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      LA Ice protests spurred US military to identify ‘hotels to avoid’ due to ‘harassment’

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      When Donald Trump’s administration escalated immigration raids in Los Angeles earlier this summer, protest organizers responded with actions staged in an unusual setting: the hotels where immigration officers were staying.Protests took place at several southern California hotels where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents had been spotted. Some activists launched “No sleep for Ice” rallies, with chants and music blaring through the night, in hopes of pressuring the hotels to kick agents out.Now, public records shared with the Guardian show that the protests indeed sent federal agencies scrambling to find hotels for their officers in LA where they would not be “harassed”.A 16 June email from the US marines shows that military officials made a list of “LA Hotels to Avoid”. The information came from multiple law enforcement agencies who were tracking the community backlash to Ice and the border patrol, the marines said. The list was written by Army North, the domestic defense command deployed on the ground during the protests, and reviewed by the navy’s south-west division.The documents, obtained by Property of the People, a government transparency non-profit, suggest protesters successfully disrupted Trump’s immigration crackdown by targeting hotels, though the extent of their impact is not clear from the records.An email thread shows a Marine Corps analyst in San Diego sent the list of LA hotels to the San Diego Law Enforcement Coordination Center (SD-LECC) seeking a similar list of properties to avoid in San Diego. The analyst’s duties include “critical infrastructure protection” and their name was redacted. The SD-LECC is a fusion center where local, state and federal agencies share intelligence.“We have operations in the area and are looking to avoid issues wherever possible,” the analyst wrote, saying the LA list was based on reports of “harassment of Ice and CBP personnel”.View image in fullscreenAuthorities did not disclose the hotel names or further communications to Property of the People, so it is also unclear how widely hotel demonstrations erupted and were tracked.Spokespeople for the marines and the navy declined to comment, deferring to the army, which did not respond to inquiries. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about the hotel protests, and in an email on Thursday after publication of this article, a spokesperson referred questions to the military.Kristi Laughlin, SD-LECC’s deputy director, told the Guardian that SD-LECC was not aware of protests taking place at hotels in the San Diego region and did not provide a list in response to the military’s request.The military’s apparent efforts to help federal personnel avoid demonstrators at hotels came after Trump took the extraordinary step of deploying the national guard and marines to respond to LA protests. The move polled poorly among US residents and led to reports of low morale among troops.Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, which filed a series of records requests on the LA immigration raids, said it was remarkable that US armed forces apparently had to search for accommodations where they would not be protested, an unusual predicament he attributed to the widespread outrage at the administration.“The document reveals that Trump’s nativist crusade, carried out by masked Ice thugs, is so widely detested that now the US military feels the need to hide from Americans on American soil,” Shapiro said in an email.Advocates involved in the protests said the emails seemed to affirm the effectiveness of the demonstrations, some of which were organized spontaneously by nearby residents. News reports in June chronicled hotel demonstrations across LA county municipalities, including Pasadena, Glendale, Long Beach, Whittier, Downey, Monrovia and Montebello.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Working-class people saw this as a way to participate in the struggle against Ice,” said Ron Gochez, a leading member of Unión del Barrio, a group that documents Ice actions in LA. At the height of the June raids, his group received five to 10 calls a day from people who had spotted immigration officers at hotels, Gochez said. Once the reports were verified through photos or hotel employees, Unión del Barrio alerted other community groups in their networks.“A lot of hotel workers were not only mad about officers staying there, but were in fear because they were undocumented,” he said. “People want to make life difficult for these agents as they are kidnapping and separating families. And for the agents to constantly hear that they are unwanted, that people in society hate what they’re doing, that they will go down in history as kidnappers and collaborators, I think that gets to them psychologically.”One of the first hotel demonstrations took place on 8 June at the AC Hotel in Pasadena, a Marriott property, where, according to a state senator, immigration officers were lodging and had questioned staff.“We wanted to alert the community that Ice was staying at the hotel and let Ice know they were not welcome in Pasadena,” said Jose Madera, director of the Pasadena Community Job Center, a day laborer center.Widely shared footage showed protesters cheering as federal vehicles left the AC Hotel, with agents seen exiting with their bags stacked on a cart, the LA Times reported.“It was effective because the community organically organized itself, and people did not leave until they physically saw the agents leave,” Madera said. “It’s a source of pride for the people who live and work in Pasadena that we started this and sparked other communities to organize to get Ice out of their hotels … It’s going to take many strategies to slow down and stop Ice raids.”At the Glendale Hilton on 12 June, protesters posted footage of a woman who identified herself as hotel management greeting protesters and saying officers had left and would no longer be staying there.Representatives of the Glendale and Pasadena hotels did not respond to inquiries.“It helped combat this feeling of hopelessness,” said Teto Huezo, who was involved in the Glendale protests and is part of an LA community self-defense coalition that monitors Ice. He said he hoped more protests would pressure hotels to publicly commit to keeping Ice out. “Community members should be proud of these wins. The lesson is, we can be so much more organized and smarter than these agencies, and when we don’t want them in our neighborhoods, we can actually take actions to force them out.” More

