plutocracy

Plainclothes DHS Agents Lied to LA School Officials to Question Elementary Students

Spread the love

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Two kindergarten students are seen in their classroom at John Mack Elementary School in Los Angeles on January 6, 2025 in Los Angeles. 
(Photo: Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

The Homeland Security officials falsely told the school principals they had permission from the children’s guardians to speak to them.

The superintendent of Los Angeles public schools, Alberto M. Carvalho, confirmed Thursday that plainclothes federal immigration agents lied to school officials this week in order to gain access to two elementary schools to question several children—which the schools refuses to grant.

Carvalho told reporters that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents told the principals of Lillian Street Elementary School and Russell Elementary School that they had permission from the four children’s caretakers to question them—a claim that “was confirmed to be a falsehood,”CBS News reported.

The Biden administration barred immigration agents from trying to conduct enforcement operations in “sensitive” areas like schools and places of worship, but President Donald Trump reversed that policy after taking office, with former acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman saying, “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”

The five children DHS sought to question on Monday ranged from first to sixth graders.

“My very first question starts there, what interest should a Homeland Security agent have in a first grader?” Carvalho told CBS News. “No federal agency has the authority, short of a judicial warrant, that means the equivalent of a criminal subpoena to enter our schools.”

Kate Cagle of Spectrum News 1 SoCal reported that the agents wore plain clothes and that children came to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors and are in the care of legal guardians.

“My very first question starts there, what interest should a Homeland Security agent have in a first grader?”

Schools are not required to allow immigration agents onto their campuses without being presented with a warrant. In February, Denver’s public school district sued the Trump administration over its policy allowing DHS to attempt raids in schools, saying it had led to decreased attendance as families fear potential enforcement actions in their children’s classrooms.

“I am proud of these principals, I am proud of our workforce, I am proud of the clerical staff in the front office, for they did exactly what we trained them to do,” said Carvalho. “We declared back in August and September and October that at Los Angeles Unified [School District] we have protocols in place and training in place to prepare our workforce in… protection of our students.”

The Los Angeles schools were targeted days after a school principal in the small town of Sackets Harbor, New York, joined the community in demanding the safe return of three children and their mother after they were arrested and detained in a Texas facility by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

“As the principal of these students, I need to speak plainly,” wrote Jaime Cook in a letter that went viral. “Our three students who were taken by ICE were doing everything right… They are not criminals. They have no ties to any criminal activity. They are loved by their classmates… We are in shock—and it is that shared shock that has unified our community in the call for our students’ release.”

A rally over the weekend drew more than 1,000 people in the town of just 1,351—part of New York’s most reliably Republican congressional district, according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and the part-time home of Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar.

The children were released along with their mother on Monday after the weekend rally, and were back in school on Wednesday.

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Former US president Donald Trump at a Republican convention in California on 29 September 2023. Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo
Former and current President Donald Trump gesture to the crowd before his speech at the California Republican Party Convention Friday, Sept. 29, 2023, in Anaheim, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

Continue ReadingPlainclothes DHS Agents Lied to LA School Officials to Question Elementary Students

As White House Doubles Down, Judge Launches Inquiry of Refusal to Return Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Spread the love

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen and the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, speaks to the media before she enters federal court on April 15, 2025 in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

“There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding,” the judge said. “Cancel vacations, cancel other appointments… I expect all hands on deck.”

As White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday had a “full-blown meltdown” after a reporter asked about the Maryland man wrongly deported to a prison in his native El Salvador, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis launched an inquiry into the Trump administration’s refusal to seek the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States.

The Trump administration has previously admitted in court that Abrego Garcia was mistakenly sent to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT)—despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order barring his deportation to El Salvador—due to an administrative error. Xinis ordered the administration to facilitate his release, a decision unanimously affirmed last week by the U.S. Supreme Court.

However, Abrego Garcia remained imprisoned as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argued in a Sunday filing that Xinis has “no authority” to compel the administration to bring him home, and as President Donald Trump on Monday welcomed Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to the White House. Their meeting was followed by a Tuesday court hearing.

According to NBC News: “Attorneys for Abrego Garcia had asked that the administration be found in contempt of court over its inaction. The judge said she wants to review the evidence the administration submits, which is expected to include sworn depositions, before ruling on the matter.”

During the hearing, Drew Ensign of the DOJ told Xinis—who was appointed to the District of Maryland by former President Barack Obama—that if Abrego Garcia “appears at a port of entry or U.S. Embassy we will facilitate his return.”

Meanwhile, the judge called out the administration, saying: “What the record shows is that nothing has been done. Nothing. I asked for reports from individuals with direct knowledge, and I’ve gotten very little information of any value.”

“We’re going to move. There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding,” Xinis continued. “There are no business hours while we do this… Cancel vacations, cancel other appointments. I’m usually pretty good about things like that in my court, but not this time. So, I expect all hands on deck.”

