#immigration-enforcement

#immigration-enforcement

It was a dramatic turn from three years ago, when Trump reclaimed the White House with 48% of the Latino vote, the highest percentage ever captured by a Republican presidential candidate. A record number of California Latinos won legislative seats. The Hispanic Republican Club opened chapters in Ventura and Orange counties.

Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief to halt three unlawful policies and practices. First, federal agents are stopping people to question them about immigration status without reasonable suspicion of removability-and particularly targeting those they perceive to be Somali or Latino. Second, federal agents are arresting people for immigration reasons without warrants and without probable cause to believe that they are removable, outrageously including U.S. citizens (who plainly cannot be detained for civil immigration purposes) and individuals with immigration status.

Yet while "Abolish ICE" serves as a unifying chant in the streets, Democrats are once again seeking to temper and co-opt people's demands into a narrow version of reform. The demands outlined by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer could not be more toothless: requiring ICE agents to unmask, wear body cameras, and to follow a code of conduct modeled on other law enforcement agencies.

Fear of detention or deportation is leading many immigrants to avoid medical appointments, even when those visits are essential. This chilling effect is particularly acute among pregnant individuals, who may delay or forgo prenatal check‑ups out of concern that seeking care could expose them to immigration enforcement. The result is a growing public health crisis: expectant patients are left without consistent medical oversight, and communities face widening disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes.

"This occupation has had an incalculable impact on every single person here and the repercussions will be ongoing for a long time. Besides the separation of families, the legal battles to repatriate them and the persecution and arrest of constitutional observers, there will be ongoing massive economic effects for families trying to make rent, immigrant-run businesses who were forced to close and to the city as a whole."

The new policy rescinds a 2010 memo that said failing to apply for status as a lawful permanent resident within a year of living in the United States is not a basis for detaining refugees who entered the country legally. Two Trump administration officials wrote in the new directive that the previous guidance was incomplete and that the law requires DHS to detain and subject those refugees to a new set of interviews while in detention.

They argued that a freeze on rents is desperately needed after "nearly three months of federal occupation" under President Donald Trump's "Operation Metro Surge," which sent nearly 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other immigration agents to the area, resulting in multiple fatal shootings and a wave of civil rights violations, including explicit racial profiling.

The Department of Justice admitted in a recent court filing that it had violated over 50 court orders in immigration cases and that stunning figure was just since Dec. 5 and only included cases in New Jersey. The tactics used during President Donald Trump administration's immigration crackdown have been loudly criticized and sparked nationwide protests and multiple court challenges, especially after two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis:

"For most of American history, there were already paths to suing federal officials," Harrison Stark, of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School, tells Axios. A 1971 Supreme Court decision sharply limited individuals' ability to sue federal agents, and since 2022, Congress has been required to authorize such lawsuits. It has not yet done so.

ALPRs are marketed to promote public safety. But their utility is debatable and they come with significant drawbacks. They don't just track "criminals." They track everyone, all the time. Your vehicle's movements can reveal where you work, worship and obtain medical care. ALPR vendors like Flock Safety put the location information of millions of drivers into databases, allowing anyone with access to instantly reconstruct the public's movements.

The day before I relaunched The Flower Shop as its executive chef, I got a text from my old friend, Stretch Armstrong. "My partner is in commercial real estate and aware of your property hunt. Unsure the status of that but if you'd entertain a convo with a great guy, he'd love to speak to you." I was in a bad place because ICE had grabbed my lead line cook, Daniel, two days before.

"I see everyone recording, so I'm like let me record just in case something happens," Nolasco said.

Colombian conservative congresswoman Angela Vergara claims to be going through hell. Last Friday, she took to social media to report that her 22-year-old son, Rafael Alonso Vergara, had been detained in the United States by immigration police (ICE) and had been imprisoned and chained for 18 days. In a video posted on social media, she said: This is a person who was awaiting his legal situation, but he had his work permit and social security.

I think for me, it is tough to sometimes wake up and see something because I do care a lot about our country. I think people think I don't for some reason, but I do. I'm very proud to be American. But I think when you're from any country, you don't have to represent the entire values of what's going on in the leadership.