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      Texas killed in-state tuition for undocumented college students – what happened next?

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      Ximena had a plan.The 18-year-old from Houston was going to start college in the fall at the University of Texas at Tyler, where she had been awarded $10,000 a year in scholarships. That, she hoped, would set her up for her dream: a PhD in chemistry, followed by a career as a professor or researcher.“And then the change to in-state tuition happened, and that’s when I knew for sure that I had to pivot,” said Ximena, who is from Mexico but has attended schools in the US since kindergarten. (The Guardian and its partner the Hechinger Report, which produced this story, is using her first name only because she fears retaliation for her immigration status.)In June, the Texas attorney general’s office and the Trump administration worked together to end the provisions in a state law that had offered thousands of undocumented students like Ximena lower in-state tuition rates at Texas public colleges. State and federal officials successfully argued in court that the longstanding policy discriminated against out-of-state US citizens who paid a higher rate. That rationale has now been replicated in similar lawsuits against Kentucky, Oklahoma and Minnesota – part of a broader offensive against immigrants’ access to public education.At UT Tyler, in-state tuition and fees for the upcoming academic year total $9,736, compared to more than $25,000 for out-of-state students. Ximena and her family couldn’t afford the higher tuition bill, so she withdrew. Instead, she enrolled at Houston Community College, where out-of-state costs are $227 per semester hour, nearly three times the in-district rate. The school offers only basic college-level chemistry classes, so to set herself up for a doctorate or original research, Ximena will still need to find a way to pay for a four-year university down the line.Her predicament is exactly what state lawmakers from both political parties had hoped to avoid when they passed the Texas Dream Act, 2001 legislation that not only opened doors to higher education for undocumented students but was also meant to bolster Texas’s economy and its workforce in the long term. With that law, Texas became the first of more than two dozen states to implement in-state tuition for undocumented students, and for nearly 24 years, the landmark policy remained intact.Conservative lawmakers repeatedly proposed to repeal it, but despite years of single-party control in the state legislature, not enough Republicans embraced repeal even as recently as this spring, days before the Texas attorney general’s office and the federal Department of Justice moved to end it.Now, as the fall semester approaches, immigrant students are weighing whether to disenroll from their courses or await clarity on how the consent agreement entered into by the state and justice department affects them.Immigration advocates are worried that Texas colleges and universities are boxing out potential attendees who are lawfully present and still qualify for in-state tuition despite the court ruling – including recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, asylum applicants and temporary protected status holders – because university personnel lack immigration expertise and haven’t been given clear guidelines on exactly who needs to pay the higher tuition rate.At Austin Community College (ACC), members of the board of trustees are unsure how to accurately implement the ruling. As they await answers, they have so far decided against sending letters asking their students for sensitive information in order to determine tuition rates.“This confusion will inevitably harm students because what we find is that in the absence of information and in the presence of fear and anxiety, students will opt to not continue higher education,” said Manuel Gonzalez, vice-chair of the ACC board of trustees.Policy experts, meanwhile, warn that Texas’s workforce could suffer as talented young people, many of whom have spent their entire education in the state’s public school system, will no longer be able to afford the associate’s and bachelor’s degrees that would allow them to pursue careers that would help propel their local economies. Under the Texas Dream Act, beneficiaries were required to commit to applying for lawful permanent residence as soon as possible, giving them the opportunity to hold down jobs related to their degrees. Even without legal immigration status, it’s likely they will still work – just in lower-paying, under-the-radar jobs.