Ice (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Extremists exploit political ‘trigger events’ to recruit people online, says study

      by

      Extremists are exploiting political violence on online platforms to recruit new people to their causes and amplify the use of violence for political goals, according to a new report that monitored social platforms after recent attacks.Researchers at New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights tracked social media feeds for several months this year, including in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.“Violent extremist groups systematically exploit trigger events – high-profile incidents of violence – to recruit supporters, justify their ideologies and call for retaliatory action,” the findings say.The US is experiencing an increase in political violence and extremism, with high-profile incidents targeting Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, Kirk, an ICE facility, a church, a Jewish museum and more. Donald Trump and his allies have falsely claimed the violence is coming solely from the “radical left” and sought to clamp down on left-leaning groups. Republican members of Congress took testimony in a House subcommittee this week about rising political violence.In the first six months of 2025, more than 520 plots and acts of terrorism and targeted violence occurred, affecting nearly all US states and causing 96 deaths and 329 injuries. This is a nearly 40% increase over the first six months of 2024, according to data from the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland.The NYU report looked across the political spectrum, including far-right, far-left, violent Islamist and nihilistic violent extremists, to examine their tactics and how they at times converged. The researchers monitored online networks from 24 March to 6 June this year, then extended their gathering to include a period following Kirk’s assassination.“The general takeaway that I had from this report is just how the threat landscape is becoming far more volatile,” said Luke Barnes, senior research scientist at NYU Stern and co-author of the report. “And there is worrying growth of kind of highly specific, bespoke ideologies where there isn’t that kind of traditional left-right categorization that you might have seen historically, and when a lot of the time the performative in-group joke or the performative shock value becomes the objective.”Violence in recent years has included attacks from nihilistic violent extremists, a new category used by the FBI to label the crop of attackers who don’t fit into standard ideological frames and prioritize violence for its own sake.Previously, these attackers would try to advocate for some kind of political position, albeit an extreme one, Barnes noted, but now it has “degenerated into that sense of performative shock value for the sake of it”. This can include memes or references to online communities in manifestos or on bullet casings, which then get passed around online.That evidence then is “fashioned into opportunities for other extremists to exploit and spin off for their own propagandistic value”, which creates a “feedback loop of violence and extremism”, Barnes said.Groups will use mainstream sites such as X to spread their messages, then funnel people into semi-private or private platforms to coordinate further and share more extreme messages, the authors say.“Because you have an audience that may be more mainstream, more generic, extremist groups tend to promote their messages there, but in a different tone, or in a different way that would make the appeal more mainstream, and then what they’ll do is include an outlink or hyperlink to another platform,” said Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat, a co-author of the report and policy adviser on technology and law at NYU Stern.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNihilistic violent extremists were difficult to monitor because they reportedly use semi-private platforms, the report said. The shooter at the Annunciation Catholic church in Minneapolis, for instance, seemed to glorify other extremist shooters and used meme-like callouts, which nihilistic violent extremist communities disseminated to “glorify violence generally”, the report said.With violent acts like the stabbing of Austin Metcalf, a Texas high school student, or Iryna Zarutska, who was killed on a train in North Carolina, far-right groups spread narratives about white victimhood. Far-left networks celebrated a shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum, with pro-Palestine activism dominating their channels.The report makes recommendations for social platforms and US lawmakers. Online service providers should have clear policies on threats and incitement and enforce those policies. Users should have a way to report violations to the platform, which should be handled quickly. Lawmakers should establish standards for how platforms and law enforcement cooperate, while recognizing the limits of legal remedies.“The kind of more nihilistic branch of extremism does create opportunity for bipartisanship, which I don’t think is something that’s said often these days,” Barnes said. More

