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customs and border protection
Congress Is Funding The Trump Regime's Anti-Immigrant Violence
The ICE and CBP budgets are soaring at the same time that funding for legal immigration through US Citizenship and Immigration Services would get a 23% cut.
Feb 10, 2026
This week, members of Congress are negotiating funding levels for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, after public opposition soared when federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
As of January 25, ICE held more than 70,000 people in detention, and claimed more than 352,000 deportations. In 2025, at least 32 people died in ICE custody, and so far in 2026, at least eight people have died in the custody or at the hands of ICE and CBP, including Renee Good and Alex Pretti. ICE and CBP have targeted citizens, documented immigrants, and undocumented people alike. They have targeted adults and children. ICE is now holding an average of 170 children in detention each day.
They can do all of this because ICE and CBP are flush with money from last year’s Big Ugly Bill that stripped health insurance and food assistance from Americans while padding the budgets of ICE, CBP, and the Pentagon. The bill provided $170 billion for the Trump-GOP mass deportation agenda and $156 billion for the Pentagon, to be available through September 2029. That includes nearly $75 billion for ICE and more than $58 billion for CBP.
The “regular” annual budgets for ICE and CBP totaled about $33 billion in FY 2025. If legislators funded ICE and CBP at those levels for the current year, combined with funding from the Big Bad Bill, the annual budgets for those agencies would total $64.9 billion (assuming the Big Bad Bill funds are spent equally over the 51 months they’re available). That amounts to a 92% increase over the previous highest funding level for the agencies, which was $33.8 billion in FY 2019; a 209% increase since FY 2024; and a 441% increase since the creation of ICE in FY 2002.
(Sources: OMB, DHS, HR 1/ OBBRA)
This doesn’t even include additional funding to support mass deportations through the Department of Defense and local law enforcement agencies.
The ICE and CBP budgets are soaring at the same time that funding for legal immigration through US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would get a 23% cut from FY 2024 to FY 2026. And the Big Bad Bill significantly increased fees across categories of legal immigration.
(Sources: OMB, DHS, HR 1/ OBBRA)
The message is clear: This regime is anti-immigrant. This was never about law enforcement, or else the legal paths to immigration would remain open. Instead, budgets for legal immigration are being cut while the Trump regime strips legal status from successive groups of formerly documented immigrants.
The danger is that large numbers of legislators in both parties appear likely to approve relatively even baseline funding levels for ICE and CBP with limited procedural safeguards, while leaving the Big Bad Bill funding intact. The deaths and violence in detention centers and on our streets mean that any additional funding for ICE and CBP will only enable more violence.
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ICE Is Indefensible, Irredeemable, and Illegitimate
Minneapolis is showing us all how to deal with a rogue, murderous agency that has lost the consent of the governed.
Jan 31, 2026
Another American citizen has been murdered in the streets of Minneapolis at the hands of a federal immigration enforcement agent. This victim, a 37-year-old ICU nurse named Alex Pretti, was killed on January 24 while tending to the injuries of a woman agents had pushed to the ground. The previous victim, Renee Good, was a 37-year-old mother of three who was executed in her car on January 7.
In both of these cases, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed the agents were acting in self-defense. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem immediately issued a statement accusing Good of “domestic terrorism.” Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller denounced Pretti as “a would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal law enforcement.” These statements, released before any investigation took place, seem intended to halt any investigation at all and make the “official” story the only one that counts.
But anyone who’s watched the videos of these killings knows that neither of them were in self-defense. Good’s car was pointing away from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross when he put three bullets in her. Her last words were, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.” Pretti was lawfully carrying a holstered gun, but he was unarmed and down on the ground when a Customs and Border Protection agent emptied a magazine into him.
The executions of Good and Pretti are only the tip of the iceberg. In Minnesota alone, ICE’s reign of terror has included blinding a young man with a nonlethal round, shooting teargas into a car filled with children, and abducting children as young as 5 years old. Videos of these incidents and countless others, filmed daily by ordinary Americans around the country, show the unforgivable violence that President Donald Trump, ICE, and Border Patrol are unleashing on the American people.
The Evolution of ICE, From Bad to Worse to Gestapo
Formed in 2003 by the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11, ICE is a relic of the War on Terror, founded when there was widespread fear of al-Qaeda entering the country through the Mexican border. Its purview is fairly broad, covering more than 400 statutes related to immigration, trade, and customs.
