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adriano espaillat
Dean Phillips' Attack on Mamdani Is an Attack on 'Millions of Working-Class People,' Progressives Say
"The stated position here is that socialists cannot be part of the Democratic Party," said one commentator. "Does this hold for the socialist voters too?"
Jul 10, 2025
In an interview with CNN, former Congressman Dean Phillips was asked whether "there is room" for him and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic Party—but progressive Rep. Summer Lee was among those saying on Thursday that Phillips' rejection of Mamdani wwas really about millions of Americans who have voted for candidates like him.
"These guys aren't just rejecting him, but the millions moved to electoral action by candidates like him," said Lee (D-Pa.) in response to Phillips' interview.
CNN's Omar Jimenez asked Phillips about the "big tent" philosophy often promoted by Democratic leaders who believe the party should welcome lawmakers and candidates who don't agree with every aspect of its platform—politicians like anti-choice Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and former Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who made millions of dollars from his coal business.
Jimenez asked whether Mamdani, a democratic socialist who stunned former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the party's leadership in the Democratic mayoral primary last month, should also be welcomed into the party's "big tent."
"The answer ultimately is no," said Phillips, who was one of the wealthiest members of Congress before he left office to run for president in a long-shot bid against former President Joe Biden in the 2024 race—losing his home state of Minnesota and garnering just 1.7% of the vote in South Carolina, falling behind author Marianne Williamson.
Phillips admitted that "most Americans share the same values" as Mamdani, who has advocated for fare-free public transit, universal free childcare, and city-run grocery stores to operate alongside private stores and provide low-cost essentials to working families.
But he claimed that while "differences of opinion, perspective, life story, politics, and experience" are beneficial to the Democratic Party, the presence of so-called "socialists" like Mamdani is not.
"The overwhelming majority of Americans want neither far-left or far-right politics," he said without citing any supporting evidence.
Phillips appeared confident that Democratic voters across the country would recoil from candidates like Mamdani—despite recent rallies in red districts where progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who both endorsed Mamdani, have drawn crowds of thousands of people in recent months during Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy Tour.
In addition to Mamdani's historic success in the Democratic primary—with more New Yorkers voting for him than in any other primary election in the history of the nation's largest city—numerous polls have shown that Americans back policies like those that powered his campaign.
A poll by Child Care for Every Family in 2023 found that 92% of parents with children under age 5 supported guaranteed, government-funded childcare, including 79% of Republican parents and 83% of independent parents.
Raising taxes for corporations and wealthy households is also broadly popular, with about 6 in 10 Americans supporting the proposal in a recent Pew Research poll.
And despite efforts by centrist Democrats and Republicans to portray Mamdani's platform as radical, programs like his fare-free bus proposal have already been implemented in cities like Kansas City, Raleigh, and Boston on three of the city's busiest bus routes.
"Maybe our big tent should have less millionaire nepo heirs and more fighters for the millions of working-class people," suggested Lee on Thursday.
Matt Bruenig of the People's Policy Project also condemned Phillips for suggesting Mamdani—and ostensibly the 565,639 New Yorkers who voted for him—have no place in the party.
"The stated position here is that socialists cannot be part of the Democratic Party," said Bruenig. "Does this hold for the socialist voters too? Should they also not vote for the party? Phillips is trying to radically shrink the party. Scary stuff."
"Centrists and other moderates are spending a nontrivial amount of national political energy being mad at Zohran," he added, "which could instead be spent on [President Donald] Trump and Republicans."
As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, the progressive advocacy group Our Revolution is circulating a petition that's garnered more than 30,000 signatures from people urging Democratic leaders like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand—all New York Democrats who have yet to endorse their own party's mayoral candidate—not to "sabotage" Mamdani.
Despite Phillips' insistence that Mamdani doesn't belong in the party, the resistance in New York appeared to weaken a bit Thursday as Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) endorsed the candidate.
"New Yorkers have spoken loud and clear," said Espaillat, who had previously backed Cuomo. "And as a lifelong Democrat, I'm endorsing the Democratic Party nominee."
Lawsuit Aims to End 'Systematic' Snatching of Brown-Skinned People by Trump Agents
"These guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end," one attorney in the case said of Department of Homeland Security agents.
Jul 02, 2025
Immigrant rights defenders in California on Wednesday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, accusing the Trump administration of "abducting and disappearing community members using unlawful stop and arrest practices and confining individuals at a federal building in illegal conditions while denying them access to attorneys" as part of its mass deportation effort.
The lawsuit was brought by five individual workers, three advocacy groups, and a legal services provider: The Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers (UFW), the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), and Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Their complaint accuses DHS of unconstitutionally arresting and detaining people, according to the ACLU, which is assisting with the legal challenge, "in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration."
According to the complaint:
The raids in this district follow a common, systematic pattern. Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from. If they hesitate, attempt to leave, or do not answer the questions to the satisfaction of the agents, they are detained, sometimes tackled, handcuffed, and/or taken into custody. In these interactions, agents typically have no prior information about the individual and no warrant of any kind. If agents make an arrest, contrary to federal law, they do not make any determination of whether a person poses a risk of flight before a warrant can be obtained. Also contrary to federal law, the agents do not identify themselves or explain why the individual is being arrested.
"DHS—at explicit direction from the Trump administration—has gone after day laborers, car wash workers, farm workers, street vendors, service workers, nannies, and others who form the lifeblood of communities across Southern California," said ACLU Foundation of Southern California senior staff attorney Mohammad Tajsar, who is representing plaintiffs in the case. "Everyone deserves to feel safe going about their daily lives. DHS must stop disappearing people from our communities."
