“The Trump administration has awarded a Virginia-based defense contractor a $1.26 billion contract to build a 5,000-bed immigration detention center in El Paso, Texas, reports Bloomberg. The newest—and biggest—facility will be located at the 1 million-acre Fort Bliss Army base, equipped with tents for detention infrastructure and an airport to serve as a deportation hub.”
“Abrego Garcia is accused of some unsavory actions—apart from the vague allegations of trafficking and gang membership, his wife filed for a temporary order of protection against him in 2021, which she later withdrew.
But importantly, he was never convicted of any of these things; before he was deported to a maximum security prison in Central America, he had not been charged with them, either.
Hanid Ortiz, meanwhile, was arrested, tried, and convicted of three murders, and yet the Trump administration used hundreds of people as bargaining chips, in part, to get him released and back on American streets. Trump seems to care much more about someone’s immigration status than the actual danger they pose.”
“Immigration officers were caught on video celebrating proudly after using chokeholds and a stun gun to arrest two undocumented immigrants in Florida. The owner of the video, an 18-year-old American citizen, was threatened and charged after he refused to delete the footage revealing the harsh tactics used by immigration authorities to meet the Trump administration’s mass deportation goals.
…
The recording continues after the three men are in custody and captures the officers’ candid remarks. A couple of officers can be heard cracking jokes about how one man smells and bragging about the stun gun use. One officer remarks on how “they’re starting to resist more now.” Another responds, “We’re going to end up shooting some of them… because they’re going to start fighting.”
“Just remember, you can smell that [inaudible] with a $30,000 bonus,” one officer says amidst post-arrest celebrations.
After his arrest and six-hour detention at a CBP station, Laynez-Ambrosio told The Guardian he was threatened with charges if he didn’t delete the exposing video. When he refused, he was charged with obstruction without violence for having allegedly interfered with CBP officers’ arrest—a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and one year of incarceration. He was ultimately sentenced to 10 hours of community service and a four-hour anger management course.
…
“The federal government has imposed quotas for the arrest of immigrants,” Laynez-Ambrosio’s attorney, Jack Scarola, told The Guardian. “Any time law enforcement is compelled to work towards a quota, it poses a significant risk to other rights.”
Scarola’s warning appears to be right. The Department of Homeland Security posted on Monday that it will “stop at nothing to hunt [undocumented immigrants] down.” The brutal tactics used by federal officers under the Trump administration, against mostly nonviolent immigrants—including people on their way to work and who pose no threat to public safety—will only serve to degrade constitutional protections and subject more people to the government’s abuse of power.”
“A woman who died of a heart attack in a federal immigration detention facility in South Florida told her son over the phone on the day she died that staff refused to let her see a physician for chest pains, her son told a county investigator.
Marie Ange Blaise, a 44-year-old Haitian national, died on April 25 at the Broward Transitional Center (BTC)—a privately run facility in Pompano Beach, Florida, that contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A medical examiner’s report obtained by Reason through a public records request concluded that she died of natural causes from cardiovascular disease.”
“Over the past three months, the Trump administration has filed lawsuits against Los Angeles, Illinois, Colorado, New York state, New York City, and other places for the express purpose of forcing them to abolish their “sanctuary city” policies and start aiding the feds in rounding up undocumented immigrants and enforcing federal immigration laws.
But unless the U.S. Supreme Court rapidly overturns several of its own precedents, including a recent one from 2018, all of these cases will be constitutional losers for President Donald Trump. Why? Here is how the late conservative legal hero and long-serving Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once spelled it out.
“The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems,” Scalia wrote for the Court’s majority in Printz v. United States (1997), “nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.”
…
federal agents still retain their own independent authority to enforce federal immigration law inside of sanctuary states and cities, just as federal authorities retain the independent authority to enforce other federal laws in states and cities. The key point under Printz is that it is unconstitutional for the feds to compel local officials to lend them a helping hand in carrying out the enforcement of federal law.”
“Paola Clouatre, the wife of Marine Corps veteran Adrian Clouatre, was released on Monday after two months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, with the help of Sen. John Kennedy (R–La.). Cloutare’s arrest is symbolic of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which has mostly targeted people with no criminal record, despite his claim that he’s deporting the “worst of the worst.”
…
After coming to the United States as a teenager with her mother to seek asylum over a decade ago, the 25-year-old began the green card application process shortly after marrying her husband last year. Clouatre was surprised to discover through the application process that ICE had issued a deportation order against her in 2018, stemming from her estranged mother’s failure to appear at an immigration hearing in California.”
“Hundreds of detainees at a newly opened detention center in the Florida Everglades don’t have underlying criminal records, according to a Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times investigation published Sunday.
Despite the Trump administration and Florida officials’ claims that the detention center, which they’ve gleefully dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” is holding hardened criminals and violent gang members, the Herald and Times obtained a list of roughly 700 detainees being held there. The news outlets found more than 250 people who were listed as having only immigration violations, but no criminal convictions or pending charges in the U.S.”
“Prisoners at Florida’s newly opened immigrant detention center in the Everglades are suffering in squalid conditions and are cut off from legal access, according to attorneys, detainees, family members, and lawmakers.”
“The judge found that many of those swept up in immigration raids were taken to the basement of a federal building in Los Angeles to a room known as “B-18” meant to temporarily house arrestees while they are being processed. Frimpong found that many detainees were held there for hours without access to counsel.”