The agency’s evolution into a paramilitary organization, deployed in high numbers on American streets, is new to President Trump. His second administration quickly began a mass recruiting campaign for ICE, offering generous salaries and high sign-on bonuses and appealing specifically to white nationalists. Then Trump green-lit the agency’s escalating use of violence and intensified its presence in American communities, all while Congress increased its budget astronomically.
Now the agency acts as an invading and occupying force, loyal solely to Trump and not to the law, the Constitution, or any state or local governing bodies. Its actions have put it in conflict not only with American citizens but with local law enforcement and, in some states, even the National Guard. Some of ICE’s violent, unconstitutional, and immoral tactics include:
- A racially targeted, Gestapo-style “show me your paperwork” approach to enforcement. Rather than using investigative police work to go after the “worst of the worst,” as Trump once pledged, ICE agents simply stop whoever they think looks like they might not have been born here. They are raiding job sites, restaurants, public areas, schools, and even impersonating police and going door-to-door, apparently trying to meet Miller’s 3,000-deportations-a-day quota. At least 170 US citizens have been swept up in raids like these, some of them violently assaulted and detained for days.
- Arresting people in the midst of immigration hearings. Republicans often say they don’t mind immigrants as long as they do it the “right way.” But ICE has stalked immigration courts to capture people doing just that, deporting them right in the middle of trying to get their paperwork sorted.
- Detaining and disappearing people into concentration camp-like detention centers. The most notorious facility currently used by ICE is CECOT in El Salvador, a supermax gulag with brutally inhuman conditions and a chilling reputation for torture. But in America, conditions may be no better. Amnesty International condemned Florida’s secretive Alligator Alcatraz as “cruel, inhuman, and degrading.” Detention facilities are refusing to provide medical care. Detainees sometimes disappear entirely, leaving their lawyers and family members unable to reach them or find out if they’re alive. In 2025, at least 32 people died in ICE custody that we know of.
- Compiling a mass surveillance database and labeling Americans domestic terrorists. ICE partners with Palantir, a nefarious tech and AI company co-founded by billionaire Trump-ally Peter Thiel, to not only track immigrants but also to keep records on Americans who oppose them. This effort is closely tied to NSPM-7, a presidential memo that effectively sets the table for Trump to declare any political or ideological opponent an enemy of the state. One ICE agent told a woman recording him in Maine, “We have a nice little database, and now you're considered a domestic terrorist.”
- Killing Americans in broad daylight. The executions of Good and Pretti were not mistakes or accidents brought about by poor training. They were immediately backed up by the administration as good and proper responses, with Vice President JD Vance even declaring the agents have “absolute immunity.” ICE agents have since invoked these incidents to threaten Americans, with one saying, “Have y’all not learned from the past couple days?... Is this how you want to die?” This is terrorism, plain and simple—violence and intimidation to achieve their authoritarian political goals.
For a MAGA true believer, all this is forgivable because, in their minds, anyone without the right paperwork is a criminal, anyone who protects them is also a criminal, and any violence the state uses against criminals is justified. In reality, undocumented immigrants commit violent and drug-related crimes at a much lower rate than the native-born population, and simply being here without the proper authorization is codified as a civil offense, not a crime.
Not all of these abuses are brand new. Immigration activists have long blasted ICE and US immigration policy, especially under former President Barack Obama. But the scale, violence, regularity of abuse, and lack of accountability have turned the situation into a five-alarm fire. ICE is acting well outside its statutory duties, committing crimes and terrorizing communities to carry out its mission as handed down by Trump, Noem, Miller, and other MAGA extremists.
Skating on Thin Ice With the American People
If there is a silver lining in any of this, it's that people are fed up with it. Residents in Minneapolis have turned out en masse to protest ICE. They are protecting one another through constant filming, as well as blowing whistles to alert neighbors to the presence of ICE agents. On January 23, tens of thousands of Minnesotans marched down the streets in the state’s biggest general strike in 100 years. They shuttered businesses and halted labor with the understanding that the best way to combat the system is to hit it in the only spot it truly feels pain: its pockets.
Most elected officials aren’t yet close to representing the energy and anger of the people. Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) still speak of reforming ICE rather than abolishing it. But there have been increasing calls for things like the impeachment of Kristi Noem, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has deployed the National Guard to, hopefully, protect his state’s residents.