    • 163 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Why Trump’s White House is using video game memes to recruit for ICE

      by

      Just days after Microsoft announced Halo: Campaign Evolved, the next game in its famous science-fiction series, the White House shared an interesting picture on X. The image, which appears to be AI-generated, shows President Donald Trump wearing the armour of Halo’s iconic protagonist, Master Chief, standing in salute in front of an American flag that’s missing several stars. In his left hand is an energy sword, a weapon used by the alien enemies in the Halo games. Posted in response to a tweet from US game retailer GameStop, the text accompanying the image reads “Power to the Players” in reference to the store’s slogan.GameStop and the White House exchanged another Halo meme or two, and then, on 27 October, the official Department of Homeland Security X account joined in – using Halo imagery of a futuristic soldier in an alien world to encourage people to join its increasingly militaristic Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Stop the Flood, this one reads, equating the US’s immigrant population with the parasitic aliens that Master Chief eliminates.“Yet another war ended under President Trump’s watch – only one leader is fully committed to giving power to the players, and that leader is Donald J Trump,” said White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai over email, when I asked for the official line on this post. “That’s why he’s hugely popular with the American people and American gamers.” (Microsoft has not replied to any requests for comment.)View image in fullscreenThis spate of sharing video game imagery may seem odd, but Trump and his various allies have been leaning into gamer culture for nearly a decade. Trump has courted gamers – a demographic that includes a significant subsection of disaffected young men – since his first presidential campaign. Media executive Steve Bannon joined that campaign as chief strategist and senior counsellor in August 2016, bringing with him a wealth of knowledge of video game culture and the online behaviour of its biggest fans.Bannon had previously worked with and secured funding for Internet Gaming Entertainment, a Hong Kong company that paid Chinese workers low wages to farm gold in the multiplayer game World of Warcraft. According to Joshua Green’s book on Bannon (Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency), it was during this time that Bannon learned that “these guys, these rootless white males, had monster power”. In 2014, Bannon watched as Gamergate, an amorphous online army massing in the darker corners of the web, routinely targeted women and other people marginalised in the video game industry. He saw how the movement’s behaviour led to real-world actions, such as organised harassment and doxing (the sharing of private information with the public).Once Bannon joined the Trump campaign, he leveraged his understanding of gamer culture to push Trump’s presidential campaign to previously untouched places. “You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned on to politics and Trump,” Bannon told Green.That army was ready to engage in memetic warfare at any given moment, and it did. Throughout the campaign, Trump’s meme army monitored then candidate Hillary Clinton’s every move, sharing fabricated allegations of health problems with the hashtag #HillaryHealth. It regularly produced memes supporting Trump based on internet in-jokes and nerdy pop culture references. Arguably, Trump defeated Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign with the help of this army.When Trump failed to beat Joe Biden in the 2020 election, he turned to his own social media platform, Truth Social, to regularly lambast Biden and the Democrats throughout Biden’s four-year term. He continued to court gamers and the online reactionary right, before winning the presidency again. The second Trump administration still utilises the tactics and frameworks of online agitators (or trolls), but there’s one major difference this time around: Elon Musk.View image in fullscreenThe South African entrepreneur bought Twitter in October 2022 and quickly reinstated Trump’s account and a host of others that had been banned. Musk, who regularly invokes gamer culture and posts memes on his own X account, and spent a few weeks earlier this year embroiled in a ridiculous fight over whether he was faking his gamer credentials (he was), loosened the restrictions on hate speech on the platform and boosted the exact kind of toxic gamer culture that the White House is now courting.Since Trump’s January inauguration, the White House and various federal institutions have taken up meme posting. Last month, the Department of Homeland Security’s official X account and the White House’s official TikTok account shared a video of ICE raids set to the Pokémon theme music, interspersing imagery from the animated show with clips of agents arresting people and using the “Gotta catch’em all” slogan from the franchise. The Pokémon Company International told the BBC that “permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property”. The video is still up at the time of writing.The video game industry at large has long remained silent when it comes to the reactionary politics and ideologies spreading among its communities. For millions of Americans who play games, but are massively embarrassed by an administration that is warning pregnant women against taking Tylenol, or pushing the narrative that immigrants are parasites, or that diversity, equity and inclusivity movements result in unqualified workers, watching this unfold is incredibly frustrating. The more the administration leans into video game iconography and internet memes, the more video game companies find themselves associated with the divisive and reactionary politics of the right – whether they want it or not. More