Tajsar told the Los Angeles Times that "these guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end."
Alvaro M. Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center and a plaintiff's attorney in the suit, said in a statement that "the federal government is waging a campaign of terror across Southern California, abducting community members off the streets and warehousing them in deplorable conditions away from their loved ones, all while denying them access to legal counsel."
"It's blatantly unconstitutional, cruelly inhumane, and a violation of any common decency," Huerta added. "If the Trump administration insists on trampling Angelenos' rights, we'll see them in court."
Plaintiffs in the case—who are seeking to represent people subjected to random stops and arrests—are asking the court to certify the case as a class action. They have also requested preliminary and permanent injunctions barring further violations of constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and self-incrimination, as enshrined in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, respectively.
As the lawsuit notes, "one of the clearest patterns that have emerged in the raids in Southern California... has been stops and interrogations... on the basis of apparent race and ethnicity."
"These raids have targeted the most vulnerable members of our workforce, essential workers who are the backbone of our local economy," said Los Angeles Worker Center Network executive director Armando Gudino. "We cannot allow racial profiling, warrantless arrests, and denial of due process to become the standard operating procedure in our communities."
DHS has been holding arrested people in the basement of a federal building in downtown Los Angeles commonly referred to as B-18. The lockup has no beds, showers, or medical facilities, according to the ACLU of Southern California. Furthermore, B-18 is meant to hold only a small number of people on a temporary basis while they are processed.
"We have heard from over 100 families of Individuals taken to B-18 and other detention centers that attest to their loved ones being kept in overcrowded, cold, and inhumane conditions," said CHIRLA executive director Angelica Salas. "They are held in small windowless rooms with dozens or more other detainees, in extremely cramped quarters while being verbally humiliated and pressured into signing papers they don't understand."
The ACLU of Southern California said: "The ongoing raids have led to the disappearance of more than 1,500 people. The suit details how federal agents consistently refuse to identify themselves or what agency they are with when asked, using anonymity as a tactic to shield lawlessness."
UFW president Teresa Romero noted in a statement that "the raids in the greater Los Angeles area have not been limited to the urban center; we have also seen horrific instances of Border Patrol agents chasing down farm workers in the fields of Ventura County. The spouse of a UFW member was among those unjustly detained."
"Now the very workers who feed America go to work in fear," she added. "Their American-born children are scared not knowing if their parents will come home. Farm workers deserve better. We've seen these unconstitutional and un-American tactics before, with Border Patrol targeting random farm workers and anyone with brown skin in Kern County during their large sweep in January. We sued then and we are suing now."
While U.S. President Donald Trump, members of his administration, and Republican lawmakers and supporters claim the DHS crackdown is targeting dangerous criminals, critics have noted that people legally seeking asylum, families, relatives of American citizens, and even citizens themselves have been swept up in the mass deportation dragnet.
According to the libertarian Cato Institute, 65% of people taken by ICE had no criminal conviction whatsoever and 93% had no conviction for violent offenses.
'No Secret Police Act': Democratic Bill Would Ban Trump's Masked Federal Agents
"If you uphold the peace of a democratic society, you should not be anonymous," said Rep. Adriano Espaillat.
Jun 26, 2025
From the abductions of foreign students Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil to the violent accosting of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander as he was trying to shield an immigrant from arrest at a courthouse, the images have become familiar to many Americans: masked federal agents descending on communities across the U.S. and arresting citizens and immigrants alike.
Two Democratic lawmakers on Thursday demanded an end to the Trump administration's use of "secret police," introducing legislation that would require all law enforcement officers and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—to clearly display identification and their official badges when detaining or arresting people.
"If you uphold the peace of a democratic society, you should not be anonymous," said U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.). "DHS and ICE agents wearing masks and hiding identification echoes the tactics of secret police authoritarian regimes—and deviates from the practices of local law enforcement, which contributes to confusion in communities."
Espaillat was joined by Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) in introducing the No Secret Police Act, which would also direct Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to conduct research and development to enhance the visibility of official insignia and identification.
"Across the country, plain-clothed federal agents in homemade face coverings are lying in wait outside immigration courts to snatch law-abiding, nonviolent immigrants going through our legal system the right way," said Goldman. "This isn't about protecting law enforcement, it's about terrorizing immigrant communities."
The legislation was introduced a day after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed during a Senate hearing that she hadn't been aware of federal agents' recent practice under the Trump administration of wearing masks while completing law enforcement work.
PETERS: How are you gonna ensure the safety of the public & officers if they continue to not follow required protocol to ID themselves as law enforcement?BONDI: That's the first that issue has come to me. You're saying officers when they cover their faces? I do know they are being doxxed.
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) June 25, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Todd Lyons, ICE's acting director, also said recently that the agency's officers "wear masks for personal protection and to prevent doxxing."
But as New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote Wednesday, "ICE has no right to anonymity."
"All people engaged in public service, from the president to an officer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are bound by the nature of a public office to act with some fidelity to the public interest," wrote Bouie. "At a minimum, they must be accountable to the people they serve, ready to accept responsibility when they abuse their power or violate the trust of the public."
Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, said that by granting ICE agents anonymity, the Trump administration has begun "a war on immigrant communities carried out in the shadows... an unconstitutional campaign of terror."
"Armed, unmarked federal agents are stalking immigrants outside courtrooms and targeting people who are following the rules and fighting for their lives. These tactics are ripped straight from an authoritarian playbook," said Awawdeh. "We will not be silenced nor intimidated by these actions. We are on the right side of the law and we will fight tooth and nail to end this assault on our people and our democracy. We call for the swift passage of the No Secret Police Act."
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