In the battle for hearts and minds, at least, MAGA is losing. Even on Fox News, they are struggling to uphold the narrative. In an interview with FBI Director Kash Patel, far-right pundit Maria Bartiromo was incredulous that Alex Pretti posed a threat and said: “There is outrage across the country… Someone is dead at the hands of border patrol.” At this point, only the most diehard MAGA faithful seem to be buying the administration’s talking points.
Essential immigration and customs functions can be reallocated to other agencies, but there is no need for storm troopers to go door-to-door demanding to see people’s papers under threat of violence. It is rank Nazism.
While these recent excesses might give the Trump administration a black eye in the public view, it’s only part of a larger struggle being waged. This violence and chaos is not an accidental byproduct. The administration doesn’t care about casualties, and they aren’t interested in making nice. It’s about seeing how far they can go, how much power they can grab, and then defying the American people to do something about it.
Recall who we’re dealing with here. Stephen Miller is widely believed to be in charge of the administration’s law enforcement and border policy. He’s the most brazenly fascistic senior member of the administration and, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, has an “affinity for white nationalism.” Meanwhile Greg Bovino, the commander of US Border Patrol and the only field agent who goes out unmasked, essentially cosplays as an SS agent.
Amid the chaos in Minneapolis, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a mafioso-style letter to Gov. Walz telling him that all he had to do to “bring back law and order to Minnesota” was hand over his state’s voter data in exchange for ICE withdrawal. This alone shows that their goals go far beyond immigration reform or enforcement. They’re interested in a complete takeover, which requires that they muddle election integrity and identify and track enemies of the regime. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said of Bondi’s letter: “This is blackmail. This is the way organized crime works. They move into your neighborhood, they start beating everybody up, and then they extort what they want.” So far, it hasn’t worked.
In the Declaration of Independence, the founders wrote that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Through their actions and violent abuses, ICE have lost that and then some. Americans are right and justified in their filming, protest, and even obstruction of ICE. Now we need to go further.
At the political level, sorting all this out means removing ICE from streets, eliminating their overly broad national security powers, canceling their partnerships with big tech, prosecuting the Trump administration officials responsible for these abuses, and throwing out of office the Democrats who funded it. In plain language, we need to abolish ICE. Essential immigration and customs functions can be reallocated to other agencies, but there is no need for storm troopers to go door-to-door demanding to see people’s papers under threat of violence. It is rank Nazism.
Once that’s done, we need to take a much broader look at our use of state violence. It’s no coincidence that the killing of two white people is causing cracks in the dam. This is the way we’ve been treating less fortunate people for decades, from the militarized police killings of Black Americans to the genocide we funded in Gaza. As a nation we remained largely indifferent to those atrocities. Wake-up calls are always welcome, but America can’t go back to sleep if and when this stage of the violence is contained.
The lesson is that the worst our government does can be done to any of us at any time, and we all need to work to curtail it. Minnesotans are showing us the way with their fearless solidarity and general strike. Trump’s campaign against blue states and his occupation of Minneapolis look like the early stages of a civil war. It needs to be stopped now, and the perpetrators held to account before their power has the chance to grow an iota.
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1,000+ Organizations to Congress: ‘No Funds for ICE and Border Patrol’
"How many more people have to die, how many more lies have to be told, and how many more children must be used as bait and abducted?"
Jan 27, 2026
A broad coalition of more than 1,000 advocacy organizations sent a letter on Tuesday pushing members of Congress to immediately stop all funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, agencies at the forefront of the Trump administration's violent mass deportation campaign and crackdown on dissent.
"We the undersigned 1,025 organizations write to express our horror, outrage, and deep grief about the news that federal agents have executed a human being in broad daylight on the streets of Minneapolis," reads the letter, headlined "No Funds for ICE and Border Patrol."
"How many more people have to die, how many more lies have to be told, and how many more children must be used as bait and abducted before Congress fulfills its responsibilities and stops these out-of-control agencies from continuing to violently attack our immigrant communities and communities of color, as well as their many allies and supporters?" the coalition asks.
"We demand an immediate halt in all funding for these deadly operations until the violence, abuses, and deaths in American communities and in immigration detention centers stop," the letter continues. "Congress must refuse to provide one dollar to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Border Patrol through the appropriations process and immediately take action to revoke the tens of billions already given through last summer’s reconciliation bill."
