Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court made a highly controversial move this week, giving the Trump administration a green light to move forward with its plans to dismantle the Education Department. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was not at all impressed.
“When
the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then
executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that
lawlessness, not expedite it,” the progressive jurist wrote in a dissent.
Sotomayor described the majority’s decision as “indefensible,” adding
that it “hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all
those necessary to carry them out. The majority is either willfully
blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the
threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave.”
I
would gladly highlight the Republican-appointed justices’ rationale for
ruling the other way, but there was no stated rationale: They simply
issued a brief, unsigned order.
Citing
research from Georgetown Law professor Stephen Vladeck, an expert on
the high court’s “shadow docket,” the Times’ report noted that in the
past 10 weeks alone, the Supreme Court has “granted emergency relief to
the Trump administration without explanation seven times.”
The order on the gutting of the Education Department, the analysis added, “was an exercise of power, not reason.”
It was against this backdrop that the latest national poll
from Quinnipiac University included an important question: “In general,
do you think that the Supreme Court is mainly motivated by politics or
mainly motivated by the law?”
The
results were not close: 63% said the high court is principally focused
on politics, while 30% said the justices prioritize the law.
This follows a series of related national surveys showing public trust in the Supreme Court as an institution reaching record lows.
Applause for Steve for his well written column. So where does that leave us? As I noted last week in "That crooked Supreme Court"
Yeah, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are outrageous but it's all
six of the conservative judges and let's put most of the blame on John
Roberts who is the chief justice and should be working overtime to
restore faith in the Court. That means him putting aside his partisan
nonsense and going over to vote with the three on the other side.
He is politicizing the Court more than anyone else.
He
is a disgrace and it will be remembered in history how, after he became
Supreme Court Chief Justice, the public's trust weakened and weakened
and then vanished. It's now a majority of people that do not trust the
Court. That's on Roberts.
There was a time when we could trust the Supreme Court and feel safe in this country because of the Supreme Court. Those days are long gone.
Thursday, July 17, 2025. Chump continues to tank the economy, Hunter
Biden pops up trying to rewrite history, Chump's working overtime to
prevent people from voting in the mid-terms, US House Rep Dan Godlman
shines a light on Chump's concentration camps for immigrants as horror
stories of Chump's attacks on immigrants increase, and don't let Chump
claim he gives a damn about children because when you let ICE goons
kidnap a parent at a school's morning drop off, you've made clear that
you don't give a damn about children.
Hunter
Biden has offered his assessment on why President Donald Trump won the
2024 election, claiming that Democrats “literally melted down” by giving
up on his father.
In an interview with Jaime
Harrison as part of the former Democratic National Committee chair’s new
podcast “At Our Table,” set to debut on Thursday, Biden suggested
Democrats were wrong to pressure Joe Biden to exit the 2024 presidential
race.
“We lost the election
because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party,” Biden said,
according to experts shared with multiple outlets in advance of the
show’s release. “That’s my position. We had the advantage of incumbency.
We had advantage of an incredibly successful administration and the
Democratic Party literally melted down.”
Harrison appears to
share Hunter Biden’s view, telling Semafor the outcome of the election
would have been different if Democrats had the loyalty “Republicans have
for Donald Trump.”
Does
Harrison share it? Don't think so. Hunter's talking about Democratic Party
officials -- including members of Congress. Harrison appears to be
talking about Democratic voters. No, there was no loyalty to Joe from
Democratic Party voters. Should there have been? That's another
question.
But
let's deal with reality. To start with, Hunter didn't deal with
reality. He was a drain on his father's presidential campaign from day
one. He should have wrapped up his own problems -- by admitting guilt --
early on. But let it drag out and drag out. And his refusal to take
care of his daughter Navy Joan did not help nor did his latest
marriage. He was a mess and he was an embarrassment. He was the fact
of unethical corruption.
