SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
stephen miller
Stephen Miller Embodies the Dark Fascist Heart of Trump's White House
A video of a speech he gave on July 16 is an unintentionally revealing survey of the Trump team's violation of basic legal principles, endangering the rule of law, and its consistent record of falsehoods, endangering public trust in the national leadership.
Aug 28, 2026
The video is not long, just 16 minutes and 25 seconds. But in that short time it provides a remarkable capsule of the Trump administration's ongoing crusade against its critics. In one chilling moment after another, it captures the mentality of that campaign; its content, tone, and style; and its complete disregard for factual accuracy.
The video, taped on July 16, records the words of Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy and Homeland Security adviser, addressing a multinational audience assembled at the State Department for the opening session of meeting convened by Secretary of State Marco Rubio under the title "Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism." In his welcoming address, Rubio defined the meeting's focus: "far-left political terrorism" that he declared has been a "blind spot" in US counterterrorism doctrine, but would now be directly in the government's sights.
Following Rubio to the podium, Miller delivered various—and sometimes unsettling—amplifications on that theme. After an opening passage declaring that under President Trump's leadership, "We have taken the necessary and essential action of formally recognizing left-wing violence as a form of political terrorism that is a direct threat to our national security and the survival of our republican form of government," Miller went on to proclaim that "for the first time in American history," all US law enforcement and intelligence agencies are working together "to disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest, and prosecute these political terrorists that are operating in our country." Then, in one of many questionable passages, he went on with an implied suggestion that the authorities should reject suspected terrorists' claims of their legal rights. Miller put it this way:
One of the hallmarks of left-wing violence and terrorism is its completely pretextual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence. This is the tactic that the left always uses to try to protect itself from facing criminal punishment. It is essential that we are wise enough and strong enough to understand that these appeals must fall on deaf ears. When the leftist, who does not believe in freedom, who does not believe in civil rights, who does not believe in any ordered notion of justice, protests that we are violating his rights, understand that he is lying to try to persuade people who are not closely following the political scene that some injustice has been perpetrated against him.
That doesn't quite say explicitly that a person accused of left-wing terror does not have the same rights that other criminal defendants have in US courts—but it is hard to read Miller's words in any other way. (The following speaker, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, sounded a very different tone, declaring that "in the fight against domestic terrorism, we must respect the constitutional rights, freedom of speech, association, and assembly of all Americans... the Treasury will act based on suspected unlawful conduct by these terror organizations, not because of their beliefs or ideologies." I have no way to know whether those words were in Bessent's prepared text or if he was directly responding to Miller's statement, but in either case they may have brought some relief to listeners who value the rule of law.)
At another point in his speech, Miller falsely told his listeners that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have experienced an "8,000% increase in violent assaults," adding that "these are not one-off episodes. This is repeat, systemic, organized, funded insurrection, an armed resistance against the federal government." Miller's figure is contradicted by the Homeland Security department's own public statements. In January, the department reported that threats to ICE personnel, not actual assaults, had risen by 8,000% in the previous year, while violent attacks had gone up by "more than 1,300%"—less than one-sixth of Miller's alleged increase. That lower figure may have been overstated too, as indicated by a Los Angeles Times investigation of court records in LA and four other cities (San Diego; Portland, Oregon; Chicago; and Washington, DC). More than a third of the cases they reviewed ended in dismissals or acquittals, the Times reporters found, and a majority of the alleged assaults had not caused any injury to the federal agents involved.
A few minutes later, Miller raised a quite different and somewhat peculiar issue: "When you look at these violent antifa demonstrations and you see any photograph of those who were assembled—to be blunt, not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal. They’re all deformed in some way—in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism... If you look at two photographs and you see a normal American in the street and you see an Antifa protest, why do the people that are violently demonstrating—why is there not one normal-looking person among them?" Miller did not explain exactly what he finds odd in the protesters' appearance—and unlike most of his talking points, that one seems to be uniquely his, not one commonly heard from others in the Trump orbit.
In another questionable passage, Miller claimed that the phenomenon of "jury nullification" has regularly enabled leftist terrorists to escape conviction for their crimes. He explained the term this way: "This is when a person is obviously guilty of a crime but the juror, because they’re ideologically sympathetic to the perpetrator, will not sentence them to the crime which was obviously committed," adding, "We’ve seen in the United States, again and again, individuals who are part of left-wing organizations who’ve committed assaults against ICE officers or federal law enforcement, who’ve been brought to court, where clear evidence has been presented against them, that the jury has refused to convict for purely political reasons."
Miller gave no examples and cited no facts to support the implication that persuading jurors to acquit guilty defendants has been a deliberate tactic employed by leftist organizations. In past statements, he has explicitly cited at least one specific case: the acquittal last December of a Los Angeles tow-truck driver who was arrested after moving an ICE vehicle while the officers were arresting a suspected illegal immigrant. The defendant, Bobby Nunez, was charged with stealing federal government property, an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison. At his trial, his lawyers argued that the ICE agents' SUV was blocking a driveway, that Nunez towed it only one block away, and that it was out of the agents' possession for just 13 minutes.
Without having heard their deliberations, we have no way to know how the jurors reasoned in reaching their not-guilty verdict, if that decision stemmed principally from opposition to ICE operations and Trump's immigration policies, or if they based their conclusion on other grounds, perhaps that the charged offense was disproportionately severe and the possible penalty unfairly harsh. Stephen Miller wasn't in the jury room either, but he showed no visible uncertainty when he denounced the verdict as "another example of blatant jury nullification in a blue city." From there he went off in another direction: "The justice system depends on a jury of peers with a shared system of interests and values. Mass migration tribalizes the entire legal system"—a comment that it's hard to see as anything but an argument that people with the wrong ethnic identity are not legitimate participants in America's justice system.