The message, organized by Detention Watch Network, was released as US senators prepared to consider a package of six appropriations bills that includes a measure proposing more than $64 billion in funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE and CBP. The DHS funding package includes $10 billion for ICE, which is currently the highest-funded US law enforcement agency.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said his caucus will block the appropriations package if it includes the DHS funding bill, which Republicans still support despite the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that DHS agents "have fired shots during enforcement arrests or at people protesting their operations 16 times since July, and as in the recent shootings in Minneapolis, in each case the Trump administration has publicly declared their actions justified before waiting for investigations to be completed."
"Most of the incidents involve officers firing at drivers during enforcement stops in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, where DHS has surged federal immigration officers," the Post noted. "At least 10 people have been struck by bullets—including four US citizens. Three people have been killed."
Democrats have proposed stripping the DHS appropriations measure from the broader funding package and considering it as a standalone bill, with passage conditioned on ICE reforms.
"What you do now will be remembered for future generations—take a stand today while you still have the power to do so."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) outlined a number of proposed reforms, including "no more masked secret police" and specific requirements that ICE agents obtain "a warrant from an independent judge before barging into people’s homes and snatching people from their communities."
"That’s just the start," Warren wrote on social media. "There’s more we can do to rein in ICE. Stripping the DHS bill from the Senate budget package this week is one of the best options we’ve got to slam on the brakes, condition any funding, and put some basic controls in place to stop this violence."
In their letter on Tuesday, the advocacy coalition demanded that senators "act decisively and show DHS and the communities you serve that this cruelty and lawlessness is unacceptable and must end now."
"When federal agents are patrolling the streets of American cities and gunning people down in broad daylight, the bare minimum
response is to stop the funding that enables these violent agencies to carry out these atrocities," the coalition wrote. "You have the power and responsibility to stop this. What you do now will be remembered for future generations—take a stand today while you still have the power to do so."
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‘He Beat the Wrap’: Sandwich-Hurling DC Protestor Found Not Guilty of Assault
"No assault with a deli weapon after all," joked one reporter after the verdict.
Nov 06, 2025
Sean Dunn, the former US Department of Justice employee who was famously hurled a sandwich at Customs and Border Protection officers this past summer, has been found not guilty on misdemeanor assault charges.
Jurors acquitted Dunn on Thursday after deliberating for several hours after his trial ended on Wednesday afternoon. According to CNN, Dunn told reporters after the verdict that he was "relieved and looking forward to moving on with my life."
US Attorney Jeanine Pirro had originally tried to charge Dunn with felony assault, but lowered the charge to a misdemeanor offense after a grand jury in Washington, DC refused to indict him.
Dunn was caught on camera angrily throwing a sandwich at federal immigration enforcement officers back in August, and he could be heard calling the officers “fascists,” and telling them they were not welcome in his city.
Shortly afterward, Pirro vowed to throw the proverbial book at Dunn for his food-tossing transgression.
“He thought it was funny,” Pirro said in a video she posted on social media. “Well, he doesn’t think it’s funny today because we charged him with a felony. And we’re gonna back the police to the hilt! So, there. Stick your Subway sandwich somewhere else.”
Dunn's case became a cause célèbre for many Washington, DC residents who have opposed President Donald Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard and to conduct aggressive immigration raids in their city.
Many journalists reacted to news of Dunn's acquittal by deploying a number of sandwich-related puns.
"Apparently you can indict a ham sandwich but you can’t convict turkey sub," joked tech journalist Kara Swisher in a post on Bluesky.
"You could say he... beat the wrap," wrote Los Angeles-based independent journalist Mel Buer.
"If the hoagie didn't hit, you must acquit!" wrote The Bulwark's Sam Stein on X.
"No assault with a deli weapon after all," remarked Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Dawsey.
"Congratulations, US Attorney Pirro, for making Sean Dunn the hero that DC deserves," wrote journalist Marcy Wheeler.
"Another jury finds another Trump DOJ case sub-par," wrote Adam Klasfeld, editor-in-chief of All Rise News.
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'How Is That an Assault?' DC Residents Scoff as Trial Starts for Man Who Chucked Sandwich at Trump Agent
"I don't know how a DC jury would convict," said one resident who was not selected to serve on the jury.
Nov 04, 2025
The trial of Sean Dunn, a former Justice Department employee who threw a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent in protest in early August, began Monday, weeks after US Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office failed to secure a felony indictment.