    • 188 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Border patrol leader told to go to court every weekday to report on Chicago enforcement

      by

      A federal judge has ordered Gregory Bovino, a senior border patrol official leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Chicago, to appear in federal court each weekday to report on the day’s incidents in an exceptional bid to impose oversight over the government’s militarized raids in the city.The order came following a terse hearing on Tuesday morning.“Kids dressed in Halloween costumes walking to a parade do not pose an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer,” US district judge Sara Ellis told Bovino. “They just don’t. And you can’t use riot control weapons against them.”Ellis was referring to an incident over the weekend, when federal agents deployed chemical irritants against residents, including in a neighborhood where dozens of children were planning to march in a Halloween parade.The order today is the latest of several attempts to maintain oversight over Bovino and his agents, who have appeared to repeatedly violate court orders to curb their use of force amid a heavily militarized immigration crackdown in Chicago. The administration has dubbed the movement in Chicago as “Operation Midway Blitz” and it’s resulted in at least 3,000 arrests since September.The use of force by federal agents in Chicago first came before Ellis after media organizations, protestors and clergy members filed a lawsuit accusing agents of “extreme brutality” in an attempt to “silence the press and civilians”. She ordered agents to avoid using tear gas in a crowd without first issuing two warnings.When agents repeatedly deployed pepper balls, smoke grenades and tear gas against protesters and local police despite the order, Ellis ordered agents to wear body cameras. During the hearing on Tuesday, she told Bovino that he must personally get a body camera and complete training on the use of a body camera by Friday.Bovino – who appeared in his green fatigues with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) insignia – agreed to each request, responding: “Yes, ma’am.”“My role is not to tell you that you can or cannot enforce validly passed laws by Congress … My role is simply to see that in the enforcement of those laws, the agents are acting in a manner that is consistent with the constitution,” Ellis said.Bovino, chief of the border patrol sector in El Centro, California, along the US-Mexico border, has become the face of Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement in cities including Chicago and Los Angeles.In LA, agents smashed car windows and blew open a door to a house while a woman and her two young children were inside. Immigration advocates and lawyers have raised concerns about border patrol agents flooding US cities, as the agents are trained to block illegal entries, drug smugglers and human traffickers at the country’s borders, and not to conduct civil immigration enforcement in urban communities.The Department of Homeland Security, which encompasses the CBP, did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for a comment on Ellis’s latest order.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn hearings, federal officials have said that they used riot control gear and tear gas in response to threats. They have not offered proof that these were valid threats.Ellis questioned Bovino’s own use of tear gas, after he was captured on video throwing a canister of gas into a group of residents of Little Village, a largely immigrant and Mexican American neighborhood on the city’s Southwest Side.She also questioned his agents’ use of force in the Old Irving Park neighborhood, which she described as “a fairly quiet neighborhood [with] a lot of families, a lot of single-family homes”.“These kids, you can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered on Saturday,” she said. “And it’s going to take a long time for that to come back, if ever.” More

    • 163 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Man deported to Laos despite US court order blocking his removal, attorneys say