Incidentally, nothing in any of the news stories I read about that trial gave any indication that Nunez was connected with any "left-wing organization." Nor did photographs of him show anything obviously "not normal" or "deformed" in his appearance (unless those words apply to anyone who doesn't look like a non-Hispanic white man).
Miller said nothing in his State Department speech about a different issue that has undermined far more cases than any real or imagined political bias in juries—findings by numerous judges that law enforcement agents and government lawyers prosecuting supposed antifa activists and other protesters have crossed legal or ethical boundaries, misrepresenting facts and exaggerating or completely fabricating criminal charges.
That pattern is documented in a recent report by the investigative journalism organization ProPublica. Their reporters reviewed hundreds of case records and found numerous comments from federal judges criticizing "unlawful," "unethical," and "unseemly" government actions. Specific abuses cited by judges included findings that "the government filed statements generated by artificial intelligence that referenced nonexistent case law, wrote briefs that ignored facts, and filed declarations with inaccurate dates."
(One striking example is from a judge's decision granting a petition from a man seeking release from ICE detention. In her opinion memorandum, the judge noted that ICE and Homeland Security department officials had submitted a document "purporting to show" that the man had a record of "minor convictions for marijuana possession in 2009." The judge went on: "The Petitioner was four years old in 2009, and the Respondent indicated that the document was supplied by ICE and likely presumed to relate to the Petitioner because the individual in those records had the same name, despite the differences in birthdate, birthplace, parents’ names, and immigration status. This sloppiness further validates the Court’s concerns about the procedures utilized by the Respondents depriving people present in the United States of their liberty.")
It was no surprise that Miller did not mention prosecutors' failings in his speech, since that would have been inconsistent with the message he was delivering. Theoretically, it's not categorically impossible that he has been more candid in private conversations with Trump—after all, presidential advisers, particularly on national security issues, are expected to provide unwelcome truths and not just say things their boss wants to hear. If we don't know what was said or not said in meetings that were not disclosed to the public, we can't judge with absolute certainty how straightforwardly Miller might have spoken in those discussions. But numerous reports of his public statements over the years reveal a consistent pattern of misrepresented facts and policy ideas even more virulent than Trump's, making it virtually impossible to believe that his advice in private has been significantly more balanced or rational than what he has said in public over the years.
The "Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism" did not get much media attention, perhaps because it did not produce very much new information substantiating the premise that "left-wing terrorists" are linked in a far-reaching multinational conspiracy that is now the most urgent danger facing the United States and the international community. Stephen Miller's 16-minute speech did not present any facts or ideas that have not been heard many times before, so it didn't make many headlines either. But it is newsworthy for a different reason—an unintentionally revealing survey of the Trump team's violation of basic legal principles, endangering the rule of law, and its consistent record of falsehoods, endangering public trust in the national leadership. Those two trends represent a clear and present threat to human rights and democratic government in this country, and should be spotlighted at every opportunity while we can still report and resist them.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Ansari Calls for Miller to Be ‘Investigated and Prosecuted’ for Illegal Push to End Birthright Citizenship
"You can crack down on visa fraud," said one observer. "You cannot have Stephen Miller stand beside the Resolute Desk and turn the 14th Amendment into a hotel checkout policy."
Aug 07, 2026
Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's deputy White House chief of staff and the architect of much of his anti-immigration agenda over the past decade, has been fixated for years on ending birthright citizenship in the US—and one Democratic congresswoman said Thursday that his latest attempt should be the last straw.
"Stephen Miller architected the entirety of Trump’s racist and fascist mass deportation agenda, and he’s the one pushing relentlessly to end birthright citizenship—which is illegal," said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) after Trump and Miller announced two new executive orders related to the issue. "He needs to be investigated and prosecuted for the crimes he’s actively committing."
Weeks after the US Supreme Court—where three of the justices who make up the right-wing majority were appointed by Trump—ruled that the president's previous effort to end birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants was unconstitutional, Trump signaled a new tactic focusing on terminating the right for the children of specific groups of people.
The first order would end automatic citizenship for children born to parents who work for foreign governments at embassies or organizations in the US, parents who "engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship," and parents who are part of designated terrorist groups or an "alien enemy."
Stephen Miller: The president is using his authority as commander in chief, to sign first an executive order using the new rule in the Supreme Court issued to expand the definitions of people who are ineligible for birthright citizenship
That includes, for example, alien enemies… pic.twitter.com/TtpWe0QYe1
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 6, 2026
The restriction would also pertain to babies who are "born in a territory or territorial waters of the United States where citizenship is not conferred by federal statute"—but eliminating birthright citizenship for children born in US territories would require congressional action, according to The New York Times.
The second order aims to crack down on what Trump called "birth tourism," with more restrictions on visitors to the US who give birth while in the country and try to obtain visas.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said the new executive action, like the order Trump signed to end birthright citizenship shortly after he took office last year, "seemingly violates the Constitution."
In the Oval Office at the White House late Thursday, the president cited no evidence as he claimed foreigners have obtained citizenship for their children, who numbered in the dozens.
“You have one man came in with a family... said he had 56 children," said Trump. "Another one came in. They said they had 98 children. This was not what it was for. This was meant for the babies of slaves. It was, it was right after one week or two weeks after the Civil War ended.”
Miller also emphasized that the 14th Amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law, was meant to confer citizenship only to the children of people who had been enslaved before the Civil War ended.
But the origin of the law did not stop the Supreme Court from ruling in June that birthright citizenship is the law of the land under the US Constitution.
The president claimed "hundreds of thousands" of people in the US have benefited from birthright citizenship due to tourists giving birth in the country and the other scenarios described in the executive orders, but a study by Pennsylvania State University recently found that fewer than 0.3% of babies born in the US are born to tourists in any year.
Miller spoke during the Oval Office event, speaking out against people who "come here pretending to be a tourist... but the real reason they're here is to have a child."