Last week, Sarah Chayes, "Hunter Biden’s Perfectly Legal, Socially Acceptable Corruption" was published by THE ATLANTIC. Yesterday on MORNING EDITION (NPR), Sarah spoke with David Green: DAVID GREENE, HOST: The impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump is drawing
attention to the questionable activities of more than one major
political family. Former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter are
under scrutiny for Hunter's work in the Ukrainian energy industry. The writer Sarah Chayes is the author of the book "Thieves Of The
State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security" (ph). And she argues
this scrutiny is a good thing. SARAH CHAYES: You know, when the son of a vice president gets a
job in a field he knows nothing about while his father is vice president
in a country that just had a revolution that, you know, typically, in
that part of the world, post-revolution, all the oligarchs steal all the
crown jewels, and the industry is one of the crown jewels - that is to
say, gas - since when is that doing nothing wrong? GREENE: Now, wrong does not necessarily mean illegal, Sarah
Chayes told me. But she said too often these days, people with political
ties or prominent political names are getting involved where they
shouldn't be. CHAYES: Almost any senior name that I start researching, I run
into practices like this. It is extraordinarily widespread. And that's
my question. How did we all convince ourselves that this isn't corrupt?
And it seems to me that we're not going to recover, you know, even an
approximation of the ideals on which we were founded as a nation unless
each of us, as citizens, begins to make it less comfortable for our
political and economic leaders to behave this way. GREENE: Well, let me ask you this, then. If it is not unusual,
why focus on this case of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden specifically?
CHAYES: Because it's in the news and because of the word that I
kept seeing apply in this context, which is, no wrongdoing, or, they
didn't do anything wrong. And I'm looking at that, saying, what? And if
we can say that now, in this context, then there's something awry.
From her article at THE ATLANTIC:
When allegations of ethical lapses or wrongdoing surface against people
on one side of the aisle, they can always claim that someone on the
other side has done far worse. But taken together, all of these examples
have contributed to a toxic norm. Joe Biden is the man who, as a
senator, walked out of a dinner
with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Biden was one of the most vocal
champions of anticorruption efforts in the Obama administration. So when
this same Biden takes his son with him to China aboard Air Force Two,
and within days Hunter joins the board of an investment advisory firm
with stakes in China, it does not matter what father and son discussed.
Joe Biden has enabled this brand of practice, made it bipartisan
orthodoxy. And the ethical standard in these cases—people’s basic
understanding of right and wrong—becomes whatever federal law allows. Which is a lot.
To quote THELMA & LOUISE, "You get what you settle for." Is that
what we're willing to settle for as a society? Corruption and lack of
ethics? Or do we have standards that we apply across the board? Basic
expectations from our public servants?
He did more harm to his father's image than anyone. And this continued after the election. He had no ethics at all.
And
then he coasted off to where? No one's really sure but Joe does poorly
in the debate and suddenly Hunter's back and advising on this and
that. Hunter, you should have been there before the debate.
Hunter -- who I do know -- thinks the debate wasn't that bad.
I
happen to agree. It was bad but I felt Joe won -- see "And the winner was . . . Joe Biden (Ava and C.I.)" which went up the night of the June 27th debate . He had some good moments, but it was
bad. I did not call for Joe to step down after the debate. I defended
him here. It was one week later, July 7th, when Ava and I called for him to step
down -- see "Media: It's Time For Joe To Go" -- and that was when, a week after the debate, he did his Friday
interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. George did his job. He repeatedly asked
about the debate.
Joe
didn't do his job. Joe, in better times and days, was able to answer a
question and move the conversation where he wanted to. Joe didn't have
that skill. He was tired. He was responding, not leading. He wasn't
up to a campaign race. And in that interview, he fed the media narrative.
That Joe was too tired to run for president was something obvious to many during and right after the debate. It
wasn't obvious to me (and they may have been right). What was obvious
was the media narrative was now tired and old Joe. And that first
interview had to end that talk. But it didn't. And if after a week's
worth of no appearances, that long to rest, and Joe couldn't reassure?
He was never going to reassure. And prior to the debate, Dems were
already in trouble. He was tanking the ticket in all the polls.
(Which is why members of Congress up for re-election in 2024 especially did not want him to run.)
Joe, in 2020, had floated the idea that he might be a one-term president. He should have stuck with that.
That
said, Joe did accomplish a lot. We haven't had time to celebrate him.
If Hunter wants to talk about that, he should do so.
Joe
deserves to be celebrated. Kamala deserves to be celebrated --
including for the amazing campaign she ran. Donald did not get a
majority of the vote. She had to hit the ground running. And most
people were saying the race was over when Chump got shot. Iconic! they
hollered like trained monkeys. Kamala was targeted with sexism and
racism -- and that was just at COMMON DREAMS, THE NATION, THE
PROGRESSIVE, etc. A Black woman? The left thought they disrespect her
and order her around and belittle her. This country never saw a
campaign from the left so determined to attack and disrespect a
candidate.