      by

      Immigration officials have deported a father living in Alabama to Laos despite a federal court order blocking his removal from the US on the grounds he has a claim to citizenship, the man’s attorneys said on Tuesday.US district judge Shelly Dick last week ordered US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to keep Chanthila “Shawn” Souvannarath, 44, in the United States while he presented what the judge called his “substantial claim of US citizenship”, court records show. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand but was granted lawful permanent residence in the US before his first birthday, according to court filings.But Souvannarath on Sunday messaged his wife on WhatsApp and told her he was in Dongmakkhai, Laos, according to a screenshot she shared with the Associated Press. The message ends with “love y’all”.“It is very unfortunate, especially for the children that we have together,” Beatrice Souvannarath told AP.Emails, phone calls and text messages sent to ICE and the US Department of Homeland Security were not immediately returned.The ACLU of Louisiana, which is representing Souvannarath, called the deportation a “stunning violation of a federal court order”. Before his deportation, Souvannarath had been detained at a newly opened ICE facility at the Louisiana state penitentiary at Angola.“ICE just ignored a federal court order and tore yet another family apart,” said Alanah Odoms, executive director for the ACLU of Louisiana, in a statement. “This administration has shown it will ignore the courts, ignore the Constitution and ignore the law to pursue its mass deportation agenda, even if it means destroying the lives of American citizens.”The deportation comes as Trump administration officials have repeatedly clashed with the courts over their attempts to deport large numbers of immigrants. There have been previous cases of US citizens being deported, including US-born children.Chanthila Souvannarath was taken into ICE custody in June following an annual check-in with immigration authorities in Alabama, where he had been living, his wife said.“When he went to check in, they detained him. And our two younger kids were with him,” Beatrice Souvannarath told AP. “It was the hardest two months of my life.”He spent much of his childhood living with one or both of his parents in Hawaii, Washington state and California. His father, a native of Laos, is a naturalized US citizen, and Souvannarath claims his citizenship derives from that status.“I continuously lived in the United States since infancy,” Souvannarath wrote in a letter from immigration detention, “and I have always considered myself an American citizen.”Souvannarath filed an emergency motion seeking to delay his deportation. Dick, the federal judge based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, issued a temporary restraining order on Thursday, citing the “irreparable harm that would be caused by immediate deportation”.“Though the government has an interest in the enforcement of its immigration laws, the potential removal of a US citizen weighs heavily against the public interest,” wrote Dick, who was appointed to the federal bench by president Barack Obama. Souvannarath would be “unable to effectively litigate his case from Laos”, she added.The court docket shows no changes in Souvannarath’s case since the judge issued the temporary restraining order, which was scheduled to expire on 6 November. Through her office, Dick declined to comment. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Honduran immigrant dies while fleeing ICE, bringing raids death toll to three

      by

      A 24-year-old Honduran man died while trying to flee Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Virginia, bringing the death toll among those trying to escape detention in the Trump administration’s mass deportation crackdown to at least three people.Jose Castro Rivera was killed on Thursday morning after running onto a busy highway and being struck and fatally injured while trying to evade ICE agents, local authorities said.A Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News that ICE agents stopped a vehicle as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based immigration enforcement operation” but did not provide further details about Castro Rivera, or any of the other passengers who were detained but survived the operation. An ICE agent administered CPR to Castro Rivera, but he died at the scene, according to the official.The fatal incident took place on the busy Interstate 264 eastbound at the Military Highway interchange in Norfolk in south-east Virginia. The Virginia state police said they were not involved in the pursuit and the fatal crash remains under investigation.This is the third known deadly incident involving immigrants trying to flee immigration raids by masked, armed federal agents that are spreading across the country, as part of the Trump administration’s relentless crackdown on immigrants and unprecedented expansion of ICE.In August, Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdés, 52, of Guatemala was killed on the freeway after fleeing an ICE raid at a Home Depot in Monrovia, California, about 20 miles (32km) north-east of downtown Los Angeles. The home improvement retailer, which has long been a meeting spot for employers to recruit documented and undocumented day laborers as roofers, painters and construction workers, has been targeted by the Trump administration for ICE operations.The Guatemalan man’s death came just a month after another deadly ICE raid in southern California.Mexican farm worker Jaime Alanís García, 56, died after falling 30ft (9 meters) from a greenhouse while fleeing federal agents at the state-licensed Glass House Farms cannabis facility in Camarillo, Ventura county. Alanís García, who had been living and working in the US for about three decades to support his family in Michoacán, Mexico, climbed onto the roof in a desperate effort to get away from the masked ICE agents and national guard soldiers during the July raid, in which more than 300 people were detained. He suffered catastrophic injuries and was taken off life support after two days.Trump and his anti-immigrant advisers have repeatedly claimed that the unprecedented resources and power being gifted to ICE is about removing “illegal criminals” off American streets.Yet official government data shows that immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in US immigration detention. The number of people with no criminal history arrested by ICE and detained by the Trump administration has surpassed the number of those charged with crimes.At least 20 people have died in ICE custody so far this year, according to a recent NPR investigation, making it the deadliest year since 2004. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Portland judge rejects Trump request to allow national guard deployment

