‘My MAGA started to crack’: How one Christian nationalist Mormon broke free of Trump
Growing up in an ultraconservative Mormon family, Jennie Gage said, she was primed to become a Christian nationalist and supporter of Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement — or MAGA.
But about two years ago, at 49, Gage had a reckoning, realizing she had been “literally a white supremacist from birth,” based on teachings from the Book of Mormon.
Gage said she came to see Mormonism as “the OG Christian nationalist church.”
So, she flipped her life upside down, leaving organized religion and the Republican party.
She now calls herself “a raging feminist,” hosts a podcast, “Life, Take Two,” and is a member of “Leaving MAGA,” a nonprofit online community for former Trump followers who found themselves lost in conspiracies, losing friends, even committing crimes in the president’s name.
‘God’s president’
“I would have never said, ‘I'm white supremacist. I'm Christian nationalist,’” Gage told Raw Story. “I would have just said, ‘I'm traditional, and I'm conservative because I believe in church and family and America.’”
But when Trump ran for president in 2016, Gage embraced MAGA.
“I will never forget him on my big-screen TV, saying the words, ‘Make America Great Again,” Gage said.
“The first time I heard that, I literally started crying … and I pictured Norman Rockwell.”
What came to mind was the painter’s “Freedom from Want” — ”The grandma putting the turkey on the table, the Thanksgiving dinner, the beautiful home and just that American traditional family and conservatism," she said.
"Freedom from Want" by Norman Rockwell (Wikimedia Commons)
“Obviously, I hated brown people. I hated all the illegal immigrants. I hated that our country was being overrun with lesbians and feminists, women who worked instead of being in their proper place in the home, gay people — they are like the biggest sinners in Mormonism — and baby killers, all of that,” Gage said.
“When [Trump] said, ‘Make America Great Again,’ what I pictured was this businessman not only is going to save our economy, but he's also going to get rid of all of that stuff that people are doing that's destroying our country, and we're going to return to the 1950s where life was great and everything was simple, and he's going to make America great again.”
‘God’s president’
Gage’s family, she said, took Mormonism to “next-level insanity,” as much of her childhood revolved around The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“It is a cult without walls,” Gage said.
She attended Brigham Young University, the flagship Mormon college, for two years, taking classes including early childhood development, as well as dating and marriage.
“Even going to Mormon college, I was just indoctrinated also,” Gage said.
As treasurer of the BYU Young Republicans, she canvassed for President George H.W. Bush when he ran against Bill Clinton in 1992.
“It was devastating to see this evil Democrat Bill Clinton get elected,” she said.
As Gage had children, she became less politically involved. Her interest revived when Mitt Romney ran for president.
Jennie Gage with her children when she said she was still a "Mormon trad wifey" (Photo provided by Jennie Gage)
She remembered thinking, “‘We're gonna have a Mormon boy,’ and then that's probably gonna usher in the Millennium, so it's gonna be Mitt Romney and then Jesus.”
Gage began watching Fox News, listening to conservative commentators and reading books by Republican politicians. When Trump announced his run, Gage was familiar with his reality TV show, The Apprentice, and his books, The Art of the Deal and The Art of the Comeback.
“The Apprentice was actually my pipeline into MAGA. It was just really interesting, as we had a business and were really wealthy,” Gage said.
“That sucked me into … completely buying into it because NBC, The Apprentice and his ghost-written books, they showcased him as this really savvy entrepreneur, and that spoke to me because I was this conservative Christian wife of an entrepreneur.”
Gage said she liked the idea of a “businessman” running America, instead of “slimy politicians.”
She became more active on social media and engaged in arguments defending Trump. She recalls one verbal fight with her 10-year-old nephew.
She told him, “Donald Trump to America is going to be what Napoleon was to France. He is going to free us, and generations to come are going to thank God that Donald Trump was voted in office.”
When Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, Gage thought: “President Trump is God's president.”
‘A major shift’
Gage began to upend her life in October 2018. One day at church, she “literally stopped believing.”
“I Googled my own religion for the first time,” she said. “I had never researched Mormonism outside of books that I would go to the Mormon bookstore and read. And so I resigned from the church.”
The church’s history of polygamy pushed her away. Simultaneously, she said, she ended her 24-year marriage, due to infidelity.
She “plunged pretty headlong into Christianity, and in a way, that kind of kept me stuck in that traditional conservative Americana,” she said.
But she continued “deconstructing” her beliefs, and by the time of the 2020 election had seen “a major shift” in her values.
She was prepared to vote for Trump, but on the way to the voting booth, Gage said, “my MAGA started to crack.
“I remember sitting there in the car, and I just felt sick thinking about Donald Trump because some of the debates that year, he started to seem a little bit unhinged, and the MAGA crowd was just no longer aligning with me.”
Gage and her partner decided not to vote for either Trump or Joe Biden.
Gage returned to her computer, to research political issues.
“I’m like ‘Oh s—. There's not one f—- thing that the Republicans are doing that I support. Not one. I'm a Democrat,” Gage said.
“I literally support everything that most of the Democratic leaders are currently doing, and the entire Democratic platform speaks to me so much.”
Gage said she began “really stepping into my true, authentic self.”
While it was “extremely unsettling” and “terrifying” to change her beliefs,” her life in Tucson, Ariz., now looks far different than her life in MAGA.
She has a diverse group of friends, is an atheist feminist, and calls herself an “anarchist” and “white apologist,” for her ancestors’ roles in massacres of Native Americans.
“I am moving farther and farther away from everything that originally made me lean into MAGA,” she said.
‘American Gestapo’
To Gage, Trump is now “f— reprehensible” and “so hateful.”
“Donald Trump is the president of only the people he gives a f— about,” Gage said.
“Everybody else is just out. He's more of a mob boss, and he is a president, and that's not the way that America is supposed to work.”
During the 2024 election, Trump accused Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, of eating cats and dogs. Gage called that the “a straw that broke the camel's back.”
“I wouldn't want him to be in charge of our PTA. I wouldn't vote for him for the president of our homeowners’ association,” Gage said.
“Listening to the debates and the hatred in some of the rallies, I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience, and it made me panic because I'm like, ‘Oh, now what? I hate Donald Trump, and the whole entire MAGA movement no longer aligns with who I am.’”
Gage now calls Trump administration immigration enforcement agents an “American Gestapo.”
Just in cases reported by Raw Story, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained a breastfeeding mother, proposed a plan to deport unaccompanied immigrant children, physically assaulted bystanders and deported young adults with pending immigration cases.
“The whole point of the Gestapo was to be this police force out there terrorizing people,” Gage said.
“Sure, deport illegals if they're a threat, but to drag people down the street, the masks, the fear-mongering, the scare tactics, is absolutely reprehensible.”
‘It’s going to re-brand’
Gage is starkly concerned about Trump and the GOP’s quickening push toward Christian nationalism.
“I wasn't just Christian nationalist for logistical reasons,” she said. “It was part of my religion.
“I believed Jesus had written the Constitution and that the American government was just the interim government until Jesus came back, and then Jesus was going to rule America, and the rest of the world from America.
“The Charlie Kirk people … or Christian nationalists, honey, they ain't got nothing on the Mormons. We took Christian nationalism next-level. I believed all of that 100 percent.”
A college student wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap looks on at a Turning Point USA event, held at University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida on Nov. 13. REUTERS/Octavio Jones
Gage likens Christian nationalism to “a virus,” particularly as it gains a platform with Turning Point USA, the youth nonprofit founded by Kirk, who was killed in September.
“My worry is that these religious institutions and these political movements … are targeting the people that they need to target in a way that's effective enough that they are always going to be 10 steps ahead of us, and they're specifically targeting those emerging young adults,” Gage said.
“I'm afraid that conservative Christian nationalism will not die out, that just like a very smart virus, it's going to adapt. It's going to re-brand. It's going to emerge on the other side, maybe a little bit different than the 2020 MAGA movement, but it has a vested interest in protecting itself.
“They have the money, they have the power. They don't want to let that go, so they're going to fight to the death.”
'Terrible experience’: Iraq vet U.S. citizen nabbed by ICE shares ordeal in stark new ad
George Retes, a 26-year-old U.S. citizen and Army veteran, isn’t staying quiet — five months after he says he was assaulted and detained by immigration agents on his commute to work as a security contractor outside Los Angeles.
“Your voice matters,” Retes told Raw Story. “Calling your representatives, calling your people in charge, letting your voice be heard: it matters.”
Retes is the face of a new $250,000 ad campaign from Home of the Brave, a nonprofit focused on portraying what it calls the “catastrophic harm” of President Donald Trump’s second administration.
In the one-minute ad, “The Veteran Who ICE Abducted — and Is Fighting Back,” Retes recounts how he was stopped by a line of “hostile” ICE agents who shattered his car window, pepper sprayed him in the face and threw him to the ground before detaining him over a weekend.
Meant as a direct response to recruitment and self-deportation ads from the Department of Homeland Security, the Home of the Brave ads will air on streaming services where DHS ads have appeared.
“It's important to tell my story now because of everything that's still going on,” Retes said.
“Even though everyone doesn't see it every day, doesn't mean it's not happening.”
Close to 200 U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE since Trump returned to power in January, ProPublica reported.
Retes, who served a tour in Iraq, said DHS has continually called him a “liar.”
In response to an op-ed he wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, DHS accused Retes via an X post of being violent and refusing to comply with law enforcement, leading to arrest for assault.
