California

‘Right Out of the Dictator’s Handbook’: Trump Sends Immigration Agents to San Francisco

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

People hold signs as they rally outside the Phillip Burton Federal Building to support immigrant and activist Guillermo Medina Reyes before a deportation hearing on July 15, 2025, in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Accusing the president of sending in agents to cause “anxiety,” so he can then deploy the National Guard, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said, “This is no different than the arsonist putting out the fire.”

President Donald Trump’s assault on immigrants in Democrat-led cities continued Wednesday with confirmation from the US Coast Guard that its base in Alameda, California is preparing to host 100 federal agents—whose looming arrival is seen as “a likely precursor” to the Republican deploying National Guard troops to San Francisco.

The San Francisco Chronicle initially reported that agents from Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—an agency in the US Department of Homeland Security—were headed to the Bay Area, citing a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. A spokesperson from the Coast Guard, also part of DHS, then confirmed that the base would serve as a “place of operations.”

“This support of DHS agencies continues the Coast Guard’s operations to control, secure, and defend US borders and maritime approaches,” the spokesperson said in a statement to multiple local media outlets. “Through a whole-of-government approach, we are leveraging our unique authorities and capabilities to detect, deter, and interdict illegal aliens, narco-terrorists, and individuals intent on terrorism or other hostile activity before they reach our border.”

As KQED pointed out Wednesday, the region has already seen increased immigration enforcement in recent months:

Since May, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CBP officials have been escalating operations throughout the Bay Area, moving to have undocumented immigrants’ asylum cases dismissed and arresting them outside of courtrooms and ICE field offices.

More than 2,000 people were arrested in San Francisco’s “Area of Responsibility” between January and July 2025, according to Mission Local.

The reporting on the federal agents due to start arriving in the Bay Area on Thursday followed various threats from Trump to send National Guard soldiers into San Francisco, as he has with Los Angeles, California; Washington, DC; Portland, Oregon; and Chicago, Illinois. The president and Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee have also collaborated to deploy National Guard troops in Memphis.

A federal judge has blocked the National Guard deployment in Illinois—where ICE’s Operation Midway Blitz is ongoing—but the Trump administration has appealed to the US Supreme Court. Citing two unnamed officials, CBS News‘ Camilo Montoya-Galvez reported on social media Wednesday that Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino, who has led immigration raids in Chicago and Los Angeles, “is expected to be involved in the operation” in the Bay Area.

Elected officials across California have condemned the deployment of federal agents and Trump’s threats to send National Guard troops. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom—a likely 2028 presidential candidate—declared in a Wednesday video on social media that “this is right out of the dictator’s handbook.”

Newsom accused Trump of sending in masked immigration agents to cause “anxiety,” so he can then justify deploying the National Guard. As the governor put it, “This is no different than the arsonist putting out the fire.”

Democratic San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said Wednesday that “our communities have already endured the painful impact of aggressive immigration enforcement. At the same time, we continue to see escalated operations across the country, with military personnel on the ground in cities like Chicago and Portland.”

“For the last 10 months, we have been taking steps to prepare for this kind of escalation here in San Francisco,” he continued. “Just a few minutes ago, I signed an executive directive that will build on these preparations, strengthen the city’s support for our immigrant communities, and ensure our departments are coordinated ahead of any federal deployment.”

“Immigrants are the small business owners, essential workers, community leaders, and neighbors who make San Francisco a place that we are proud to call home. They fuel our economy—contributing nearly $275 billion in output and $23 billion in annual tax revenue across California,” he added. “San Francisco will never stand by as our neighbors are targeted, and neither will I.”

Meanwhile, in Alameda, where the base is located, the city said in a Wednesday statement that “the Alameda Police Department (APD) is not a part of this operation, and APD does not enforce federal immigration laws or related civil warrants.”

The city also shared various resources and stressed its commitment “to the values of dignity, inclusivity, and respect for all individuals, regardless of ethnic or national origin, gender, race, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, or immigration status.”

