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Category: Law/Crime

DHS has become the Department of Deportation and made America more dangerous for children

DHS has become the Department of Deportation and made America more dangerous for children

The New York Times reports: The Department of Homeland Security has diverted thousands of federal agents from their normal duties to focus on arresting undocumented immigrants, undermining a wide range of law enforcement operations in response to mounting pressure from President Trump, a New York Times investigation has found. Homeland security agents investigating sexual crimes against children, for instance, have been redeployed to the immigrant crackdown for weeks at a time, hampering their pursuit of child predators. A national security…

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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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As Dershowitz claims Epstein wasn’t a pedophile, Marjorie Taylor Greene pushes back against Trump

As Dershowitz claims Epstein wasn’t a pedophile, Marjorie Taylor Greene pushes back against Trump

The Daily Beast reports: Emeritus Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz entered the latest public spat around the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his friendship with President Donald Trump by arguing that Epstein wasn’t all that bad. Speaking with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation on Friday, Dershowitz thought it prudent to clarify the nature of Epstein’s crimes. “The predecessor on your show described Epstein as a convicted pedophile,” Dershowitz complained to Cuomo. “[Epstein] pleaded guilty to one count of having sex…

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Latino U.S. citizens targeted through racial profiling by federal immigration agents in Chicago

Latino U.S. citizens targeted through racial profiling by federal immigration agents in Chicago

Chicago Tribune reports: When a masked man grabbed Ernesto Diaz’s left shoulder and slammed him against a vehicle, he thought he was being robbed. Diaz, 23, had been walking down Archer Avenue on the Southwest Side in late September, heading toward the CTA Orange Line for a trip downtown. Earbuds in, he was listening to music and said he barely registered the vehicle that pulled up near him. That was until he felt the pain in his shoulder. Diaz felt…

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As ICE escalates its tactics, are federal agents truly ‘untouchable’ in the eyes of the law?

As ICE escalates its tactics, are federal agents truly ‘untouchable’ in the eyes of the law?

CNN analysis: Mere hours after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot a suspect last month – wounding a member of the arrest team in the process – the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles effectively exonerated the agent who opened fire. “PSA: A vehicle is a deadly weapon,” First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli wrote in a social media post. “Using it against law enforcement justifies their use of deadly force in self-defense.” Essayli alleged the man who was…

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Michael Wolff’s questionable explanation for cozying up to Jeffrey Epstein

Michael Wolff’s questionable explanation for cozying up to Jeffrey Epstein

David A. Graham writes: In her classic book The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcolm studied how the author Joe McGinniss buttered up the accused killer Jeffrey MacDonald—formally joining his legal-defense team and sending fawningly supportive letters after his conviction—only to turn around and publish a scathing book portraying him as a sociopath. Observing McGinniss’s approach, Malcolm draws a distinction between the reporting phase, when a journalist courts her subject, and the writing phase, when she betrays them. Many reporters…

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Judges whose careers were all forged in the embers of Watergate have had it with Trump

Judges whose careers were all forged in the embers of Watergate have had it with Trump

Politico reports: When Donald Trump moved on his first day back in office to strip birthright citizenship from children born in the U.S. to some immigrant parents, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour called the newly inaugurated president a threat to the rule of law. Days after Trump mass-pardoned Jan. 6 defendants who attacked the Capitol, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth warned that for the first time in his career, “meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream.” And in September,…

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In the Epstein emails, no one is named more often than Trump himself

In the Epstein emails, no one is named more often than Trump himself

Miami Herald reports: Donald Trump is mentioned in Jeffrey Epstein’s emails over 1,000 times — the most cited person in the tranche released this week by the House Oversight Committee. Despite all the questions the emails have raised about his relationship with Epstein, Trump on Friday continued to fan the flames of the scandal. On his social media platform “Truth Social,” Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate some of the influential figures named in the emails. “I will…

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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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Firm tied to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem secretly got money from $220 million DHS ad contracts

Firm tied to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem secretly got money from $220 million DHS ad contracts

By Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski This story was originally published by ProPublica On Oct. 2, the second day of the government shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to shoot a television ad. Sitting on horseback in chaps and a cowboy hat, Noem addressed the camera with a stern message for immigrants: “Break our laws, we’ll punish you.”  Noem has hailed the more than $200 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign as a crucial tool to…

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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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Federal agents use tear gas against residents and local police in Chicago

Federal agents use tear gas against residents and local police in Chicago

Chicago Sun-Times reports: Federal agents deployed tear gas on the Far Southeast Side — sickening protesters and more than a dozen cops — despite a deputy Chicago police chief having told them his officers didn’t have gas masks and offering to clear a path so the agents could safely leave a chaotic scene, according to law enforcement sources. Angry residents had poured into the street to confront federal immigration agents near 105th Street and Avenue N in the East Side…

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Stewart Rhodes might wish otherwise, but there seems to be little appetite for the Oath Keepers in 2025

Stewart Rhodes might wish otherwise, but there seems to be little appetite for the Oath Keepers in 2025

Wired reports: Stewart Rhodes announced last week that he is relaunching the Oath Keepers, his anti-government militia which virtually disappeared after dozens of its members—including Rhodes—were arrested for their roles in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Rhodes, speaking to the Gateway Pundit this week, says that he sees the relaunched group as playing a role in combating what he labeled an “insurrection by the left” on the streets of US cities. “Right now, under federal statutes, president Trump…

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