Dunn, who is now facing a misdemeanor assault charge, has become a symbol of public resistance to and disdain for President Donald Trump's deployment of masked federal immigration agents to the streets of US cities.
DC residents who were not chosen to serve on the jury for the trial expressed deep skepticism that the latest attempt to indict Dunn would end any differently than the first.
"How is that an assault?” one DC woman asked of Dunn's sandwich throw, which was caught on video. Before hurling the sandwich, Dunn screamed at the agents and called them "fascists."
Another person who was not selected to serve on the jury told CNN that they "don't know how a DC jury would convict."
The trial is expected to be quick. The judge, Trump appointee Carl Nichols, called it "the simplest case in the world" and predicted a two-day trial.
Dunn's lawyers have argued in court that the Trump administration's prosecution attempts amount to "a blatant abuse of power."
"The federal government has chosen to bring a criminal case over conduct so minor it would be comical—were it not for the
unmistakable retaliatory motive behind it and the resulting risk to Mr. Dunn," Dunn's lawyers said. "Mr. Dunn tossed a sandwich at a fully armed, heavily protected Customs and Border Protection officer. That act alone would never have drawn a federal charge. What did was the political speech that accompanied it."
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DC Grand Jury Refuses to Indict Sandwich-Throwing Man Opposed to Trump City Takeover
The Times described the grand jury's refusal to indict Sean Dunn as a "remarkable failure" by prosecutors and "a sharp rebuke by ordinary citizens."
Aug 27, 2025
A grand jury on Tuesday reportedly refused to hand down a felony indictment against Sean Dunn, a former paralegal at the United States Department of Justice who hurled a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer earlier this month.
Two sources have told The New York Times that federal prosecutors came up empty in their first attempt to get a grand jury to charge Dunn with felony assault against a federal officer, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of eight years in prison.
The New York Times described this development as a "remarkable failure" and "a sharp rebuke by ordinary citizens against the team of prosecutors who are dealing with the fallout from President Trump's move to send National Guard troops and federal agents into the city on patrol."
Video of Dunn hurling a sandwich at the officer quickly went viral earlier this month. Before he threw the sandwich, Dunn was heard calling the officers "fascists," and telling them they were not welcome in his city.
Shortly after, current US Attorney and former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro vowed to throw the proverbial book at Dunn for his food-tossing transgressions.
"He thought it was funny," Pirro said in a video she posted on social media. "Well, he doesn't think it's funny today because we charged him with a felony. And we're gonna back the police to the hilt! So, there. Stick your Subway sandwich somewhere else."
This is at least the second time in recent days that Pirro's office has failed to secure a grand jury indictment for alleged assault of a federal officer.
The New York Times reported on Monday that federal prosecutors had reduced charges against a woman named Sidney Lori Reid, who was accused of assaulting an FBI agent during a protest against Trump's immigration policies last month. The decision to refile Reid's case as a misdemeanor came after prosecutors failed on three separate occasions to convince a grand jury to charge her with felony offenses.
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Masked Border Protection Agents Open Fire on Family's Truck After Smashing Its Windows
"I had to protect my life and my family... my truck was shot three times," said the vehicle's driver.
Aug 17, 2025
A family in San Bernardino, California is in shock after masked federal agents opened fire on their truck.
As NBC Los Angeles reported, Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agents on Saturday morning surrounded the family's truck and demanded that its passengers exit the vehicle.
A video of the incident filmed from inside the truck showed the passengers asked the agents to provide identification, which they declined to do.
An agent was then heard demanding that the father, who had been driving the truck, get out of the vehicle. Seconds later, the agent started smashing the car's windows in an attempt to get inside the vehicle.
The father then hit the gas to try to escape, after which several shots could be heard as agents opened fire. Local news station KTLA reported that, after the father successfully fled the scene, he called local police and asked for help because "masked men" had opened fire on his truck.
Looks like, for the first time I'm aware of, masked agents opened fire today, in San Bernardino. Sources posted below: pic.twitter.com/eE1GMglECg
— Eric Levai (@ericlevai) August 17, 2025
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defended the agents' actions in a statement to NBC Los Angeles.
"In the course of the incident the suspect drove his car at the officers and struck two CBP officers with his vehicle," they said. "Because of the subjects forcing a CBP officer to discharge his firearm in self-defense."