But I don't
have time for it. Applause to Joe and applause to Kamala. But I've got
to focus on the now and that means doing my part to ensure that the
mid-terms are about Democratic victories.
The
mid-terms should be a cakewalk. Historically, the party in power loses
power in the mid-terms. And Chump grows ever more unpopular every day.
That should be a good portent. As should: Ariel Edwards-Levy (CNN) notes, "Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say they oppose the GOP domestic policy bill that President Donald Trump recently signed into law, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS." And Leigh Kimmins (DAILY BEAST) notes,
"President Donald Trump’s disapproval rating has hit a new high for his
second term as those outside his MAGA base steadily desert him,
according to a new poll. A survey conducted over the weekend by the
Economist/YouGov shows that Trump’s overall disapproval rating has
climbed to the dizzying new height of 55 percent. Forty-one percent of
the 1,680 U.S. adults who responded still approve of the job Trump is
doing, down from 42 percent in the same poll a week earlier, when
Trump’s disapproval rating sat at 53 points."
The
Trump administration and its allies have launched a multipronged effort
to gather data on voters and inspect voting equipment, sparking concern
among local and state election officials about federal interference
ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The most unusual
activity is happening in Colorado — a state that then-candidate Donald
Trump lost by 11 points — where a well-connected consultant who says he
is working with the White House is asking county clerks whether they
will allow the federal government or a third party to physically examine
their election equipment. Federal agencies have long offered technical
assistance and cybersecurity advice to election officials but have not
examined their equipment because election laws tightly limit who has
access.
Separately, the
Justice Department has taken the unusual step of asking at least nine
states for copies of their voter rolls, and at least two have turned
them over, according to state officials.
In
addition, two DOJ lawyers have asked states to share information about
voters to implement a Trump executive order that would shift some power
over elections from the states to Washington. Courts have temporarily
blocked key provisions of that order, including changing mail ballot
deadlines and requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. The DOJ
attorneys have asked to talk about a different provision, which has not
been halted by the courts, focused on sharing information.
Colorado
Weld County clerk Carly Koppes (Republican) tells THE POST, "That's a
hard stop for me. Nobody gets access to my voting equipment, for
security reasons."
In addition, Chump's attempting to force -- with Texas AG Ken Paxton's help -- a redistricting in Texas. Ja'han Jones (MSNBC) explains:
Donald Trump appears to be leading the most blatant election-rigging scheme in American history.
In the wake of The New York Times’ report
last month on the Trump administration’s redistricting efforts in
Texas, more details have emerged about the attempt to pressure the
state’s leaders into a potentially unlawful — and certainly illiberal —
mid-decade redraw of its congressional districts in order to shore up
the GOP’s chances in next year’s midterms. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has
instructed his state’s Republican-led legislature to craft a
redistricting plan this summer, in a move my MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown
aptly assessed as a mockery of the Voting Rights Act.
And
on Tuesday, Trump openly told reporters that he’s pushing for a “very
simple redraw” so that Republicans pick up five seats. He added that
other states could undergo redistricting as well.
Roland Martin discusses this attempt to destroy voters rights in the video below.
A
group of tribes in Montana alleges a new election law will
disenfranchise Native voters and has moved to join a lawsuit challenging
it.
On June 24, the ACLU of Montana, American Civil Liberties
Union nationally and Native American Rights Fund filed a motion to
intervene in an existing case on behalf of a group of tribal plaintiffs,
including the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, Blackfeet Nation, Confederated
Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Fort Belknap Indian Community and Western
Native Voice.
In their complaint, the group of tribal
plaintiffs argues the changes to Election Day voter registration
outlined in Senate Bill 490 disproportionately harm Native Americans in
rural and tribal communities who already face significant barriers to
voting.
Sponsored by Sen. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, SB 490 changes
the deadline for registering to vote or changing voter information.
Where previously anyone in line by 8 p.m. on Election Day could register
to vote and then cast a ballot, the new law, signed by Gov. Greg
Gianforte on May 5, closes voter registration at noon on Election Day
(generally Tuesdays) and ends the ability to register on the Monday
before an election. State lawmakers who supported the legislation argued
it would curb long lines and benefit election workers; opponents said
it was unconstitutional.
“[SB 490] disproportionately burdens
Native voters compared to non-Native voters due to inequities in mail
delivery service, internet access, access to post offices and post
office boxes, and increased burdens on Native voters due to
disproportionate rates of poverty and lack of vehicle access,” tribal
plaintiffs allege in their complaint.