      by

      A federal judge in Portland, Oregon, on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s request to immediately lift her order blocking the deployment of federalized national guard troops to the city, saying that she would decide the matter by Monday.The hearing in Portland and one in Washington DC are the latest in a head-spinning array of lawsuits and overlapping rulings prompted by Trump’s push to send the military into Democratic-run cities despite fierce resistance from mayors and governors. Troop deployment remains blocked in the Chicago area, where all sides are waiting to see whether the US supreme court intervenes to allow it.The Portland district court judge, Karin Immergut, who is based in the city, had previously issued two temporary restraining orders blocking the deployment of national guards troops there, in response to a persistent but small protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.Her first order, blocking the deployment of 200 troops from the Oregon national guard, said that Donald Trump had exceeded his authority by taking federal control of the troops based on his claim that the city was in a state of war-like rebellion. Trump’s assessment, Immergut ruled, was “simply untethered to the facts”.When Trump responded to that order by sending 200 troops from California’s national guard to Oregon, and threatened to send 400 more from Texas, Immergut determined it was an attempt to evade her order, and issued a second order barring the deployment of troops from anywhere in the country to Portland.Immergut’s first order was lifted on Monday by a three-judge panel of the ninth circuit court of appeals, over the strong dissent of the only judge on the panel who lives in Portland. But because the government never appealed Immergut’s second order, it remains in effect and the deployment of troops remains blocked until she decides whether or not to lift or modify it in response to the appeals court ruling.At a virtual hearing on Friday, Immergut cited two reasons for her to delay lifting the second injunction. The first was that the appeals court did not address a central fact in her second order: that she had issued it in part because the government responded to her first order by attempting to evade it. The second was that the ninth circuit appeals court is currently considering a call from one of its judges to rehear the appeal of her first order before a larger panel of 11 judges.At the end of the hearing, Immergut said that she would decide by Monday, if not earlier.The US district judge, Jia Cobb, an appointee of Joe Biden, was hearing arguments Friday on a request from Brian Schwalb, the District of Columbia attorney general, for an order that would remove more than 2,000 guard members from Washington streets.In August, Trump issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in the district – though the Department of Justice itself says violent crime there is at a 30-year low.Within a month, more than 2,300 guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling under the army secretary’s command. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist them.It is unclear how long the deployments will last, but attorneys from Schwalb’s office said troops were likely to remain in Washington through at least next summer.“Our constitutional democracy will never be the same if these occupations are permitted to stand,” they wrote.Government lawyers said Congress empowered the president to control the DC national guard’s operation. They argued that Schwalb’s lawsuit is a frivolous “political stunt” threatening to undermine a successful campaign to reduce violent crime in Washington.Although the emergency period ended in September, more than 2,200 troops remain. Several states told the Associated Press they would bring their units home by 30 November, unless their deployment is extended.Among the states that sent troops to the district was West Virginia. A civic organization called the West Virginia Citizen Action Group says the governor, Patrick Morrisey, exceeded his authority by deploying 300 to 400 guard members to support Trump’s efforts there.Morrisey has said West Virginia “is proud to stand with President Trump”, and his office has said the deployment was authorized under federal law. The state attorney general’s office has asked Richard D Lindsay, a Kanawha county circuit court judge, to reject the case, saying the group has not been harmed and lacks standing to challenge Morrisey’s decision.Lindsay heard some arguments Friday before continuing the hearing to 3 November to give the state time to focus more on whether Morrisey had the authority to deploy the cuard members.“I want that issue addressed,” Lindsay said.April Perry, a district judge, on Wednesday blocked guard deployment to the Chicago area until a case in her court is decided or the US supreme court intervenes. Perry previously blocked the deployment for two weeks through a temporary restraining order.Attorneys representing the federal government said they would agree to extend the order, but would also continue pressing for an emergency order from the supreme court that would allow for the deployment.Lawyers representing Chicago and Illinois have asked the supreme court to continue to block the deployment, calling it a “dramatic step”. More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      San Francisco Bay Area mobilizes amid threats of Trump immigration crackdown: ‘We’re ready’