But the father, who only wished to be identified as "Francisco," pointed out that the agents refused to identify themselves and presented no warrants to justify the search of his truck.
"I had to protect my life and my family," he explained to NBC Los Angeles. "My truck was shot three times."
His son-in-law, who only wished to be identified as "Martin," was similarly critical of the agents' actions.
"Its just upsetting that it happened to us," he said. "I am glad my brother is okay, Pop is okay, but it's just not cool that [immigration enforcement officials are] able to do something like that."
According to KTLA, federal agents surrounded the family's house later that afternoon and demanded that the father come out so that he could be arrested. He refused, and agents eventually departed from the neighborhood without detaining him.
Local advocacy group Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice said on its Instagram page that it was "mobilizing to provide legal support" for the family.
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Korean Scientist With Green Card Detained for a Week and Denied Access to His Lawyer
"If the Constitution doesn't apply to somebody who's lived in this country for 35 years and is a green-card holder... the Constitution doesn't apply to anybody who's been in this country for less time than him," said an attorney representing the scientist.
Jul 29, 2025
A permanent U.S. resident has been held in detention for the last week without apparent explanation and without access to legal representation, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
According to the Post, 40-year-old Tae Heung "Will" Kim was detained by immigration officials at the San Francisco International Airport on July 21 after returning from attending his brother's wedding in Korea. In the week since his detention, he has still not been released despite being a green-card holder who has lived in the United States since the age of five.
Eric Lee, an attorney representing Kim, said he has been unable to contact his client and that Kim's only past brush with the law came back in 2011 when he was ordered to perform community service over a minor marijuana possession charge in Texas.
A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seemed to suggest in a statement to the Post that this past instance of marijuana possession was enough justification to detain and deport Kim.
"If a green-card holder is convicted of a drug offense, violating their status, that person is issued a Notice to Appear and CBP coordinates detention space with ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations]," they said. "This alien is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings."
Lee told the Post that he reached out to CBP to ask whether his client had protections under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution that guarantee rights such as the right to an attorney. In response, the CBP official simply told Lee, "No."
"If the Constitution doesn't apply to somebody who's lived in this country for 35 years and is a green-card holder—and only left the country for a two-week vacation—that means [the government] is basically arguing that the Constitution doesn't apply to anybody who's been in this country for less time than him," Lee said.
Lee added that it would be particularly uncommon for immigration officials to deport his client based solely on a 2011 marijuana possession charge given that Kim had successfully petitioned to seal the offense from his public record after fulfilling his community service requirements. Because of this, Lee said that Kim's case should easily clear the waiver process that allows officials to overlook past minor offenses that could otherwise be used to justify stripping people of their permanent legal resident status.
Prior to his detention, Kim was pursuing a PhD at Texas A&M University, where he was doing research to help develop a vaccine against Lyme disease.
Immigration enforcement officials under the second Trump administration have been particularly aggressive in trying to deport students who are legally in the United States.
Turkish-born Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk was detained for months earlier this year after she was apparently targeted for writing an editorial in her student newspaper critical of the school's refusal to divest from Israel. Russian-born Harvard University scientist Kseniia Petrova, meanwhile, is currently facing deportation after she was charged with allegedly smuggling frog embryos into the United States.
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California Leaders Push Back on 'Masked Abductions' by ICE, CBP
"Men dressed in tactical gear, operating unmarked vehicles without displaying credentials or agency affiliation, have infiltrated our neighborhoods," said Huntington Park Mayor Arturo Flores.
Jun 23, 2025
As U.S. President Donald Trump's "mass deportation" crusade continues, a mayor in Los Angeles County is calling on his city's police department to intervene, citing what he described as increasingly lawless conduct by federal immigration officers.
Arturo Flores, the mayor of Huntington Park, issued a statement on Saturday condemning what he called "masked abductions" by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has spent the past month raiding workplaces, farms, and homes as part of the Trump administration's efforts to ramp up the deportation campaign.
"These are not lawful arrests. These are abductions," said Flores. "For more than a week, we have witnessed families being torn apart, children left without parents, and residents vanishing without explanation. Men dressed in tactical gear, operating unmarked vehicles without displaying credentials or agency affiliation, have infiltrated our neighborhoods in direct violation of our community’s values, civil rights, and the basic principles of due process."