Two weeks later, a DHS press release again claimed Retes was arrested for assault.
Retes said he “100 percent” rejects claims that he was violent and he was never charged with any such crimes during the interaction with immigration agents.
“Something that the current administration is refusing to do is just take accountability,” Retes said
“Lying on my name, lying on people. It's terrible.”
The new ad proves it, he said — by showing footage of his vehicle being swarmed by a line of immigration agents and then him being pinned to the ground.
“I take it with a grain of salt when they come out with these Tweets,” Retes said. “The proof is all there. If now you want to make stories, the court’s right there.”
‘F-----g do your job’
In an extended three-minute version of the video, Retes further explains how he was tear-gassed and how immigration agents zip-tied him and knelt on his back and neck while he was on his way to work security at a state-legal cannabis farm that ICE raided.
Retes is also working with a nonprofit public interest law firm, Institute for Justice, to sue the Trump administration under the Federal Tort Claims Act for the treatment he endured at the hands of federal immigration officers.
“It's all out there, the footage, and they're just imposing their version of reality,” Anya Bidwell, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, told Raw Story.
While in detention, Retes was put on suicide watch.
But “the most upsetting” part of the ordeal, he said, was that he missed his daughter’s third birthday celebration.
He told Raw Story he slept on a concrete bed in a room with a “tiny window” and lights switched on “24/7.”
He wasn’t allowed a shower, despite his “body essentially being on fire,” Bidwell said.
George Retes, a U.S. citizen, says he was detained by ICE on his way to work (Photo provided by Institute for Justice)
Retes said he was naked but for a hospital gown and “wasn't able to flush the toilet on my own.”
“It was just an overall terrible experience, and it was something I would never want to relive, and I hope no one ever goes through,” Retes said.
Retes said he was suspended from his job with Securitas, a national security guard contractor, for three weeks following his detention.
“They basically said I had to prove I was innocent before I could go back to work,” Retes said.
The experience left “a bad taste in my mouth,” Retes said, so he quit the Securitas job and is looking for new employment while sharing his story.
Retes said his message to Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other government leaders was simple: “F—–g do your job.”
“Make this country better … right now,” Retes said, lamenting “prices going crazy. People are divided. Agents just doing whatever they want, violating rights.”
Holding out hope for Trump to stop “constantly trying to divide the country” is “scary,” Retes said.
But he is still hopeful for “for better days.”
‘Gut punch’: Jan 6 cop slams Trump as ICE agents echo Capitol mob
First, President Donald Trump issued pardons and other acts of clemency for 1,500 rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, leaving police officers like Aquilino Gonell bloodied, many with injuries that would end their careers.
Then, rioters started asking for reparations, committing alleged child sex crimes, or leading anti-Muslim protests.
This summer, the Trump administration agreed to bestow military honors on Ashli Babbit, the air force veteran who died while trying to storm the Speaker’s lobby, as “Stop the Steal” protestors attempted to block certification of the 2020 presidential election Joe Biden won.
And in November, U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin said Trump issued another set of sweeping pardons to nearly 80 individuals, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mark Meadows, who helped Trump “put this scheme together” to overturn the 2020 result, Gonell said.
By contrast, Capitol police officers who served on Jan. 6 have “not even a plaque, no benefits, no awards, no settlements,” Gonell told Raw Story.
“It's more like a gut punch or a stab in the back — you go deeper than the slap in the face. It’s a desecration to the service and sacrifices that the officers like myself bravely did on January 6.”
Gonell spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention and wrote a book, “American Shield: The Immigrant Sergeant Who Defended Democracy,” about serving in Iraq and as a police sergeant on Jan. 6.
Pro-Trump protesters tear down a barricade on January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
But he told Raw Story that as Trump continues to “whitewash, minimize, downplay, condone or excuse the behavior of a lot of those people who committed the violence,” he has needed to take a step back from such a public role.
“It was my hope that all the actions that I took on January 6 were not in vain, and the people will learn from it, the American people will learn from it, that Congress, those elected officials who I risked my life, they at least thank us for what we did,” Gonell said.
“Republican elected officials, they can't get themselves to do that, because they're going to upset” Trump, he said.
‘Betrayal after betrayal’
Gonell ended up medically retiring after requiring two surgeries for injuries to his foot and shoulder sustained on Jan. 6. He now brings in less than 75 percent of the income he made as a Capitol police officer, he said.
He also suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Officers who responded on Jan. 6, Gonell said, must “learn how to live with the disabilities or trauma on our own.”
Politicians, he said, “don't give a s— about us, especially those who protected them on Jan. 6 and risked our lives in order to give them a chance to escape, which they did.
“It's a never-ending betrayal after betrayal after betrayal, especially from the Republican-led officials that I risked my life for. That’s one thing that they have been consistent about.”
Republicans have refused to install a plaque honoring Jan. 6 officers despite a mandate to do so being included in a government funding law more than three years ago.
Gonell said the plaque was supposed to be installed in the west tunnel under the U.S. Capitol, where he “almost died,” but Republicans “can’t even get themselves to do that, the bare minimum. But for the members of the mob, they go out in force, in full.”
Aquilino Gonell in Iraq (provided photo)
Gonell said he had considered voting for Republicans in the past, “but I never got myself to do it.” Now, he said, “each elected official from the Republican Party has turned their back against me and my colleagues. There's no support for January 6 officers.
“They say they do, but each action they take is averse to what they say.”
When Gonell voted in 2024, a woman attempted to give him a Republican sample ballot.
Gonell replied, “‘F— no. His mob and his people tried to kill me in the Capitol when I was working as a police officer in the tunnel.’
“She just bowed her head down and walked back.”
‘Very despicable’
Gonell immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic at 12. He became a U.S. citizen and said he voted for the first time in 2004, while stationed in Iraq.
Two decades later, the second Trump administration is pursuing aggressive immigration enforcement. Cases reported by Raw Story include the detention and deportation of a breastfeeding mother, and young people with pending immigration cases.
Gonell called such treatment of immigrants “very despicable.”
Agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement typically wear masks and full tactical gear without identification. That, Gonell said, “reminds me of January 6.”
Members of far-right groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers showed up at the Capitol in body armor and wielding weapons. Officers fought them for hours.
Gonell said he’s been called a “traitor, un-American” by Trump supporters.
“It’s shameful on their part, but again, I don't expect much from them, given that despite the repeated violations of the Constitution by President Trump … they don't care,” he said.
Gonell wondered for Republicans if “there's a line that they are not willing to cross.”
That could be the release of the FBI files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was awaiting trial for charges related to sex trafficking of minors when he killed himself in 2019.
A former friend of Epstein, Trump has reversed course on release of the Epstein files. In more than 20,000 emails released by Epstein’s estate, Epstein called Trump the “dog that hasn't barked.”
“I think with a recent revelation about emails and Epstein files, that might break through, but then again, they always come back and try to excuse whatever deficiencies,” Gonell said.
Gonell speaks at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
Gonell recently published an essay for Home of the Brave, a nonprofit amplifying voices speaking out against the Trump administration.
He said he ultimately wonders, “Who's being held accountable for Jan. 6?
“Trump pardoned all those people who assaulted us, who breached and stormed the Capitol, people who maimed us, people who ended our careers, people who traumatized us, people who put in jeopardy the lives of each and every elected official, their staff, reporters and the police officers who were defending the Capitol on January 6.
“I don't even know what to say, just out of words because I'm aghast. It's kind of like, how low can they go?”
'We protect our own': Chicago parents stand up to ICE despite threat of gas and violence
This story has been updated with comments from the Department of Homeland Security, received after publication.
One recent weekday, a group of Chicago kindergartners visited their neighborhood high school. It should have been an unremarkable moment — but as the visit was in motion, parents learned that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had been spotted nearby.
Instantly, the community mobilized. Teachers left school and hopped on their bikes. Around 100 volunteer patrollers came out to “protect these kindergarteners … and make sure that they got back safely,” said Lizzie Turner, a parent of a sixth-grader at the Peirce School of International Studies in the Andersonville neighborhood.
“It was very encouraging and very inspiring,” Turner said.
Turner is an administrator of Peirce Pathways, a parent-led support network with more than 100 volunteers currently monitoring neighborhood ICE activity, coordinating parent patrols and working with the school “sanctuary” team to address concerning interactions with agents known to detain parents and teachers, and to have deployed chemical agents near schools.
The group is one of several activated in Chicago since agents descended on the city as part of an aggressive Trump administration immigration enforcement mission, Operation Midway Blitz.
“The resistance movement here has been so successful,” Turner said.
“As much harm as they have been able to get away with, I also think as a city we protect our own … everybody's come together, and everybody's been very selfless in how they've approached it — the collaboration and just willingness to put our own needs aside in the moment to protect our neighbors.”
Jenn Graville Bricker, a second-grade parent, co-founded another parent-led network, Rogers Park School Patrols.
A volunteer with Rogers Park School Patrols watches a school (Photo credit: Meggus Wolf)
Part of grassroots neighborhood support organization Protect Rogers Park, the group has nearly a thousand volunteers across 10 schools on the city's north side, Graville Bricker said.
Volunteers wear orange armbands to signal they’re safe people to ask for help. Children have taken note, Graville Bricker said, describing how one child was recently overheard telling her caretaker, “Orange is for whistles, butterflies and safety.”
“Kids are clearly feeling it, and there's a lot of fear,” she said. “It impacts families in really, really deep ways.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is currently "surging" its law enforcement in Charlotte, N.C., "to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed.," said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin via email.
“Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens hurting them, their families, or their neighbors," McLaughlin said.
"There have been too many victims of criminal illegal aliens, and President Trump and Secretary Noem will step up to protect Americans when sanctuary politicians won’t."
‘On the fly’
Turner said her group was “building the plane as we fly it” but had come up with a multi-faceted system for monitoring ICE activity and protecting children whose families might be undocumented.
First, a coordinator monitors channels on Signal, an encrypted messaging platform, for reported ICE sightings.
Then the group organizes two volunteers at each of the four corners around a school, during drop-off and pick-up. Mobile patrol teams use bikes or cars.
Local businesses have agreed to be “safe haven sites” for anyone in need of protection from ICE, Turner said.
The community has created other “scrappy” ways to monitor and respond to ICE activity, said Turner, who built a searchable database of license plates confirmed to be ICE vehicles.
“Even just the tooling and technology that we've thrown together on the fly to make it work has been impressive,” said Turner, whose day job is at a software company.
“I hope that other cities don't experience this but if they do, I hope we can be a helpful starting point or model for how to tackle it, and I'm sure other cities will do it better if they build on it.”
‘Collective response to oppression’
Volunteers working with Turner have gone through “ICEWatch” training, which nonprofits and community organizations throughout Chicago have put together to help people know their rights, document when ICE comes into neighborhoods and warn neighbors who might be targets.
Jill Garvey, co-director of anti-authoritarianism nonprofit States at the Core, hosts a weekly ICEWatch training in partnership with Protect Rogers Park.
Gabe Gonzalez, an organizer with Protect Rogers Park, said as many as 6,000 people have been trained — 80 percent from the north side of Chicago and 20 percent watching from around the country.
Gonzalez estimates the group’s reach is as much as 7 percent of Rogers Park, which he said is “enormous.”
“I did community organizing for years, and if you had 1 percent of the neighborhood engaged in what you're doing, you had power, and we're well past that,” he said.
The training has its roots in CopWatch training that originated in the 1960s with the Black Panther Party and is focused on “documenting and responding, not interfering,” Garvey said, adding that the training emphasised “nonviolent protest and dissent.”
Volunteers who respond to an ICE encounter are instructed to send videos and documentation to their local ICEWatch group and an immigrant rights hotline.
Protect Rogers Park’s efforts extend to incorporating other community-based support as a “collective response to oppression,” Gonzalez said.
That includes a knitting club making hats and scarves for patrollers, volunteer appreciation events and arts shows, including one where people get two minutes to vent or perform at a local wine shop. It’s all part of “people coming together to resist,” Gonzalez said.
‘Breaking bodies’
ICEWatch and neighborhood support work comes with risks. Garvey said training focuses on helping people “physically stay safe and to be as prepared as possible for what we would now consider really unusual or aggressive behavior from law enforcement.”
Responders have been detained, tear-gassed, driven off the road while riding bikes and “had guns pointed into their cars,” Garvey said.
Illinois State Senator Graciela Guzmán said she and her staffers are working by 7 a.m. nearly every day, responding to calls from the Northwest Side Rapid Response Team. Ninety schools on Chicago’s Northwest Side have “school watch” teams, Guzmán said.
One Saturday in October, in a residential neighborhood, Guzmán and her staffers were tear-gassed.
“I'm not sure that I'm gonna get the sound of my staffer trying to breathe out of my brain for quite some time,” Guzmán said.
“It's really, really scary when that happens to you. It's scary when you're seeing it happen en masse to community members.”
Guzmán said ICE’s presence has been "overwhelming," the Trump administration "indiscriminate" in who it detains.
Of Guzmán’s constituents, those detained include a daycare worker, a cook, “parents on their way to school with their kids” and a handyman — not to mention U.S. citizens, she said.
“One of the eerie feelings is when you just miss someone getting detained, and you get on site and their car is still on. It's parked, everything is open,” she said.
Andre Vasquez, alderman for Chicago’s 40th Ward, said the Trump administration’s claim of detaining the "worst of the worst" was “bull—t.”
Andre Vasquez at a protest in downtown Chicago (Photo credit: Deana Rutherford)
Landscapers, single parents, elderly people and churchgoers have also been detained, Vasquez and Garvey said.
“They're breaking bodies. They're breaking doors. They're breaking windows, and they use tear gas as if it's something that should be used every day in our streets, when we know that it should not be,” Guzmán said.
“They're using incredibly violent, heartbreaking tactics.”
ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection "are trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and themselves. Our officers are highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training," McLaughlin said.
"We remind peaceful protestors and members of the media to exercise caution. Being near unlawful activities in the field does come with risks – though our officers take every reasonable precaution to mitigate dangers to those exercising their protected First Amendment rights.
"However, when faced with violence or attempts to impede law enforcement operations, our officers will take legal and necessary steps to ensure their own safety and that of bystanders, up to and including use of force.
One ICE agent “clocked” a young man in the chin as he observed the arrest of a woman in suburban Evanston who crashed her car into an ICE vehicle after it stopped suddenly, Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said he and other observers were threatened with pepper spray. Agents sat on the young man and one “put his foot by his neck” before handcuffing him, he said.
“The kid was staring at me. His face was just beat up, already starting to swell up, and it was ugly. It was really f—g bad,” Gonzalez said.
Of the incident, McLaughlin said “agents were being aggressively tailgated by a red vehicle. As agents tried to make a U-turn, the red car crashed into Border Patrol.
"A hostile crowd then surrounded agents and their vehicle and began verbally abusing them and spitting on them. One physically assaulted a Border Patrol agent and kicked an agent," McLaughlin said.
"As he was being arrested, he grabbed the agents genitals and squeezed them. As you know this is an extremely painful experience for most human beings and justifies certain responses, the agent delivered several defensive strikes to the agitator to free his genitals from the agitator’s vice."
Vasquez was tear-gassed twice when visiting the ICE facility in Broadview, Ill.
He has organized whistle kit events, “Know Your Rights” business trainings and rapid response efforts with his chief of staff, Cat Sharp, who is running for Cook County commissioner and was one of six Broadview protestors federally indicted for conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers.
“These fascists are looking [at] every possible way to attack people,” Vasquez said.
“If it's not physically on residential streets, it's politically to the court systems, so what we know is, ultimately, justice will prevail.
“These folks don't understand Chicago if they think we're going to tolerate it.”
'Push back': Roadmap to 2026 MAGA destruction outlined in new book
The answer to Project 2025, the infamous 920-page conservative leadership blueprint, is to be found in less than 200 pages, a historian, preservationist and independent congressional candidate turned author insists.
Mike Bedenbaugh is the author of Reviving Our Republic: 95 Theses for the Future of America, a new book in which he outlines his plan for a “Project 2026”: an alternative to the governmental makeover compiled by the Heritage Foundation before the 2024 election and then pursued by Donald Trump in power, seeking to decimate the federal workforce.
“Project 2026, this is what we need to aim for, to push back … in the midterms of next year,” Bedenbaugh told Raw Story.
Bedenbaugh, who ran last year as an independent in South Carolina's 3rd Congressional District, losing to Rep. Sheri Biggs (R-SC), said the forthcoming midterms would be the “most important” election in the U.S. “since 1876 after the end of Reconstruction,” as Democrats seek to take back at least one chamber of Congress and put the brakes on Trump’s unrelenting takeover.
Mike Bedenbaugh (provided photo)
Seeking to “open up the system, make it more representative,” Bedenbaugh calls for nonpartisan reforms including banning stock trading by members of Congress, enacting term limits for legislators and prohibiting former legislators from working as lobbyists or joining corporate boards immediately after leaving office.
He also proposes reducing the influence of corporate money on elections and shrinking the size of congressional districts, to make them more responsive to constituents.
Bedenbaugh says he presents his "95 Theses” as “a way to communicate what [priest and theologian Martin] Luther was trying to communicate against a corrupted 16th-century Catholic Church” when he nailed his 95 demands to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church in Germany in 1517, an action that eventually triggered the Protestant Reformation.
Five hundred years later, in the U.S., Bedenbaugh sees “a corrupted 21st-century federal republic, and how over the past-century, we've lost a lot of standards that need to be rebuilt.”
Bedenbaugh said he had a “Hail Mary” idea: to propose 10 to 15 independent-minded members of the U.S. House of Representatives form a “Fulcrum Caucus," holding out on voting for legislation unless reforms are included in bill language.
“Over the past century, what was made to be a balanced federal republic I think has been destroyed for a monopolistic government system that now Donald Trump is the ultimate example of,” Bedenbaugh said.
“I think just through tweaking a few dials, it can be made right, and people would be happier with that in the long run.”
‘It’s about control’
Bedenbaugh said he was inspired to write his book after watching the first Republican presidential primary debate in August 2015, the year of Trump’s first serious campaign for office.
Disgusted by the “absolute vulgar bullying” on display, Bedenbaugh turned to the writing of the Founding Fathers, particularly George Washington’s Farewell Address, delivered by the first president in 1796 as a warning against excesses by political parties and their ambitious leaders.
"Reviving Our Republic" (provided image)
Bedenbaugh then traveled to Washington, D.C., and read Ron Chernow’s biography Washington: A Life, to look at how the Founding Fathers would respond to today’s politics.
“[Washington] predicted exactly what was happening and his concern for that,” Bedenbaugh said.