Northern Cheyenne Tribal President Gene Small called SB 490 “anti-democratic.”
“When
you live miles and miles from the nearest polling place, and the roads
are snowed in all morning, taking away eight hours of Election Day
registration creates real life problems for everyday voters,” he said in
a statement.
So there are efforts around the country to suppress turnout.
We
lost in 2024. Why? Because Amy Goodman and others worked overtime to
trash Kamala Harris -- remember, Amy did segments telling her audience
that Kamala and Chump were the same on immigration -- and the point was
missed by all the deluded -- Amy was part of Uncommitted and Uncommitted
was committed to trashing Kamala. They put Chump in the White House.
You
need to grasp that. We don't have time for your stupidity or fan
worship -- a combination of the two -- again. Democrats have the
numbers. When we turn out, we win. Goodman and others attacked Kamala
to suppress turnout. And the succeeded. And that's how Chump ended up
in the White House.
Again, when we turn out, we win.
Here's Thom Hartmann discussing Chump's efforts to strip us of our voting rights.
One more time, when we turn out, we win.
Chump's
a stupid idiot but even he grasps that. Which is why he's working so
hard to ensure that we aren't able to vote. He's trying anything and
everything. Jen Fifield (VOTE BEAT) reports:
The
Republican Party is challenging the voting eligibility of some U.S.
citizens who have always lived abroad, in what they’re calling a broader
strategy ahead of next year’s midterms to clean up voter rolls and
improve voter confidence.
But Democrats see the effort as a blatant attempt to disenfranchise eligible Democrats in key swing states.
The
GOP terms the voters they are targeting as “never residents” because
they are U.S. citizens but haven’t lived in the United States. Most
frequently, they are children of U.S. citizens who have been in the
military, or lived overseas for other reasons. Three-quarters of states
have laws on the books allowing such citizens to vote by absentee or
mail ballot in the same state where their parents or other relatives
last lived or are registered.
Arizona is one of these states, and allows such expatriates to vote in federal, state, and local elections.
Republican
lawmakers tried to change the law this year to disqualify citizens
overseas who haven’t lived in Arizona, but Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat,
vetoed the proposal in May. Now, the Republican National Committee and
Arizona Republican Party have filed a lawsuit alleging that the current
law conflicts with the state constitution’s residency requirements for
voting.
Get
it? Chump's trying to prevent as many people as he can from voting.
He's scared of voters -- and considering his policies, he should be
scared of them.
We need to
be aware of what's going on. We also need to be checking registration
for ourselves and our friends and families. I don't mean the day before
you vote. I'd argue you need to check before the deadline to register
to vote. If you're dropped from the voter rolls and only learn of that
on election day? In most areas of the United States, you're out of
luck. You could request a provisional ballot but that brings up 101
other issues. We need to be prepared. This is about the future of
democracy -- whether it will exist anymore in the US or not. We have
got to be prepared.
Being
prepared also means after the election. For example, I want Congress to
have serious hearings on voting. I want Greg Palast in there offering
his expert testimony on how many people are getting dropped from the
voter rolls. We need a Congressional hearing (probably several) so that
we can strengthen voting rights.
On the economy, THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE addressed Chump's tariffs and other nonsense.
Let's
turn to Chump's war on immigrants which is one horror story after
another as he destroys one life after another. Horror story? Alex Woodward (INDEPENDENT) reports:
Four
American-born siblings and their mother have been held inside a border
patrol facility for more than two weeks after her arrest by federal law
enforcement agents near the U.S.-Canada border.
Kenia
Jackeline Merlos, her nine-year-old triplets and seven-year-old son,
were visiting her sister at Peace Arch State Park in Washington state on
June 28 when U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents took them into
custody.
Merlos’ mother, who joined the family on the trip, was also detained, but it remains unclear where she is being held.
The
Department of Homeland Security accused Merlos of “attempting to
smuggle illegal aliens” into the country, according to a statement.
Merlos had requested that her children stay with her during her
detention, the agency said.
Merlos’ husband
Carlos was detained several days later outside the family’s home in
Portland, Oregon. He is currently being held inside an Immigration and
Customs Enforcement processing center in Tacoma, Washington. The
couple’s immigration status is unclear.