Lying on a visa application in order to give birth in the US has long been illegal, Reichlin-Melnick pointed out.
Miller claimed that Section 215A of the Immigration and Nationality Act gives Trump the authority to enact the new restrictions on birthright citizenship, but even a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke anonymously to the Times said no new enforcement would come out of the birth tourism order.
The deputy chief of staff, who has also taken a leading role in orchestrating Trump's mass deportation campaign, claimed that the birth tourism order was "especially historic."
The word "historic," said writer Mike Young, was "doing a lot of work."
"You can crack down on visa fraud. You cannot have Stephen Miller stand beside the Resolute Desk and turn the 14th Amendment into a hotel checkout policy," said Young. "Birthright citizenship is not a loophole. It is the Constitution."
Immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta noted that even so-called "birth tourism" was covered in the Supreme Court's recent ruling, with Justice Samuel Alito noting that fact in his dissent.
"I expect a court to hold that most of Trump's new executive order is blatantly unconstitutional," said Mehta. "Trump is a small and petty man with a venal mind, and will be historically remembered as such down the ages, along with his henchman and collaborator Stephen Miller, who love to attack newborn children!"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Marco 'McCarthy' Rubio Is Wrong on Cuba and Where 'Terrorism' Is Coming From
Those who challenge and protest US policies are not terrorists, and they are certainly not paid by other governments.
Aug 05, 2026
Thin-skinned and heavy-handed, the Trump administration apparently feels like it is being singled out by those who dissent from its policies. As a result, Trump appointees are taking drastic "McCarthy" tactics to stop dissent.
In less than one month, alleging that dissent and protests are part of attempts of other governments “to overthrow the government of the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sponsored two major initiatives to frighten those who oppose the Trump administration's policies. The first salvo was orchestrating a conference with 60 countries participating over “Threats From Left-Wing Terrorists.” The second was the report on Cuba that alleged virtually every group that has ever visited Cuba is paid by the Cuban government.
No One is Paid to Protest—If One Is NOT Outraged Then You Aren’t Watching
These allegations of paid protest and travelling on the dime of another country are unfounded, untrue, and fly in the face of the history of protests in the US and travel by US citizens to see the effects of US polices on other countries.
President Donald Trump’s erratic foreign policy, including the disastrous attacks on Iran as a favor to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli war machine; attacks domestically cutting health and education; horrific treatment of migrants; daily outlandish statements on just about every subject; and disregard for facts in virtually every issue all provide good reasons for protests by outraged US citizens.
I have not been paid by any country to protest US policies, nor do I know anyone who has been paid.
No one needs to be paid to be outraged!!!
Dissent is Not Illegal and Is Not Paid by Other Countries
In particular, Secretary of State and National Security adviser Marco Rubio, who has authored the latest "McCarthy" report to quell opposition to illegal, immoral policies of his department and the Trump administration in general, seems to have lost his grasp on the history of dissent in the US.
From his 15 years in the US Senate, he should remember that many of each administration's domestic and international policies have been lawfully and non-violently protested by US citizens in the US Congress.
Having been a part of many protests since I resigned from the State Department in March 2003 in opposition to a war policy, President George W. Bush's war on Iraq, I know that these protests are NOT a part of attempts of other governments to “overthrow the government of the United States,” but are legitimate shows of concern about specific policies. Rubio’s allegations of other countries’ influence in these protests are unfounded and untrue.
I was not paid by a foreign government to resign. I resigned because I felt the war on Iraq was illegal, immoral, and a dangerous action jeopardizing the national security of the United States.
I have not been paid by any country to protest US policies, nor do I know anyone who has been paid. Protest is a legitimate, time-consuming act of outrage about a policy that people use to bring attention to the policy, and hopefully effect change in the policy.
Marco “McCarthy” Rubio’s Tactics: Blame the Left When the Right Has Violently Attacked the US Government
The first attack against legitimate protest came in the US Department of State sponsored conference on “Far-Left Terrorism” held in Washington, DC in July 2026, where Rubio and White House pit bull Stephen Miller harangued the representatives of 66 nations about terrorists from the left wanting to overthrow the US government.
In his opening statement Rubio railed: “This is a distinctive and unique evil. It has always been driven by a hatred above all else, a hatred for civilization itself. It is a revolt of the worst against the best, a revolt of the weak and the cowardly against the strong and the good.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called left-wing extremism a growing threat aimed at “the overthrow of our system and form of government” that officials previously failed to sufficiently address. Miller railed: “We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization. If the left is allowed to use the real or actual threat of violence to destabilize our institutions, then those institutions cannot and will not succeed.”
A White House press release stated, “Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, far-left extremism will be treated with the same seriousness and ferocity the world has long reserved for jihadist terrorism.”
Oops, Trump and Rubio Forget to Mention the Violent Attempt at Overthrow of the US Electoral Process by the Trump-Inspired, Right-Wing January 6 Mob
Of course, neither Rubio nor Miller mentioned President Trump’s pardon of the over 1,500 persons who did try to violently overthrow the United States electoral process on January 6, 2021 as they attacked the Capitol police and broke into and destroyed many offices in the US Capitol.
The attempted overthrow of the 2020 election by seeking to nullify the election results through lawsuits in 62 federal and state courts was attempted by Trump’s loyal personal lawyers including the current acting US Attorney General and head of the US Department of Justice Todd Blanche and disgraced and disbarred lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Their cases of election fraud were stopped by rulings in all 62 federal and state lawsuits that no election fraud had occurred.
Rubio and the State Department’s Untruthful, Dishonest Report About Cuba and Paid Protesters
The most recent and most ludicrous allegations of left-wing violence and protests being funded by other countries is in Secretary of Rubio's 10- page report on “Cuba: the Capitol of 21st Century Communism.” Rubio accuses the National Network on Cuba, National Lawyers Guild, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, the People's Forum, IFCO/Pastors For Peace, and the Democratic Socialists of America of being paid by the Cuban government whose goal, the report states, has been for 60 years the overthrow of the US government.
