Lotta things going on….
Prosecutors Began Investigating Renee Good’s Killing. Washington Told Them to Stop.
Hours after an immigration agent fatally shot Renee Good inside her S.U.V. on a Minneapolis street last month, a senior federal prosecutor in Minnesota sought a warrant to search the vehicle for evidence in what he expected would be a standard civil rights investigation into the agent’s use of force.
The prosecutor, Joseph H. Thompson, wrote in an email to colleagues that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a state agency that specializes in investigating police shootings, would team up with the F.B.I. to determine whether the shooting had been justified and lawful or had violated Ms. Good’s civil rights.
But later that week, as F.B.I. agents equipped with a signed warrant prepared to document blood spatter and bullet holes in Ms. Good’s S.U.V., they received orders to stop, according to several people with knowledge of the events who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The orders, they said, came from senior officials, including Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, several of whom worried that pursuing a civil rights investigation — by using a warrant obtained on that basis — would contradict President Trump’s claim that Ms. Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer” who fired at her as she drove her vehicle….
…
Top ICE Lawyer in Minnesota Departs as Immigration Lawsuits Overwhelm Courts
The top lawyer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minnesota left the agency in recent days, exiting as a crush of litigation stemming from the immigration crackdown in the state has overwhelmed the court system.
The lawyer, Jim Stolley, the outgoing chief counsel for ICE in the state, has not publicly addressed the circumstances of his departure. Starting this week, emails sent to his government account generated an automated response noting that he had “retired from public service.”
Mr. Stolley, a veteran of the agency, did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed on Saturday that Mr. Stolley had retired this week. He had worked for the immigration agency for 31 years, she said.
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which began in December, has generated an enormous amount of litigation in both immigration courts and in the main federal court system. Hundreds of immigrants are fighting deportation orders as well as the circumstances of their detention.
Government lawyers have failed to respond in a timely manner to the pile of lawsuits and court orders stemming from the mass roundup of immigrants.
The top federal judge in Minnesota, Patrick J. Schiltz, recently criticized ICE for violating more than 100 judicial orders. Those orders include several rulings demanding that the government release people from custody.
“ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence,” Judge Schiltz wrote in a ruling late last month….
….
Federal Appeals Court Ok’s Mass Immigration Arrests ….
A federal appeals court Friday night backed the Trump administration’s policy to lock up the vast majority of people it is seeking to deport without offering a chance for bond, even if they have no criminal records and have resided in the country for decades.
A divided three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the administration’s view — a reversal of every administration’s position for the last 30 years — is the correct interpretation of the federal government’s power to detain people targeted for deportation.
“That prior Administrations decided to use less than their full enforcement authority … does not mean they lacked the authority to do more,” Judge Edith Jones, a Reagan appointee, wrote for the 2-1 majority.
The matter could soon be headed for Supreme Court consideration.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement adopted a new view of the law in July, prompting an explosion of arrests and detentions — and a flood of lawsuits from detainees who argued that they were illegally locked up without due process.
The vast majority of judges across the country have rejected the administration’s approach. A POLITICO review of thousands of ICE detention cases found that at least 360 judges rejected the expanded detention strategy — in more than 3,000 cases — while just 27 backed it in about 130 cases….
…
The circuit’s ruling is unlikely to be the last word. Challenges to the administration’s policy have been crowding court dockets across the country and are pending in nearly every appellate circuit. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals signaled it opposed the administration’s view of the policy in a ruling that was primarily focused on other issues.
At the heart of the issue is a 30-year-old immigration statute that requires the detention — without bond — of all “applicants for admission” to the United States while they are “seeking admission” to the country. For decades, administrations of both parties applied this to people who had newly arrived in the country, perhaps by crossing the southern border.
Those residing in the country’s interior, often for years, were categorized under a different statute that allowed them to seek a bond hearing before an immigration judge before ICE could lock them up…..
…
The overwhelming majority of the 360-plus district courts that have rejected the administration’s view include judges appointed by every president since Ronald Reagan — including more than 40 appointed by Trump himself. Nineteen of the 27 district court judges siding with the administration’s view were appointed by Trump…..
…
In Minnesota, sending a child to school is an act of faith for immigrant families
…For many immigrant families in Minnesota, sending a child to school requires faith that federal immigration officers deployed around the state won’t detain them. Thousands of children are staying home, often for lack of door-to-door transportation — or simply trust.
The fear has turned into reality. Many parents and some children have been detained, including 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who with his father, originally from Ecuador, was taken into custody in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights as he was arriving home from school. They were sent to a detention facility in Texas but returned after a judge ordered their release.
Schools, parents and community groups have mobilized to help students get to class so they can learn, socialize and have steady access to meals. And for those who are still sending their children, the trip to and from school is one of the only risks they are willing to take.
“I don’t feel safe with him going to school,” Giancarlo’s mother said, shaking her head. “But every day he wakes up and wants to go. He wants to be with his friends.
School remains a haven in a time of tumult
Giancarlo’s Minneapolis elementary school is the best thing going for him these days. There’s soccer to play at recess. The recorder to learn. Giancarlo has set his eyes on learning the flute next year when fifth graders choose an instrument. He has “demasiado” — “too many” — best friends to name.
But his mother and brother’s home confinement weighs on him. He saves half the food he gets at school breakfast and lunch to share with them, and he’s lost four pounds this year. He takes extra care to bring pizza or hamburgers, treats the family used to eat in restaurants when his mom, an asylum-seeker from Latin America, was still working and they felt safe leaving the house. Giancarlo has also applied for asylum and his brother, Yair, has U.S. citizenship….
…
Immigrant whose skull was broken in eight places during ICE arrest says beating was unprovoked
Alberto Castañeda Mondragón says his memory was so jumbled after a beating by immigration officers that he initially could not remember he had a daughter and still struggles to recall treasured moments like the night he taught her to dance.
But the violence he endured last month in Minnesota while being detained is seared into his battered brain.
He remembers Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulling him from a friend’s car on Jan. 8 outside a St. Paul shopping center and throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, then punching him and striking his head with a steel baton. He remembers being dragged into an SUV and taken to a detention facility, where he said he was beaten again.
He also remembers the emergency room and the intense pain from eight skull fractures and five life-threatening brain hemorrhages.
“They started beating me right away when they arrested me,” the Mexican immigrant recounted this week to The Associated Press, which recently reported on how his case contributed to mounting friction between federal immigration agents and a Minneapolis hospital….
…
Body Cam’s?
A push to put body cameras on all ICE agents has Democrats running headlong into a new problem: fear that the technology will provide another avenue for mass surveillance of protesters.
Congressional Democratic leaders have made universal use of body cameras one of their prime demands for imposing accountability on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, especially after federal agents fatally shot two American citizens in Minneapolis. But after an outcry from privacy advocates that surveillance tools will allow ICE agents to identify and track protesters, Democrats are also calling for restrictions on how the body cameras can be used….
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.