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a former speaker of the House of Representatives, said Tuesday that “San Francisco does not want or need Donald Trump’s chaos. Our city takes great pride in the steps we’ve taken to significantly increase public safety and reduce crime—without the interference of a president just seeking headlines.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta this week threatened to sue over any deployment of the National Guard, as did San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu—who on Monday urged the US Supreme Court “to uphold the bedrock legal principle that domestic law enforcement is not the military’s job.”

“San Francisco has seen historic drops in crime,” Chiu said, “and our local law enforcement are more than capable of keeping our city safe while upholding First Amendment rights.”

The administration’s attacks on First Amendment rights have extended far beyond immigrants and protesters of the president’s anti-migrant agenda; Trump and his officials have also targeted journalists and media companies, comedians, law firms, federal workers, anti-fascists, and anyone expressing views deemed “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism,” or “hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

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

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
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‘Right Out of the Dictator’s Handbook’: Trump Sends Immigration Agents to San Francisco

Ventura County activists call for justice for Jaime Alanís, first known casualty of Trump’s ICE raids

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Original article by Natalia Marques republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Grassroots immigrant rights activists challenge federal claims about the circumstances of the ICE raid that lead to the farmworker’s death

Jaime Alanís succumbed to injuries sustained amid an ICE raid at Glass House Farms, where he had labored for over a decade

On July 10, 2025, while being pursued by ICE agents during a violent raid at Glass House Farms in Camarillo, California, 57‑year‑old farmworker Jaime Alanís fell nearly 30 feet from a greenhouse roof and succumbed to his injuries two days later. 

A devoted husband, father, and the sole breadwinner for his family, Alanís had labored at the farm for over a decade. On July 12, the worker became the first known casualty of the Trump administration’s intensified ICE raids.

His death ignited a fierce public outcry. While the Department of Homeland Security maintains he was not actively being chased and climbed the roof on his own accord, his family, as well as immigrant rights activists, contend he was fleeing from the violence of Trump’s ICE agents, who have terrorized immigrant communities across the country.  

The Department of Homeland Security denies that Alanís was being pursued at all, although this does not explain why the worker ended up climbing 30 feet onto the roof of a greenhouse. DHS also claims that the raid resulted in the rescue of children from “potential exploitation, forced labor, and human trafficking.”

To some immigrant rights activists, Alanís’ death has become a poignant symbol of the human cost of aggressive immigration enforcement tactics, and the policies that make them possible. 

On July 9, the US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced that there would be “no amnesty” for undocumented farmworkers, and that the Trump administration is seeking a workforce composed entirely of those from the US. Rollins plans to accomplish this via automation and mobilizing the “34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program.” 

Trump has recently signed legislation that would create the first-ever federally mandated work requirements for those covered by Medicaid, the US’s public health insurance program. According to a May report by the healthcare policy group KFF, 92% of those on Medicaid under age 65 and not receiving SSI or SSDI benefits and not covered by Medicare, were either working full or part-time, or not working due to caregiving duties, illness or disability, or attending school.

Peoples Dispatch spoke to Ventura County activist Elaine Yompian, part of the immigrant rights coalition VC Defensa, for more on the fight for justice for Jaime Alanís and the millions of immigrant workers with targets on their backs.

“We understand that even though this wasn’t an immediate death, his injuries and the danger that he was put in is a direct result of the ICE operation and the brutality in which agents were conducting this raid,” Elaine told Peoples Dispatch. “We’re calling it the first murder that has happened in an ICE operation.”

Read the full interview here:

Peoples Dispatch: Can you describe what took place during the raid at Glass House Farms and the surrounding events?

Elaine Yompian: The same day as the raid, there was a huge protest that broke out in defense of the community. We kind of put out a call for people to immediately show up. 

That’s been one of the key things that we’ve been doing, mobilizing people to take action wherever ICE is present so that their actions don’t go unnoticed or unchecked.

We didn’t know how big the raid was when it started. We put out a call for emergency mobilization to that location, and soon we saw that the National Guard was coming in. We kept making calls for people to just show up to declare that we wanted ICE out of the county, and away from our neighbors and family members.

We were there for over six hours, standing basically in front of the ICE agents, hoping that they wouldn’t pass, hoping that they wouldn’t take more people. Amid the chaos, we have heard of four US citizens that were taken, two of which were our volunteers, and one is a person that we know. 