Flores formally ordered the Huntington Park Police Department "to begin verifying the identities and authority of any individuals conducting such operations within city limits" and to enforce vehicle codes requiring cars to have visible license plates and agency markings.
On June 12, Huntington Park was turned into a national spectacle when it was targeted for a high-profile raid attended by Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. The DHS chief arrived with a squadron of masked, armed federal agents at a home DHS claimed was occupied by a dangerous criminal. But when they stormed the home with rifles, the only people inside were a pregnant mother and her four kids—all U.S. citizens.
The family was not arrested, but Flores said he has since received several reports of masked and unidentified federal officers snatching people off the streets in broad daylight.
"These actions have sparked rumors of unauthorized vigilantes or bounty hunters operating under the guise of federal enforcement, have triggered widespread fear and confusion throughout the community," he said.
Mayors across the country have issued strong condemnations to ICE's actions in their communities, while some have said they'd refuse to cooperate with federal immigration raids. However, Flores is one of very few who have gone a step further, urging local officers to intervene in situations where federal officers violate the rights of those they detain.
"This is not immigration enforcement. This is state-sanctioned intimidation," said Flores.
That sense of intimidation is spreading through communities across the Los Angeles area. As The Guardian reported on Saturday, the crackdown has left some of Los Angeles' Latino neighborhoods resembling "ghost towns" where people are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being snatched off the street next.
The sight of masked, unidentified officers in plain clothes abducting people without identifying themselves or giving any explanation for their arrests has become an increasingly common sight all across the United States as the Trump administration has turbocharged its efforts to round up undocumented immigrants, the majority of whom have no criminal records.
Though there is no federal statute requiring federal officers to identify themselves, past leaders of these agencies told CNN that masking has historically been reserved for highly sensitive work, like undercover operations.
"The way that they're carrying on without any visible identification—even that they're law enforcement, much less what agency they're with—it really is pretty unprecedented to see at this scale, and I think it’s very dangerous," said Scott Shuchart, a senior ICE official during the Biden administration.
Many videos have circulated of officers violating detainees' rights in flagrant ways while under the cover of anonymity.
On Saturday, multiple masked Customs and Border Protection officers were filmed brutally beating 48-year-old Narciso Barranco, the father of three U.S. Marines, in an IHOP parking lot in Santa Ana.
(Video: KTLA5, via @santaanaproblems on Instagram)
Video has spread across social media of officers forcing Barranco to the ground, striking him in the head at least six times, and kneeling on his neck, pushing his face onto the concrete before dragging the man, frightened and bloody, into an unmarked white van. According to Barranco's sons, he is undocumented, but has no criminal record.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) has called for the incident to be investigated.
"This is horrific, unacceptable violence by ICE—an increasingly rogue agency with zero respect for the law," she said.
In response to the attack on Barranco and others like it, two Bay Area legislators, state Sens. Scott Wiener (D-11) and Jesse Arreguín (D-7), introduced a bill on Monday that would require law enforcement at all levels, including federal, to identify themselves and bar them from wearing masks.
"People covering their faces, impersonating police officers—it erodes trust in law enforcement and it undermines community safety," Arreguín said.
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Journalist Who Decried Trump's 'Deportation of Dissent' Says He Was Deported for Dissent
"Alistair Kitchen's deportation is a clear case of retaliation in connection with his reporting, and such action sends a chilling message to journalists," said one press freedom defender.
Jun 18, 2025
A leading press freedom advocate on Tuesday condemned the United States' "disturbing pattern" of screening and expelling international visitors for their political viewpoints following the detention and removal of an Australian journalist who criticized the Trump administration's targeting of Palestine defenders on college campuses.
Alistair Kitchen said he was detained for 12 hours and interrogated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in Los Angeles International Airport while en route from Melbourne, Australia to New York last week.
"If you are deleting social media 48 hours before your flight to the U.S., it is already too late."
"I was denied entry, detained, and deported from the USA over the last 48 hours because of my reporting on the Columbia [University] student protests," Kitchen wrote Friday on the social media site Bluesky. "I arrived back in Melbourne hours ago and had my phone handed back to me upon landing."
"I had it easy," he added, "one woman had been in that detention room four days when I arrived; she's still there."
Kitchen said that CBP agents "were waiting for me when I got off the plane," and although he "had cleaned up my online presence expecting ad hoc digital sweeps," he "was not prepared for their sophistication."
"If you are deleting social media 48 hours before your flight to the U.S., it is already too late," he stressed.