“What
began as a simple family trip to Peace Arch Park — a place Jackie had
safely visited in the past to visit family in Canada — has turned into a
devastating immigration nightmare,” according to a statement from
family friends helping raise money for the family’s legal defense.
Merlos’
sister, a legal resident of Canada, had stepped across the boundary
while saying goodbye, “which triggered this unfounded accusation,” they
said.
The family’s arrest and detention has
alarmed legal advocates and members of Congress who are pressing Donald
Trump’s administration for their swift release from custody. Customs and
Border Protection policy largely prohibits holding people in custody
for more than 72 hours.
Tuesday, US House Rep Maxine Dexter's office issued the following regarding the above horror story:
PORTLAND,
OR —Today, Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, M.D. (OR-03), along with U.S.
Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, announced that a federal judge
granted an emergency temporary restraining order preventing U.S. Customs
and Border Protection (CBP) from removing the Merlos family from the
court’s jurisdiction.
Dexter, Wyden, and Merkley released the following joint statement:
“Our
constituents, including four U.S. citizen children, were detained
without due process by their own government. This case is as urgent as
it is egregious. This emergency ruling is a legal lifeline to provide
critical protection to the Merlos family.
“We
are gratified with this temporary win as a necessary step toward
justice. In the coming days, we will be watching with unwavering
attention to make certain due process is followed and this family is
treated with the dignity every Oregon family deserves.
“This
fight is every single Oregonian’s fight. If we allow this—citizen
children detention, neighbors disappeared, due process ignored—we
surrender not just our country but our conscience. That is an outcome we
refuse to accept.”
On Sunday, Dexter, Wyden,
Merkley, Congressman Rick Larsen (WA-02), and other lawmakers sent a
letter to the Department of Homeland Security and CBP setting a deadline
of 10:00 a.m. PT on Monday, July 14 to grant the family access to their
attorney. The lawmakers condemned the egregious, prolonged detention of
U.S. citizen children in facilities that are not equipped or intended
for the long-term custody of anyone.
Last week,
Dexter personally traveled to the Bellingham Border Patrol Station,
where the Merlos family was detained. CBP refused to allow her to speak
with the family or connect the family with legal counsel.
Federal
immigration officers arrested a 38-year-old Iranian man outside his
child’s preschool in Beaverton on Tuesday, according to school and law
enforcement officials.
The
man was arrested by officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement during morning dropoff at Guidepost Montessori School. The
incident has deeply shaken the school community, which went into “soft
lockdown to ensure the safety of all students and staff,” according to a
message sent to parents.
OPB
is not naming the man because his family was not immediately reachable
and his immigration attorney did not return a request for comment.
The
incident marks the first confirmed case of an immigration arrest at an
Oregon school amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Historically, certain locations – including schools and houses of
worship – have been largely off limits to immigration enforcement.
According to an ICE spokesperson, the man lawfully entered the United States in 2017, but overstayed his student visa.
Caroline
Medeiros is an immigration attorney who is consulting with the family
and the school. Medeiros’ child attends the same Montessori school. She
said the man ICE arrested works as a chiropractor and she disputed the
agency’s claim he was not in the U.S. lawfully.
“He
married a U.S. citizen and his U.S. citizen wife filed a green card
application for him,” Medeiros told OPB. “He attended his green card
interview with his wife and they were just simply waiting for the green
card to come through.”
Let's
drop the pretense once and for all that Donald Chump cares about
children because -- unless they're underage girls that Epstein supplied
him with -- he doesn't care. You can't care about children and do
that. That upset not only that man's children, it upset the entire
school.
Some children saw
it happen. Every child heard about it. A parent whisked away. Don't
pretend you give a damn about children when you carry out an operation
like that. Those kids must have been frightened and worried. But
there's Chump and is gestapo force doing whatever they want with no
regard for the law.
The
father's not a criminal. And unless ICE is made up of the brain dead,
they knew he wasn't a criminal before they staged the kidnapping. If
you thought the man was a violent criminal, I don't believe you'd try to
arrest him with children around thereby putting their lives at risk.
The family of a Maryland man who’s lived in the United States for
decades is looking for answers after they say he was taken into custody
by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last month while
walking his dog.
Loved ones said Reza Zavvar came to the U.S. from Iran as a student
when he was 12, eventually got a green card and is now facing
deportation to a country he has no connection to.
Firouzeh Firouzabadi, Zavvar’s mother, recounted the terrifying
moments on June 28 when she said ICE agents took the 52-year-old into
custody, just feet from their Gaithersburg home.
