumped out.
Longoria, who had brought his son Jonathan Longoria and son-in-law Daniel Rascon with him, wondered if they were being abducted.
“I see what happens in Mexico,” he said in Spanish. “I thought, are we going to be kidnapped by these masked men?”
The masked men were agents with US immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection
(CBP). They wore police gear, but Longoria said they didn’t identify
themselves. As the agents walked toward the truck with their guns drawn,
the passengers pulled out their phones to record video.
One
agent pulled on the door handle, knocked on the window, and told
Longoria to roll down his window, but the agent didn’t have a warrant.
When Longoria didn’t comply, the agent smashed the glass and struck him
in the face. Another agent broke the front passenger’s window.
With
the agents on either side of the truck, and the road ahead clear,
Longoria hit the gas. As he drove away, an agent shot three rounds,
leaving two bullet holes in the passenger’s side of the truck. One
bullet barely missed the back window. Sitting in the back seat, Rascon
felt terrified. “One of us is about to get killed,” he thought.
“I was afraid for my life,” Longoria said. “I felt like death was imminent.”
The whole encounter lasted less than a minute, but it was only the beginning of the family’s harrowing tale.
The shooting happened a few blocks away from
their home in San Bernardino, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles. When
they arrived back at home minutes later, they called the police to
report that masked men had shot at them.
Instead
of receiving help, Longoria found himself in the crosshairs of a US
government investigation that culminated in a night-time ambush of the
family’s home, a felony charge accusing Longoria of weaponizing his
vehicle against officers, and months in ICE detention – only for the
case against him to eventually be dropped.
JULIANA KIM, BYLINE: Since her son's death, Rachel Reyes has tried to
take a break from the news. But she says it's difficult, especially
when the headlines hit close to home.
RACHEL REYES: It's
been, honestly, very triggering because it just brings back the memories
of this pattern of abuse that's still going on.
KIM:
Earlier this month, two men were shot and killed by ICE officers in the
span of a week, and in both cases, the deadly encounters happened during
traffic stops. The same was true for Reyes' 23-year-old son, Ruben Ray
Martinez.
REYES: It really breaks my heart for the families because I understand the nightmare they're going through.
KIM:
Reyes' son was fatally shot in south Texas back in March of last year,
two months into President Trump's second term when he quickly launched
his aggressive immigration campaign. Martinez was the first U.S. citizen
killed by a federal immigration agent since Trump's return to office.
The officer who opened fire worked for Homeland Security Investigations,
an arm of ICE. Eleven months after her son's death, Martinez's case was
finally presented to a grand jury in Texas this February. They declined
to bring charges against the agent who shot Martinez.
REYES: I don't feel like we've got justice. I don't feel like that was right.
KIM:
Martinez was shot three times. The Department of Homeland Security has
repeatedly accused Martinez of intentionally running over an HSI
officer, who was there to help direct traffic after a car accident. But
NPR reviewed body camera footage from the night of the shooting, and
it's unclear from the videos whether Martinez's car struck an agent.
After this month's deadly ICE shootings, DHS said last week it planned
to pause nonurgent vehicle stops. But soon after, White House press
secretary Karoline Leavitt said they would, in fact, continue.
Lives are being destroyed by Chump's war on immigrants. Markwayne Mullen hasn't stopped the harm and doesn't appear smart enough to know how to improve things even slightly. While he's failing as Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of Health and Human Services Junior isn't doing any better. Hafiz Rashid (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:
Measles cases in the U.S. have surpassed last year’s totals to reach a new 35-year high, and we’re only in July.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced
Friday that there have been 2,318 measles cases in 2026 so far, more
than the 2,289 cases reported in 2025 and many more than the 283 cases
reported in 2024. The last time the numbers were this high was in 1991, and the past 18 months have seen more measles cases than the last 25 years combined.
The vast majority of infected people—93 percent—were
unvaccinated, according to the CDC. The number is expected to only grow
higher, as new outbreaks have been reported in Wyoming, Delaware, and
Arizona. It doesn’t help that the CDC hasn’t had a permanent director
for most of President Trump’s second term, and Secretary of Health and
Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is skeptical of all vaccines,
has a history of dismissing measles, even though it can be fatal.
