Tag: ICE

How viral images are shaping views of L.A.’s immigration showdown

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Many accounts, knowingly or unknowingly, shared images that warped the reality of what was happening on the ground. An X account with 388,000 followers called US Homeland Security News, which is not affiliated with DHS but paid for one of X’s “verified” blue check marks, posted a photo of bricks that it said had been ordered to be “used by Democrat militants against ICE agents and staff!! It’s Civil War!!” The photo actually originated on the website of a Malaysian construction-supply company. The post has nevertheless been viewed more than 800,000 times.”

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“Some online creators treated the L.A. clashes as a prized opportunity for viral content. On Reddit, accounts with names like LiveNews_24H posted “crazy footage” compilations of the unrest and said it looked like a “war zone.” On YouTube, Damon Heller, who comments on police helicopter footage and scanner calls under the name Smoke N’ Scan, streamed the clashes on Sunday for nearly 12 hours.”

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“Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said videos can play a uniquely forceful role in shaping people’s reactions to current events because they “encapsulate the emotion of the moment.”
“There’s a heavy dose of misinformation,” he added. “And, you know, people just end up getting angrier and angrier.””

https://www.yahoo.com/news/viral-images-shaping-views-l-133509687.html

Trump’s Mass Cancellation of Student Visas Illustrates the Lawlessness of His Immigration Crackdown

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) suddenly terminated about 4,700 records in the database of foreign students with F-1 visas authorizing them to attend American universities. That move, which sowed panic among students across the country, was the result of the Trump administration’s “Student Criminal Alien Initiative.” But contrary to the implication of that label, the initiative affected many people who had no criminal record that would justify revoking their visas. Nor did ICE cite any other specific justification listed in the relevant regulations. Instead, the students were told their records had been terminated for “otherwise failing to maintain status.””

https://reason.com/2025/05/23/trumps-mass-cancellation-of-student-visas-illustrates-the-lawlessness-of-his-immigration-crackdown/

ICE Helps Round Up Sex Workers in Florida

Posted on by Lone Candle

“A recent “human trafficking enforcement operation” in Polk County, Florida, led to 244 arrests—albeit none for human trafficking. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Polk County is far from alone in rounding up sex workers and their customers under the auspices of stopping human trafficking. And as is so frequently the case, the federal government had a hand in this operation, which authorities dubbed Fool Around and Find Out.”

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“In addition to targeting adults for trying to consensually engage other adults in private sexual activity, immigration enforcement seems to have been a goal. A press release from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) notes that 36 of those arrested “are here illegally.””

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“NFL Player Arrested, but No Human Traffickers”

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“Toward the bottom of the press release, a quote from Sheriff Judd notes that “in addition to these 244 arrests, we also arrested 11 child predators who solicited who they thought were children online.” Judd seemingly wants to give the impression that Operation Fool Around and Find Out did more than just arrest people for wanting to engage in consensual adult activity.
But those 11 arrests were part of a separate operation, with its own name: Operation Child Protector VI. They appear to have nothing to do with the other 244 arrests.”

https://reason.com/2025/05/21/ice-helps-round-up-sex-workers-in-florida/

Court Frees Palestinian Student Arrested by ICE at His U.S. Citizenship Hearing

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The arrest of Mohsen Mahdawi was a test of just how far President Donald Trump’s power over immigrants could go. Mahdawi, a ten-year legal U.S. resident and a student at Columbia University, was at his interview to become a U.S. citizen earlier this month. But because he wasn’t a citizen yet, the Trump administration argued that it could deport Mahdawi for his protest activity, and had Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents pick him up at the immigration center.

On Wednesday, however, a federal judge ordered ICE to free Mahdawi, who was born in a refugee camp in the Palestinian territories, while his case proceeded. “The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford said at the hearing, according to ABC News. “Mr. Mahdawi, I will order you released.””

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“”Noncitizen residents like Mr. Mahdawi enjoy First Amendment rights in this country to the same extent as United States Citizens,” he emphasized. “If the Government detained Mr. Mahdawi as punishment for his speech, that purpose is not legitimate, regardless of any alleged First Amendment violation. Immigration detention cannot be motivated by a punitive purpose. Nor can it be motivated by the desire to deter others from speaking.””

https://reason.com/2025/04/30/court-frees-palestinian-student-arrested-by-ice-at-his-u-s-citizenship-hearing/

Trump Administration Admits ICE Arrested Mahmoud Khalil Without a Warrant

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Trump administration officials admitted that Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested without a warrant.”

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“The attorneys argued that the Department of Homeland Security wasn’t required to get a warrant because they had reason to believe that Khalil was likely to “escape” before one would be obtained.”