      by

      It was a whirlwind, disorienting 24 hours in the San Francisco Bay Area for local leaders and organizers, who were expecting a major immigration enforcement operation in the region on Thursday.But by mid-morning, Donald Trump announced he was calling off a federal “surge” – and telling residents to “stay tuned” for what would come next.In the uneasy lull, many residents carried on, preparing for the worst.Volunteers organized patrols in areas where day immigrant workers tended to congregate, and launched initiatives to help the children of undocumented workers get to and from school. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in San Francisco and across the bay in Oakland.“I think he’s just trying to mess with us, with our Bay Area,” said Jose Ramirez, 59. He was one of a few hundred people gathered in Fruitvale – a predominantly Latino community in east Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco. “But we’re still out here to support.”Oakland’s mayor, Barbara Lee, had initially said she was aware of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents being stationed at the local US Coast Guard based, but was unable clarify whether officers would be deployed in the city until Friday.“I spoke with Alameda county sheriff Yesenia Sanchez, who confirmed through her communications with Ice that border patrol operations are cancelled for the greater Bay Area – which includes Oakland – at this time,” Lee said.By Thursday night, it remained unclear whether agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and CBP were still planning to ramp up enforcement in cities such as Oakland that border San Francisco.The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the Guardian’s queries, and instead linked to Trump’s Truth Social post explaining that he had called off federal agents following a call with tech leaders including the Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff. “Friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge,” Trump wrote.Local officials and advocates condemned Silicon Valley billionaires, including Benioff, who had previously suggested that Trump should send the national guard troops to the city.“I condemn every tech billionaire who supported this,” said Jackie Fielder, the San Francisco city supervisor representing parts of the city’s Mission neighborhood, home to a large Chicano and the Latino community. Standing at the steps of city hall – and directly facing the massive Salesforce tower looming over the city’s skyline – Fielder said: “We are here because Benioff of Salesforce put forth this idea.”Meanwhile, in Fielder’s district, volunteers from various community groups were geared up to respond to ramped-up raids.For weeks already, the local non-profit Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth (Homey) had been deploying street patrols, to observe and report ICE activity in the area. Patrollers have yet to intervene in any arrests, said José Luis Pavón, an organizer with the group. “But the patrols are also to build community, to make sure that people know their rights, to also reassure a lot of the people who are scared, to involve small-business owners, to involve neighbors, to really strengthen the community,” he said.View image in fullscreenFollowing months of threats from the Trump administration to ramp up law enforcement and immigration raids in the city, the neighborhood is now prepared to respond, Pavón said: “I feel like people are starting to lose their fear. People are getting a lot more practical.”Bay Resistance, a social justice non-profit, said it would continue to send volunteers to Home Depot stores and other areas where day laborers tend to congregate and work, to monitor for immigration agents and help inform workers about their legal rights. The Latino Task Force said it would drive students of undocumented parents to schools across the city.