arotrios

Historical Context

Context:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/anti-ice-protest-illinois-democrats-tear-gassed-pepper-sprayed-by-federal-agents-2025-09-19/

Reddit video link:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1nlieop/a_woman_protesting_outside_an_ice_facility_was/

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/38264400

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) on Friday reflected on being arrested outside of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility earlier in the day, arguing he was being targeted after visiting the New Jersey detention center with three Democratic members of Congress.

Excerpt:

“Nothing happened for a long, long time, you know, for at least over an hour. And then, you know, after that, they finally told us to leave, and I told him I was leaving, they came outside the gate and arrested me,” Baraka said during his appearance on MSNBC’s “The Briefing” Friday night. “So it looked like it was targeted.”

He later added that ICE officials “obviously targeted me.”

“I wasn’t the only one out there. They came directly to me and tried to arrest me … no one else. Me,” the mayor told host and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “And so, I honestly believe, you know, I was targeted there.”

cross-posted from: https://50501.chat/post/206911

First, Trump issued an executive order to militarize domestic law enforcement. Now a new order has come out. Buried in Project Homecoming, the executive order just released by the White House, is the single most dangerous shift in American civil liberties in a generation.

The same man who empowered ICE with military-grade surveillance, armored vehicles, and counterterror tools is now pushing the legal justification to detain people indefinitely.

The administration is laying the legal groundwork to suspend habeas corpus, the constitutional right that protects people from being detained without trial. It’s the right to not be disappeared. It’s the foundation of due process. And they’re getting ready to tear it away.

How? They’re invoking the Suspension Clause of the Constitution, which only allows habeas to be revoked “in cases of rebellion or invasion.” Stephen Miller and the Trump legal machine are now planning to label undocumented immigration as an “invasion,” which would let them bypass courts and jail people without charges, trials, or legal representation. The administration is trying to reclassify undocumented immigration as an invasion to unlock those powers. That’s the strategy.

Let that sink in. They’re preparing to create a class of people who can be detained indefinitely without ever seeing a judge.

Ask yourselves, If anyone can just be disappeared off the streets without charges, without court appearances, without access to a lawyer then do we still have a democracy?

This is just the beginning, it won’t stop at immigrants. So let’s be clear about what this will look like.

Indefinite detention. No due process. No hearings. No legal protections. We’ve seen this playbook before in history—and it always starts with creating a legal exception for a specific group. In this case, it’s undocumented immigrants. But legal exceptions do not stay contained. Once the precedent is set, it expands. Always.

Ask yourself: who defines what an “invasion” is? Who decides who qualifies as a threat? Protesters? Activists? Whistleblowers? Once the right to challenge detention is suspended for one group, the door opens to expand it. That is how authoritarianism consolidates power.

While they call this “restoring order,” here’s what they’re really doing:

They’re tearing $96.7 billion out of the economy. That’s how much undocumented immigrants contributed in taxes in 2022, Specifically:

• $59.4 billion in federal taxes

• $37.3 billion in state and local taxes

• $33.9 billion toward social insurance programs they are banned from accessing

Again, these are people paying into Social Security, Medicare, and public infrastructure they’re not even allowed to use.

The source? The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read it yourself. https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/

California alone would lose $8.47 billion in annual tax revenue if these mass deportations succeed. Texas would lose $4.87 billion. New York? $3.1 billion. Every state would feel the economic gut punch. And don’t forget: these are programs undocumented workers pay into but cannot use. They’re helping hold up a system that offers them nothing in return.

Now ask yourself: who is going to make up that lost revenue?

You. The poor. The working class. Not the rich, who continue to dodge taxes with impunity.

The federal government has already slashed funding to the states. Wealthy elites are sitting on tax loopholes and lower effective rates than working people. The answer is obvious: the working class will be left to cover the difference. Your rent, your healthcare, your school funding—all of it will take the hit.

What we are watching is economic sabotage wrapped in xenophobic theater. It is designed to scapegoat immigrants, distract from billionaire tax breaks, and destroy civil liberties in the process.

We have reached a dangerous tipping point. A government openly discussing the suspension of habeas corpus is a government no longer pretending to be democratic.

Habeas corpus is the line between freedom and fascism.

If we let this fall, there is no turning back.

This is the moment where people either pay attention or pay the price. Be ready.

Read the order. Learn what’s happening. Sound the alarm. Talk to your communities. And above all, do not get used to THIS.

