Gestapo USA

The Department of Justice (DOJ) no longer requires temporary immigration judges to have experience in immigration law.

The new rule, which went into effect on Thursday, permits the director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), with the U.S. Attorney General’s approval, “to designate or select any attorney to serve” as a temporary immigration judge (TIJ) for a renewable six-month term. The notice states that the DOJ “declines to adopt any limitations on the number of extensions of the six-month periods or otherwise cap the length of a temporary appointment.” The EOIR conducts immigration court proceedings, appellate reviews, and administrative hearings.

The conditions include one meal a day that consists of a single burrito, some 40 to 90 people at a time crammed into a single room with no beds, and some detainees held as long as seven days with no ability to bathe, according to accounts shared with MSNBC by attorneys and a family member of a person being detained.

“They just give us one burrito with water,” said the immigrant, who already had an active immigration case when he was picked up. His father spent at least six days at the Chantilly ICE office and also was given one burrito per day, and the crowding was so severe that his father had to sleep sitting up at times, the son told MSNBC.

In phone calls recorded by the outlet, immigrants at the facility—dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by President Donald Trump and his fascist supporters—said that at least four detainees were injured after guards deployed tear gas and began beating them.

“People started shouting because a relative had died, and they started shouting for freedom. At that moment, a prison team came in and started beating everyone,” said one of the detainees in one of the three phone calls.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is siphoning ever more resources and personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, threatening national preparedness for climate disasters.

Guards reportedly used tear gas and indiscriminate beatings to regain control of the facility when an unknown number of suffering captives began to revolt, presumably to attempt to escape. Detainees who contacted the Miami-Fort Lauderdale Spanish-language news outlet said that they could hear fire alarms as well as the sound of helicopters circling the facility.

As he publicly mocks concerns that crime in California is out of control, Gov. Gavin Newsom is also surging law enforcement resources across the state.

Tear gas was used at a time when parents were taking their kids to school and innocent bystanders were on their way to work. “A lot of people were coughing ... A lot of people had red eyes, and [were] trying to get water to clean themselves," said one witness.

https://www.univision.com/local/miami-wltv/migrantes-detenidos-denuncian-supuesto-motin-alcatraz-de-los-caimanes

Just east of the Fashion District in downtown L.A., in a riot of color and shape and texture, the Piñata District on Olympic Boulevard sells everything you could need for a vibrant party.

But now, amid ongoing ICE sweeps, the goods are still there, but the customers are not.

On a recent visit, most people in the area were employees unloading merchandise. Talking to vendors was difficult — they were either too scared to speak or too short-staffed to stop and chat.

Nini Santoyo, owner of El Cora Productos, imports merchandise from small towns all over Mexico. She says businesses in the Piñata District have seen a large drop in sales. “You see how lonely it is? There's no cars; there's no people walking," Santoyo said. "It is dead.”

"Everybody's really scared of coming,” she said.

Trump administration pushing controversial deal to send people to non-home countries including South Sudan and Eswatini

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.

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.

ICE raids on Day 82 resulted in multiple abductions across Los Angeles, Pasadena, Temple City, Canoga Park, La Habra, and Camarillo, including a young Asian woman forcibly taken from her vehicle after agents smashed her window. Meanwhile, protests at the downtown federal detention center faced violent crackdowns, and L.A. TACO reported that a Border Patrol agent facing assault charges in Long Beach has been confirmed dead.

Federal immigration agents are more routinely showing up at California medical facilities as the Trump administration ramps up deportations.

They may come to the emergency room, bringing in someone who’s suffering a medical crisis while being detained. They may wait in the lobby, as agents did for two weeks at an L.A.-area hospital waiting for a woman to be discharged. Or they may even chase people inside, as federal agents did at a Southern California surgical center.

The sight of these agents — often armed and with covered faces — makes many wary and may keep people from seeking care.

The new school year in Southern California has begun under extraordinary and deeply ominous circumstances. Within days of students returning to classrooms, federal immigration agents have carried out aggressive operations at and near public schools, targeting students and their families. At least ten documented cases near Los Angeles and San Diego schools have taken place since classes resumed.

The raids in Southern California are only one front in a nationwide campaign, building on last year’s arrests of dozens of arrests of students, parents and teachers in schools across the country.

Nearly 50 people were abducted across 28 incidents from August 22–25, with ICE targeting Home Depots, car washes, traffic stops, neighborhoods, and even areas near schools, sometimes using masked agents and guns. Raids stretched from Encinitas to Oxnard, while protests at the downtown federal detention center faced violent crackdowns, and Cal State Pomona postponed its career fair after backlash for hosting ICE.

Loomer: “I mean, just the other day, they said an illegal alien ran into traffic. I don't know about you, but I want to watch that on video. I want to have a livestream of that.”

Celebrities like Taylor Swift have long used a little-known Federal Aviation Administration program to shield their private jets’ flight records from public view. Now ICE is using the program to hide information about its deportation flights.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/26445083

Cartwright described for Rolling Stone a years-long struggle to keep kids safe at school. “Munitions and tear gas — we aren’t new to this,” she says. “We’d been next to the ICE building the whole time.” She emphasized that the school has coexisted “harmoniously with the protesters,” but adds: “Our issue is the chemical weapons being used against them that were impacting our space.”

But as the intensity of the conflict rose, it soon became clear that the school would have to make a dramatic change. “We were getting nightly reports that green gas was enveloping our garden — our edible garden — and all of the different chemicals were impacting our soil.” Cottonwood faced the costly prospect of constant testing and remediation, or being unable to use its outdoor spaces. When the bottom dropped out of enrollment, the school chose to relocate to a recently vacant middle-school campus where Cottonwood could take over the lease.

New guidance from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may make pro-Palestine activism a disqualifying factor for non-citizens who seek to live and work in the United States.

LA Metro said the bus operator wasn’t authorized to give an interview. The driver said he was simply exercising his right to free speech by giving an interview on his day off.