In
2000, the U.S. had declared measles eradicated in the country, but the
Pan American Health Organization will review that status later this
year. Meanwhile, Kennedy’s HHS isn’t openly supporting vaccination, with the secretary suggesting that vitamin A is an effective treatment for measles.
Friday on NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, Maria Godoy reported
on the record high numbers. Junior is destroying the American people's
health. Chump's letting him. This will take years to repair. We'll
still be trying to fix it when Junior dies. He has seriously harmed
public health.
As Elaine noted Friday in "Chump and Hegseth insult the fallen,"
Chump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth removed four service
members killed in the Iran War from the official count. Elaine pointed
out, "Chump and Hegseth dishonor our fallen. They spit on them with
their
actions. Note that Chump was happy to use the four earlier this week
when he lied that the four were in the war because they opposed Iran
getting nuclear weapons. But then it was time to pull the four from the
official death toll." Saturday, Tim Arango, Georgia Gee and Pooja Salhotra (NEW YORK TIME) report:
As of Saturday morning, the Pentagon’s website was still listing 14 service members killed.
“It
is truly disgusting and disheartening to lower the count of our service
members who gave their life for this country,” said Tanya Stamos, a
Navy veteran and the founder of Operation R.J.S., a nonprofit in honor
of her father, Richard James Stamos, also a veteran, that provides free
telehealth counseling and support.
She
continued: “As a Navy combat veteran myself, I find it a slap in the
face that it is so easy to disregard my brothers and sisters in arms who
raised their hand and gave an oath to protect and serve foreign and
domestic, all for the government who is choosing to wipe their names
from history.”
The brother of Dominic Ascioti, 36, is in the military and has been deployed to the Middle East during the war.
Mr.
Ascioti said the change in the count by the Pentagon was either “gross
incompetence” or “a deliberate attempt to mislead or mischaracterize
reality.”
“As
families we need, to the best of the government’s ability, some
transparency,” said Mr. Ascioti, who added that he opposed the war. “We
want to know what’s happening with our family, and we want to know what
happened to our family if something happened.”
The
criticism of the Pentagon over its accounting of American casualties in
the war has extended to the halls of Congress. On Thursday, a group of
Democratic senators sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
requesting a “comprehensive accounting” of the number of service members
killed or wounded.
In
the week before the recent attacks that killed three soldiers in
Jordan, there were three other strikes by Iran that left dozens injured.
These casualties were not immediately disclosed
by the Pentagon, raising questions about whether the government was
meeting its obligation to inform the country about the number of service
members who had been either wounded or killed.
He's a disgrace and so is Hegseth. Their decision was outrageous. It was insulting to the fallen.
What’s for dinner? Lately, at Apral Jack’s house, it’s whatever is on sale.
Jack,
50, scouts an app for deals at her local supermarket before she buys
groceries. When she reaches the store, she looks in the weekly circular
for coupons she might have missed. If shelf prices look too high, she tries to find lower prices someplace else.
“The apples went up here, the ones I eat, so now I’m not going to get them here,” Jack said as she pushed a cart into a Stop & Shop near her home in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Couponing, comparison shopping and cutting back
on favorite foods are new habits for her and millions of other
Americans as they absorb the biggest jump in grocery prices in a
half-century. Buying food to eat at home has gotten 33% more expensive
since the beginning of 2019, according to government figures.
With a conflict
in the Middle East creating more price pressures, the cost of filling
refrigerators, freezers and pantries has made affordability a central issue in the fall midterm elections.
Residents of four urban areas where food inflation has exceeded the national average shared how steadily rising prices are changing the way they shop. They described hunting for discounts, switching to store brands and feeling grateful for food banks. Some are buying less meat and skipping nonessentials like cookies. Others are buying less food overall.
In
2025, nearly one in five adults ages 18 to 64 — almost 20% — paid for
groceries with savings, and nearly one in 20 — more than 5% — bought
them with cash from a payday advance loan.
Those
are two of the findings of a survey by the Urban Institute, a
Washington, D.C.–based nonpartisan think tank that conducts economic and
social policy research.
[. . .]
New Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that food costs have gone up over the past year.
According to its July 14 report, food-at-home costs rose 2.7% over the 12 months ending in June.
