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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

Chicago pushback against immigration crackdown now serves as a model for other cities

Chicago pushback against immigration crackdown now serves as a model for other cities

The Associated Press reports: Baltazar Enriquez starts most mornings with street patrols, leaving his home in Chicago’s Little Village on foot or by car to find immigration agents that have repeatedly targeted his largely Mexican neighborhood. Wearing an orange whistle around his neck, the activist broadcasts his plans on Facebook. “We don’t know if they’re going to come back. All we know is we’ve got to get ready,” he tells thousands of followers. “Give us any tips if you see…

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Chicago-area mayor says Border Patrol terrorized his city. Here’s how to fight back, Charlotte

Chicago-area mayor says Border Patrol terrorized his city. Here’s how to fight back, Charlotte

Daniel Biss, mayor of Evanston, Illinois, writes: When federal agents came to my city of Evanston on Halloween this year, it was scary — and not in a fun way. That morning, we received reports of ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in our neighborhoods. Helicopters circled overhead. CBP Commander Greg Bovino himself was in town—suggesting this “operation” was more about a made-for-TV spectacle than any legitimate public safety goal. Then, after a traffic collision apparently caused deliberately…

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Faith leaders violently arrested at Broadview ICE facility protest

Faith leaders violently arrested at Broadview ICE facility protest

Religion News Service reports: In video recorded on Friday (Nov. 14) outside the embattled U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, the Rev. Michael Woolf stands alongside fellow protesters, fiddling awkwardly with his backpack as faith leaders and other protesters chant slogans at a line of police officers. A moment later, one officer can be seen walking forward, grabbing Woolf by the wrist and yanking. Demonstrators attempted to hold on to Woolf, who was wearing a clerical collar,…

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Are Israeli-backed human trafficking networks transferring people out of Gaza?

Are Israeli-backed human trafficking networks transferring people out of Gaza?

  A journey of suffering”. That’s how a Palestinian man described his transfer from Gaza, through Israel and Kenya, to South Africa. A journey so desperate that Palestinians paid thousands of dollars to leave their homes without knowing where they were going. A journey forced by more than two years of Israel’s genocide. In February, Israel and the US proposed forcibly removing Palestinians from Gaza. But Arab states rejected calls to take them in and rights groups labelled it ethnic…

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U.S. Catholic bishops take stand against Trump immigration policy, winning praise at churches

U.S. Catholic bishops take stand against Trump immigration policy, winning praise at churches

The Los Angeles Times reports: For the first time in 12 years, U.S. Catholic bishops have issued a unified statement to support the country’s immigrants and oppose the Trump administration’s “indiscriminate mass deportations of people.” The move solidified their support for immigrants — long a vital part of the U.S. Catholic Church — amid a year of unprecedented upheaval. It also continues a long tradition of the church as an institution of support for those in the country illegally that…

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‘I lost everything’: Venezuelans were rounded up in a dramatic midnight raid but never charged with a crime

‘I lost everything’: Venezuelans were rounded up in a dramatic midnight raid but never charged with a crime

By Melissa Sanchez, Jodi S. Cohen, T. Christian Miller, Sebastian Rotella and Mariam Elba This story was originally published by ProPublica On the night of the raid, heavily armed federal agents zip-tied Jhonny Manuel Caicedo Fereira’s hands behind his back, marched him out of his Chicago apartment building and put him against a wall to question him. As a Black Hawk helicopter roared overhead, the slender, 28-year-old immigrant from Venezuela answered softly, his eyes darting to a television crew invited…

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How the shutdown of USAID has already killed hundreds of thousands of people

How the shutdown of USAID has already killed hundreds of thousands of people

  Atul Gawande writes: It was January, my final week in the outgoing Administration. In a few days, Donald Trump would be inaugurated as President. I had come to the United States Agency for International Development in early 2022, leaving my surgery practice and public-health research in Boston to lead the agency’s global-health efforts. Now I’d be returning to my previous life. I spent my last days at U.S.A.I.D. in meetings with our civil- and foreign-service leaders, thanking them. Their…

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Bovino’s ‘American Gestapo’ expected to leave Chicago this week

Bovino’s ‘American Gestapo’ expected to leave Chicago this week

Chicago Tribune reports: Federal immigration agents part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” may soon leave Chicago, according to multiple sources who said the controversial mission was rapidly winding down after a contentious two months of enforcement raids that have set the city and suburbs on edge. Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, the top official on the ground leading the Trump administration’s efforts, was expected to depart Chicago for another assignment within days, and most of the Border Patrol agents under…

