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'It Must Stop': New Yorkers Protest After Violent ICE Raid on Canal Street Sparks Chaos
"Once again, the Trump administration chooses authoritarian theatrics that create fear, not safety," said NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Oct 22, 2025
More scenes of chaos and community anger erupted Tuesday night in downtown New York City as federal agents under the orders of President Donald Trump targeted a popular area for street vendors, many of them immigrants struggling to get by, and shoppers looking for more affordable bags, clothing, and other accessories than what's available in retail stores.
Illegal street vending is a well-known practice in the Canal Street area of Chinatown. Still, the arrival of masked agents and military-style vehicles on Tuesday devolved into another episode of violence in Trump's America, with frightened vendors running for their lives and passersby expressing outrage over the violence being used against the unlicensed retailers.
According to local WABC 7:
NewsCopter 7 showed arrests taking place between Lafayette and Center streets in Chinatown, an area typically busy with merchants selling T-shirts, handbags, perfumes, and designer knockoffs, as New Yorkers faced off against federal agents.
The scene grew chaotic as vendors packed up their tables and attempted to flee, with several people seen running and falling as authorities from multiple agencies, including Homeland Security, ICE, DEA and the FBI, pursued them.
As agents tried to detain individuals, crowds of New Yorkers gathered, shouting and pushing in an attempt to intervene. Some bystanders were heard cursing at officers, one officer was seen pointing his taser at the angry crowd, and several arrests were made.
Footage from Canal Street posted online showed agents tackling vendors and the angry response from the crowds witnessing the heavy-handed raid:
Trump's Nazi ICE Gestapo has come to Canal Street in New York City to kidnap residents — and New Yorkers are having none of it. 😳👇 pic.twitter.com/olGgtLvjli
— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) October 21, 2025
"Trump's Nazi ICE Gestapo has come to Canal Street in New York City to kidnap residents—and New Yorkers are having none of it," said social justice activist Bill Madded in a social media post, pointing to the footage.
New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani also condemned the raid.
"Federal agents from ICE and HSI—some in military fatigues and masks—descended on Chinatown today in an aggressive and reckless raid on immigrant street vendors," Mamdani said in a statement. "Once again, the Trump administration chooses authoritarian theatrics that create fear, not safety. It must stop."
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for DHS, told the New York Times that the operation was led by ICE and others, including the FBI and Border Patrol, but did not, the newspaper reported, "immediately indicate the number of people arrested or disclose their immigration status." Witnesses said agents were demanding proof of immigration status from those detained.
The surprise raid, noted many observers, came just days after right-wing political commentator Savanah Hernandez, a Trump loyalist, posted a video of herself on Canal Street documenting the street vending scene and denigrating many of the immigrants who find work there.
"A few days ago, this far-right poverty tourist and provocateur discovered Canal Street," noted Justin Brannan, a member of the New York City Council, referencing Hernandez's recent video segment. "Today, Trump’s ICE cowboys marched in. They're not hiding it. They're telegraphing it now."
As masked federal agents target street vendors on Canal Street, THE CITY watched one street vendor being detained.
As the operation carried on, agents were confronted with a spontaneous crowd of protesters.
MORE HERE: https://t.co/DsHGCcdDMV pic.twitter.com/jvAbm0jVgQ
— THE CITY (@THECITYNY) October 22, 2025
While members of the New York community denounced the raid, Hernandez, who is not from New York City, took a bow for what she accepted as her role in instigating it.
"Illegal immigration and the crime tied to it have been plaguing your city," Hernandez said with pride. "I make no apologies for reporting on what real New Yorkers have to deal with every single day."
A statement from the office of New York's Democratic Governor, Katherine Hochul, described Hernandez as "a bigot" and denounced the operation in the city.
The afternoon raid sparked an impromptu protest in lower Manhattan outside federal buildings that lasted late into the evening, with residents denouncing Trump and the behavior of the agencies operating in the city.
"I am so angry. What are they doing to our city? It's terrible," Nicole Parcher, a New York City resident who attended the protest, told WABC.
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Body Cam Footage Shows Alleged ICE Officer Pulled Over for Drunk Driving Racially Profiling Arresting Officer
The man has been charged with one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence and two felony counts of reckless child endangerment.
Oct 17, 2025
Newly released body camera footage shows a Florida man claiming to be a federal immigration enforcement official racially profiling a police officer who pulled him over on the highway for drunk driving.
The footage, which was published on Thursday by YouTube account "The CrimePiece," shows the arrest of 42-year-old Miami resident Scott Thomas Deiseroth, who was pulled over by officers from the Monroe County Sheriff's Office on August 13.
The footage begins with the officer who pulled Deiseroth over asking him for his identification and asking him if he knew his current location.
Deiseroth reacted belligerently to the officer's questions and told him that he was a federal agent who worked for the Department of Homeland Security. As reported by local news station CBS 12, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office website at one point listed his occupation as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
Deiseroth also told the officer that he was simply trying to get home and informed him that he had his two young sons with him riding in the backseat.
The officer then asked Deiseroth to step out of his car, to which Deiseroth replied, "Are you fucking serious right now?"
After exiting the vehicle, Deiseroth continued to exhibit hostility to the officer's questions, and he repeatedly demanded to know, "Are we really doing this right now?"