“It’s so short-sighted in terms of the welfare of the state of Texas,” said Barbara Hines, a former law school professor who helped legislators craft the Texas Dream Act.The legislation was first introduced in the state’s lower chamber by retired army national guard Maj Gen Rick Noriega, a Democrat who served in the Texas legislature from 1999 to 2009, after he learned of a young yard worker in his district who wanted to enroll at the local community college for aviation mechanics but could not afford out-of-state tuition.View image in fullscreenNoriega called the school chancellor’s office, which was able to provide funding for the student to attend. But that experience led him to wonder: how many more kids in his district were running up against the same barriers to higher education?So he worked with a sociologist to poll students at local high schools about the problem, which turned out to be widespread. And Noriega’s district wasn’t an outlier. In a state that has long had one of the nation’s largest unauthorized immigrant populations, politicians across the partisan divide knew affected constituents, friends or family members and wanted to help. Once Noriega decided to propose legislation, a Republican, Fred Hill, asked to serve as a joint author on the bill.The legislation easily passed the Texas house, which was Democratic-controlled at the time, but the Republican-led senate was less accommodating.“I couldn’t even get a hearing,” said Leticia Van de Putte, the then state senator who sponsored the legislation in her chamber.View image in fullscreenTo persuade her Republican colleagues, she added several restrictions, including requiring undocumented students to live in Texas for three years before finishing high school or receiving a GED. (Three years was estimated as the average time it would take a family to pay enough in state taxes to make up the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition.) She also included the clause mandating that undocumented students who accessed in-state tuition sign an affidavit pledging to pursue green cards as soon as they were able.Van de Putte turned to Texas business groups to hammer home the economic case for the bill. And she convinced the business community to pay for buses to bring Latino evangelical conservative pastors from Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and other areas to Austin, so they could knock on doors in support of the legislation and pray with Republican senators and their staff.After that, the Texas Dream Act overwhelmingly passed the state senate in May 2001, and the then governor, Rick Perry, a Republican, signed it into law the following month.Yet by 2012, a new slew of rightwing politicians was elected to office, many philosophically opposed to the law – and loud about it. Perry’s defense of the policy came back to haunt him during the 2012 Republican presidential primary, when his campaign was dogged by criticism after he told opponents of tuition equity during a debate: “I don’t think you have a heart.”Still, none of the many bills introduced over the years to repeal the Texas Dream Act were successful. And even the current Texas governor, Greg Abbott, a Republican border hawk, at times equivocated on the policy, with his spokesperson saying in 2013 that Abbott believed “the objective” of in-state tuition regardless of immigration status was “noble”.By 2017, the same year Trump began his first term, polling showed a plurality of Texans in support of in-state tuition for undocumented students. More recently, research has indicated time and time again that Americans support a pathway to legal status for undocumented residents brought to the US as children.But arguments against in-state tuition regardless of immigration status also grew in popularity: critics contended that the policy is unfair to US citizens from other states who have to pay higher rates, or that undocumented students are taking spots at competitive schools that could be filled by documented Americans.The justice department leaned on similar rhetoric in the lawsuit that killed tuition equity in Texas, saying the state law is superseded by 1996 federal legislation banning undocumented immigrants from getting in-state tuition – over US citizens – based on residency.View image in fullscreenIn Texas, the sudden policy change is causing chaos. Even the state’s two largest universities, Texas A&M and the University of Texas, are using different guidelines to decide which students must pay out-of-state rates.“Universities, I think, are the ones that are put in this really difficult position,” said Luis Figueroa, senior director of legislative affairs at the advocacy group Every Texan. “They are not immigration experts. They’ve received very little guidance about how to interpret the consent decree.”Meanwhile, young scholars are facing difficult choices. One student, who asked to remain anonymous because of her undocumented immigration status, wondered about her future.The young woman, who has lived in San Antonio since she was nine months old, had enrolled in six courses for the fall at Texas A&M-San Antonio and wasn’t sure whether to drop them. It would be her final semester before earning her psychology and sociology degrees, but she couldn’t fathom paying for out-of-state tuition.“I’m in the unknown,” she said, like “many students in this moment.”

