Don’t think that being a citizen protects you. There have been hundreds of citizens who have been hauled away for days, and when they are released, it could be in another state, without money or a phone to call their loved ones. We are living in a version of what Nazi Germany may have been at the beginning.
Immigration
When the Houston Chronicle and the New York Times start writing articles like they did today, it indicates that the immigration issue will soon be the anchor around Trump’s neck that will send him to the 25th Amendment.
Democrats need to do their part, all the bloggers and influencers who want to save our way of life have to get in the boat and start rowing to make it happen sooner rather than later.
Houston Chronicle
Enforcing these sorts of civil warrants has typically not been the responsibility of local police, nor should it be. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center has warned that HPD holding people based on these detainers could violate constitutional rights. Local governments have been successfully sued for arresting people based on these detainers.
Worst of all, forcing our local crime fighters to do the job of the federal government not only wastes law enforcement resources but also puts our city at risk. We’ve seen that happen already. In April, a domestic violence victim saw her abuser at a grocery store. She called the police for help, and they referred her to victim services. That was when the woman, originally from El Salvador, learned police had already contacted ICE about her status.
… Victims of crime are now hesitant to turn to the police for help. Crimes go unreported. Dangerous criminals get away unpunished.
“If he were to hurt me again, I don’t think I could report it because that’s where my story would end,” the Salvadoran woman told the Chronicle later.
… Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls said in 2017 that he wasn’t convinced partnering with ICE would be useful even as he underscored his support for getting “bad hombres” out of the country. Nehls, now a representative in Congress, is one of the most ardent Trump supporters around. Here’s what he said as a sheriff about a common partnership with ICE:
… “People are afraid to talk to the police, and how does that help us, as police, do our job?” Houston police officer Jesus Robles told NPR back in 2017.
“What we’ve created is a chilling effect that we’re already starting to see the beginning of,” then Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said. “They’re afraid that we’re more interested as a society in deporting them than we are in bringing justice to the victims of crime.”
Acevedo raised the alarm after seeing a sharp drop among Hispanics reporting sexual assault, and smaller but still significant drops in reporting robberies and aggravated assaults as well.
Even more damning: Research shows that collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement agencies doesn’t actually produce lower crime rates.
It just spreads fear.
This fear doesn’t only affect undocumented immigrants, who face getting picked up off the street and disappeared from their family for days or even weeks on end. It grips even Houstonians with legal status who worry they’ll get caught up in a dragnet-style immigration enforcement that didn’t exist before.
The city deserves real leadership now more than ever. It’s time for the mayor to draw a clear line — one that strikes the right balance. Whitmire should be able to say he’s prioritizing local public safety over civil immigration enforcement without picking a fight with the Trump administration.
The proposed ordinance failed to get three signatures, so the city council will not have to vote; that way, the shit will not carry with the wind, and people will not know where they stand regarding the treatment of the immigrant community and HPD’s part in creating the terror. If America had those types of people in 1776, we would still be a part of England.
New York Times
‘The System Is Meant to Break You’: What ICE Is Doing to People Here Legally
The videos circulating on social media are brutal and terrifying — the often violent arrests, people pulled screaming from their cars, out of day care centers, away from their children and their spouses. What should give Americans equal pause is the inhumanity happening beyond the cameras, away from the view of judges and lawyers and the media. Due process is not a constitutional right afforded only to citizens; legal restrictions on unlawful detention apply to all people on U.S. soil.
If a woman returning from vacation with her young children can be suddenly removed from her family and her life, how can we believe that any of us will remain safe?
There was a disquieting sameness to the horror that was described to us. Those we interviewed despaired at how the detention centers were kept purposefully, horrendously cold, forcing some of them to huddle up against strangers. They spoke of lights left on 24 hours a day and of interstate transfers that came without notice. They described food that was inadequately distributed and made them unwell. Of being forced to urinate and defecate in front of fellow detainees and guards. Of being humiliated and mocked by officers. All referred to a destabilizing lack of information, the dreadful understanding that they could be held for weeks or months without anyone informing them why they were being held at all.
Jasmine Mooney, a Canadian citizen, arrived at a California immigration office in early March to finalize her work visa and start a job at a U.S.-based wellness company. She has spent much of her adult life going back and forth across the border — she crossed dozens of times between 2019 and 2025 alone — though not always seamlessly: She was denied entry to work in the United States more than once, and once had a visa revoked. (These are not crimes.)
In March, when she arrived on American soil, she was told she needed to return to Canada to address a discrepancy with her visa paperwork. As she searched online for flights to Vancouver, she was approached by border agents, stripped of her bag and cellphone, and placed in a crowded holding cell. The only place to rest was on the cement floor. Ms. Mooney was able to place a phone call after 48 hours. She reached a friend, who alerted the media; later she talked to a lawyer.
Then she was transferred, in shackles, to a San Diego detention center, where she was given a prison uniform. Days later she was moved once again, also shackled, to a detention center in Arizona. There, she said, women were told to urinate into paper cups for a nurse to perform a pregnancy test. Ms. Mooney had spent her first week refusing the food, fearing it would make her ill; when she finally ate, she was sickened. She said one guard told her she might not find a path out anytime soon. “The system is meant to break you,” Ms. Mooney said.