“We’re ready,” said Lisa Knox, co-executive director of California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, a non-profit that supports people in immigration detention. “We always say ‘power, not panic’. We’re focused on getting the message out to the community that they are not alone, people have rights if they encounter ICE or federal agents, and there are rapid response networks that can provide support if they are arrested. Yes, this is frightening, but communities can organize to defend themselves.”Groups were coordinating across the region to ensure they could mobilize wherever ICE shows up, and advocates had learned lessons from efforts in Los Angeles and Chicago, Knox said. The president’s announcement that he was calling off the troops did not alter preparations, she added: “We’re not taking Trump at his word. He’s equivocated before. We’re sticking with our plans.”In Fruitvale, which has one of the highest concentrations of immigrants and non–citizens in Oakland, street vendors said they had seen much less foot traffic than usual. The farmers’ market, held in the plaza outside the transit station, was quieter than usual.“We cannot let this happen – where people are afraid to get out of the house, where people are afraid to be seen,” said Rosemary, an 18-year-old community college student who joined the protest. She and her loved ones – almost all of whom are immigrants – created a group chat to check in with one another each hour, she said, to make sure they’re safe.Jaime, an English language development teacher who works with elementary and middle school students in the neighborhood, said she joined up to show solidarity with her students and their families – most of whom are immigrants. Earlier that day, teachers hosted a brown bag lunch for students who were worried about a major federal deployment in the region. A group of about 20 students strategized how to create fundraisers for the families most affected by immigration raids, and reviewed information about immigrants’ legal rights to share with friends and families.“Unfortunately … a lot of what is happening won’t feel new to our students,” said Nick, a fellow teacher. “It’s not the first time that their families have felt threatened by the presence of ICE or other immigration officials. It’s not the first time they’ve heard of members of our school community being threatened with deportation or being deported.” The Guardian is not using the teachers’ last names at their request, to protect their students.By Thursday evening as the sun set over the San Francisco Bay, hundreds of protesters walked from Fruitvale, along Oakland’s industrial corridors towards the entrance of the Coast Guard base.Gabriela DelaRiva, a retired nurse who lived in Alameda – the city where the base is located – began to tear up. Her grandmother, she said, had come to the US from Zacatecas, Mexico, as a child, and worked at canneries in California’s agricultural Central valley. And DelaRiva grew up to be an activist – she had marched for labor rights, and against various US military interventions and wars.“To see progress, and then to see these things going backwards, it’s very distressing, very painful,” she said. “But I’m so proud to be in the Bay Area where people do get activated.”Sam Levin contributed reporting More