      This story was originally produced by the Hechinger Report, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education More

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      Community rallies around LA teen detained by Ice while walking dog

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      A southern California community is calling for the release of a high school student whom US immigration agents arrested earlier this month while he was walking his dog.Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz was supposed to be starting his senior year of high school at Reseda charter high school this month. But just days after his 18th birthday, masked Ice agents detained him as he walking his dog in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Van Nuys in what his family described as a kidnapping.The agents allowed his dog to run loose, and treated Guerrero-Cruz like a criminal and joked while arresting him, his family said in a GoFundMe.“He is more than just a student – he is a devoted son, a caring brother, a loyal friend, and a valued member of our community,” the family wrote, adding that he helps care for his younger brothers. “He is a good student, with a kind heart, who has always stepped up for his family.”Educators and advocates are expected to hold a rally and press conference in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon to call for Guerrero-Cruz’s release. A former teacher who recently visited the teen is expected to share an update, ABC7 reported.The arrest comes as Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants continues to unfold across southern California, where thousands of people have been arrested this summer at workplaces, at stores and near schools.Los Angeles Unified school district, which has nearly 800 schools across the county, has adopted new strategies to protect students and “ensure that schools remain safe, supportive spaces for all children and families – regardless of immigration status”.“Schools are safe spaces,” Alberto M Carvalho, the LAUSD superintendent, said in a statement. “Immigration enforcement near schools disrupts learning and creates anxiety that can last far beyond the school day.”Carvalho has said he is in communication with Guerrero-Cruz’s mother, who has alleged that the boy was being held with dozens of men, receiving water only once a day and insufficient food, in a space that doesn’t have enough room for everyone to sit or lie at the same time. The teen was reportedly being held at a detention center in Adelanto, where people have reported filthy conditions and not having access to clean clothes and towels for days at a time.His sudden arrest has sparked outrage in his community. Fellow soccer players said it was “heartbreaking to see him taken from us like this, and we’ll truly miss not just the player, but the person he was”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to the Guardian that Guerrero-Cruz was being detained pending his “removal” from the US.moval” from the US.“Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz, an illegal alien from Chile, overstayed his visa by more than two years, abusing the Visa Waiver Program under which he entered the United States, which required him to depart the United States on March 15, 2023,” the agency said. More

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      US to ‘root out anti-Americanism’ in reviewing immigration applications

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      The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it will look for “anti-American” views, including on social media, when assessing the applications of people wanting to live in the United States.In an announcement, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles requests to stay in the United States or become a citizen, said it would expand vetting of the social media postings of applicants and that “reviews for anti-American activity will be added to that vetting”.“America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies,” said agency spokesperson Matthew Tragesser. “US Citizenship and Immigration Services is committed to implementing policies and procedures that root out anti-Americanism and supporting the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible. Immigration benefits – including to live and work in the United States – remain a privilege, not a right.”The US Immigration and Nationality Act, which dates back to 1952, defines anti-Americanism, which at the time primarily focused on communists.Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has moved aggressively to deny or rescind short-term visas for people deemed to go against US foreign policy interests, especially on Israel.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe latest guidance on immigration decisions said that authorities will also look at whether applicants “promote anti-Semitic ideologies”.The Trump administration has accused students and universities of antisemitism over protests against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, charges denied by the activists.In April, the administration revoked or changed the legal status of hundreds of international students, only to reinstate them several weeks later. In May, student visa interviews were temporarily halted, and then, in June, new social media vetting measures were introduced for international students applying to study in the US.Under the new measures, US diplomats are directed to review applicants’ social media profiles to look for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States” before issuing visas.On Monday, the state department said it had revoked 6,000 student visas since the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, took office in January. It said that 4,000 of the cases involved violations of the law – “the vast majority being assault, DUI, burglary and support for terrorism” a state department official said. More

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      Stephen Miller, Trump’s immigration mastermind – podcast

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      Stephen Miller is the man behind Donald Trump’s most controversial immigration policies, from separating children and their parents at the southern border to the sharp rise in arrests now being made by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.The journalist and writer Jean Guerrero explains to Nosheen Iqbal that Miller’s hostility towards immigrants was evident from a young age and over the years key figures have shaped the tactics and language he now uses.The pair discuss the power that Miller holds today, the importance of Miller to the Trump administration and what lies behind his political longevity.Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod More

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      Democratic socialists think they’re on a winning streak – can they build on Zohran Mamdani’s victory?