Talk about turning the facts on their heads! As is well-documented, 13 successive US presidential administrations since 1959—Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama (first term when CIA policies were still in effect, but changing in Obama’s second term with diplomatic recognition), Trump 1, Biden, and Trump 2—have attempted to overthrow the Cuban government in the 60-plus years of its existence.
The current attempt of overthrow of the Cuban government by the United States is centered on the brutal total blockade of fuel going to Cuba, which has left Cuban citizens without electricity for operations in hospitals, for food preparation, for the ability to conduct normal life activities. Making life so miserable for the Cuban citizenry that they overthrow their government would fulfill the longstanding hopes of Cuban-American Rubio.
Rubio Is Not Honest About His Background as a Cuban American
Marco Rubio has been less than forthright about his heritage as a Cuban American in his quest for the overthrow of the Cuban government.
Marco Rubio, “Mr. Righteous against birthright citizenship,” is a "birthright citizen" born in the US of noncitizen parents who had immigrated in 1956 from Cuba under the Batista dictatorship, not under the 1959 revolutionary government.
Marco Rubio, “Mr. Tough on illegal immigrants,” ignores that his own grandfather entered the US illegally and was ordered to be deported but was saved from deportation by an amnesty during the Cuban missile crisis.
Despite these brutal, heavy-handed attempts to silence us, dissent is spreading to regular citizens.
Marco Rubio, “Mr. Kill the Boat Drug Runners of the Caribbean,” disregards that his own brother-in-law was convicted of drug running and his sister implicated but never charged.
Marco Rubio, “Mr. I Know All About Cuba Because I Am Cuban American,” has been to Cuba only once—where in Cuba did he go? A few hours at the US prison on the U. Naval base at Guantánamo.
No doubt, more will come in the next two years as Rubio, Miller, and others in the administration seem to think they can get away with outrageous bullying of individuals and organizations that do not agree with them and that challenge them in non-violent ways, in contrast to the January 6 gang.
In particular, there are always protests against the horrific effects of brutal sanctions that the US government uses to make life so difficult for citizens of other countries that they will overthrow their own governments, whether it be Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, or Nicaragua.
Israel’s Paid Influence on US Citizen Perceptions Seems to Be OK With Rubio
However, Rubio no doubt is thinking that since his buddies in the Netanyahu government have paid Trump’s former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, millions of dollars in a specific program to influence US public opinion to stop the massive decline in Israel’s “likability,” that other countries have paid off US persons to work clandestinely on the same scale.
Parscale's firm was hired by Israel for $6 million in September 2025 and then signed a $15 million contract with Israeli firm Havas to conduct a digital campaign on behalf of the State of Israel according to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Parscale and his team sent conservative influencers suggested positive language about Israel for posts on social media sites such as X, Instagram, and TikTok. The influencers are then compensated based on how many “likes” each post gets from readers.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government has dramatically increased spending on influence operations. Earlier this year, Israel increased by four times its “public diplomacy” influence budget from $150 million in 2025 to $730 million in 2026.
But even The Times of Israel says it’s too late for a “face lift” as a Pew Research Center poll reported that 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, up seven points in a single year, with only 37% viewing it favorably after Israel has committed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza; pillaged and plundered homes, farms, animals in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian West Bank; destroyed southern Lebanon; and got the Trump administration up to its neck in the war on Iran.
Keep Challenging Illegal, Immoral, and Criminal Policies
The two recent major attempts of the Trump administration to quell dissent show how serious challenging illegal, immoral, and criminal policies has become and how important it is that we push back hard against these attempts intimidating citizens to silence their dissent.
However, despite these brutal, heavy-handed attempts to silence us, dissent is spreading to regular citizens. In a recent letter to the editor of my hometown newspaper Honolulu Star Advertiser, which serves a large US military population, a resident of Hawaii summarized the challenge very well: “The true domestic enemy includes those who monopolize political and economic power. The real enemy includes individuals who misinform, threaten, and disenfranchise the less powerful. The true enemy are those who are antidemocratic, have little or no concern regarding the welfare of others, and enrich themselves, family, and a few friends at the expense of the general population.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Fascism Is Here': Rubio, Miller Say More Terrorist Designations Coming for 'Far-Left' Groups
"If you’re not alarmed you’re not paying attention."
Jul 16, 2026
Trump administration officials on Thursday hyped up plans to carry out mass political arrests and prosecutions of people whom it deemed far-left terrorists.
In a speech given at the US State Department, Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff, described left-wing political violence as a "fatal cancer to civilization," and boasted of plans to use state power to suppress people whom he called "political terrorists."
Miller said that the administration would be carrying out this operation under the guidance of National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by Trump in September that demanded a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
Miller bragged that "for the first time in American history," NSPM-7 would direct "all of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together to disrupt, identify, defund, de-bank, arrest, prosecute these political terrorists that are operating within our country."
Santa Monica Goebbels is doing his weird and creepy gyrations while delivering a speech smearing Democrats as violent radicals pic.twitter.com/PaeDcD55jw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 16, 2026
Miller said that the mass arrest of left-wing radicals was necessary to prevent them from carrying out mass arrests of their own.
"Inevitably, left to its course, it always becomes a gulag," said Miller. "It always becomes the mass imprisonment of political enemies, the stripping of their rights and freedoms, inflicting immense pain, humiliation, suffering, in order to establish complete and total control, control through psychological and physical and actual terror."
The social media account of independent progressive publication The Tennessee Holler expressed alarm at Miller's speech.