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘He didn’t deserve that’: widow speaks out after husband’s violent death at ICE facility

      by

      A few hours before the Texas sun set, Stephany Gauffeny held her newborn son close to her chest as she started walking in a cemetery. The grave she stopped at had no headstone, but Gauffeny, 32, had written her husband’s name on a red ribbon.She married Miguel García-Hernández in 2016, nearly 10 years before he was shot at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Dallas in late September.“I am trying to cope because that’s what I am supposed to do, but what hurts me the most is to hear my kids ask where daddy is,” said Gauffeny, speaking to the Guardian in her first interview since his death.“My eight-year-old daughter with autism waited for him until the last minute. They would talk over the phone while he was detained, but one day before the funeral, I had to tell her that daddy was in heaven and that he would be watching her and that she wouldn’t see him.”García-Hernández ended up in ICE custody early on 24 September after a short time in jail for a DUI. That same morning, while he was shackled inside a government van, a gunman opened fire outside the ICE field office in Dallas where he was awaiting intake.View image in fullscreenFederal authorities have said the attacker was targeting ICE officials, but only detainees were hurt, including García-Hernández, 31, who was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.“I was coming back from a doctor’s appointment for my pregnancy and I was so excited to tell him about our son, but I got a call saying that my husband was in the hospital,” said Gauffeny, switching between English and Spanish intermittently.“I walked into the [hospital] room and I just started crying. His arms were restrained to the bed and he had handcuffs on his feet.”García-Hernández died on 29 September from his gunshot wounds. His third child with Gauffeny was born three days later. He would have turned 32 on 5 January, the day of their 10th wedding anniversary, Gauffeny said as she stood sorrowfully in front of García-Hernández’s grave.She believes the rising political violence and anti-immigration agenda in the US played a part in her husband’s violent death.The couple had been focusing hard on the new home they bought a few months ago in Arlington, on the outskirts of Dallas. There, they lived with their children, as well as two girls from Gauffeny’s previous relationship whom García-Hernández had helped raise.“He talked about little projects like turning the garage into a room, painting some parts of the house, getting a new fence and doing it all by himself,” said Gauffeny, her voice cracking.“It hurts to look around now, you know? Who is going to do it?”García-Hernández was born in San Luis Potosí, a central state in Mexico, and crossed the US border without papers when he was 14. Though the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program has benefited hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants with similar cases since 2012, he arrived just too early to qualify.García-Hernández lived in the Dallas area for nearly two decades, most recently making a living painting and remodeling homes. Gauffeny said he had applied for a Biden administration initiative, dubbed Keeping Families Together, that was designed to allow the undocumented spouses of US citizens to get legal status. However, a federal judge in Texas blocked the policy just a few months after it started.View image in fullscreenMartina Alvarado, a lawyer who tried to help García-Hernández fix his immigration status, said he was awaiting a waiver that, if granted, would effectively erase his illegal entry into the US and allow him to get a green card based on his marriage to an American citizen.Gauffeny said her husband was planning to open his own painting company as soon as his immigration case was resolved, and he had been saving money for the equipment.Since Donald Trump took office for a second time, his administration has aggressively expanded immigration raids across the country, granting deportation agents a broad mandate to target those in the country without proper documents, even if they’re not criminals. The crackdown has spurred massive protests and growing concerns over tactics by federal agents.The contentious climate around immigration under the Trump administration can also be palpable far from the neighborhoods and the streets where federal agents roam. After the shooting and the death of García-Hernández, Gauffeny said she received hateful messages from strangers on social media.“Some comments said they were happy that it happened because he shouldn’t have been here illegally,” said Gauffeny.“He and I never hid the fact he entered illegally, you know, but what I keep saying is that he didn’t deserve that and we’re going to fight this.”Eric Cedillo, a Dallas attorney who has been helping Gauffeny since the shooting, said they are contemplating filing a lawsuit, without specifying details at that time.García-Hernández’s mother, Maria García, was deported to Mexico earlier this year and was initially unable to see her son when he was hospitalized. But she was allowed into the US after the Mexican government intervened. In a statement, Mexico’s foreign ministry said “an extraordinary humanitarian parole was arranged for García-Hernández’s mother to travel to the US”.The statement did not provide information on what, if any, economic assistance has or will be given to Gauffeny to cover expenses related to García-Hernández’s funeral.View image in fullscreenAt the funeral, a Mexican flag was laid next to his grave by the Brown Berets of North Texas, a community defense group that runs an “ICE Watch” in the area. When Stephany visited with newborn Miles Alexander last week, the flag was gone but some roses remained.Gauffeny said that securing the burial site was possible thanks to money donated to a GoFundMe page created by her sister-in-law. There is no headstone on García-Hernández’s grave yet because she cannot afford it.“My biggest concern now is to have a place to live in the future. Our mortgage is very expensive and we were already struggling when he was detained. I am scared for my kids,” Gauffeny said.Before leaving the cemetery in Arlington, Gauffeny recalled that her husband had bought a Bible in Spanish while in the custody of Tarrant county for the DUI. Days after his death, his belongings came in the mail, including the Bible, which he had bookmarked.She said: “It was on a page in Genesis. He wanted to read the Bible from the start to the end but couldn’t continue because he was killed.” More