“An Alabama construction worker is challenging the Trump administration’s warrantless construction site raids after he says he was arrested and detained by federal immigration agents—twice—despite being a U.S. citizen with a valid ID in his pocket.
…
Venegas was detained twice in May and June during raids on private construction sites where he was working. In both instances, the lawsuit says, masked immigration officers entered the private sites without a warrant and began detaining workers based solely on their apparent ethnicity.
…
According to the suit, “The officers ran right past the white and black workers without detaining them and went straight for the Latino workers.”
The officers tackled Venegas’ brother, who was also on the crew, and Venegas began filming the scene on his cell phone. One of the officers then approached Venegas and said, “You’re making this more complicated than you want to.”
Immediately after, the officer grabbed Venegas and began wrestling him to the ground. Another construction worker also took cell phone video of the two brothers’ arrests, which shows the agent struggling with Venegas who repeatedly yells, “I’m a citizen.”
Two other officers joined in to subdue Venegas, telling him to “Get on the fucking ground.”
…
According to the suit, the officers retrieved Venegas’ REAL ID from his pocket, but they called it fake, kept him handcuffed, and detained for more than an hour in the Alabama summer sun, until an officer agreed to run his social security number.
Then on June 12, Venegas was working in a nearly finished house when ICE agents cornered him in a bedroom and ordered him to come with them. Venegas was marched outside to the edge of the subdivision where he was working to have his immigration status checked. According to the lawsuit, two other U.S. citizens had been rounded up with him. Again, officers said his REAL ID could be fake and detained for 20 to 30 minutes before releasing him.
…
Venegas is one of many documented cases of U.S. citizens being violently detained and arrested during indiscriminate federal immigration sweeps.
…
Justice Brett Kavanaugh released a concurring opinion in which he waved away concerns that allowing such profiling would lead to citizens and legal residents being unduly harassed.
“As for stops of those individuals who are legally in the country, the questioning in those circumstances is typically brief,” Kavanaugh wrote, “and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U. S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States.”
Whatever world Kavanaugh is describing, it’s not the one that Venegas lives in.”
It sounds like Trump is helping Iran’s theocracy round up its dissidents.
“In the lead up to and after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, a large number of Iranians fled to the U.S. In the decades since, the U.S. had been sensitive in allowing those fleeing from Iran over religious, sexual or political persecution to seek residency.
In the 2024 fiscal year, for instance, the U.S. deported only 20 Iranians, according to statistics from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Iran has criticized Washington for hosting dissidents and others in the past. U.S. federal prosecutors have accused Iran of hiring hitmen to target dissidents as well in America.
It’s unclear exactly what has changed now in American policy. However, since returning to the White House, Trump has cracked down on those living in the U.S. illegally.
Noushabadi said that American authorities unilaterally made the decision without consultations with Iran.
But The New York Times said Tuesday, citing anonymous Iranian officials, that the deportations were “the culmination of months of discussions between the two countries.””
“George Retes was denied access to an attorney, wasn’t allowed to make a phone call, was not presented to a judge, and was put in an isolation cell before being released with no charges.
…
[he] was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies for three days and nights despite telling officers he was an American citizen and his identification was in his nearby car.
…
“United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh released a concurring opinion essentially blessing the use of racial profiling by the Trump administration’s immigration enforcers, even as critics warned American citizens’ rights would inevitably be violated.
The stops of people who are legally in the country are “typically brief,” Kavanaugh asserted, “and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States.””
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges. It is part of the steps the Trump administration has taken to use the military in broader ways than previously seen, particularly in its immigration crackdown, including sending the National Guard into American cities and deploying active duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“These military officers would serve under the command and control of the Attorney General and would execute administrative determinations at the direction of the Attorney General,” according to the letter signed by 12 Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee. It added that “these actions are inherently law enforcement actions that may not be performed by members of the armed forces.””
“Lawyers for the men say that as soon as they reached Ghana, they were informed that they would be quickly transferred to their home countries, even though they had won protection from U.S. immigration courts from being returned to their homes for fear of persecution or torture.
…
“For over three decades, through five presidential administrations, this country has adhered to its obligations to treat refugees humanely and to comply with the Constitutional requirement of due process, which is afforded to all persons present in this country, regardless of their citizenship status. In recent months, the government has embarked upon a series of deportations which signal a drastic change of course,” Chutkan wrote.”
Trump has pressured South Korea to invest more in the U.S.. South Korea was setting up a factory in Georgia and brought some of their own people to set it up because they have the experience in building that exact type of factory. The U.S. then does a military style raid to remove these people. The administration is either so incompetent that it can’t stop itself from working at cross purposes, or/and U.S. immigration law is so bad that we can’t even get the needed workers legally in to do a job that is a part of a priority set by the president of the United States.
Korean companies invest billions in the U.S., can’t get appropriate visas due to the U.S.’s crappy system, and the skilled people brought over to help make these investments are rounded up like criminals.
You can’t demand Korea invest in the U.S., not have the human capital to support those investments, not have the visa system to get that capital imported legally, and then get mad when in order to fulfill the investment demands the Korean companies don’t get their skilled workers properly documented.
Trump seems to recognize that it’s a problem, yet he did nothing to fix it while leading the charge on an incredibly expensive mass deportation operation while also demanding foreign countries invest in the U.S..