"Fascism is here," The Tennessee Holler wrote. "If you’re not alarmed you’re not paying attention. 'Left-wing political terrorism' will mean those who oppose the regime—while actual right-wing extremism is allowed to grow and thrive. We are very far off the cliff, folks."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also spoke of the event, noted last year that his department "designated four violent far-left extremist groups as foreign terrorist organizations, and there will be more designations soon."
Secretary of State Rubio says there will be more terrorist designations of left-wing groups "soon." pic.twitter.com/RmZjBgQXas
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) July 16, 2026
The administration's declaration of war against left-wing political violence comes despite decades of research showing that political violence is more commonly carried out by right-wing groups.
A report published last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that, while left-wing political violence has grown since Trump’s first election in 2016, it “remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers.”
The report also noted that violence carried out by left-wing individuals or groups was "remarkably less lethal" than violence carried out by right-wing or jihadist individuals or groups.
Keep ReadingShow Less
ICE Killings Are Part of a Pattern of Hundreds of Civil Rights Violations by Agency Under Trump, Says ACLU Report
One of the report authors said it showed how under the Trump administration, federal agents have “used force in a way we’ve never seen from these agencies, in their history.”
Jul 16, 2026
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is facing intense scrutiny once again after agents killed at least two people during arrests in less than two weeks.
But the author of a report out Thursday from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) tells Common Dreams that this rash of violence is just "the tip of the iceberg" in a much broader campaign by immigration agents that has been indiscriminate, violent, and lawless.
Naureen Shah, one of the authors of the ACLU report, said that these killings were part of a "much, much bigger pattern, where ICE agents and the agents who are working with them have threatened to use force and used force in a way we've never seen from these agencies, in their history."
Our new report is the first in-depth civil rights review of immigration enforcement actions throughout 2025 in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, and New Mexico.Read more about how we’re exposing the deportation machine’s depravity.
[image or embed]
— ACLU (@aclu.org) July 16, 2026 at 10:01 AM
The report examined more than 1,200 immigration enforcement actions by the Trump administration in 2025 across eight states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, and New Mexico—in what the organization called "the first in-depth civil rights review of immigration enforcement actions throughout 2025."
In more than a third of the cases, it found examples of misconduct, including excessive force, intimidation, and racial profiling.
The report detailed how agents have used extreme force as a "default" tool. On 418 occasions, agents pushed, shoved, tackled, or pinned people to the ground.
In many cases, the report said force was used to "coerce immediate compliance rather than to respond to a threat." Often, it found, that force was excessive and potentially deadly.
In one exemplary case, Border Patrol agents reportedly grabbed Ricardo Aguayo Rodriguez, a 54-year-old construction worker who is the father of two deaf teenagers, as he was riding his bicycle home from the grocery store in Illinois.
According to the report: "Agents grabbed him in a stranger’s driveway, pepper-sprayed him, locked an arm around his neck, and struck his head. Video captures him gasping, 'Por favor, amigo.' While he was hospitalized with head wounds, masked agents barred his US citizen sister from seeing him at the hospital."
Threats of force and the brandishing of weapons were also commonplace, appearing in at least 128 cases.
In Hawthorne, California, masked agents surrounded the truck of US citizen Cary Lopez Alvarado, who was nine months pregnant. After she called 911, an agent asked her, "Do you want to get killed?" before shoving her into the side of her truck, pressing her stomach against it.
Children were detained, targeted, or subjected to misconduct in 214 cases, the report found. At least 32 of them were US citizens.
A father in Colorado was detained after a court visit, with agents using their vehicles to box his car in at a traffic stop.
"One agent pointed a gun at them as he approached the vehicle, and another smashed the driver’s side window while his US citizen partner screamed there was a baby in the car. Glass cut her as she shielded their 1-month-old infant,' the report said.
The report also identified racial profiling as an "operating practice," with agents routinely stopping people without prior information to question them about their legal status. At least 437 cases were identified that likely involved racial profiling.
Often these cases involved agents targeting certain workplaces and occupations where many immigrants worked and stopping people based on appearance, spoken language, and location.
In Arizona, agents followed a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe in an unmarked van for several minutes before jumping out to tackle and arrest him for “suspicious activity." They then took him to an immigration facility where he was deprived of food and water.
When they attempted to prove his citizenship by showing a tribal ID, driver's license, and state identification, agents said his documentation "seemed fake" and claimed he was an "illegal." He was detained for nearly a day before being released.
The report makes clear that no place or person was off limits for immigration agents. More than half the observed cases occurred in public spaces like streets, bus stops, stores, and gas stations. Hundreds of other cases involved individuals being targeted at their places of work.
Under the Trump administration, agents have routinely operated at “sensitive” sites previously deemed off limits, like schools, places of worship, shelters, and courthouses in a reversal of previous policies.
And while the administration has portrayed its mass deportation campaign as part of a fight against illegal immigration, more than 200 incidents involved US citizens or people with other forms of legal immigration status being detained, targeted, or subjected to alleged misconduct.
The report identified 150 incidents affecting at least 782 protesters, legal observers, journalists, elected officials or staff members, and clergy, many of whom faced retaliation, verbal abuse, and intimidation while attempting to document the actions of agents, a protected right under the First Amendment.
“Street arrests have always been part of what ICE did, but never at the scale that we have now,” Shah told Common Dreams. “We never had a situation in this country’s modern history where civil arrests were taking place habitually in grocery store parking lots, at bus stops, at gas stations because the public safety imperative just wasn’t there.”
“They’re often in plain clothes, sometimes they’re masked, they’re heavily militarized, it’s scary looking, and it sends fear in all these communities,” she said. “If you’ve got these agents out there constantly trolling for people they believe are immigrants, you know, that means all of us are exposed to those agents.”
The report examined just a fraction of the more than 400,000 immigration arrests that took place in 2025. The vast majority of those arrested have not been convicted of crimes, and most of those who have were convicted of nonviolent offenses.