She said minutes after Zavvar left to walk his dog, Duke, strangers in uniform arrived at her front door holding the leash.
“I was shaking,” Firouzabadi said. “My brother was behind me holding
me, and a lot of questions were coming, but the first thing that came to
my mind was that maybe a car hit him and he’s on the floor, that’s why
they brought him, Duke, to me. That was the first thing that hit me. It
was hard.”
The mother said that was the beginning of their family’s nightmare.
“You just have to be a mom to understand what I’m talking about,” Firouzabadi said.
Zavvar's family said he was first taken to a facility in Baltimore,
where he was questioned. He is currently being held at a detention
center in Texas, according to online ICE detention records.
At last update, family members said the government has given orders
to deport him to Romania or Australia, but gave no further explanation.
"I can’t sleep at night, I just can’t,” his sister, Maryam Zavvar, said.
This is not America. It's something out of Nazi Germany and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.
Since
President Donald Trump returned to office, his campaign to deport
thousands of immigrants has created headlines in Maryland after
dispatching federal agents to sweep the streets, raiding worksites and, in one case, removing a mother from her vehicle.
Now,
government records reveal the scale of these efforts: Arrests by U.S.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers have more than doubled in
the state under Trump, a Baltimore Banner analysis of ICE data found.
Increasingly, according to the data analysis, the campaign has targeted immigrants without criminal charges or convictions.
This
is despite Trump promising his mass deportation campaign would go after
violent criminals, whom the president has called “the worst of the
worst.” The data shows that since the president’s Jan. 20 inauguration,
60% of immigrants arrested in Maryland have never been convicted of
crimes. Only 13% committed violent crimes.
After reviewing The Banner’s findings,
Adina Appelbaum, program director at the Amica Center for Immigrant
Rights, said the findings show the deportation campaign “is not about
public safety.”
“It’s about systemic
punishment, racial profiling and the dehumanizing political exploitation
of our immigrant neighbors,” Appelbaum said.
Other horror stories? AP reports,
"Immigration authorities are demanding that landlords turn over leases,
rental applications, forwarding addresses, identification cards and
other information on their tenants, a sign that the Trump administration
is targeting them to assist in its drive for mass deportations." Sam Levin (IRISH EXAMINER) reports:
35-year-old Irish citizen Thomas visited his girlfriend in West
Virginia and got sick which caused him to overstay by three days, "he
was detained by Ice in three different facilities, ultimately spending
roughly 100 days behind bars with little understanding of why he was
being held – or when he’d get out." Thomas is now back in Ireland and
states, "Nobody is safe from the system if they get pulled into it."
Immigrants
being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in
at least seven states are complaining of hunger, food shortages and
spoiled food, detainees and immigration advocates say. They say some
detainees have gotten sick; others say they have lost weight. In one
facility, an incident involving detainees reportedly broke out in part
because of food.
The food problems come amid
overcrowding at ICE facilities tied to the Trump administration’s push
to quickly ramp up immigration arrests. While capacity data isn’t
publicly available for every ICE detention facility, nationwide figures
on the availability of beds show a system beyond its overall capacity.
As of mid-June, ICE was detaining nearly 60,000 people, almost 45% above
the capacity provided for by Congress.
Although
many of ICE’s detention centers are run by private contractors, the
problems are happening all over the country regardless of who’s running a
given facility, advocates say. A former ICE official told NBC News it
is difficult for a facility to stay stocked with the right amount of
food when, on any given day, it may face an unexpected surge of new
detainees. While the agency can move money around to cover the cost of
detaining more immigrants, planning for unexpected daily spikes can be
difficult for facilities and could lead to food being served late or in
small quantities, the former ICE official said.
On
top of that, there are now fewer avenues for detainees to submit
concerns while they are in ICE custody, advocates say, pointing to
recent job cuts to an independent watchdog within the Department of
Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency.
Let's wind down with this from US House Rep Dan Goldman's office:
VIDEO, PHOTOS, TRANSCRIPT: REP. DAN GOLDMAN, STATE SENATOR GOUNARDES CALL FOR END TO ICE DETENTION AT NOTORIOUS FEDERAL PRISON
Rep.
Goldman: “The Trump Administration is now sending non-criminal,
non-charged, nonviolent immigrants, many of whom have ongoing asylum
cases, to be detained in this place where federal judges will not send
convicted criminals.”
