The ‘surge ‘ shall continue….
A judge on Saturday declined to order the Trump administration to immediately scale back its immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, rejecting pleas from state officials who said the campaign was stepping on their sovereignty and endangering the public.
U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez said Minnesota and the Twin Cities had not definitively shown that the administration’s decision to flood the state with immigration agents, an initiative dubbed Operation Metro Surge, was unlawful or designed to coerce local officials into cooperating with other administration objectives….
…
Lurking for the Children….
COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, Minn. – The hallways at Valley View Elementary School used to be bustling with children, eager to get to class and see their friends. They’re silent now.
Outside, immigration agents drive up and down the street multiple times a day. They linger at dismissal time, when kids are walking home or being picked up. They follow parents driving other people’s kids home; those kids’ families are too scared to leave their houses. They wait at bus stops. At the nearby high school, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sit out back to try to catch students exiting that way. School staff, retired teachers, parents and grandparents stand outside in shifts, with whistles, ready to blow if they see unmarked cars driving near the school when children are outside.
It’s common to see a string of empty cars lining the main road through this Minneapolis suburb. Doors are thrown open and the cars are sometimes still running, but there’s nobody in them — ICE agents ripped the people out of them and whisked them away.
This is how life is now for families in this largely Latino community that has been, for the past two months, under what the Trump administration says is a campaign to deport undocumented immigrants who are criminals. Except that’s not at all what’s happening here. Masked and heavily armed federal agents are just terrorizing brown and Black people, regardless of their citizenship status or criminal background.
That includes children.
School leaders are caught in the middle of this, trying to keep providing kids with a safe space to learn as their friends disappear and children cry about not knowing whether their parents will be home when they get off the bus. Even Zena Stendvik, the superintendent of the Columbia Heights public school district, often patrols outside with parents and staff….
…
Effects on Children and other’s from the ICE hunting them and their families…
As the Trump administration ramps up federal immigration enforcement, experts say children across the country may be absorbing the fear and uncertainty of ICE operations — even when they don’t understand all the details.
Why it matters: Experiencing traumatic events in childhood can create lasting physical and mental health challenges that extend into adulthood, Sita Patel, a clinical psychology professor at Palo Alto University tells Axios.
Zoom in: Adverse childhood events (ACE) cut across “all lines of political and value structure,” because their health impacts ripple outward — affecting communities economically and in terms of resources, Patel says.
- She notes that mental health research previously focused on isolated critical incidents, like a car accident, but more recent studies show that chronic stressors have a profound impact on the nervous system and a wide range of other health markers.
- Exposure to constant media coverage, unpredictability and violence creates stress and trauma that Patel says “will absolutely have an impact on many people’s life course in terms of health and capacity to contribute and thrive.”
About half of all educators surveyed who work with immigrant families said their students have expressed fear or anxiety this school year as a result of federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Worth noting: Conversations between parents and children can look very different depending on family circumstances, particularly for children of immigrants who may face greater uncertainty….
…
Yes…There ARE ICE agents that quit due their dissatisfaction with their jobs….
Few are feeling sorry for them….
A growing number of former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are coming forward, exposing the disturbing work conditions and internal pressure that led to their resignations. According to The Atlantic, these agents say President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy—pushed by his “One Big Beautiful Bill”—has turned their jobs into a quota-chasing nightmare….
…
Under direction from former Trump advisor Stephen Miller, ICE agents have been expected to make 3,000 arrests per day. And the kicker? Many of those arrested have no criminal records at all. In fact, according to The Atlantic, arrests of non-criminal migrants reportedly spiked 807% since Trump took office…
More than 34,000 Minnesotans have signed up to be trained as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement observers with various activist groups in recent weeks, many of them since Jan. 7, when a federal agent shot and killed Renée Good, a poet and mother of three, after an encounter with an ICE convoy in South Minneapolis.
The killings of Good and, on Saturday, ICU nurse Alex Pretti underscore the dangers for the city’s widespread resistance movement, a loosely connected network of neighborhood volunteers who communicate on Signal, the private messaging app, as they play cat and mouse with heavily armed and masked federal agents on snowy streets….
…
The influx of new volunteers is a “blessing,” Torres DeSantiago said, because it means more citizens to gather video footage of immigrant removals that could be used in ongoing state and local lawsuits and in the future. “It’s a long-term game,” he said.
Jordan had never been an activist, but that changed when a neighbor sent her the video of Pretti’s shooting death. A Washington Post analysis of the videos showed that Border Patrol personnel had secured a handgun he was carrying just before they opened fire.
“I just had such a visceral reaction,” Jordan said. She was shaking and crying “angry and sad tears at the same time.”…
…
ICE claim that a man shattered his skull running into wall triggers tension at a Minnesota hospital
Intensive care nurses immediately doubted the word of federal immigration officers when they arrived at a Minneapolishospital with a Mexican immigrant who had broken bones in his face and skull.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents initially claimed Alberto Castañeda Mondragón had tried to flee while handcuffed and “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall,” according to court documents filed by a lawyer seeking his release.
But staff members at Hennepin County Medical Center determined that could not possibly account for the fractures and bleeding throughout the 31-year-old’s brain, said three nurses familiar with the case.
“It was laughable, if there was something to laugh about,” said one of the nurses, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss patient care. “There was no way this person ran headfirst into a wall.”..
The explanation from ICE is an example of recent run-ins between immigration officers and health care workers that have contributed to mounting friction at Minneapolis hospitals….
…
Massive Anti-ICE Demonstrations Held Nationwide
Protesters held “no work, no school, no shopping” strikes across the U.S. on Friday to oppose the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The demonstrations took place amid widespread outrage over the killing Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse who was shot multiple times after he used his cellphone to record Border Patrol officers conducting an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis. The death heightened scrutiny over the administration’s tactics after the Jan. 7 death of Renee Good, who was fatally shot behind the wheel of her vehicle by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
“The people of the Twin Cities have shown the way for the whole country — to stop ICE’s reign of terror, we need to SHUT IT DOWN,” said one of the many websites and social media pages promoting actions in communities around the United States.
Some schools in Arizona, Colorado and other states preemptively canceled classes in anticipation of mass absences. Many other demonstrations were planned for students and others to gather at city centers, statehouses and churches across the country….
…
Two federal agents reportedly identified in fatal shooting of Alex Pretti
Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez are both officers with Customs and Border Protection, ProPublica reports…
…
After days of protests and pressure from lawmakers, the justice department announced on Friday that its civil rights division had opened an investigation.
Records reportedly show that Ochoa joined CBP in 2018 as a border patrol agent, while Gutierrez began working for the agency in 2014. Gutierrez serves in CBP’s office of field operations and is part of a special response team that handles high-risk missions similar to those carried out by police Swat units. Both men are from south Texas….
Update…
Two federal agents reportedly identified in fatal shooting of Alex Pretti
Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez are both officers with Customs and Border Protection, ProPublica reports…
…
After days of protests and pressure from lawmakers, the justice department announced on Friday that its civil rights division had opened an investigation.
Records reportedly show that Ochoa joined CBP in 2018 as a border patrol agent, while Gutierrez began working for the agency in 2014. Gutierrez serves in CBP’s office of field operations and is part of a special response team that handles high-risk missions similar to those carried out by police Swat units. Both men are from south Texas.
Morning people…..
I wonder how Keith is doing?