ICE agents have shot and killed two men in vehicle stops over the past ten days—neither of whom was the intended target of the operation—while two other men died during an ICE operation or in the agency’s custody.
As scrutiny of the agency intensified this week, the Department of Homeland Security briefly announced it was suspending vehicle stops, only for President Donald Trump to order the policy to continue.
Through recent spending bills, the Republican-controlled US Congress has more than tripled ICE's budget, providing roughly $240 billion for immigration enforcement over the next four years.
According to the report, ICE has used these funds to hire at least 12,000 agents and send them out into the field with limited training and vetting, while diverting another 25,000 personnel from other agencies.
The ACLU describes this as part of an effort to create a "national deportation policing force" of more than 50,000 agents.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, has pushed for a quota of 3,000 immigration arrests per day and has emphasized to ICE personnel that when carrying out deportations, "there is no list" of people to be targeted and "everyone is fair game."
Administration officials have hinted that with ICE's newfound wealth of resources, the public can expect even more aggressive tactics in the months to come.
"You ain’t seen shit yet," said Trump's border czar Tom Homan at a border security expo in May. "This year will be a good year. Mass deportations are coming."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Pressure Rises on Home Depot to Address ICE Raids at Stores
From Congress to communities nationwide, Home Depot’s silence is being noticed.
Jul 08, 2026
Pressure is rising on Home Depot to do something—say something—about the raids taking place at its stores. In Washington, DC, over two dozen members of Congress signed a letter to the company in a letter requesting answers about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol raids that have taken place at its stores over the past year. In Sacramento, a state bill would require big box home improvement stores to report on the raids. And meanwhile, local neighbors of the company continue to show up at the store—for day laborers being targeted by President Donald Trump—and sending messages to the company in more creative ways.
One year ago, in June of 2025, Trump henchman Stephen Miller berated Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and demanded they increase arrests by targeting Home Depot parking lots. The result has been hundreds of arrests at the stores, with militarized and masked agents carrying out violent and chaotic raids, racially profiling and brutalizing customers and neighbors, and utilizing the store as bait for day laborers looking for work.
In response, thousands of local volunteers have shown up at their local Home Depots to document the raids and to show solidarity and support for their neighbors and day laborers—and to protest the presence of ICE or Border Patrol police at their local home improvement stores. The protests have continued on a rolling basis, with a recent one showcasing two dozen store customers joining a colorful sing-song protest calling on Home Depot to “do the right thing.”
Meanwhile, the response from the company has been… silence. With so much attention on the home improvement giant—which has become a site of numerous human and civil rights abuses against its own customers—members of several state legislatures and the US Congress have taken notice. On June 25, U.S. Rep Judy Chu (-D-Calif.) led 25 members of Congress in a letter addressed to Home Depot and Lowe's, asking for the companies to answer questions about the raids taking place at their stores.
The Members wrote:
While we recognize that your companies do not control federal immigration enforcement operations and may not receive advance notice of such activity, these operations have occurred repeatedly at or near your stores across the country. As Members of Congress, we believe it is important to understand what information your companies possess regarding these incidents and what steps are being taken to protect the safety of workers, customers, bystanders, and surrounding communities.
Read the full letter here.
In California, Pasadena state Sen. Sasha Renee Perez (D-25) introduced the “REPAIR Act” (SB1103), which would compel big box home improvement stores to report when raids take place on their properties. The bill is a direct response to Home Depot’s refusal to give clear answers—or to share information with the public—about the arrests, abuses, and surveillance taking place on its properties, or to make clear its position on the raids. The bill has passed the state Senate, and on June 23 the legislation, known as the "ICE Out of Home Depot" state bill, passed the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee.
At this point, even Home Depot investors themselves are starting to ask questions. The only remaining question is whether Home Depot is listening to its neighbors, to its investors, or even its own customers.
Keep ReadingShow Less
‘Alarm’ at White House After Vance and Miller Pushed Insurrection Act, Habeas Corpus Suspension During Anti-ICE Protests
Reporting in The New York Times reveals Vance wanted to use the military "to crush the unrest in Minnesota."
Jun 15, 2026
A Monday report in The New York Times revealed what it described as the "alarm" felt by some White House lawyers at proposals made earlier this year by Vice President JD Vance and Trump adviser Stephen Miller as the administration was forced to contend with widespread anger over its anti-immigration agenda.
Among other things, the Times reported that Vance pushed for President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow for the US military to be deployed on American streets, in an effort to shut down mass protests in Minnesota against federal immigration enforcement operations in the state.
A few days after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers fatally shot demonstrator Alex Pretti in the streets of Minneapolis, the Times reported that Vance—who had also elevated a baseless claim by Miller that Pretti had been a "would-be assassin"—said invoking the Insurrection Act was necessary "to crush the unrest in Minnesota."
Vance also believed invoking the law would send a “message” that “paid agitators could not get away with disrupting ICE operations”—even though, as the Times noted, there is no evidence that Pretti; demonstrator Renee Good, who was also killed by federal agents; or any other organizers in Minnesota or elsewhere received any money in exchange for protesting.
However, right-wing attorney Will Scharf quickly shot down Vance's suggestion, noting that the Insurrection Act is an instrument aimed at putting down armed rebellions rather than groups of citizens blowing whistles at ICE officers.
Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair then made the political case against invoking the Insurrection Act.
"The scenes of federal agents in Minnesota already looked chaotic, he said, and the public was recoiling," reported the Times. "He put three questions to the room: What does the Insurrection Act give us that we don’t already have? What changes on the ground would be worth the heat? What else could they win that would justify the public relations cost?"
"The room was quiet," the Times added. "Nobody had a good answer."
The Times report also revealed that Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Trump's homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff, repeatedly pushed the president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for undocumented immigrants, which would give the administration the power to carry out mass deportations without being subjected to judicial oversight.