Kitchen wrote that the agents "just came out and said it: 'We both know why you've been detained…it's because of what you wrote about the protests at Columbia,'" he recounted.
"Writers, artists, and scholars must be free to express their views openly without compromising their free movement across borders," said PEN America's @jonfreadom.bsky.social following detainment and deportation of Australian writer Alistair Kitchen for his personal writings pen.org/press-releas...
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— PEN America (@penamerica.bsky.social) June 17, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Responding to Kitchen's ordeal, Jonathan Friedman, managing director of the U.S. Free Expression Programs at PEN America, said in a statement Tuesday that "it is gravely concerning to read an account of someone being detained and turned away at the border due to their writings on student protests, Palestine, and the Trump administration."
"Writers, artists, and scholars must be free to express their views openly without compromising their free movement across borders," Friedman added. "Kitchen's account fits a disturbing pattern, in which border agents appear to be screening visitors to the U.S. for their viewpoints. That is anti-democratic, and it must be halted."
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)—which earlier this year issued its first-ever travel advisory for journalists entering the United States, including warnings about searches of electronic devices—called Kitchen's detention and expulsion "alarming."
"Alistair Kitchen's deportation is a clear case of retaliation in connection with his reporting, and such action sends a chilling message to journalists that they must support the administration's narratives or face forms of retribution," CPJ U.S., Canada, and Caribbean Program coordinator Katherine Jacobsen said Monday.
"Foreign media operating on U.S. soil are covered by First Amendment protections, and it is incumbent upon U.S. officials—from [CBP] to the White House—to allow journalists to do their jobs and travel freely without fear of reprisal," Jacobsen added.
Kitchen suspects CBP agents used technology contracted from Palantir, which has been targeted by the No Tech for Apartheid movement over its involvement in Project Nimbus, a cloud computing collaboration between Israel's military and tech titans Amazon and Google criticized for enabling Israeli human rights crimes.
In March, Kitchen published a piece on his Kitchen Counter blog, titled "On the Deportation of Dissent." The post highlighted the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident and former Columbia University student and Palestine solidarity activist arrested on March 8 by plainclothes Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers in front of his pregnant wife in New York before being transferred to New Jersey and then to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement lockup in Louisiana, where he missed the birth of his son.
Khalil, who the Trump administration admits has committed no crime, is being held as a political prisoner under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which empowers the secretary of state to expel noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests. Numerous foreign nationals, including green-card holders, have been targeted under the law for criticizing Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza and U.S. complicity.
Kitchen wrote:
The goal here is the deportation of dissent. In an executive order 10 days ago, the Trump administration promised to "go on offense to enforce law and order" by "cancel[ing] the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses." This is a mode of speech suppression that seeks to physically remove the undesirable elements it can, and, through fear, ensure silence in everyone else.
To my mind the arrest of a student on utterly specious grounds by a neo-fascist state, clearly designed to breed a climate of fear among students, calls for the resignation of a university president. That role is untenable so long as it does not involve the ferocious protection of student speech. The same goes for faculty, who last year demonstrated a mixed commitment to the defense of students. The situation requires their concerted action.
"The CBP explicitly said to me, the reason you have been detained is because of your writing on the Columbia student protests," Kitchen told Guardian Australia on Sunday.
However, a DHS spokesperson denied Kitchen's assertion, telling the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he was denied entry to the United States "because he gave false information" regarding alleged drug use on his Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) application.
"Lawful travelers have nothing to fear from [vetting] measures, which are designed to protect our nation's security," the spokesperson added. "However, those intending to enter the U.S. with fraudulent purposes or malicious intent are offered the following advice: Don't even try."
Kitchen told Guardian Australia that he had previously indicated on an ESTA application that he had not done drugs, but admitted under interrogation that he legally purchased marijuana in New York state and partook while abroad.
"There's certainly not proof of me doing drugs on my phone," he said. "But this is a method of interrogation that uses entrapment."
Kitchen added that "in retrospect, I should have... accepted immediate deportation," but that he was "too compliant, too trustful, too hopeful" at the start of his detention.
Free press advocates said Kitchen's detention and removal was yet another sign that "we are becoming a police state," as well as a reason "to avoid the United States as a holiday destination like the bubonic plague," and, as the hacktivist collective Anonymous called it, "a harsh lesson in digital footprints."
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