The stakes are high as the U.S. heads down an authoritarian path under Trump in his second term, even more so than his first, Bedenbaugh said, fearing “a death knell of our nation if we allow that to happen, and that's the trajectory I think is very realistic."
“What's happened is Donald Trump has created a safe space for all these folks who have this tendency to want to yield sovereignty and feel safe with a leader," he said.
“One of the biggest hazards in our nation is that these folks now are organized in a way that it's about power. It's about control and only their perspective of how the nation should be run.”
Looking to Project 2025, Bedenbaugh said its “Christian nationalist” approach left him “infuriated.”
On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump repeatedly denied knowledge of or involvement with Project 2025. Since taking office, he has embraced the plan.
One community-driven Project 2025 Tracker estimates that at least 48 percent of the project’s goals have been achieved since Trump was inaugurated in January, including efforts to slash government funding and eliminate diversity programs.
Bedenbaugh said: “Project 2026 is really just something to show an alternative to what 2025 is saying, and there is a way to fix what they're saying is the problem, but only through the original foundational issues of what made this country amazing.”
Those issues, Bedenbaugh said, were identified by “a diverse group of people who all aspire to have one thing: liv[ing] in happiness with your children, being successful, being in your community, being part of it, free, and … thriv[ing]. That's all we want.”
- Reviving Our Republic is out now
Anger 'doom loop' feared as experts warn of Trump's 'brazen' prison pardons overhaul
Even before Donald Trump admitted on “60 Minutes” to having “no idea” who his latest pardon recipient, disgraced cryptocurrency founder Changpeng Zhao, is, the president has been upending pardon norms since his first term and even more so in his second administration, a former pardon attorney and legal experts told Raw Story.
From an early commutation of former Rep. George Santos' seven-year prison sentence for aggravated identity theft and wire fraud, to granting blanket pardons for more than 1,500 defendants involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, Trump has issued pardons and clemency since resuming office in January with unprecedented “brazenness,” experts say.
“This is a truly dramatic change from the first administration,” said Nora Demleitner, a legal scholar and former president of St. Johns College in Annapolis, Md.
Sam Morison, who served for 13 years as a staff attorney for the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the Department of Justice (DOJ), said, “President Trump has a different understanding of what makes somebody a good candidate for a pardon.”
“The traditional way it works is you have to go through DOJ, and you sort of have to kiss the ring.”
FILE PHOTO: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, speaks at the Bitcoin Asia conference, in Hong Kong, China, on Aug. 29. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
Trump made a practice of bypassing the pardon office in his first term and has continued to do so in his second term, granting pardons in cases that normally wouldn’t qualify by office standards, such as pardoning violent offenders like some Jan. 6 defendants.
Yet, the checks on the presidential pardon power are “almost none,” said Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, allowing Trump to issue pardons despite perceptions of impropriety or political favors.
“It does seem like he tends to grant cases where at least he thinks he's getting something out of it, whether it's financial or political or whatever. He views this in a sort of transactional way. That seems to be true,” Morison said.
“I have yet to see him do one that was altruistic.”
‘Dead on arrival’
Trump’s pardoning practices are atypical in a variety of ways.
For one, Morison said the pardon office has an “informal rule” where “if somebody had a large outstanding restitution order or a large outstanding fine, that was a reason sufficient to recommend denial of the petition, and they were almost always denied.”
Trump has pardoned individuals with mutlimillion dollar restitution orders. For example, in March, Trump pardoned Trevor Milton, founder of electric vehicle company, Nikola Corporation, who was convicted of securities and wire fraud and ordered to pay $680 million in restitution to shareholders.
In another case, Trump pardoned reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley for their bank fraud convictions in May, releasing them from prison and erasing any remaining obligations on the original $4.7 million and $17.2 million restitution owed, respectively, according to the Department of Justice.
“Trump has gotten comfortable with not just releasing somebody from prison, but remitting the punishment altogether, including fines and restitution, and that happened occasionally, but that was not the norm previously,” Morison said.
Traditionally, pardon applications where petitioners frame themselves as treated unfairly or as victims of a political prosecution would never be granted because “you're implicitly criticizing the Justice Department who brought the underlying case,” Morison said.
“In what I would call a normal administration, those kind of cases are almost always dead on arrival,” Morison told Raw Story .
Trump has called prosecutors in criminal cases he’s faced “scum,” “evil” and “corrupt.”
During his “60 Minutes” interview, Trump said he pardoned Zhao, who pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws at cryptocurrency exchange Binance, because his “sons are into” cryptocurrency, and he was told Zhao was “set up” by President Joe Biden’s administration.
“I heard it was a Biden witch hunt,” Trump said.
“I have no idea who he is. I was told that he was a victim, just like I was and just like many other people, of a vicious, horrible group of people in the Biden administration.”
Demleitner said Trump’s frequent allegations of political targeting by prosecutors “undermines the criminal justice system.”
Nora Demleitner (provided photo)
“It's a very interesting victim mentality that's going on here,” Demleitner said.
“There's absolutely no indication that any of these were politically motivated prosecutions, just to be clear … there's no indication of that at all, and they were prosecuting Democrats and Republicans, and they were going after people who violated laws.”
Osler agreed: “It's going to put into the minds of the public that prosecutors within the Department of Justice have improper motives, and I think for the most part, the vast majority don't."
‘Dangerous’
Zhao’s pardon brought scrutiny for its appearance of “pay for play” as Binance helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase involving a Trump family-backed cryptocurrency, which Trump denied knowing anything about during his “60 Minutes” interview.
Binance’s current CEO denied boosting the Trump cryptocurrency prior to Zhao’s pardon.
But Marina Pino, who serves as counsel in the elections and government program at nonpartisan law and policy institute the Brennan Center for Justice, said “the scale and brazenness is different” with Zhao’s pardon.
“We see here that the president is looking to give out pardons to those that can enrich himself, or those who have shown very clearly through donations, either through his campaign or his inaugural fund, that they can receive special treatment, and that itself is dangerous,” Pino said.
“We should all be very concerned."
Pardons can be “bought or flattered” under today's Trump administration, Demleitner said.
For instance, Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election fund less than a month before the 2024 election.
“I think some of it is fulfilling campaign promises, and I assume it has to do with [Trump] feeling abused and prosecuted, and so he'll align with everybody who he either believes was abused, prosecuted in an inappropriate manner, or who tells them that they were prosecuted inappropriately,” Demleitner said.
FILE PHOTO: George Santos, who was expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives, departs after the sentencing in his criminal corruption charges at Central Islip Federal Courthouse in Central Islip, New York on April 25, 2025. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
In Santos’ case, more than $373,000 in restitution was erased, along with the remainder of his 87-month prison sentence through Trump’s Oct. 17 commutation.
Santos was less than three months into his sentence.
Trump's pardons and commutations are being offered more quickly than usual since “usually you're getting a pardon years after a conviction, so you can show you have rehabilitated,” Demleitner said.
“It's rewarding public loyalty because Santos had very publicly and flagrantly said, ‘I think Donald Trump is great,’ so he's reinforcing the point that you're either for me or you're against me,” Morison said.
‘Doom loop’
Liz Oyer, a former Department of Justice pardon attorney fired by Trump, calculated the cost of Trump’s second term pardons to be more than $1 billion as of May.
A June memo from the Democratic staff of the House Committee on the Judiciary calculated a $1.3 billion cost for pardons.
Determining an exact financial impact of the pardons is challenging because oftentimes fines and restitution go uncollected, Morison said. Theoretically, taxpayers could save some money when someone is released from prison considering it costs the Bureau of Prisons at least $30,000 per year to keep someone incarcerated, he said.
But, the erasure of restitution can have a significant impact on individual victims , Osler said.
While victims can still pursue damages via a civil suit, that puts more of a “burden on victims ... because the government's not going to be doing anything to collect it if the person has been pardoned," Morison said.
“The fact that they're not being made whole certainly matters,” Osler said. “It’s a big loss for a lot of those people, and even when it's an institution that is the victim, some of these amounts are so large that you have to believe they have an impact.”
Pino said the moment is right to push for “structural reforms” to fight against “pay to play culture,” recommending more transparency in the pardon power process, at a minimum.
“If folks are angry about the pardon President Biden gave to Hunter, and then they're angry about this pardon to Zhao, the answer is to get behind actual reforms to bring more accountability to this process,” Pino said.
“Otherwise, we're stuck in this doom loop where one side is angry at the other and nothing changes.”
Horror of migrant kids ripped from parents by first Trump admin exposed in new book
Five-year-old Luz spent 72 days separated from her father, Julio Rodriguez, after they were detained at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018.
Escaping extortion and violence in Guatemala, Julio was detained in Texas while Luz was sent to a shelter in New York. Eventually, they reunited in Atlanta and joined family in Massachusetts.
Melanie Hernandez left Guatemala in the middle of the night in 2019 with her 14-year-old son, Lucas, fleeing an abusive husband. She left behind an adult daughter and five-year-old son with severe heart disease. Melanie spent several days away from Lucas when detainees were separated by gender at the U.S. border.
The Rodriguez and Hernandez families are just two of 16 that experienced family separation under the first Trump administration, and who are now the subjects of a book by Gabrielle Oliveira, Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life.
The families from Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador all came to the U.S. with children, the youngest four months old. Some mothers were pregnant.
The parents and children faced significant trauma that lingers though they are settled in the U.S., pursuing asylum cases, Oliveira writes.
Oliveira observed the children in school as much as twice a month over two to three years.