All four have been released so far. One of them was our volunteer, she’s a mother, and she was held for over 10 hours. She was beaten up, then taken to the hospital. And when she was taken to the hospital, we called for a protest there, for them to release her, and ICE agents actually tried to enter the hospital and were pushing the hospital staff to try to get in. A lot of the staff held their ground because of HIPAA compliances and everything, and the ICE had no warrants. 

Eventually ICE agents did get in, apparently someone let them in, and then they took her again and she saw all kinds of really horrible things while in their custody. They tried to intimidate her, but eventually they released her with no charges. 

The other US citizen that was detained, Jonathan Anthony Caravello, is a labor organizer and a volunteer of ours. He is math and philosophy professor at California State University, Channel Islands, and he was also taken and detained for several days. They released him recently.

Another US citizen who was detained is a US Army veteran, George Retes, who we met during the first raid that happened in June, and he was also detained and freed yesterday. 

We stayed back at the site of the raid for a very long time, even after the agents had left, to help those who were hiding with farm workers, to get back to their cars or get back home.

After the raid, our hotline was getting back to back calls of families who were looking for their loved ones. We had a family search team, trying to find where they were taken, if they were taken, or if they were just missing – whether they had been detained or were still hiding somewhere, and we needed to go find them. We were doing all that work, as well as doing food distribution for families that have been affected.

With Jaime Alanís’ family in particular, we got in contact pretty quickly because the news reports were saying that he had died during the raid. The family was pretty upset that the media was saying that he had already passed away when he was still on life support. 

When I spoke to his niece, who was his immediate family member in the US., her goal is to eventually sue the DHS for his murder. 

PD: How does the violence deployed during the ICE raid in Camarillo compare to tactics used in other Trump-era ICE raids, such as militarization or arrests of noncriminals? How do these raids compare to raids under past administrations?

EY: Raids have always been a form of human torture. It’s always involved family separation, and the level of trauma and impact that it has on our communities has never really shifted, depending on whether it’s a Democratic president or a Republican president in office. It’s always been something that has caused incredible amounts of pain to the families and to the people being taken. 

The use of force has also always been brutal. The conditions within detention centers have always been truly horrific. There’s no other word to describe them other than torture.

Now with Trump, it’s definitely intensified, we’re not going to deny that. 

PD: DHS is justifying this raid by claiming that children were rescued from potential violations of child labor laws and human trafficking taking place at the farm. What is your response to this justification? 

EY: It’s a common tactic for the US to claim that they’re doing this for the safety of the community, for the well-being of children. Let’s even say that the farm had conditions that DHS claims. However, these conditions are also caused by systems of injustice. The reason why so many people go into jobs that have these extreme amounts of physical labor for very low pay is a result of capitalist exploitation.

But the solution for that would never be a one time intervention on one farm in one county in the middle of California. That is not going to solve the larger issue.

So if the government wants to say we’re doing this because we were trying to protect children from working these conditions, the finger should be pointed right back at the government itself and the capitalist system, because that’s what’s causing these conditions and that’s what’s allowing for this to happen.

Original article by Natalia Marques republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingVentura County activists call for justice for Jaime Alanís, first known casualty of Trump’s ICE raids

Lawsuit Aims to End ‘Systematic’ Snatching of Brown-Skinned People by Trump Agents

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

Masked federal agents arrest a man after his immigration court hearing at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building in New York City on July 1, 2025.
 (Photo: Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“These guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end,” one attorney in the case said of Department of Homeland Security agents.

Immigrant rights defenders in California on Wednesday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, accusing the Trump administration of “abducting and disappearing community members using unlawful stop and arrest practices and confining individuals at a federal building in illegal conditions while denying them access to attorneys” as part of its mass deportation effort.

The lawsuit was brought by five individual workers, three advocacy groups, and a legal services provider: The Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers (UFW), the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), and Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Their complaint accuses DHS of unconstitutionally arresting and detaining people, according to the ACLU, which is assisting with the legal challenge, “in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration.”