NEW: Judge Xinis authorizes up to 15 interrogatories, 15 document requests, depositions from all govt declarants (Cerna, Katz, Kozak, and Mazzara) and up to two others to assess what the govt has done to "facilitate" Kilmar Abrego Garcia's release storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us…

— Joshua J. Friedman (@joshuajfriedman.com) 2025-04-15T22:36:55.397Z

At the White House on Tuesday, a reporter asked Leavitt who is responsible for Abrego Garcia and where he is going to end up. The press secretary responded by sharing unfounded allegations that he is a “terrorist” and member of the gang MS-13, and said that “deporting him back to El Salvador was always going to be the end result.”

Leavitt also used Bukele’s framing from the Oval Office event, when he suggested that returning the Maryland resident would mean smuggling a terrorist into the country. In addition to Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration has sent 238 Venezuelan migrants to CECOT, and the president on Monday expressed interest in sending “homegrown” American prisoners there.

“This is what mass deportation looks like,” Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the advocacy group America’s Voice, said in a Tuesday statement. “The concept of stripping citizenship from U.S. citizens and sending them to El Salvador prisons without due process is the stuff of nightmares and undemocratic regimes, yet here we are.”

“It’s hard to overstate what the stakes are for our democracy and core American principles given what we’re seeing and what the administration is now floating as the next steps in their larger deportation agenda,” Cárdenas added. “And it’s time Americans of all political perspectives stand up and speak out in opposition.”

Some Democrats in Congress have blasted the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda and are part of the battle to bring Abrego Garcia home—including U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who is aiming to travel to El Salvador if the deported man is not swiftly returned to his state. Multiple Democratic members of the House of Representatives have signaled that they plan to join the trip.

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Power-mad orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Power-mad Neo-Fascist orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Continue ReadingAs White House Doubles Down, Judge Launches Inquiry of Refusal to Return Kilmar Abrego Garcia

‘Farage is just a pound shop Trump’

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/farage-is-just-a-pound-shop-trump

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage poses outside The Waterford Lodge, Morpeth, in Northumberland, whilst on the local election campaign trail, April 15, 2025

National Education Union vows to fight Reform UK’s election candidates and racist policies

REFORM UK is a racist and far-right political party led by a “pound shop Donald Trump,” thundered National Education Union (NEU) general secretary Daniel Kebede today at the annual conference of Britain’s largest teaching union.

Delegates donning “Stop Racist Reform UK” T-shirts voted to use the union’s political fund to campaign against Reform election candidates with racist policies and campaigns.

Passed weeks before next month’s local elections, the motion highlighted Reform’s campaigns against migrants, denouncing it as among the organisations seeking to build “on the despair, poverty and alienation in our society by scapegoating refugees, asylum-seekers, Muslims, Jews and others who do not fit their beliefs.”

Speaking after the debate, Mr Kebede said that Reform is a right-wing populist organisation whose denials of racism don’t ring true with how they “seem to be attracting an awful lot of former BNP activists.”

“Nigel Farage has clearly said that he would like to see private healthcare,” the union leader said, before raising concerns over what a party that has “declared war on the teaching profession” would do to education.

“He is friends with [US President] Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” Mr Kebede continued. “Musk wants to ‘gamify’ education and Trump has just abolished the US Department for Education,” he said.

“We will absolutely be using our political fund to campaign against candidates as appropriate.”

Asked what he thought was behind Mr Farage recently vowing to “wage war” on the NEU, he added: “It’s just nonsense straight out of the Trump playbook.

…

Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/farage-is-just-a-pound-shop-trump

Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Continue Reading‘Farage is just a pound shop Trump’

‘Full-Blown Constitutional Crisis’ Deepens as Bukele Refuses to Release Maryland Resident

Spread the love

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 2025 (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

“If this holds,” said one critic, “there is no law but Trump’s law.”

“Everyone here is pretending,” said immigration policy expert Aaron Reichlin-Melnick as a video of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele speaking in the Oval Office circulated on Monday.

Bukele, said the senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, was pretending “that he’s incapable of releasing” Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident whom the Trump administration expelled to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in March, while President Donald Trump continued to pretend he’s unable to demand Abrego Garcia’s release.

When reporters asked Bukele to weigh in on Abrego Garcia’s case, the Salvadoran leader scoffed.

“Of course you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States,” he said. “How can I return him to the United States, do I smuggle him into the United States? …I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”

Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant in 2011. He was accused by a police informant of being a member of MS-13 in 2019, but he denied the allegations and was never charged with a crime. He was denied asylum in a hearing, but a judge determined that he should not be deported to his home country of El Salvador, where he had a credible fear of facing persecution and torture.

He had been working as a sheet metal worker and living in Maryland with his wife and children for several years when he was among hundreds of people accused of being criminals and rounded up to be expelled to El Salvador under a Trump administration deal with Bukele last month.