Gabrielle Oliveira (provided photo)
She observed families at home and engaged in communities, from meetings with lawyers to trips to the grocery store and church, for more than 2,500 hours. She interviewed parents and some children twice a month.
“I think if we have children as our North Star for policymaking, it would change everything,” Oliveira, a Harvard professor, told Raw Story.
‘More tragedy’
From being mugged to paying bribes, the families encountered numerous dangers on their way to the U.S., Oliveira writes.
One family traveled in a windowless truck with 50 other people, including babies, pregnant women and elderly folks.
Julio Rodriguez paid a smuggler $7,000 to help him and Luz get to the U.S., traveling for 12 days from Guatemala to Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
Diana López, from Guatemala, recalled crossing the Rio Grande with her two-year-old in her arms. When her daughter fell into the river, Lopez grabbed her from underwater.
López told Oliveira: “When I was leaving the water with Belén in my arms I was relieved that we survived the river … But when I looked up what I saw were these electric pistols … the next thing I know I felt it in my arm, stinging, and I fell to the ground.”
"Now We Are Here" book cover
While the parents were often fleeing unsafe situations, the ultimate motivation in risking all to cross the border came down to seeking better education for their children, Oliveira writes.
Melissa Santos, a mother from Brazil, told Oliveira: “It’s one of those things: do you stay and let your children not have a chance, become drug addicts, and get shot by a stray bullet, or do you travel north and risk being arrested, shot, and deported. It’s more the same … more tragedy.”
‘Did I make a mistake?’
Oliveira learned that many parents questioned whether the trek was worth it, then found themselves separated and exposed to inhumane treatment after reaching U.S. soil.
The families encountered another hurdle: COVID-19, which stopped children attending school in person.
Julio told Oliveira how he would comfort Luz, who was missing her mom and home: “I used to tell her about the good life we would have and that she would not believe the schools … I was just trying to have her not be sad all the time … But I kept thinking about the mistakes I made … Did I make a mistake bringing her?”
Oliveira, who immigrated to the U.S. herself, from Brazil, said parents saw children having nightmares, seeming detached, or struggling in school.
Some parents were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder but had to keep moving forward.
"That's why the title is Now We Are Here,” Oliveira said.
“The counter mantra to the ‘What if, what if, what if, what if’ is ‘Now we're here,’ so this is the shot that we have. That kind of stabilized the doubts of being worthy or not.”
‘They're going to grow up with this trauma’
President Donald Trump was in the White House for his first term when the 16 families came to the U.S.
With the second Trump administration employing even harsher immigration enforcement tactics, Oliveira imagines families such as those she writes about now being unable to reach the U.S.
“So many of them were escaping life-and-death moments, so not being able to ask for asylum, not being able to do that, I think it would be extremely, even more dangerous than what it was a few years ago, just because of how the border is right now,” Oliveira said.
With the Trump administration aggressively detaining and deporting immigrants — and encouraging unaccompanied children to self-deport — Oliveira said another form of family separation is happening.
“It's going to be forever with them. They're going to grow up with this trauma, and it's not an easy one to address,” she said.
Oliveira has stayed in touch with those she interviewed. Some, she said, have been afraid to leave their homes for doctor’s appointments, psychological treatment or speech therapy, due to the wave of deportations and detentions.
“It was a real chilling effect,” Oliveira said.
Still, the children she followed remained in school, with six teens having graduated high school.
Oliveira has mixed feelings about her book being published at this moment.
“I'm happy that at least there are these stories in this moment right now, and they're needed,” she said.
“Let's think about the well-being of children. We can come together on this one.
“It also makes me nervous … that it could be misplaced or misused, or in any of these ways that it wasn’t intended … the moment that we're living, it's a delicate one to tell stories."
'Super-charged': Alarm sounds as Roberts Supreme Court boosts Trump again and again
Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court has handed the Trump administration wins in 90 percent of cases on its emergency docket, according to a new comprehensive analysis of rulings across the courts system since inauguration day.
Led by Chief Justice John Roberts and packed with three Trump nominees and two other conservative justices, the Supreme Court rightwing bloc has favored the Trump administration in 21 out of 23 cases on its “shadow docket,” which allows the court to rule on urgent requests without oral arguments and with limited briefings, according to a new report from Court Accountability, a judicial advocacy group.
By contrast, Trump won only 40 percent of approximately 450 district court cases and circuit court dispositions reviewed.
As the Trump administration looks to execute executive orders on issues including deploying the National Guard in major cities, deporting student visa holders for political speech, and limiting birthright citizenship, the Department of Justice is “going straight to the shadow docket whenever an appeals court stands in the administration's way of defying acts of Congress,” said Mike Sacks, senior adviser with Court Accountability.
“Supreme Court precedent reflects this administration's confidence that they have the Roberts Court in their pocket,” Sacks continued.
“This administration has no patience for the usual appellate process and wants to operate at its full anti-constitutional capacity, and this Supreme Court has virtually every time given this administration the green light to do exactly that.”
‘Deeply concerning’
Court Accountability, which is led by two former counsels to Democratic senators, used SCOTUS Blog’s emergency docket tracker for its review.
For lower courts, the group used statistics from the Associated Press’ lawsuit tracker to analyze district court cases and statistics from Lawfare’s Trump administration lawsuit tracker for circuit court cases.
The U.S. Supreme Court. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
The analysis reveals that district courts, which are generally trial courts, are acting in a more bipartisan fashion because they are “closest to the facts and most bound by the law,” ideologically, Sacks said.
“Some of these judges might have been Republican conservatives during Reagan and Bush but recognize what Trump has been doing has been anti-constitutional and illegal and have no interest in furthering that regime,” Sacks said.
Republican district court judges ruled against the Trump administration in 55 percent of 86 cases reviewed by Court Accountability.
Democratic district court judges ruled against the administration in 63 percent of 237 cases reviewed.
Circuit courts, which are the first level of appeals, are “much more ideological,” Sacks said.
Looking at votes by Democratic and Republican circuit court judges, both aligned with their parties about 85 percent of the time in cases involving Trump administration actions such as executive orders on birthright citizenship and firings of independent agency heads.
Court Accountability looked at votes from 128 Republican circuit court judges and 199 Democratic circuit court judges.
“At this point, you just have two totally different worlds going on in the circuit and in the district courts,” Sacks said.
Sacks said Trump challengers are filing appeals in courts with Democratic majority judges, but they’re still only ruling against Trump 60 percent of the time.
“It's not like these majority Democratic judges are outright partisan hacks constantly going against Trump, just because it's Trump,” Sacks said.
“Just like in the district courts, they're carefully weighing the law. They're carefully weighing the facts and reading the facts and coming down in fair ways and deeply well reasoned ways.
“It's just that when you look under the hood and see what the Republican judges are doing on the appeals courts, they're acting as rank partisans in ways to filter up towards the Supreme Court and laundering reasons to side with Trump.”
Sacks called such partisanship on circuit courts and the Supreme Court “deeply concerning.”
“It reflects the Federalist Society's capture of our courts from the Trump administration on up,” Sacks said.
Under the guidance of conservative legal activist and financier Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society is credited with orchestrating the conservative takeover of the Supreme Court and the courts below it.
Many observers protest that courts should be impartial, as tradition demands. Others point to hard political realities.
Lindsey Cormack, associate professor of political science at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, recently told Raw Story partisanship was “undeniable” in the judicial branch.
“It's sort of the most political branch in the sense that the only way you can be on the courts is if you're appointed by an elected official, and the only way you're confirmed is if the rest of the elected officials at the federal level say, ‘Yeah, you can play here,” Cormack said.
“It's kind of a nice fiction that we tell ourselves to be like they're not partisan, but we do know that judges have political opinions. Someone put them in office, and someone voted for them, and someone voted against them.”
‘Would-be autocrat”
Sacks called Trump’s second term a “super-charged” version of his first, with more of a rush to bring cases to the Supreme Court.
“Trump 2.0 is operating without any pretense of guardrails or normality or regularity, that at least in some respects, constrained his first administration,” Sacks said.
“What makes the Court's response to Trump 2.0 unprecedented is Trump 2.0’s unprecedented rejection of not only our norms, but our laws and our legal precedents.”
Ultimate responsibility for the Supreme Court’s habitual siding with Trump lies with Roberts, Sacks said.
“Roberts has not only enabled the return of this anti-constitutional regime,” Sacks said, “but now in virtually all of his votes since Trump's return to office, Roberts has made clear that he is perfectly OK with Trump's establishing himself as a would-be autocrat unbound by acts of Congress and Supreme Court precedent.”
‘Is it safe?’ How one Chicago coffee shop took a stand against the ‘monsters’ of ICE
Jesse Iñiguez, a coffee shop owner, has inadvertently found himself at the center of Operation Midway Blitz — the Trump administration’s contentious U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) mission that’s brought military-style raids, violent clashes and National Guard troops to Chicago.
“It's extremely frustrating,” said Iñiguez, owner of Back of the Yards Coffee.
“We didn't ask to be in the forefront of it, but they brought it to our store steps, and so we've had to find ways to deal with it.”
That’s literal.
Iñiguez was at City Hall on Oct. 16 when one of his baristas sent him a video of federal agents tackling a man they knocked off a bicycle outside his store in Back of the Yards, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood near Chicago’s South Side.
Another staff member sent him a video of families painting sugar skulls at the coffee shop, which Iñiguez created as the sort of “safe space for the community” he longed for when growing up in the neighborhood.