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      It’s an energizing time for democratic socialists across the country, and not only because New York state assembly member Zohran Mamdani’s recent win in the New York City mayoral primary moves the United States’ most populous city closer than it ever has been to having a member as mayor.For supporters of the leftwing, worker-led political ideology, last weekend’s annual democratic socialists of America national convention in Chicago, which welcomed tens of thousands of politically minded individuals from across the country to the unionized McCormick Place convention center, was further recognition of the growing influence of the DSA, the country’s largest socialist organization, founded in 1982.Amid the backdrop of a fraught national political stage, one in which traditional Democrats are struggling to connect with voters and a Donald Trump-led GOP continues to push a far-right agenda, a growing cadre of democratic socialist politicians are finding increasing success in local elections by touting platforms of progressive policies, tapping into social media with snappy, engaging content, and connecting face to face with typically forgotten voter blocs.View image in fullscreenThe continued presence of democratic socialists Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York representative; and Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan representative, in Congress has been an inspiration to many of these similarly minded political hopefuls.However, it’s Mamdani’s recent success that many DSA-endorsed candidates like Jake Ephros, running for Jersey City council; Kelsea Bond, running for Atlanta city council; Jorge Defendini, running for Ithaca common council; and others who attended this convention are hoping to replicate. The goal is to show that the campaign isn’t a flash-in-the-pan win, but instead a burgeoning tide shift toward a leftwing political future divorced from capitalism, despite criticism from traditionalist Democrats and Republicans alike.“Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York or Omar Fateh in Minneapolis, also poised to become a socialist mayor of a major city – these are things that come after years of structure that DSA helped build up in a bunch of chapters … This is also why DSA is growing so much and having all this new energy, because we’re just really demonstrating what the alternative is,” said Ashik Siddique, the national co-chair of the DSA. “The Democratic party has not really presented a meaningful alternative.”With the DSA’s membership having surged in recent months, and both the 2026 midterm and 2028 presidential elections on the horizon, this weekend’s convention was a key opportunity for many to strategize on how to capitalize on expanding influence and recent wins.“There’s so much excitement around our huge victory, Zohran Mamdani winning the primary,” said Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair for the New York City chapter of the DSA. “People are coming up to us and asking us about the campaign, wanting to learn from our experience as well, and I’ll say that the big change that I’ve seen over the years is that DSA as an organization has matured politically.”While the NYC-DSA continues its work, other chapters will attempt to follow its lead, organizing around their own socialist candidates while the national DSA organization reaffirms its position on Palestine, organizes to end US aid to Israel, supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement – which calls on consumers to stop supporting both Israeli companies and companies that have supported Israel – and stands against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in solidarity with immigrants.That and a clear economic agenda that supports the working class “over billionaires, the bosses, the corporations that are raising prices, that are keeping our wages low” are what will lead to further success for democratic socialist candidates, in Gordillo’s eyes.Persistence can also be helpful.It helped Alex Brower, who won his election for Milwaukee common council district three alderman in an April special election after the death of his predecessor, in his third bid for office as a democratic socialist.“That happens to a lot of socialists because … if socialists were 100% successful, we’d have a socialist America right now. So there’s a lot of losing, but I think, honestly, I think we learn more by losing than winning,” Brower said.Many DSA-endorsed candidates will also be deep in the throes of fieldwork in the coming months: knocking on doors, attending events, meeting with neighbors and being visible in communities, all key to keeping the DSA’s recent momentum going, according to Ephros, who is currently running for the Jersey City council on a platform of affordable social housing, universal rent control, universal childcare, public healthcare and the Green New Deal, among other issues.