The officer then asked him how much he'd had to drink, and Deiseroth replied that he'd had four drinks, without specifying the nature of those drinks.
"Are you guys really trying to fuck me right now?" Deiseroth asked.
The officer informed Deiseroth that he could smell alcohol on him and he wanted to ensure that he was capable of safely driving his vehicle home.
The officer proceeded to administer field sobriety tests. During the tests, another officer came over to ensure that Deiseroth did not stumble while trying to walk a straight line along the side of a busy highway.
Deiseroth then questioned why the second officer, who was Black, was there, and the officer informed him that it was to prevent him from getting hit by oncoming traffic.
Deiseroth responded by repeatedly asking the officer, "Are you Haitian?"
Deiseroth was then informed by the officer administering the sobriety test that "it doesn't matter" where the other officer was from or his heritage.
"Yes it does," Deiseroth replied.
After failing the sobriety tests, Deiseroth was placed in handcuffs and informed that he was being placed under arrest. He then pleaded with the officers to not take him to prison and asked what they were going to do with his two children.
Later, after Deiseroth had been placed in the back of a police car, the officers informed him that his sons' mother—with whom Deiseroth had said earlier he was going through a divorce—would pick up the two children at the police station.
He repeatedly demanded that he be allowed to see his children before being taken to the police station, but the officers did not grant his request.
"Let me see my kids!" he demanded at one point.
"Brother, I really do not want them to see you in the way you're in right now," the officer replied.
Records at the Monroe County Sheriff's Office show that Deiseroth was subsequently charged with one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence and two felony counts of reckless child endangerment.
A request to the Florida State Attorney's Office in Monroe County to confirm Deiseroth's employment status at the time of the arrest was not returned by press time. The criminal case is pending.
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ICE in Chicago: First They Came for the Immigrants
This is an invasion, not by some foreign enemy but by the US government and Donald Trump himself. If we don't defend our neighbors and join our hands together, who will be left when they come for us—as they surely will.
Oct 09, 2025
“Then they came for me . . .”
I can only begin here, at the emotional knifepoint of the ongoing ICE news. ICE in Chicago!
“More than 1,000 immigrants have been arrested since an immigration crackdown started last month in the Chicago area. The Trump administration has also vowed to deploy National Guard troops in its agenda to boost deportations.
“But U.S. citizens, immigrants with legal status and children have been among detained in increasingly brazen and aggressive encounters which pop up daily across neighborhoods in the city of 2.7 million and its many suburbs.”
I read this AP news fragment with particular shock and outrage because I lived in Chicago for 50 years. Today I live 200 miles north of it, in Appleton, Wisconsin, but the city is still me, in a psychological and no doubt spiritual sense. So when I read, for instance:
“Agents used unmarked trucks and a helicopter to surround the five-story apartment building, according to bystander videos and NewsNation, which was invited to observe the operation. The outlet reported agents ‘rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters.’
“Agents then went door to door, woke up residents and used zip ties to restrain them, including parents and children. . . .”
There’s no way I can pull myself back from these words and turn what they’re saying into an abstraction. As Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker put it, this is an invasion, not by some foreign enemy but by the US government and Donald Trump himself. And while, yes, there’s far worse hell happening right now across the planet, my personal connection to Chicago brings the “invasion” to life. And it brings Martin Niemoller in as well.
“First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out – because I am not a socialist . . .
“Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out, because I am not a Jew.
“Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”
This is another way of saying: We are all one. This should be humanity’s moral starting point. It should be our political starting point. The need to speak out for this is never-ending. Why – why? – are we so obsessed with borders? And by “obsessed,” I mean spiritually brain dead about them.
Yes, life is full of “borders,” beginning with me. I’m not you and you are not me. We need a sense of self. We need definition and clarity in our lives. “This” is not “that.” English is not Spanish. The United States is not Mexico and on and on and on. But that’s not the entirety of the matter. Division and separation are only part of what and who we are.
Dig into the soil. Our roots are connected. They are one. We are all Planet Earth – a living and evolving entity. We need each other – which is simply another way of saying: We need to understand, and learn from, each other. That should be our collective effort, rather than fortifying and violently defending our ignorance of one another.
I say this knowing that this can be a deeply complex and difficult process—but, oh God, what if this, rather than militarism, were our political focal point? Indeed, it is the focal point of many institutions and millions, maybe billions, of people. But power – can you believe? – corrupts, and those in power, far too often, focus primarily on keeping what they have, which includes their uninterrupted ignorance of everything beyond themselves.
All of which leads me back to one flickering moment from ICE’s ongoing invasion of Chicago. Jessie Fuentes, an alderperson representing the city’s 26th Ward, confronted ICE at a local hospital. Someone, presumably a constituent, had broken his leg while being chased by ICE agents. He was taken to the emergency room but remained under ICE arrest. Fuentes demanded to see a warrant for his arrest. They ignored her. But she persisted.
And then, suddenly, one of the ICE guys had enough of her questioning and grabbed her, pulling her around and slapping handcuffs on her. Take that, bitch! The moment was caught on video.
Fuentes was arrested for “impeding” ICE–that is, demanding an answer to a legitimate, constitutionally crucial question. She was released a short while later, but nonetheless, that video remains stuck in my head. The look on the agent’s face showed total irritation and loss of patience. He had the authority–the power–to do what he was doing and nothing else mattered.
Any questions?
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