The staff member created a social media post, a “juxtaposition of the two” videos with parallel soundtracks of classical music and the Rage Against the Machine protest anthem, “Killing in the Name.”
“Who's the one creating safety, and who's the one that's causing chaos?” Iñiguez said.
ICE referred Raw Story’s questions about the arrest outside Iñiguez’s shop to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It did not respond.
‘Pretty traumatic’
When the man was arrested, his bicycle was abandoned. Iñiguez said he was storing the bike at the shop, in case a family member comes looking for it.
This wasn’t the first time ICE encounters overlapped with his business, Iñiguez said, recalling a woman, a U.S. citizen, running into the shop while “getting chased by ICE.”
Jesse Iñiguez is storing a bicycle abandoned when a community member was arrested by federal agents outside of his business, Back of the Yards Coffee (Photo by Jesse Iñiguez)
The ICE agents drove away, Iñiguez said.
“They've arrested citizens as well, and they've detained them for hours and hours,” Iñiguez said. “The community member wasn't sure what they would do with her, so she obviously was scared.”
Such encounters have prompted Iñiguez to train his staff on how to respond when ICE shows up, along with teaching “coping mechanisms because they're seeing pretty traumatic things that community folks shouldn't have to experience.”
“I commend them for being brave and responding to the call whenever the community needs them,” he said, “but I also understand that's quite a weight to carry.
“They didn't sign up to be first responders when they signed up to work at the coffee shop, so I'm really appreciative of what they're doing, but we also want to make sure that we're finding the resources to help them cope with the trauma that they're experiencing seeing this.”
‘Not welcome’
Iñiguez said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's “ICE Free Zone” executive order allows him to be “explicit that ICE is not welcome in our space” and display signs saying such.
“They're not welcome here. We want them to know that, and we'd like them to leave, to be honest,” he said.
Patrons wearing full facing coverings are not allowed in the shop, Iñiguez said, adding that he suspects ICE agents have entered “undercover,” to scope out the space.
“These monsters are just not respecting any laws as it is … but if we need to close our doors and close shop for the day to protect community members, we will do what's necessary to make sure that our community is safe and protected,” he said.
Other businesses in the community are “scared” to speak out against the Trump administration for fear of being targeted by ICE, Iñiguez said. He said some businesses are attempting to keep patrons safe by locking their doors and requiring people to ring a doorbell to enter.
Iñiguez said his 76-year-old mother has expressed concerns about coming to his shop for senior events because she said “I look Mexican, and I don't speak English.”
“This is a U.S. citizen that's asking, ‘Is it safe?’ We have kids who are scared that their parents are going to get taken away.
“The trauma they're causing in our community is going to last for a very long time. It serves no purpose other than to demonize Latinos because that's who they're going after.
“It's a real shame because these are people who want to be here, who want to contribute to the country and who are working, and this administration has demonized us.”
Raw Story has chronicled how everyday people have been affected by the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement, including the detention of a breastfeeding mother seeking asylum and the deportation of brothers from El Salvador despite pending Special Immigrant Juvenile Status cases.
Raw Story also revealed how the immigration advocacy community came together to fight a plan to offer unaccompanied alien children financial incentives to self-deport.
Iñiguez said: “We have community members coming in, feeling safe, but then right outside our doors you have ICE coming in, terrorizing our communities and chasing people down and being aggressive and creating the exact opposite [of] the administration claims to be doing, which is safety, when we're the ones who are actually providing that safety for the community.”
'Fully MAGA now': Latest case has experts finally writing off 'arrogant' Supreme Court
When law professor Seth Chandler asked artificial intelligence to predict how the Supreme Court would rule in Trump v. CASA this summer, he won a $1 bet with a colleague. The AI-generated draft opinion proved “exactly right” about the 6-3 conservative majority ruling that limited universal injunctions in response to President Donald Trump's executive order curtailing birthright citizenship.
That might not seem too surprising — the court to which Trump appointed three justices has generally proved favorable to the president’s draconian policies, after all. Nonetheless, when the court heard oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais last week, Chandler, who specializes in constitutional law and computer science at the University of Houston, turned to AI again.
He asked Google Gemini to draft an opinion for the redistricting case. Once again, the AI assistant predicted a 6-3 ruling, the conservatives sticking together.
The 20-page fake draft opinion anticipates the Court will affirm a district court’s ruling that a Louisiana congressional map redrawn in 2024 to create a second Black-majority district is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
The map was redrawn because a federal court determined in 2022 that a new congressional map based on the 2020 census was likely in violation of Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination against voters.
The 2020 map only had one of six Louisiana districts representing a majority of Black voters, despite one-third of the state’s population being Black.
In other words, the plaintiff in Louisiana v. Callais claims that drawing maps to combat racism and ensure Black representation is itself a racist act.
The actual Supreme Court opinion might not come for months, but based on oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, experts predict further weakening of the Voting Rights Act.
“I'm not sure they'll say the whole thing's unconstitutional, but they will render it a less powerful force,” Chandler said.
“If I were the NAACP, I would not be happy with the way that argument went.”
‘Fist on the scale’
Chief Justice John Roberts “launched his legal career in attacking Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Congress,” said Lisa Graves, chief counsel for nominations with the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2002 to 2005, who also predicted a weakening of the landmark civil rights law.
Graves said it was “extraordinary to see … the Roberts Court putting its fist on the scale of justice in this way and also taking up this assault on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act as Donald Trump, for months now, has been demanding that state legislatures rig their maps to protect him from having a Democratic majority in Congress that could begin to hold him accountable for his transgressions of the Constitution.”
Lisa Graves (provided photo)
In her new book, “Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights,” Graves details how Roberts spent “hundreds of hours trying to block” Section 2 while working for the Reagan administration.
Graves writes that Roberts was intensely questioned about his writings on the Voting Rights Act during his 2005 confirmation hearing. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) said he was “deeply troubled” by Roberts’ “mean-spirited view” of Section 2.
Now, through Louisiana v. Callais, Roberts and his court are finally “poised to constrict the ability of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to limit disparate racial impact,” Graves writes.
She told Raw Story: “It does feel like the zeitgeist has caught up because more and more people are going ‘Whoa,’ so I guess it is an ‘I told you so,’ regretfully.”
‘Supremely arrogant’
Louisiana v. Callais stands to be highly influential, as states engage in off-cycle redistricting efforts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Typically, redistricting happens once a decade.
Trump told Texas Republicans to redraw congressional maps this summer, in an attempt to give Republicans five more House seats and solidify control. He’s since encouraged other red states such as Missouri, North Carolina and Indiana to gerrymander to boost the GOP.
If the Supreme Court does limit Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, it will most likely “give the green light to yet further partisan gerrymandering, which in many cases will hurt minorities,” Chandler said.
Seth Chandler (Photo courtesy of the University of Houston Law Center)
With Roberts leading the way, Graves said the court was “determined to mow down those limitations on Donald Trump” as seen in Trump v. United States, the 2024 case that granted him "unprecedented immunity from criminal prosecution.”
“I think this court is fully a MAGA court now,” Graves said.
“This Roberts court is supremely arrogant in its determination to roll back the clock on not just recent 21st-century precedents, but to roll back the clock to before the New Deal, to the Robber Baron era.”
Lindsey Cormack, associate professor of political science at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, said partisanship was “undeniable” in the judicial branch, despite a traditional expectation of impartiality.
“It's sort of the most political branch in the sense that the only way you can be on the courts is if you're appointed by an elected official, and the only way you're confirmed is if the rest of the elected officials at the federal level say, ‘Yeah, you can play here,” Cormack said.
“It's kind of a nice fiction that we tell ourselves to be like they're not partisan, but we do know that judges have political opinions. Someone put them in office, and someone voted for them, and someone voted against them.”
‘Opportunity to change’
Passed under Lyndon B. Johnson in the civil rights era, the Voting Rights Act is “one of the most important pieces of legislation that was ever written and enacted,” Graves said.
Weakening the law “would be a disaster for America,” she added.
“It would also pave the way for white-dominated, Republican-controlled legislatures in the South to further dilute Black votes in America in ways that would aid Trump's quest to secure an illegitimate majority in the House.”
Cormack said the court was considering the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais in “a very different way than how we've ever seen it in the past.”
She argued that the ruling could give an opportunity to “see things differently.”
“We know that Louisiana has a history of problematic discrimination — and that's not really controversial to say in the sense that they had poll taxes and literacy tests and white primaries and grandfather clauses until the very last time that they could, which was in 1965 — but we can't make it impossible for a state to outrun this sort of history,” Cormack said.
“We have to give states the opportunity to change … it's not fair to always hold the Confederate South to ‘They're always going to be problematic.’”
Lindsey Cormack (provided photo)
But Cormack acknowledged a ruling affirming the district court’s decision in the case “probably means that it's going to be very hard to bring a racially motivated claim” in the future.
Congress could pass new legislation reaffirming racial discrimination protections in the Voting Rights Act, Cormack said, but that’s unlikely given GOP control.
“It seems like the tolerance for … race-based anything is going by the wayside, at least by the majority party that controls the House and Senate right now, so it'll be really hard to see anything that happens in the next year to sort of change this.
“You get a different Congress, you maybe get a different outcome, but we're a ways off from that.”
'Chilling effect': College Charlie Kirk dropped out of faces demands to silence critics
Charlie Kirk never graduated college. He also wrote a book called The College Scam: How America's Universities are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America's Youth.