According to the complaint:

The raids in this district follow a common, systematic pattern. Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from. If they hesitate, attempt to leave, or do not answer the questions to the satisfaction of the agents, they are detained, sometimes tackled, handcuffed, and/or taken into custody. In these interactions, agents typically have no prior information about the individual and no warrant of any kind. If agents make an arrest, contrary to federal law, they do not make any determination of whether a person poses a risk of flight before a warrant can be obtained. Also contrary to federal law, the agents do not identify themselves or explain why the individual is being arrested.

“DHS—at explicit direction from the Trump administration—has gone after day laborers, car wash workers, farm workers, street vendors, service workers, nannies, and others who form the lifeblood of communities across Southern California,” said ACLU Foundation of Southern California senior staff attorney Mohammad Tajsar, who is representing plaintiffs in the case.ho “Everyone deserves to feel safe going about their daily lives. DHS must stop disappearing people from our communities.”

Tajsar told the Los Angeles Times that “these guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end.”

Alvaro M. Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center and a plaintiff’s attorney in the suit, said in a statement that “the federal government is waging a campaign of terror across Southern California, abducting community members off the streets and warehousing them in deplorable conditions away from their loved ones, all while denying them access to legal counsel.”

“It’s blatantly unconstitutional, cruelly inhumane, and a violation of any common decency,” Huerta added. “If the Trump administration insists on trampling Angelenos’ rights, we’ll see them in court.”

Plaintiffs in the case—who are seeking to represent people subjected to random stops and arrests—are asking the court to certify the case as a class action. They have also requested preliminary and permanent injunctions barring further violations of constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and self-incrimination, as enshrined in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, respectively.

As the lawsuit notes, “one of the clearest patterns that have emerged in the raids in Southern California… has been stops and interrogations… on the basis of apparent race and ethnicity.”

“These raids have targeted the most vulnerable members of our workforce, essential workers who are the backbone of our local economy,” said Los Angeles Worker Center Network executive director Armando Gudino. “We cannot allow racial profiling, warrantless arrests, and denial of due process to become the standard operating procedure in our communities.”

DHS has been holding arrested people in the basement of a federal building in downtown Los Angeles commonly referred to as B-18. The lockup has no beds, showers, or medical facilities, according to the ACLU of Southern California. Furthermore, B-18 is meant to hold only a small number of people on a temporary basis while they are processed.

“We have heard from over 100 families of Individuals taken to B-18 and other detention centers that attest to their loved ones being kept in overcrowded, cold, and inhumane conditions,” said CHIRLA executive director Angelica Salas. “They are held in small windowless rooms with dozens or more other detainees, in extremely cramped quarters while being verbally humiliated and pressured into signing papers they don’t understand.”

The ACLU of Southern California said: “The ongoing raids have led to the disappearance of more than 1,500 people. The suit details how federal agents consistently refuse to identify themselves or what agency they are with when asked, using anonymity as a tactic to shield lawlessness.”

UFW president Teresa Romero noted in a statement that “the raids in the greater Los Angeles area have not been limited to the urban center; we have also seen horrific instances of Border Patrol agents chasing down farm workers in the fields of Ventura County. The spouse of a UFW member was among those unjustly detained.”

“Now the very workers who feed America go to work in fear,” she added. “Their American-born children are scared not knowing if their parents will come home. Farm workers deserve better. We’ve seen these unconstitutional and un-American tactics before, with Border Patrol targeting random farm workers and anyone with brown skin in Kern County during their large sweep in January. We sued then and we are suing now.”

While U.S. President Donald Trump, members of his administration, and Republican lawmakers and supporters claim the DHS crackdown is targeting dangerous criminals, critics have noted that people legally seeking asylum, families, relatives of American citizens, and even citizens themselves have been swept up in the mass deportation dragnet.

According to the libertarian Cato Institute, 65% of people taken by ICE had no criminal conviction whatsoever and 93% had no conviction for violent offenses.