As in the case of Vance's proposal, Scharf pushed back against Miller's suggestion, noting that courts have long held that habeas corpus cannot be suspended unilaterally by the president and must be done by an act of Congress.
"Even where Congress has explicitly suspended habeas corpus rights," Scharf wrote in a legal memo obtained by the Times, "the Supreme Court has held that some alternative process must be provided to defendants, with procedural safeguards akin to a habeas corpus action."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said the Times' reporting showed Miller "would happily shred the Constitution into little pieces if he could," before hopefully noting that "even he wasn’t powerful enough to do it" in this instance.
University of Michigan Law School Professor Leah Litman argued that the Times report showed some in the administration were at least still somewhat conscious of public opinion when making decisions.
"In the story about the administration weighing suspending habeas corpus and invoking the Insurrection Act, what moved the needle against the Insurrection Act was concern about 'public relations,'" Litman wrote. "Public pushback, agitation, and outcry can work. Even now. Keep it up."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Asked About Stephen Miller, DNC Staffer Happy to Confirm: ‘I Stand by Calling Him an Ugly Fuck’
"He is a White House official who is taking to Twitter to hurl these absolutely false and transphobic attacks," said Paulina Mangubat. "It's just absolutely disgusting."
May 29, 2026
"I said what I said."
That was Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Paulina Mangubat's statement Thursday evening after her response to White House adviser Stephen Miller's smear against Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico of Texas went viral earlier this week.
After Miller posted a picture on Wednesday of Talarico with the comment that Democrats in Texas had nominated "their first transgender Senate candidate,” Mangubat, who serves as the DNC's content and creative director and is behind many of the committee's social media posts, had a concise response.
"Shut up, you ugly fuck," Mangubat wrote, prompting an angry reply from Miller's wife, right-wing podcaster Katie Miller. She named Mangubat as the person behind the DNC's social media presence and announced that the staffer was "30, unmarried with no kids"—a fresh example of the MAGA movement's fixation with liberal, unmarried women.
On Thursday, Ben Meiselas of the progressive media company MeidasTouch invited Mangubat on his show to give her the opportunity to respond to Katie Miller.
"What do you want Katie Miller to know?" asked Meiselas.
"I want Katie Miller to know that her husband is an ugly fuck," Mangubat replied.
Meiselas: Katie Miller has been posting about you. I want to give you the opportunity right now to respond. What do you want to say to her?
Paulina Mangubat, Content and Creative Director for @TheDemocrats: I want Katie Miller to know that her husband is an ugly fuck. pic.twitter.com/KA8ioubJqx
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 29, 2026
"Stephen Miller is one of the most powerful men in the country right now," she continued. "He is a White House official who is taking to Twitter to hurl these absolutely false and transphobic attacks against an amazing candidate in Texas, James Talarico."
Mangubat added that Miller's actions during President Donald Trump's terms in office have been "ugly," pointing to his role as an architect of Trump's family separation policy and his mass deportation agenda—an operation in which federal agents have fatally shot at least six people, including at least three US citizens.
"He is celebrating when ICE shoots down Americans in the street," said Mangubat in an apparent reference to Miller's comment—just hours after Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis in January—that Pretti was a "would-be assassin."
"It's just absolutely disgusting," she continued. "And so yeah, I stand by calling him an ugly fuck."
Earlier this week, Katie Miller posted a photo of Mangubat and said that "this is what a sad, unhappy, female Liberal looks like,” adding “it’s why Pew reports 50% of them have been diagnosed with a mental condition.”
Miller didn't say what Pew Research data she was referring to, nor did she cite any evidence when she later asserted on Fox News that her husband being called ugly "is the same violent political rhetoric that is leading people to shooting up."
Meanwhile, Mangubat quickly seized on Katie Miller's attacks on her marital status to publicly announce her impending wedding.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Rights Groups to Dems: Don't Give Stephen Miller What He Wants on Mass Surveillance
“Supporting Stephen Miller’s warrantless surveillance agenda would be a massive detriment to the privacy and civil rights and liberties of people in the United States."
Mar 12, 2026
More than 90 civil society groups on Thursday urged congressional Democrats to "stand firm against White House efforts to extend government surveillance powers" by renewing "without new safeguards" a highly controversial surveillance authorization historically abused by federal agencies.
Free Press Action and Demand Progress are leading the call to senior Democratic lawmakers to not reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—a controversial law that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times—without first enacting privacy reforms.
“Section 702 has been used to conduct millions of warrantless ‘backdoor’ searches for the phone calls, text messages, and emails of people in the United States,” the groups said in a letter to six senior Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York.
Free Press Action & 90 civil-society groups call on Democratic leaders to stand firm against White House efforts to extend government surveillance powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) without new safeguards.Our statement: www.freepress.net/news/massive...
[image or embed]
— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 11:32 AM
The groups—which include the ACLU, Center for Biological Diversity, Color of Change, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Indivisible, National Immigrant Justice Center, Public Citizen, and UltraViolet Action—cited recent reporting from Politico stating that Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's xenophobic deputy chief of staff, supports extending the program that empowers federal agencies to surveil and collect the data of noncitizens abroad without a warrant.
As Free Press Action explained Thursday:
Congress has until April 20 to reauthorize Section 702. Stephen Miller is a leading advocate for extending Section 702 without any reforms, and President Trump is now openly supporting this approach. The groups urge Democratic members of Congress to refuse to reauthorize these powers without key reforms, including reforms to the government’s warrantless querying of communications of people in the United States without prior court approval. Such surveillance allows government officials to conduct sweeping backdoor searches, accessing the private communications of millions of people.
“Supporting Stephen Miller’s warrantless surveillance agenda would be a massive detriment to the privacy and civil rights and liberties of people in the United States,” the letter adds. "These surveillance authorities have long jeopardized privacy, and efforts by Miller to continue them without meaningful reforms and sufficient oversight are deeply troubling.”