Nonetheless, after the right-wing activist was killed last month, shot dead aged 31, administrators at the Illinois community college where he enrolled for five semesters fielded calls to both honor Kirk and discipline an employee who criticized his views, records obtained by Raw Story show.
Kirk attended Harper College in Palatine, Illinois, a northwest Chicago suburb, from 2013 to 2014, before dropping out to co-found Turning Point USA, a national student group.
On Sept. 10, Kirk was killed while speaking at a Turning Point event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Right-wing activist and commentator Charlie Kirk Right-wing activist and commentator Charlie Kirk appears at a Utah Valley University speaking event in Orem, Utah, before he was fatally shot on Sept. 10. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune via REUTERS)
In the aftermath, as conservative activists incited a wave of firings of Kirk critics, Harper’s Board of Trustees received an email from “A very concerned Father,” threatening legal action if the school didn’t consider removing an instructor who posted criticism of Kirk.
Another emailer expressed concerns about a nursing student’s posts. The message landed in the inboxes of the school’s president, provost and vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion, records obtained through an Illinois Freedom of Information Act request show.
Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment scholar and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said such emails could hamper free expression.
People, he said, “may be worried about expressing their views on all sorts of topics … especially if it's a successful attempt to get someone fired or expelled or disciplined.”
Records from Harper also show an alumnus encouraging the school to establish a tribute or memorial to Kirk.
Other emails showed a professor attempting to recruit students to reactivate the school’s Turning Point chapter prior to Kirk’s death, as well as a request by a visitor to the Provost’s Office to “recruit 25 female students” for “a Charlie Kirk type of event,” which the school deflected.
“Harper students want to know that campus is a place where they can safely learn, engage with others and express themselves,” Bryan Wawzenek, a college spokesperson, told Raw Story.
“Our college remains committed to being a place where every individual is treated with dignity and where safety, belonging and civil discourse are paramount.
“In these difficult times, Harper will continue to center our mission and remain focused on fostering care, understanding and opportunity for all.”
‘Certainly not incitement’
On Sept. 15, Harper’s trustees received an email threatening legal action if the college did not investigate and “consider removing” Isaiah Carrington, a Leveraging Equity in Academia through Diversity (LEAD) Faculty Fellow and speech instructor.
A month later, Harper confirmed Carrington was still an employee but declined to comment further.
Carrington declined to comment.
In the email, a “very concerned Father” alleged Carrington posted “derogatory comments and harmful rhetoric that appear to justify violence, such as the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and persistently label[ed] individuals or groups who disagree with his views as Nazis, hate groups, or supporters of hate.”
The emailer’s name was redacted. Screenshots of Carrington’s posts were not included in the public records response.
Jeff Julian, Harper’s chief of staff and vice president of external affairs, suggested the chair of the board, Bill Kelley, reply to the email, saying the message would be forwarded to “college administration for awareness and consideration.”
A Raw Story review of Carrington’s public Facebook posts made clear he did not support Kirk’s murder but called into question Kirk’s past public comments, particularly about children watching public executions, and his history of racist remarks.
In one Sept. 11 post, Carrington shared a link to a Wired article about Kirk’s plans to discredit the Civil Rights Act.
“This is who Charlie Kirk is. I absolutely do not agree with a man being shot to death but I will not allow people to rewrite history,” Carrington wrote.
“Charlie Kirk actively fought against common sense gun laws, and literally said that passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a mistake. If you are mourning the loss of him, then you have to acknowledge that you are also supporting his views. There is no such thing as separating the personal from the political.”
The “concerned father” alleged Carrington’s comments passed the test established in Brandenburg v. Ohio, ruling that inflammatory speech intending to incite illegal action can be restricted.
Volokh disagreed.
“Nothing in [the posts] is constitutionally unprotected,” he said.
“There are some exceptions to First Amendment protection, but none of them are in play here. This is certainly not incitement.”
‘Wrong message’
Another community member emailed Harper about posts criticizing Kirk, this time from a nursing student.
Derek Leiter, dean of Harper's Health Careers Division, encouraged professors to neither respond nor reach out to the student.
“The posts included multiple derogatory remarks, including labeling people who expressed grief over his passing as ‘stupid,’ along with other content that could be interpreted as promoting hate or intolerance,” the emailer wrote.
“As someone who may or may not share the same political beliefs, I found the posts troubling — especially considering that [redacted] provide compassionate, unbiased care to people of all backgrounds and belief systems.”
The emailer claimed the student’s posts “could reflect poorly on the [nursing] program.”
Volokh said it was “not a student's duty” to represent their program in social media posts.
“There can be no obligation, given the First Amendment, for students to refrain from constitutionally protected speech because it’s not inclusive enough,” he said.
While community members have First Amendment rights to report posts, pushes for people to be fired or disciplined for criticizing Kirk are “sad,” said Zach Greenberg, faculty legal defense and student association counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
“It absolutely has a chilling effect, and it sends the wrong message on college campuses, which are supposed to be areas where free speech is zenith, where you're the most free to discuss these issues,” Greenberg said.
‘Culturally diverse’
Harper’s President, Avis Proctor, emailed colleagues the day after Kirk’s death, acknowledging the anniversary of Sept. 11 terror attacks and “pain and uncertainty … from reports of increased immigration enforcement in the Chicago area, to the tragic shooting in Utah that claimed the life of Harper alumnus Charlie Kirk.”
“My heart is heavy for his wife and two young children. While perspectives may differ, violence must never be the response to disagreement,” Proctor wrote.
“As an institution of higher education, we strive to foster civil discourse and uphold the dignity of every person. We are strongest when we engage one another with humanity. I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence and remain steadfast in our commitment to a safe, inclusive and compassionate society.”
Proctor’s message, titled “Lifting Up Our Shared Humanity Amid Immigration Challenges and Political Violence,” prompted emails of appreciation from staff.
Ilknür Ozgür, a new faculty member in Communication Arts Department, responded to Proctor’s email about ways the department could “uplift the stories” of students who historically “haven't been very socially active,” she told Raw Story.
Ozgür said raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have directly affected her students, one giving a recent speech about her uncle becoming “a viral sensation in the worst way possible” when he was wrongfully detained.
ICE took a student into custody at a nearby school, Elgin Community College, in September, making Ozgür “really proud” of her students for still coming to campus.
“It is such a powerful time to be able to hold a safe space for students to learn how to use their voice to create change,” she said.
Wawzenek said Harper students had “express[ed] concern regarding the manner in which immigration enforcement is currently being implemented in the Chicagoland area.”
“These circumstances are causing anxiety for members of the Harper community,” he added. “As such, Harper seeks to support our community with a variety of resources while communicating clearly about guidance for immigration enforcement at the college.”
Ozgür, who also runs a nonprofit, Artstillery, said she would mount a production of “Dirty Turk AKA. Dirty Immigrant” at Harper in March. The piece is based on her family's story of immigrating to Chicago and weaves in narratives from other refugee and migrant families, she said.
Ilknür Ozgür, Harper College faculty (provided photo)
As the Trump administration has pulled billions of dollars from universities, some small colleges have kept quiet, Raw Story reported. Ozgür commended Harper for embracing diversity when diversity, equity and inclusion programs are under attack.
Calling Harper “such a rich, culturally diverse campus,” Ozgür said: “With so many college campuses losing their funding based on what they're teaching and what they're doing, I'm so proud of Harper for … not being scared.”
‘A memorial or tribute’
Harper records also show Kirk’s death prompted calls to honor him and inspired interest in events similar to debates he took to campuses across the country.
“Regardless of political views, Charlie was a nationally recognized figure whose impact reached far beyond our campus,” read an email to administrators sent on the evening of Sept. 10.
“As a Harper alumnus, he represented the diversity of thought and the real-world engagement that our institution encourages. In light of his passing, I strongly believe that Harper College should consider establishing a memorial or tribute in his honor.
“Such a gesture would not only acknowledge his connection to our college but also show that Harper respects and remembers its alumni, particularly those who have had a significant impact on public life.”
Wawzenek said: “Harper does not have any plans for a memorial or tribute at this time.”
The school’s Turning Point USA chapter has been reactivated after meeting the required threshold of seven students, Wawzenek said.
Melanie Duchaj, student engagement coordinator, said Steve Gomez, a psychology professor, had been recruiting students to the group prior to Kirk’s death, according to a Sept. 12 email.
Gomez did not respond to a request for comment.
As for the man who visited the Provost's Office to request the school’s help with recruiting female students for a “Charlie Kirk type of event,” Provost Ruth Williams said a staff member “expertly” referred the person to the school’s “Free Speech tables and that if he wanted a room to hold an event he would have to rent it.”
“She also stated we would not recruit students for him,” Williams wrote.
Greenberg said it was important for colleges to remain neutral.
“Although many people may be offended by … Charlie Kirk commentary, it remains fully protected by the First Amendment,” Greenberg said.
“In order to have a more tolerant open society, we should be accepting of a wide array of political viewpoints, including commentary about public figures like Charlie Kirk.”
'Freaky Friday': How 'insane' Trump plan to 'bribe' kids mobilized fight
When tips started coming on Oct. 2, warning that the Trump administration was planning to offer financial incentives for unaccompanied immigrant children as young as 14 to self-deport, hundreds of immigration lawyers and advocates gathered on a call.
Their aim was to figure out how to protect vulnerable children from "Freaky Friday" — a rumored U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) mission set for Oct. 3. Named for a popular kids’ film, the operation would present children in the U.S. illegally with the option to voluntarily return to their home countries, rather than pursuing asylum or other forms of relief, even though many such children are fleeing abuse, trafficking or violence, advocates told Raw Story.