MDC Brooklyn is Notorious for Violence, Understaffing, Power Outages, Extended Lockdowns, and Solitary Confinement
Washington, D.C. — Congressman Dan
Goldman (NY-10), State Senator Andrew Gounardes, and Assemblymember
Bobby Carroll today hosted a press conference outside the Metropolitan
Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn to call for an end to U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) usage of the facility to
detain over 100 immigrants. Federal judges have recently called the
prison ‘barbaric’ and refused to send convicted criminals there, citing
its chronic understaffing, extended use of solitary confinement,
unsanitary conditions, routine power outages, and lack of access to
medical care and legal counsel.
Last week, the Congressman sent an oversight letter of inquiry to
the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) demanding answers on their interagency
agreement with ICE to house more than 100 immigration detainees at the
Brooklyn MDC.
Rep. Dan Goldman: Thank
you all for joining us today. I’m Congressman Dan Goldman, and I'm here
with my colleagues in the State Senate and State Assembly, Andrew
Gounardes and Bobby Carroll, as well as our friends from Mixteca.
We
are here to bring attention to what is an increasingly urgent and
dangerous situation now that relates entirely to the militarized ICE
efforts to arrest immigrants who are here lawfully, and to whisk them
down south for expedited deportation. That would break the law.
One
of the things that this new policy has done is create a shortage of
places to hold these non-criminal, nonviolent civilians who are trying
to immigrate to this country, as so many have before. So what we have
learned is that ICE and the federal government, in coordination with the
Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons, are
relocating immigration detainees here to MDC.
Now,
this is not the first time we've been out in front of the MDC, which
has a very well-established record of being incredibly unsafe, inhumane,
cruel – even to the point where federal judges call the conditions in
the MDC barbaric and have refused to send convicts and criminals here
because those conditions are so bad. And yet the Trump Administration is
now sending non-criminal, non-charged, nonviolent immigrants, many of
whom have ongoing asylum cases, to be detained in this place where
federal judges will not send convicted criminals.
They're
doing this because there is no room anywhere else for this disgusting
mass deportation policy that once again, is not targeting convicted
criminals, but is targeting so many community members, spouses of
citizens, parents of citizens, people trying to immigrate to this
country to pursue the American dream and trying to do it the right way
under the law.
Last week, I wrote a letter to
the head of the Bureau of Prisons demanding answers and asking for an
immediate suspension of all transfers of ICE detainees to the MDC and to
any other federal prison. And to understand what exactly the agreement
is between ICE and the Bureau of Prisons. Who is paying for the staffing
for these ICE detainees?
Part of the reason
why the MDC has been in such terrible, terrible condition is that it is
grossly understaffed. And because it's understaffed, it is unable to
keep everyone safe. It has required numerous lockdowns just simply
because of a shortage of staffing.
The Biden
Administration added a 35% retention bonus at the end of that
administration, to increase the staffing significantly here and made the
conditions much better. When Donald Trump came in, his administration
yanked that retention bonus, and staffing has now gone down.
So,
who's paying? Because the Bureau of Prisons doesn't have money to pay
for its own staff, for its own detainees, much less ICE detainees?
We
want answers to those questions, and we want to know where the money
will be coming from now that the Republicans jammed through a bill that
takes health care and food benefits from millions and millions of
Americans, but increases ICE's budget for detention by $45 billion.
Who
is going to pay for this? This is just yet another example of ICE's
lawless, un-American, inhumane treatment of people trying to seek the
American dream, trying to immigrate to this country like so many of New
Yorkers have – 40% – and so many of our ancestors and descendants have.
This is dangerous. It's lawless and it's unacceptable. So we are here
out in front of the MDC to demand answers from the Bureau of Prisons,
from the Department of Justice, from the Department of Homeland
Security. They owe us answers. They owe me, as a member of Congress,
answers as I conduct oversight, both constitutionally authorized and
statutorily obligated oversight.
But they mostly
owe answers to New Yorkers and to the American people for what they are
doing, why they are doing it, and how they are doing it.
Let's remember.
Immigrants are our neighbors. They are parents, they are workers
working here with work authorization, paying taxes, paying into the
Social Security fund, and they are community members who deserve to be
treated with dignity.
If immigrants have
committed a crime, they should be deported. But that is not what is
happening. These are our community members being yanked from their
families, unsuspectingly and deceptively. And it must stop.