“It goes a long way to just demonstrate: ‘Oh, this isn’t some shadowy, weird, fringe guy who calls himself a socialist and that means scary things to me; it’s my neighbor and he’s active in the community and he’s showing up,’” he said.Over the three days of the convention, the conference’s largest in its history, DSA members gathered to deliberate resolutions that will guide chapter actions and concerns over the next two years.Members voted to approve a measure for “a fighting anti-Zionist DSA”, a resolution that prompted much debate and some resistance due to a clause that would expel members for supporting Israel. Arguments both for and against the measure were raised to the crowd of voting members on Sunday afternoon, delayed by calls from DSA leadership to hold applause in favor of the silent American Sign Language motion for clapping, consisting of the waving of both hands. The request was only mildly successful.Members also voted to prioritize efforts to put up a DSA-endorsed socialist candidate for the 2028 presidential election, and elected both new and returning delegates to the DSA’s national political committee, the 16-person body that serves as the organization’s board of directors.On Friday, members heard from Rashida Tlaib, the keynote speaker for this year’s convention. As one of Congress’s most outspoken supporters of Palestine, Tlaib largely spoke about the responsibility Congress has to condemn Israel’s bombing and starvation of the people in Palestine. She also emphasized the work she believes the DSA still has to do.View image in fullscreen“For DSA to live up to our potential, we have to be willing to grow ourselves. We need more members for more diverse communities and leadership roles, y’all. We are failing, and again, I’m telling you as a big sis, we are failing when a room like this only has a handful of our Black neighbors. You need to be intentional,” Tlaib said to Friday’s intently listening crowd.“A lot of working-class folks have strong historical ties to the Democratic party. They know they have been let down, and they’re looking for a new home. They want to envision the alternatives, and we have it.”Álvaro López, an electoral coordinator for NYC-DSA who assisted Mamdani’s campaign, attended the DSA convention for the first time after being a member since 2017. He’s grappling with what to take from the convention’s more introspective measures.“In this convention, unfortunately, Donald Trump was not raised. Zohran’s victory was not strategically discussed, and I think that’s a product of our larger, big-tent organization that we have. I think there is a lot of work for the left and the DSA to still get to a point where we are really thinking about how do we build power, and how we are not so inward looking and think of ourselves as the protagonist of everything around us,” López said.The NYC-DSA’s strategy for creating successful campaigns has previously involved contesting local and state-level positions, before shifting to one that seeks to place democratic socialists in the highest levels of local politics. With many DSA chapters strategizing what that looks like for them back home, taking similar steps may help, Gordillo believes.“Many working-class people, for example, don’t really know what the state assembly is,” he said.“It’s harder to get traction or to do mass communications that way, so we decided to run a socialist for mayor,” he said of reaching voters in local elections. “We need to do that, not just in New York City. We need to do it in Minneapolis. We need to do it in Los Angeles and in Detroit and Michigan, eventually in 2028. I hope that we take that to the federal stage in the presidential run.”A resolution brought up at this year’s DSA convention would create a strategy to build socialism in each of the 50 states and help the DSA build more statewide organizations. The DSA has also previously expanded an electoral program to provide more support to chapters that want to learn how they can run their own candidates and develop class-struggle elections.It’s political actions like these that can be the key to winning races, even by the smallest of margins, Tlaib said on Friday, reminding DSA members of her win in 2018 by only 900 votes.“We are standing at a crossroads in American history,” Tlaib said. “We are going to take this country back for our working families and defeat these pathetic, cowardly, hateful fascists. We’re going to win because we don’t have any other options, and yes, we are going to free Palestine. They don’t have any other choice. Our movement isn’t going anywhere, and we’re just getting started.” More