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“Khalil is far from the first legal resident to face deportation for pro-Palestine speech. Last month Rubio said that he had cancelled around 300 student visas. “We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not become a social activist that tears up our university campuses,” Rubio told reporters. “And if we’ve given you a visa and you decide to do that, we’re going to take it away””

https://reason.com/2025/04/28/trump-administration-admits-ice-arrested-mahmoud-khalil-without-a-warrant/

Mid-commute traffic stop left US citizen detained under an ICE order. Then, a Florida judge verified his US birth certificate

Posted on by Lone Candle

“A US-born man initially charged with being an “unauthorized alien” in Florida has been released after spending the night in jail on a 48-hour hold requested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the Trump administration’s broad deportation crackdown.

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, 20, was arrested by Florida Highway Patrol on Wednesday when the car he was riding in was pulled over for a traffic stop, said his attorney, Mutaqee Akbar. The American citizen – born in Grady County, Georgia, where he lives in the city of Cairo – was crossing into Florida for his work in construction in Tallahassee, about 45 minutes from home.

The new Florida law that Lopez-Gomez was arrested under – designed to discourage undocumented immigrants from entering the state and touted by its Republican leaders – had been temporarily blocked by a judge, according to news reports and a spokesperson for the immigrant rights coalition working with Lopez-Gomez’s family.

A state judge later found no probable cause for the charge of crossing into Florida illegally, but she said didn’t have jurisdiction to release Lopez-Gomez because of the ICE hold, court records show.

It was not immediately clear why Lopez-Gomez may have been the subject of an immigration detainer, with which ICE asks law enforcement agencies to notify it “before releasing a removable alien” and to “hold the alien for up to 48 hours” to give its umbrella agency, the Department of Homeland Security, time to take the migrant into custody.

While “no US citizen is a proper subject of a detainer, … many US citizens have been the mistaken subject of ICE detainers and even prolonged detention and removal, despite their assertion of citizenship,” according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a non-profit working on such issues since 1979.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/american-citizen-detained-under-ice-013141935.html

ICE Arrests Palestinian Immigrant at His Citizenship Test

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Ten-year legal U.S. resident and Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi showed up at an immigration center in Vermont on Monday for what he thought was his naturalization appointment. Instead, ICE agents swooped in and “refused to provide any information as to where he was being taken or what would happen to him,” according to a statement by Vermont lawmakers.”

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“Mahdawi co-founded the Palestinian student union at Columbia, and Mahdawi was president of the Columbia University Buddhist Association for two years, according to the court filings. While Khalil is soft-spoken in public, Mahdawi comes off as the hothead of the duo. He has been frank about his struggles between feelings of vengeance and forgiveness.
“Radicalism is not Justice, and will not make Justice,” he wrote on Instagram in November 2024. “Justice is balanced, Justice is compassionate, Justice is empathetic, and Justice is transformative.”

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“Mahdawi hasn’t been accused of any crime, according to a habeas corpus petition filed by his lawyers. Vermont District Court Judge William Sessions issued a temporary restraining order preventing ICE from removing Mahdawi from Vermont.”

https://reason.com/2025/04/15/ice-arrests-palestinian-immigrant-at-his-citizenship-test/

A Nicaraguan asylum seeker checked in with Ice every week. He was arrested anyway

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Rojas, 42, is one of potentially hundreds of people who have been detained in recent weeks despite complying with Ice requirements to regularly check-in. Ice does not appear to keep count of how many people it has arrested at check-ins. But the Guardian has estimated, based on arrest data from the first four weeks of the Trump administration, that about 1,400 arrests – 8% of the nearly 16,500 arrests in the administration’s first month – have occurred during or right after people checked in with the agency.

Lawyers and immigration advocates told the Guardian they believe that in order to oblige the president’s demand for mass arrests and deportation, immigration officials are reaching for the “low-hanging fruit” – people that Ice had previously released from custody while they pursued asylum or other immigration cases in a backlogged immigration court system.”

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“In Rojas’s case, he was allowed to stay in Spokane with his wife and children – who had pending asylum cases – and apply yearly for a permit to legally work.”

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“Both men had participated in Nicaragua’s April rebellion of 2018, a movement that started among university students. The movement was incited by unpopular changes to the social security system, but quickly grew into a massive movement calling for democratic reforms.

Government forces immediately responded with crushing brutality, shooting at young protesters. “I felt a lot of pain, sadness to see mothers crying for their children,” Rojas said. He felt called to join the cause.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nicaraguan-asylum-seeker-checked-ice-140054879.html