In the Oval Office on Monday, Bukele joined the Trump administration in claiming nothing can be done to return Abrego Garcia to his family in Maryland.

“The U.S. is pretending it doesn’t have the power,” said civil rights lawyer Patrick Jaicomo. “And Bukele is pretending he doesn’t have the power. So who has the power?”

The Supreme Court last week said the administration is responsible for “facilitating” Abrego Garcia’s release, and the Department of Justice claimed in a filing on Sunday that under that order, it is only liable for allowing the man to enter the U.S. once he is freed from the prison in El Salvador.

Trump’s treatment of the case represents “a full-blown constitutional crisis and possibly the watershed moment for what the near future looks like,” said one writer. “If this holds, there is no law but Trump’s law.”

In the Oval Office, said J.P. Hill, both leaders were “openly saying they’ll defy the Supreme Court and maybe even send American citizens to the prison camp in El Salvador. Nobody will be safe if we let this happen.”

As Bukele and Trump both denied responsibility for the hundreds of people they have sent to CECOT, Documentedreported on Merwil Gutiérrez, a 19-year-old Venezuelan immigrant who was also sent to El Salvador.

Gutiérrez has no criminal record in the U.S. or his home country, and was not a target of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation operation. An ICE agent said, “He’s not the one,” when a group of officers came to make an arrest at Gutiérrez’s apartment building, but another replied, “Take him anyway.”

Gutiérrez’s story, said Reichlin-Melnick, “comes as Bukele today pretends that he has no power to release people held in his own prison.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Video: Trump says he will deport ‘homegrown’ US citizens to El Salvador concentration camps

Continue Reading‘Full-Blown Constitutional Crisis’ Deepens as Bukele Refuses to Release Maryland Resident

US and El Salvador Guilty of ‘Grave’ Crimes of Enforced Disappearance, Arbitrary Detention: HRW

Spread the love

Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Relatives of Venezuelan migrants deported from the U.S. to a maximum security prison in El Salvador attend a vigil in front of El Salvador embassy in Caracas, Venezuela on April 2, 2025. (Photo: Juan Barreto / AFP via Getty Images)

“The cruelty of the U.S. and Salvadoran governments has put these people outside the protection of the law and caused immense pain to their families,” said one human rights advocate.

Human Rights Watch on Friday accused the governments of the United States and El Salvador of “a grave violation of international human rights law” over the deportation more than 230 Venezuelan nationals by the Trump administration to a megaprison in El Salvador last month.

The actions taken against the deportees constitute both enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention, according to a statement from the group released Friday.

“The cruelty of the U.S. and Salvadoran governments has put these people outside the protection of the law and caused immense pain to their families,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.

The group said that since their removal, the Venezuelans “have been held incommunicado” and that the United States and Salvadoran officials have not released a list of the people who were removed, though CBS News last month published a list of names the outlet obtained.

The administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used law that gives the president broad authority to detain or deport non-citizens during times of war, to justify dozens of the deportations—triggering a fierce legal battle.

The Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act in response to an alleged “invasion” by “Tren de Aragua,” a Venezuelan gang, but the government has produced scant evidence that the people removed had ties to Tren de Aragua. One hundred and one of the deportees were removed under regular immigration procedures.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Salvadoran government has failed to offer a legal basis for detaining the Venezuelan deportees and has not indicated when or whether they will be released.

“It appears that their detention is wholly arbitrary and potentially indefinite; a grave violation of El Salvador’s human rights obligations,” the group said.

Enforced disappearance, according to Human Rights Watch, is when officials deprive someone of their liberty and then conceal the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person. The violation is “especially serious” because it means they are outside the protection of the law.

The group is calling on U.S. authorities to publicly identify the Venezuelans who were removed to El Salvador and is urging the Salvadoran government to “confirm their current whereabouts, disclose whether there is any legal basis for their detention, and allow them contact with the outside world.”

The statement from Human Rights Watch also detailed the struggle that family members of the deported individuals have faced getting information about them.

The group has interviewed 40 relatives of people “apparently” removed to El Salvador, and all of them told Human Rights Watch that U.S. immigration authorities initially informed their relatives, who were in U.S. immigration detention, that they would be sent to Venezuela. They were not told they would be sent to El Salvador.

“Nobody should be forced to piece together bits of information from the media or to read into the authorities’ silence to find out where their relatives are being held,” Goebertus said. “Salvadoran authorities should urgently disclose the names and locations of all detainees transferred from the US, and allow them to contact their families.”

In addition to the Venezuelans who were deported in March, the Trump administration also deported a smaller number of Salvadoran nationals. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has admitted that one of the men sent to El Salvador was deported in “error.” On Thursday, the Supreme Court instructed the Trump administration to take steps to retrieve the man it had wrongly deported.

Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Continue ReadingUS and El Salvador Guilty of ‘Grave’ Crimes of Enforced Disappearance, Arbitrary Detention: HRW