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      US judge hears if Trump team broke law during LA Ice protests

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      A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday began hearing evidence and arguments on whether the Trump administration violated federal law when it deployed national guard soldiers and US marines to Los Angeles after protests over immigration raids this summer.The Trump administration federalized California national guard members and sent them to the second-largest US city over the objections of the California governor, Gavin Newsom, and city leaders, after protests erupted on 7 June when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers arrested people at multiple locations.California is asking Judge Charles Breyer to order the Trump administration to return control of the remaining troops to the state and to stop the federal government from using military troops in California “to execute or assist in the execution of federal law or any civilian law enforcement functions by any federal agent or officer”.“The factual question which the court must address is whether the military was used to enforce domestic law, and if so, whether there continues to be a threat that it could be done again,” Breyer said at the start of Monday’s court hearing.The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prevents the president from using the military as a domestic police force. The case could set precedent for how Trump can deploy the guard in the future in California or other states.Trump’s decision to deploy the troops marked the first time in 60 years that a US president had taken such a step without a governor’s consent. Critics say that Trump’s actions in many ways reflect a strongman approach by a president who has continuously tread upon norms and has had a disregard for institutional limits.“This is the first, perhaps, of many,” Trump said in June of the deployment of national guardsmen in Los Angeles. “You know, if we didn’t attack this one very strongly, you’d have them all over the country, but I can inform the rest of the country, that when they do it, if they do it, they’re going to be met with equal or greater force.”Many of the troops have been withdrawn, but Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, said on Sunday that 300 national guard troops remain in the state. The Trump administration last week extended the activation of troops in the LA area through 6 November, according to a court filing by Newsom.“The federal government deployed military troops to the streets of Los Angeles for the purposes of political theater and public intimidation,” Bonta said in a statement. “This dangerous move has no precedent in American history.”The hearing comes the same day Trump placed the DC Metropolitan police department under federal control and deployed the national guard by invoking section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act.The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said national guard units would take to the streets of DC over the coming week.The Department of Defense ordered the deployment of roughly 4,000 California national guard troops and 700 marines. Most of the troops have since left but 250 national guard members remain, according to the latest figures provided by the Pentagon. The remaining troops are at the Joint Forces training base in Los Alamitos, according to Newsom.Newsom won an early victory from Breyer, who found the Trump administration had violated the 10th amendment, which defines power between federal and state governments, and exceeded its authority.The Trump administration immediately filed an appeal arguing that courts cannot second guess the president’s decisions and secured a temporary halt from the appeals court, allowing control of the California national guard to stay in federal hands as the lawsuit continues to unfold.After their deployment, the soldiers accompanied federal immigration officers on immigration raids in Los Angeles and at two marijuana farm sites in Ventura county while marines mostly stood guard around a federal building in downtown Los Angeles that includes a detention center at the core of protests.The Trump administration argued the troops were needed to protect federal buildings and personnel in Los Angeles, which has been a battleground in the federal government’s aggressive immigration strategy. Since June, federal agents have rounded up immigrants without legal status to be in the US from Home Depots, car washes, bus stops and farms. Some US citizens have also been detained.Ernesto Santacruz Jr, the field office director for the Department of Homeland Security in Los Angeles, said in court documents that the troops were needed because local law enforcement had been slow to respond when a crowd gathered outside the federal building to protest against the 7 June immigration arrests.“The presence of the national guard and marines has played an essential role in protecting federal property and personnel from the violent mobs,” Santacruz said.After opposition from the Trump administration, Breyer issued an order allowing California’s attorneys to take Santacruz’s deposition. They also took a declaration from a military official on the national guard and marines role in Los Angeles.The Trump administration’s attorneys argued in court filings last week the case should be canceled because the claims under the Posse Comitatus Act “fail as a matter of law”. They argued that there is a law that gives the president the authority to call on the national guard to enforce US laws when federal law enforcement is not enough.Trump federalized members of the California national guard under Section 12406 of Title 10, which allows the president to call the national guard into federal service when the country “is invaded”, when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government” or when the president is otherwise unable “to execute the laws of the United States”.Breyer found the protests in Los Angeles “fall far short of ‘rebellion”.“Next week’s trial is not cancelled,” he said in a ruling ordering the three-day, non-jury trial.During the month the protests took place, tensions heightened between Trump and Newsom. The California governor compared the president with failed dictators and Trump entertained the idea of having Newsom arrested. More

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      John Oliver on Ice’s crackdown: ‘Trying to drive up arrests at all costs’