Over that same period:
The cost of fruits and vegetables rose 5.3%
The cost of nonalcoholic beverages increased 2.9%
The cost of meats, poultry, fish and eggs was up 2.6%
The cost of cereal and bakery products rose 2.4%
The cost of dairy and related products increased 0.4%
A growing number of Amazon and gig economy workers earn so
little that they rely on public assistance to put food on the table and
obtain health coverage, a Government Accountability Office study released Wednesday found.
The report is yet another example of the affordability
crisis affecting many in the United States, where even some employed
Americans need government help to pay for basic needs like food and
healthcare.
The number of Amazon employees receiving food stamps and Medicaid in September nearly tripled since the GAO’s previous report in 2020,
according to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who requested both analyses.
Nearly 12,350 Amazon staffers were enrolled in food stamps and nearly
11,350 were covered by Medicaid in the states GAO examined.
Meanwhile, rideshare and food delivery companies are now
among the top employers of recipients in the two safety net programs in
several states, which was not the case five years earlier. Those
companies include Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Grubhub and Instacart.
This
is the Chump economy. And the addition to SNAP enrollment comes as
Chump's cuts to SNAP are really registering. People are going hungry in
this country -- that includes children. And it's thanks to Chump's
'Big Beautiful Bill' which gutted the safety net while giving
millionaires and billionaires huge tax breaks. Aliss Higham (NEWSWEEK) notes:
More
than 1 million children across 19 states have stopped receiving
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits since Congress
passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) in July 2025, according
to a new analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
(CBPP).
The findings
come as SNAP enrollment has fallen sharply nationwide. According to
data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), participation
dropped from about 42 million people in early 2025 to just over 37
million by April 2026: a decline of roughly 5 million recipients
following major changes to the federal food assistance program under the
Trump administration.
The CBPP's analysis suggests children have accounted for a substantial
share of that decline, with more than 1.06 million losing access to
benefits across the 19 states examined.
Wholesome
eating is a central part of the Trump administration's efforts to Make
America Healthy Again. But a landmark nutrition education program for
recipients of federal food assistance and other low-income people will
cease to exist within weeks after President Trump eliminated it last
summer when he signed a massive Republican spending and tax bill.
For
decades, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Nutrition
Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program, known as SNAP-Ed, has
funded programs such as community cooking classes, farmers markets in
low-income neighborhoods, school nutrition lessons and more in every
U.S. state. The program is a "pillar of the public health infrastructure
in the US," according to a report published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
The decision to end SNAP-Ed at a time of rising food prices and the Trump administration's push for healthy eating has mystified nutrition advocates and public health experts alike.
"It
doesn't make sense when we have an administration [promoting] the Make
America Healthy Again efforts that are focused on decreasing consumption
of ultra-processed foods and wanting to encourage people to eat more
fruits and vegetables," said Tashara Leak, a professor of nutritional
sciences at Cornell University, "to then get rid of the largest
federally funded nutrition education program that helps to achieve those
goals."
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Following tragic killings in Maine
and Texas, Senators call for reforms, body-worn camera deployment, and
independent investigations
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA),
Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is joining dozens of
her Senate colleagues in calling for stronger accountability measures
for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. In a letter to
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the
thirty-nine Senators urge DHS to fulfill its previous commitments to
deploy and expand the usage of body-worn cameras, strengthen officer
identification requirements, and review enforcement protocols.
The measures suggested by the Senators are intended to help prevent
future deadly encounters involving ICE enforcement officers—and comes
after two fatal shootings during immigration enforcement operations in
Biddeford, Maine, and Houston, Texas.
“The recent fatal shootings involving U.S. Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) officers, specifically within U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in Biddeford, Maine, and Houston, Texas,
coupled with similar incidents elsewhere in the country, are completely
unacceptable,” the senators wrote. “Rather than making
our communities safer, these actions endanger our citizens and seriously
undermine confidence in law enforcement generally.”
“The tragic deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan
Sebastian Durán Guerrero occurred less than a week apart and carry
startling similarities. In both incidents, the individuals were killed
in enforcement actions in which they were not the intended targets.