Originally Posted By u/transcendent167 At 2025-05-10 10:37:42 AM | Source

---

Excerpt:

No later than 60 days after the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall supplement existing enforcement and removal operations by deputizing and contracting with State and local law enforcement officers, former Federal officers, officers and personnel within other Federal agencies, and other individuals to increase the enforcement and removal operations force of the Department of Homeland Security by no less than 20,000 officers in order to conduct an intensive campaign to remove illegal aliens who have failed to depart voluntarily.

Summary:

An immigration raid in western New York on Friday targeted a group of immigrants involved in a landmark statewide effort by farm workers to unionize.

On Friday morning at around 9:30 a.m., federal agents in unmarked cars and bearing no agency insignia pulled over a bus in Albion, New York, about 35 miles west of Rochester, and took 14 people of Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms into custody. All of the detainees, who hailed from Mexico and Guatemala, were year-round employees of Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms, a family-owned business in nearby Kent, New York, which has been locked in a multiyear battle to prevent workers from unionizing.

The company is one of five agricultural businesses that, together with a state growers’ association, have tried for years to overturn or chip away at New York’s 2019 farm labor law. The law enshrined protections for the right of farmworkers — whether seasonal or year-round — to seek union representation.

“This was strange because they actually had a list of most of the workers on the bus.”

Several of the workers taken into custody on Friday have been active in efforts to unionize year-round employees, including at least one who has spoken publicly in favor of joining the United Farm Workers of America, according to Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns for UFW, the storied labor union.

“We are concerned at the appearance of targeting publicly pro-union worker leaders,” said Strater.

Most of the workers detained on Friday hail from Mexico or Guatemala.

The raid did not appear to be a broad sweep but rather a targeted enforcement aimed at specific people, according to sources who have been in contact with the families and spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss a sensitive legal situation.

“At first we thought they were enforcing a deportation order, that they had one person that they’re looking for and then everyone else got dragged in — that’s kind of standard,” said one of the people with knowledge of the raid. “But this was strange because they actually had a list of most of the workers on the bus.” “A Different Level of Fear”

In video of the raid posted to social media, the agents could be seen dressed in civilian clothes and wearing tactical vests with patches that said “Police,” as is common in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

The agents did not identify themselves, said a source close to the families of the detained workers, but a spokesperson for ICE later confirmed that its agents had made the arrests.

According to the spokesperson, all 14 were in the country with authorization, and three of the individuals had pending removal orders.

Following an inquiry from The Intercept, Lynn-Ette — which grows green beans, cabbage, squash, and other vegetables and foodstuffs — issued a statement on Monday morning expressing concern for their employees.

“We are deeply troubled by the manner in which this enforcement action was carried out and the impact it has had on our team and their families. Lynn-Ette & Sons had no prior knowledge of the raid and had no contact with ICE beforehand,” the company wrote in the statement, which appeared as a sponsored post on a local news site. “We call on elected officials and community leaders to ensure that all enforcement actions are conducted with transparency, due process, and human dignity.”

As of Monday evening, more than 72 hours after the raid, the location of most of the detainees was not yet clear. ICE detention records show that at least one man is being held at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York, and two women are being held at Niagara County Jail in Lockport, New York.

Sources close to the families said that at least two of the other men are also being held at Batavia but have not yet been logged in the system and have not spoken with lawyers. The remaining nine detainees are unaccounted for.

An ICE spokesperson did not respond to specific questions about the location of the detainees or the reason for the raid.

“ICE does not conduct raids as part of its routine daily immigration law enforcement efforts,” the spokesperson wrote. “Instead, ICE’s enforcement resources are based on intelligence-driven leads and ICE officers do not target persons indiscriminately.”

For its part, Lynn-Ette forcefully rejected any notion that the company had any role in the raid.

“We strongly reject the United Farm Workers’ (UFW) irresponsible and self-serving public claims suggesting that these workers were targeted in retaliation for union activity,” the company said in its statement. “These claims are categorically false.”

The detained workers are not part of a bargaining unit themselves — a fact highlighted prominently in the Lynn-Ette statement. The company made no mention that the detained workers were part of a group actively seeking representation with the UFW.

Location: CA, USA

I have some neighbors who regularly have a huge bash lasting all night long - it's happened every Cinco de Mayo for nearly a decade.

This year - nothing.

The whole town is quiet. This used to be one of the noisiest days of the year. Is anyone else noticing this in their community?