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      John Oliver took a hard look at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on the latest Last Week Tonight, as more and more videos of Ice raids across US cities continue to show a brutal crackdown on undocumented people. “For all the administration’s talk of targeting dangerous criminals, the reality is very different,” Oliver started.The Trump administration has set a goal of deporting one million people a year, “which, it’s worth noting, would be more than double the previous record of 400,000 when Obama was president, which was already very high”, said Oliver. “But notably, they don’t seem to be getting near their target numbers.” As of taping, the administration had deported about 280,000 people, “so getting to a million in just six months seems very unlikely”.“And they have backed themselves into this corner, because ‘promising’ to deport a million criminal migrants is one thing, but once you’re in charge, you then have to find that many of them,” he continued, “which is going to be hard if they don’t exist in the numbers that you’re claiming, which they don’t.“It’s like promising to apprehend 10,000 Fred Dursts a day,” he added. “There just aren’t that many out there, so either you have to admit that your target number was bullshit in the first place or you have to drastically widen your definition of what a Fred Durst is until you’re eventually arresting any gen X-er wearing a hat.“But instead of conceding their numbers were inflated, the administration is trying to drive up arrests at all costs.” The Trump aide Stephen Miller has instructed Ice agents to target Home Depots and 7-Elevens, and the agency has rapidly deputized a record number of local police to function as deportation agents. They have brought in border patrol as well as the national guard; at least a quarter of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s workforce; 80% of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and even members of the US Postal Service.“This mass reallocation of resources means that other crimes are going less policed,” Oliver explained. The FBI, for example, has instructed agents to prioritize immigration enforcement at the expense of white-collar crime and investigations into sexual abuse.“I gotta say: for a guy who pandered so heavily to people convinced pedophiles, sex offenders and traffickers had infiltrated our government, Trump’s sure making the government a lot friendlier to them,” said Oliver. “Ghislaine Maxwell’s in a nicer cell now, Lawrence Taylor’s advising on kids’ physical fitness. Fuck it, at this point, if he’s willing to wear a Maga hat, I really don’t see why Roman Polanski can’t come back.”Nevertheless, “border czar” Tom Homan claimed that 70% of those arrested by Ice were criminals, while the other 30% were national security threats who “don’t have a criminal history because they try to lay low until it’s time for them to do things bad”.“Under his logic, I guess anyone could be a national security threat,” said Oliver. But “Homan’s numbers are also nowhere near Ice’s own data,” which found that only 40% of those arrested had any criminal history, including traffic infractions, and just 7% were convicted of any sort of violent crime. In fact, as of June, people with only civil or immigration violations – no criminal convictions – made up the largest percentage of arrests nationwide. “Maybe the clearest sign that this is more about pushing up numbers than catching violent criminals on the run is that one of the key places where they’re now fishing for arrests is immigration court, where people show up for their hearings,” he added.As numerous videos showed, Ice agents arrested people who showed up to process their situation legally, using a loophole that allows the government to deport people without due process if their immigration case is dismissed. “It is the laziest possible way to juice up your numbers,” said Oliver, “because you’re targeting people who are going through the system ‘in the right way’ and turning them into people you can immediately arrest and deport.”This trap was among “things the administration is doing that sure feel like they’re breaking the law” but “often aren’t”. Oliver took the “dystopian visual” of Ice agents wearing masks, which is actually legal, as no federal law prevents it. “So they can do it, but why are they?” The administration claims that it’s for their own protection, with the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, including videotaping arrests as an act of “violence” against agents.All of this “gets even more worrying” when one remembers that Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act contains a huge surge of funding for immigration enforcement – roughly $170bn over the next few years, some of which is set aside for the hiring of 10,000 new Ice agents. “For what it’s worth, massive rapid hiring sprees never tend to work out well,” Oliver noted. Past efforts to bolster Customs and Border Protection under George Bush ended up with hiring drug cartel members and an actual serial killer. “And it’s not a great sign for who Ice is appealing to that they’re currently posting gross recruitment ads, like this fake minivan ad tagged: ‘Think about how many criminal illegal aliens you could fit in this bad boy!’” he added. “And they seem more than a little desperate already, as they’ve already removed age limits for hiring agents.”And this past week, Ice shared a video of their newest recruit: former Superman actor Dean Cain. “You know, there’s an old saying in Hollywood: ‘If all you can get is Dean Cain, you are fucked,’” Oliver joked.“Now, I’m not saying that Ice isn’t finding people,” he continued. “I’m just saying, when you are reduced to pinning a badge on the 59-year-old star of The Dog Who Saved Christmas, The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation, The Dog Who Saved the Holidays, The Dog Who Saved Halloween, The Dog Who Saved Easter and The Dog Who Saved Summer, maybe you are in trouble. Although, on the plus side, no need for that guy to wear a mask because the chances of anyone recognizing him are fucking zero.”So what can be done? “As powerless as this can feel, as individuals there are still actions you can take,” said Oliver, such as recording any arrest you witness involving Ice agents. Oliver also advised that if you’re approached by Ice agents, whether or not you’re a citizen, “attorneys told us the only two things you should say to them are: ‘Am I free to leave?’ And: ‘I want to speak to a lawyer.’ That’s it. You have the right to remain silent. And I recognize that in some cases you may be unable to help yourself from saying: ‘Didn’t you used to be Superman?’ ‘I thought you died.’ ‘I can’t believe I’m meeting a film-maker.’ But that really is it.”“We are still in a very grim moment,” he added. “The rightwing narrative is that most people are rabid to punish anyone who wants to become new Americans. But that is just not true,” as new polls found 80% support a pathway to legal citizenship for undocumented immigrants. “Nor are their bullshit claims about who’s being targeted and arrested.“And I’m not saying that everything Ice is doing right now is illegal,” he concluded. “What I’m saying is, a whole bunch of it feels like it really should be. And we need to change that at our earliest opportunity.” More