Furthermore, both individuals were shot by DHS officials while inside a
vehicle. The unnecessary loss of life in these incidents demands
immediate, thorough, independent, and transparent investigations
(including the full involvement of local and state law enforcement
personnel) along with a comprehensive examination of enforcement
protocols, training, and operational approaches necessary to prevent
such tragedies. These recent events have further compromised the
credibility of DHS and fractured public trust within communities across
our country. In each case, DHS quickly issued statements asserting that
officers were acting in self-defense, even before evidence of the facts
surrounding the incidents had been gathered. Compounding this failure,
no DHS officials involved in these fatal shootings wore body-worn
cameras that could be reviewed by investigators or members of the
public,” the senators continued.
“We remain supportive of removing dangerous convicted
criminals from our communities, but this goal can and must be achieved
without endangering these very communities in the process. By no stretch
could either of the victims in Texas and Maine be characterized as ‘the
worst of the worst,’ making these tragic deaths even more egregious.
The American people deserve clarity and accountability. We urge you to
honor your Department’s earlier commitments and take immediate action to
implement these necessary reforms. We also stand ready to work with you
to codify reforms into law,” the senators concluded.
Senator Murray has been outspoken and proactive in her efforts to negotiate necessary guardrails for ICE and CBP in the wake of unprofessional and unconstitutional behavior
among those agencies. As Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee,
she led Democrats’ efforts fighting tooth and nail to secure meaningful
reforms in law to rein in ICE and Border Patrol—which Republicans
ultimately refused altogether and chose to skirt Democrats by delivering
another massive blank check for the agencies with no accountability.
Last month, at a Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on
the FY27 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS)—Murray pressed Secretary Markwayne Mullin on the conduct of ICE
and Border Patrol and Republicans’ refusal to enact reforms into law.
In November 2025, Senator Murray joined 48 of her colleagues in the Senate and House of Representatives in introducing the Restoring Access to Detainees Act,
which would mandate that DHS allow people who have been detained to
contact their legal counsel and families. In February 2025, Senator
Murray signed onto a letter demanding that DHS end wrongful searches and interrogations of Tribal members, and continued to push for answers from DHS on the matter last December. In March 2025, Murray also reintroduced her Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act. She and Senator Richard Blumenthal led 27 of their Senate colleagues last year in a letter expressing concern with prevalence and the treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in ICE detention.
In Washington state, Senator Murray has been conducting oversight of
the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWIPC), despite the Trump
administration’s efforts to block Congressional oversight of federal
immigration detention facilities. After a protracted legal battle over
Washington state’s ability to enforce health and safety standards at
NWIPC, a federal appeals court ruled in
August 2025 that the state should be allowed to enforce such standards
at the detention center, and that failure to comply could result in
fines of up to $10,000 per violation. In December 2025, Senator Murray led Members of the Washington state Congressional delegation in aletter to
Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons expressing grave concerns with
conditions at NWIPC in Tacoma, Washington and demanding answers to a
long list of questions regarding overcrowding and lack of access to
medical services, food, and legal counsel for individuals detained at
the facility.
Joining Murray on the letter are U.S. Senators Angus King (I-ME),
Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Gary Peters (D-MI), Alex
Padilla (D-CA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Chris Coons
(D-DE), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH),
Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Adam
Schiff (D-CA), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Richard
Blumenthal (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Martin
Heinrich (D-NM), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Tim
Kaine (D-VA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Jeff
Merkley (D-OR), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mazie
Hirono (D-HI), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), John Hickenlooper (D-CO),
Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Amy Klobuchar
(D-MN), Mark Warner (D-VA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and John Fetterman
(D-PA).
Full text of the letter is available HERE and below:
Dear Secretary Mullin:
The recent fatal shootings involving U.S. Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) officers, specifically within U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), in Biddeford, Maine, and Houston, Texas,
coupled with fatalities during similar incidents elsewhere in the
country, are completely unacceptable. Rather than making our communities
safer, these actions endanger our citizens and seriously undermine
confidence in law enforcement generally.
The tragic deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Durán
Guerrero occurred less than a week apart and carry startling
similarities. In both incidents, the individuals were killed in
enforcement actions in which they were not the intended targets.
Furthermore, both individuals were shot by DHS officials while inside a
vehicle. The unnecessary loss of life in these incidents demands
immediate, thorough, independent, and transparent investigations
(including the full involvement of local and state law enforcement
personnel), along with a comprehensive examination of enforcement
protocols, training, and operational approaches necessary to prevent
such tragedies.