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Documents cast doubt on the viability of Trump’s Gaza peace initiative

Documents cast doubt on the viability of Trump’s Gaza peace initiative

Politico reports: Some Trump administration officials are deeply concerned that the Gaza peace deal between Israel and Hamas could break down because of the difficulty implementing many of its core provisions, as private documents obtained by POLITICO and circulating among U.S. officials underscore the lack of a clear path forward. The compendium of documents was presented last month during a two-day symposium of a few hundred people for U.S. Central Command and members of the newly created Civil-Military Coordination Center,…

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Israeli soldiers speak out on killings of Gaza civilians

Israeli soldiers speak out on killings of Gaza civilians

The Guardian reports: Israeli soldiers have described a free-for-all in Gaza and a breakdown in norms and legal constraints, with civilians killed at the whim of individual officers, according to testimony in a TV documentary. “If you want to shoot without restraint, you can,” Daniel, the commander of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank unit, says in Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War, due to be broadcast in the UK on ITV on Monday evening. Some of the IDF soldiers who…

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Hearings that can last less than two minutes for hundreds of thousands of anonymous deportees

Hearings that can last less than two minutes for hundreds of thousands of anonymous deportees

Caitlin Dickerson writes: One morning in March, as ICE was building momentum in carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign, dozens of people who had recently been detained throughout Virginia were being rushed through preliminary hearings. The government was using Zoom to save time, so Judge Karen Donoso Stevens sat in a mostly empty courtroom, adjourning some proceedings in less than two minutes each. Donoso Stevens yelled at a man to “stop talking!” while his own case was being heard…

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‘Mega detention centers’: ICE considers buying large warehouses to hold immigrants

‘Mega detention centers’: ICE considers buying large warehouses to hold immigrants

NBC News reports: The Trump administration is exploring buying warehouses that were designed for clients like Amazon and retrofitting them as detention facilities for immigrants before they are deported, a move that would vastly expand the government’s detention capacity, according to a Homeland Security Department official and a White House official. The precise warehouses that Immigration and Customs Enforcement may buy have not yet been determined, but the agency is looking at locations in the southern U.S. near airports where…

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Federal officials ban religious gatherings in front of the Broadview ICE facility

Federal officials ban religious gatherings in front of the Broadview ICE facility

Block Club Chicago reports: Federal authorities told demonstrators Friday that there would be “no more prayer” in front of or inside the Broadview ICE facility, in a move that mystified local leaders and raised legal questions. A federal representative delivered the news to a huddle of faith leaders and activists standing outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility Friday, speaking after faith leaders were denied entry to the building for the third time Friday. Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills, whose…

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Accounts from the men that Trump sent to El Salvador where they were tortured

Accounts from the men that Trump sent to El Salvador where they were tortured

The New York Times reports: They said they were shackled, beaten, shot with rubber bullets and tear gassed until they passed out. They said they were punished in a dark room called the island, where they were trampled, kicked and forced to kneel for hours. One man said officers thrust his head into a tank of water to simulate drowning. Another said he was forced to perform oral sex on guards wearing hoods. They said they were told by officials…

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ICE is sending a chill through the construction industry

ICE is sending a chill through the construction industry

NPR reports: As cars and trucks zoom by, Rurick Palomino points to the underside of the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge that spans the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., where his crew of about 30 workers is doing demolition work and pouring concrete as part of a $128 million federally-funded refurbishment. A Peruvian immigrant who came to the United States 25 years ago, Palomino — a U.S. citizen — built his construction firm from scratch after earning an engineering degree and learning…

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Israeli military lawyers warned there was evidence of Gaza war crimes, former U.S. officials say

Israeli military lawyers warned there was evidence of Gaza war crimes, former U.S. officials say

Reuters reports: The U.S. gathered intelligence last year that Israel’s military lawyers warned there was evidence that could support war crimes charges against Israel for its military campaign in Gaza – operations reliant on American-supplied weapons, five former U.S. officials said. The previously unreported intelligence, described by the former officials as among the most startling shared with top U.S. policymakers during the war, pointed to doubts within the Israeli military about the legality of its tactics that contrasted sharply with…

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