“The first time I heard it, I was like ‘This has to be a joke,’” said Ala Amoachi, an immigration attorney in East Islip, N.Y., who has represented hundreds of unaccompanied alien children (UACs).
But then she got word from the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which said information about the mission “was coming from credible sources and that they are not rumors.”
Another immigration advocate who declined to be named due to fear of retaliation said they learned about “Freaky Friday” from a government whistleblower.
On the morning of Oct. 3, Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney and adjunct Emory University law professor, posted a message on X.
“There is a darkness and evil that is taking over ICE, led by the dark lord Miller,” Kuck wrote, referencing Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff.
“ICE is launching a nationwide operation today … reportedly named ‘Freaky Friday’ that will target unaccompanied children aged 14 and older of all nationalities.”
Kuck described details of the plan, from a “really reliable source.”
Unaccompanied children would receive a “threat” letter from ICE when they turned 18 if they didn’t waive their applications for relief under laws like the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, Kuck wrote.
They would be offered $2,500 to return to their home countries. Otherwise, any family members in the U.S. would face threat of arrest, Kuck posted.
An Oct. 3 email shared with Raw Story confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) planned to offer a one-time resettlement stipend up to $2,500 to UACs aged 14 and older, in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), who wanted to self-deport.
DHS answered Kuck with an X post of its own, denying the “Freaky Friday” mission name but confirming a “voluntary” self-deportation payment.
“CHUCK KUCK IS WRONG!” the post said. (In fact, Kuck’s name is pronounced “Cook.”)
“The anti-ICE activists have made up a ridiculous term, ‘Freaky Friday,’ to instill fear and spread misinformation that drives the increased violence occurring against federal law enforcement,” the government post said.
The post also said cartels “trafficked countless unaccompanied children into the United States during the Biden Administration.”
It said DHS and HHS, whose Office of Refugee Resettlement cares for unaccompanied children without a U.S. legal guardian, were “working diligently to ensure the safety and wellbeing of those children.”
“Many of these UACs had no choice when they were dangerously smuggled into this country,” the post said.
“ICE and the Office of Refugee and Resettlement at HHS are offering a strictly voluntary option to return home to their families. This voluntary option gives UACs a choice and allows them to make an informed decision about their future. Any payment to support a return home would be provided after an immigration judge grants the request and the individual arrives in their country of origin. Access to financial support when returning home would assist should they choose that option.”
In response to a series of questions, an ICE spokesperson sent the same statement to Raw Story.
‘Threaten the lives of children’
Speaking to Raw Story, Kuck did not name the source that tipped him off to the “Freaky Friday" mission but said “there's no doubt that was the name. That is a typical DHS name under Trump.”
ICE has launched enforcement missions including Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago and Operation Tidal Wave in Florida. DHS has given immigration detention facilities alliterative names, including Alligator Alcatraz, Speedway Slammer and Cornhusker Clink.
Kuck called DHS’s response to his post “hilarious.”
“‘Chuck Kuck is wrong’ and yet in the very same tweet they admitted I was right. They didn't like the name — you know, they didn't object to Stephen Miller being called the dark lord, so that must still be true.”
Also on Oct. 3, the National Immigrant Justice Center and Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights released a statement about a widely circulated email that referenced “Freaky Friday” and the program targeting unaccompanied children 14 to 18 years old but with the potential to affect children as young as 10.
“I think somebody needed to shine a spotlight on this,” Kuck said.
An ICE official said the self-deportation stipend is first being offered to 17-year-old UACs. It is currently unclear if the program will eventually extend to UACs 14 or younger.
The immigration advocate who requested anonymity said: “By the time that we got to Friday, it was like, ‘Okay, did they change their mind? Did they reverse course? Was this just like a stunt? Are they leaking this information to catch the leakers?”
‘Trauma upon trauma’
While he couldn’t attend due to travel, Kuck said the Oct. 2 call mobilizing immigration attorneys was “a reaction to a program that comes out of nowhere with no warning, that would literally potentially threaten the lives of children.”
“That's insane. That's literally what we're what we've reduced ourselves to in the immigration enforcement sphere? That’s sad.”
The immigration advocate who spoke anonymously said lawyers were “going out of their ways to officially enter into representation with the kids” in case UACs were going to be moved from care facilities run by HHS. That way, “the government wouldn't be able to say, ‘Oh, we didn't know that this kid didn't have a lawyer or something like that.’”
The advocate also said that on Labor Day weekend, in early September, the administration attempted to send more than 600 unaccompanied Guatemalan children to their home country.
“We're getting calls from the government saying, ‘Wake up the kids … they're being deported, and tell them to pack two lunches,’” the advocate said.
Within 30 minutes, government contractors showed up at shelters in Texas and Arizona, the advocate said. Children were boarded on planes and one started taxiing before a judge ordered an emergency halt at 4 a.m on the Sunday.
“That's one of the reasons why people were so alarmed and also so ready to take action [on Oct. 3],” the advocate said. “The government tried to disappear kids in the middle of the night when they thought no one was watching during a holiday weekend, and then now we hear that they're gonna call this Operation Freaky Friday and start targeting unaccompanied kids in this other way?
“It shows a pattern of this administration going after unaccompanied kids.”
UACs at U.S. government facilities are “the most vulnerable" of unaccompanied minors as they typically don’t have legal representation, Kuck said.
“Generally, if a child came across the border, it wasn't because they thought it was a really great idea,” Kuck said.
“My God, this is who we should be protecting, not offering money so they'll go back to what could potentially be a life-threatening situation in their home country.”
Amoachi pushed back on the idea that the self-deportation stipend is “voluntary.”
“They have all these special vulnerabilities,” Amoachi said. “They are minors, and even if they're not, they're vulnerable because they often experienced abuse: sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and they're scared. They're scared for their families. They're very traumatized right now with everything that's going on.”
Amoachi detailed “really horrifying situations” clients have faced. One 14-year-old “gave herself up to be a victim instead” when a human smuggler was going to rape her sister, she said.
Kuck said he represented a 15-year-old sex trafficking victim who was sexually abused when she arrived in the U.S.
The advocate who spoke anonymously was appalled by the idea of a child making a “life-or-death decision without a trusted adult.”
“A lot of these kids are leaving countries with high amounts of cartel violence, and so a masked man shows up at your house and says, ‘We'll give you X amount of money to carry this across the border, or join our gang,' or whatever, and they're putting you in a life or death situation, and then you come to the United States, and then there's another masked man coming to you, saying, ‘You have to make this decision right now.’ It's just trauma upon trauma.”
Amoachi said she had spoken with kindergarten-aged UACs who had seen classmates killed for not joining gangs in places like El Salvador. One 5-year-old was abandoned after his mother killed herself, having been in a forced relationship with a gang member, Amoachi said.
“What low have we reached in this country when we're going after unaccompanied minors?” Amoachi said.
‘It's just counter-humanitarian to do these things, particularly because a lot of UACs, they're coming to the U.S. usually to reunite with one or both of their parents, and they're often coming from situations where they were physically abused or psychologically abused or exposed to sexual abuse or gang violence.”
‘Done for show’
Unaccompanied, undocumented minors may qualify for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), a form of immigration relief for children abused, neglected or abandoned by one or both of their parents.
Two of Amoachi’s clients were deported to El Salvador this year despite pending Special Immigrant Juvenile Status cases. They suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and depression as a result of detention and deportation, Raw Story reported.
Nicole Whitaker, an immigration attorney in Towson, Md., said: “This effort is a part of a broader escalation in immigration enforcement under the current administration, signaling a shift from targeting adults with criminal records to targeting children.
“It goes against the spirit of the SIJS legislation as it was originally enacted and punishes children and families who have done the right thing by following the proper procedures and ‘waiting in line’ for legal status."
Marina Shepelsky, an immigration lawyer in Brooklyn, N.Y., came to the U.S. as an immigrant herself, fleeing the Soviet Union. She said she gets frustrated at family members “cheering” on the Trump administration.
Marina Shepelsky during an interview with Raw Story (Screen grab)
“I find it to be almost hypocritical when people say, ‘Well, we went through the legal channels,” Shepelsky said.
“People will be so happy to go through legal channels if there were legal channels. If it was a real amnesty, millions of people would apply, and they would pay a $100,000 penalty. They would find the money, believe me.
“I think it's very cruel, this enforcement the way it’s done. I think that it's just a lot of it is done for show, as a deterrent to people, and I think it's unfair.”
Amoachi said children are generally inclined to comply with people in authority, which could compel them to accept a self-deportation offer.
UACs might also be tempted to take the $2,500 self-deportation stipend if there’s “implication that their family members could face repercussions,” meaning some children would be “willing to sacrifice themselves for their families," Amoachi said.
This summer DHS launched a voluntary departure program through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Home App, offering subsidized travel and a $1,000 “exit bonus.”
“None of this is accidental,” Kuck said. “They want to literally deport everybody, so they do the easy ones first.”
Shepelsky mainly represents Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war with Russia. Given her clients are usually white, “they are treated differently,” she said, “but I wouldn't say they're treated much, much better than others.”
“This is so inhumane and so not aligned with what all of us have always thought was the purpose of the immigration system.
“Now, instead of protecting them, especially kids, we are trying to buy them, bribe them, scare them, bully them, really, into leaving.”