These recent events have further compromised the credibility of DHS
and fractured public trust within communities across our country. In
each case, DHS quickly issued statements asserting that officers were
acting in self-defense, even before evidence of the facts surrounding
the incidents had been gathered. Compounding this failure, no DHS
officials involved in these fatal shootings wore body-worn cameras that
could be reviewed by investigators or members of the public.
While DHS has previously acknowledged that body-worn cameras promote
public trust and increase officer and public safety, accountability, and
transparency, the Department has clearly not prioritized acquiring
cameras. Recent statements from DHS and the White House assert that DHS
could not acquire cameras due to the government shutdown. However, since
July 2025, DHS received nearly $40 billion in the One Big Beautiful
Bill Act (OBBBA) that could have been used to swiftly acquire and deploy
body-worn cameras for both existing ICE law enforcement officers and
the reported 10,000 additional officers hired since enactment of OBBBA.
Contrary to recent statements made by the Department and the White
House, DHS has had more than sufficient time and funding to procure and
deploy a body-worn camera for every officer before the end of 2025.
Following public outrage in the aftermath of the killings of Alex
Pretti and Renee Good, the former Secretary announced in February of
this year that DHS law enforcement officers would be required to wear
body-worn cameras across the country, and ICE issued a directive
reinforcing its policy to activate body-worn cameras during enforcement
activities wherever cameras are available. Then-Secretary Noem stated
that “[a]s funding is available, the body-worn camera program will be
expanded nationwide.” In March of this year, the White House border
czar, Tom Homan, stated that the administration would expand the use of
body-worn cameras by DHS officers undertaking immigration enforcements
and require footage, in addition to ending roving patrols. The recent
tragedies confirm that neither of these commitments were honored.
As we underscored during the subsequent funding negotiations earlier
this year, implementing comprehensive accountability and oversight
reforms for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is
necessary both to protect the public and restore trust in the work of
your agency. Our reform proposals are based upon the standards
applicable to virtually every law enforcement agency in the country
(except immigration enforcement officers), including visibly displayed
identification, no masks, and body-worn cameras.
In recent weeks, federal agents have aggressively ramped up
enforcement operations, reportedly arresting thousands of immigrants in a
matter of days. Following the public backlash from these most recent
fatal shootings, your Department has once again committed to
distributing body-worn cameras, stating that every ICE arrest team will
have at least one law enforcement officer equipped with a camera going
forward and promising that all field offices will receive them within
the next 60 days. Acting ICE Director Venturella also went on the record
promising members of Congress that all field agents would be outfitted
by the end of July. We view this timeline not as a projection, but as a
firm, binding commitment to which we will hold the Department
accountable.
Furthermore, to strengthen public safety and minimize dangerous
operational confusion, we urge an immediate policy change regarding
agency branding. To help ensure clear accountability and avoid
misleading the public, ICE personnel engaged in interior enforcement
must immediately cease wearing tactical gear, vests, or uniforms labeled
with the generic term “POLICE” or “POLICEICE.” All operational uniforms
should explicitly and exclusively identify personnel as “ICE.” In
addition, agents should be required to identify themselves as “ICE” when
making arrests and uniforms must clearly be identified as “ICE.”
Finally, given the immediate need for administrative accountability
following these tragedies, we request detailed information in response
to the following questions:
What is DHS’s specific plan to respond to the public’s interest in
timely, transparent, and independently verified investigations into
these incidents?
What are the vetting procedures with respect to new ICE recruits?
Does ICE consider records of domestic violence and abuse from family
courts in its vetting?
What immediate updates or reviews are being made to ICE vehicle
pursuit and traffic stop policies, including enhanced training
specifically applicable to traffic stops to ensure they prioritize
public and officer safety?
Beyond the deployment of body-worn cameras, what additional
oversight, reporting requirements, or public safety measures is the
agency implementing?
We remain supportive of removing dangerous convicted criminals from
our communities, but this goal can and must be achieved without
endangering these very communities in the process. By no stretch could
either of the victims in Texas and Maine be characterized as “the worst
of the worst,” making these tragic deaths even more egregious. The
American people deserve clarity and accountability. We urge you to honor
your Department’s earlier commitments and take immediate action to
implement these necessary reforms. We also stand ready to work with you
to codify reforms into law.
We look forward to hearing from you at the earliest possible date.