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

Image of the original Fascists Mussolini and Hitler.
The original Fascists Mussolini and Hitler
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 ReadingLawsuit Aims to End ‘Systematic’ Snatching of Brown-Skinned People by Trump Agents

Trump Blocks California E.V. Rules as He Fully Destroys States’ Rights

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https://newrepublic.com/post/196757/trump-blocks-california-ev-rules-states-rights

Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg/Getty Images

This isn’t just an attack on the environment. It’s an attack on every state.

The White House is once again defying the will of the people.

Donald Trump moved to overturn California’s electric vehicle mandate Thursday, marking the second instance this week in which the president has stretched his authority to advance his political agenda in the state.

California mandated a phaseout of gas vehicles and diesel trucks by 2035, citing benefits to public health and the environment. Eleven other states and Washington, D.C., followed suit. The plan required at least 35 percent of 2026 model vehicles sold within state bounds to be emissions-free, with that percentage growing to 68 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2035.

The Golden State passed the laws under the authority of the 1967 Clean Air Act, on the basis that the state needed more power to handle its highly polluted air and car-dependent cities. But each state requires a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency before the rules can actually take effect.

Trump’s signature on the congressional resolution revokes three of those waivers, issued during the Biden administration, effectively erasing the mandate.

…

Continues at https://newrepublic.com/post/196757/trump-blocks-california-ev-rules-states-rights

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.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Continue ReadingTrump Blocks California E.V. Rules as He Fully Destroys States’ Rights

1,800+ ‘No Kings’ Rallies Planned Across US as Trump Deploys Military to Crush Protests

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

Protesters hold a large banner during an anti-ICE protest in downtown Los Angeles, California, on June 8, 2025.
 (Photo: Benjamin Hanson/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

“We’ll rise together and say: We reject political violence. We reject fear as governance. We reject the myth that only some deserve freedom,” wrote the coalition behind “No Kings” rallies planned for June 14.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to quell anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests in Los Angeles, prompting a response from the coalition behind upcoming nationwide protests planned to counter Trump’s Washington, D.C. military parade on June 14.

The coalition organizing the “No Kings” national day of action accused the Trump administration of “escalating tensions” in a statement released Sunday.

Generally, the U.S. military is not supposed to take part in civilian law enforcement except in times of emergency. Trump on Saturday invoked a federal law that, according to The Guardian, empowers the president to call part of California’s National Guard into federal service. California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom objected to this move.

Protests began on Friday following reports that federal immigration agents were carrying out raids in Los Angeles.

In their statement, the coalition denounced Trump’s decision to call National Guard members into federal service, and wrote that “people are peacefully and lawfully protesting the administration’s abuses of power and the abduction of their neighbors by ICE.”

“Instead of listening, the Trump administration is escalating tensions,” the coalition wrote. “Against the guidance of local leaders, they are deploying military force to suppress free speech. They do not care about our safety—it’s about silencing opposition. It’s a blatant abuse of power designed to intimidate families, stoke fear, and crush dissent.”

Law enforcement has acted with force against protestors, including using tear gas and flash bangs, according to CNN. And according to the Los Angeles Times, overnight into Monday businesses were vandalized and burglarized, capping a period of unrest that saw protestors set cars on fire, in addition to other acts of vandalism.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Sunday denounced the lawbreaking, but also laid blame on the Trump administration, according to the LA Times.

“What we’re seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration,” Bass said, according to the outlet. “When you raid Home Depot and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets you cause fear and you cause panic.”

In concluding their statement about Trump’s deployment of the National Guard, the coalition behind “No Kings” struck a defiant tone. “From major cities to small towns, we’ll rise together and say: we reject political violence. We reject fear as governance. We reject the myth that only some deserve freedom,” they wrote.

The groups say that more than 1,800 rallies are planned for Saturday and that the events are guided by a commitment to nonviolent protest. In the statement, the group also said that organizers with “No Kings” are trained in de-escalation tactics and plan to work closely with local partners to ensure actions are peaceful.

Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, one of the groups behind “No Kings,” has said that the aim is to “create contrast, not conflict.”

Over 150 progressive organizations, watchdogs, climate groups, and other entities are partners on the “No Kings” rallies.

See the full list of planned events and locations here.

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

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 Reading1,800+ ‘No Kings’ Rallies Planned Across US as Trump Deploys Military to Crush Protests