The groups emphasize the imperative to close the so-called backdoor search loophole—via which domestic law enforcement agencies can access Americans’ communications without a warrant—and the data broker loophole, which lets the government to buy its way around Fourth Amendment proscriptions on warrantless search and seizure by purchasing sensitive information from private vendors.
I've long been sounding the alarm on Section 702 of FISA, and secret, legal loopholes the government uses to spy on Americans. The program is up for reauthorization in April and I'll be fighting like hell to make sure the current program doesn’t get rubber stamped.
[image or embed]
— Senator Ron Wyden (@wyden.senate.gov) March 11, 2026 at 10:41 AM
Earlier this month, more than 70 congressional Democrats demanded a new investigation into warrantless purchases of Americans’ location data by Department of Homeland Security agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Last month, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act, which would protect Americans from warrantless government surveillance by requiring authorities to obtain a FISA Title I order or a warrant before accessing Americans’ communications.
The civil society groups that signed the letter are also urging lawmakers to fix the "overbroad" expansion of electronic communication service providers and remove barrier to the FISA legal process.
"There are terrifying risks to reauthorizing government surveillance powers that have been abused to spy on protesters, immigrants, journalists, and even political candidates under any presidential administration," said Jenna Ruddock, advocacy director at Free Press Action. "People across the country and on both sides of the aisle agree, and overwhelmingly support urgently needed reforms to FISA."
“This White House in particular has relentlessly labelled perceived political opponents as ‘domestic terrorists,’ justifying in their minds the relentless surveillance and persecution of those who oppose the administration’s agenda," Ruddock added. "Congress must insist on these common-sense reforms and put the civil and constitutional rights of Americans above the authoritarian desires of Miller and others in the Trump administration.”
Demand Progress senior policy adviser Hajar Hammado said that “Democrats do not want this or any administration to have the power to trawl through Americans’ private emails and texts without warrants. Democratic leaders need to listen to the people and not just rubber-stamp the spy powers that Miller is asking for."
"This extends beyond partisan politics," Hammado continued. "No president should have the powers to hoover up Americans’ private communications, force janitors and security guards to spy on other Americans for them, or circumvent court orders by purchasing sensitive information about people in the United States from data brokers."
"As the government’s plans to supercharge surveillance with AI come into view," she added, "Congress must enact real reforms to curb invasive government spying.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
We Need to Break Free From the Cage of Nationalism
The possibility of nuclear war plus the continuing reality of climate change ought to push all of us beyond the borders of our minds. These matters will only be solved collectively: trans-nationally. And we must solve them.
Feb 14, 2026
“While there is broad support across the political spectrum for removing criminal aliens...”
Screech! My connection to the words I’m reading grinds to a sudden halt, an inner alarm goes off, I look away from my computer screen and briefly clutch my soul. Oh God...
The words are from a Forbes article highly critical of Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deporter-in-chief. I was mostly in sync with it as I read. Indeed, the above sentence continues, pointing out that “the vast majority of individuals in the country without legal status have not committed serious crimes.”
Yeah, absolutely. So what’s my problem here? It amounts to this: A false, unchallenged assumption quietly emerged, manifested in the word “aliens.” Do we support the rights of aliens or do we just want them (and their children) dragged out of the United States, especially if they’re non-white? Apparently, this is the context of the major debate of the moment. Who belongs here? What remains unquestioned in the article is the significance of an imaginary line, known as the border, without which there would be no such thing as aliens. The line separates “us” from the rest of the world and severely trivializes the scope of the debate.
My call in this moment is for humanity, especially those who define themselves as Americans, to stand up not just to Trump and Miller and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but to the false reality of nationalism itself.
But a planet divided into nations is just the way things are, right? This is certainly not questioned politically. But my scream in this moment is for the media, mainstream or otherwise, to look beyond the assumed certainty of nationalism, however discomforting that may seem, and acknowledge that the human race has no “aliens.”
The larger reality here—understood by anyone with a brain—is that this is one planet. One planet! We are a collective whole. All of us are connected. I do not write these words with naïveté. Knowing this is simply the starting point, as we continue to evolve. I’m not downplaying the need we all feel for security, just eliminating the word “national” from the phrase.
As Karabi Acharya writes: “In fact, over half of all national borders were created in the 20th century. The creation of borders is for the most part a sad history marked by conflict, colonialism, and war. Borders create unnecessary and harmful barriers not just between people and resources but also ideas.”
Yeah, war—in the nuclear age. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently moved its metaphorical Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight, as close to the zero hour as it’s ever been. The possibility of nuclear war plus the continuing reality of climate change ought to push all of us beyond the borders of our minds. These matters will only be solved collectively: trans-nationally. And we must solve them.
Acharya goes on:
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is a moral imperative to be open to new ideas from around the world and to question the origins of old ideas we take for granted. Global learning provides an important inflection point to question the morality of how and who decides what knowledge others see and share.
Not only have borders been historical constructs of wealth and power; they unfairly reflect whose ideas have mattered, what languages have been preferred. As places throughout history have been colonized, people were told that their own traditions don't matter and what’s important, what is to be prioritized, are the norms and concepts of the colonizers. Part of the process of setting up borders includes erasing not only people but other knowledge traditions.
I understand that national governments need borders to continue to exist, at least as they understand themselves. The world’s governments—in particular, the American government—need the help of we the people. My call in this moment is for humanity, especially those who define themselves as Americans, to stand up not just to Trump and Miller and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but to the false reality of nationalism itself. How do we open the borders of this planet? How do we start acknowledging, and healing, the consequences of two-plus millennia of colonial land theft? How do we start valuing—and learning from—those who are different from us?
What if we began opening our borders? What if we began governing nonviolently... with respect and awe for our world and its occupants? Perhaps we’d start freeing ourselves from the suicidal hell we’re caught in today. We’d definitely start pushing the hands of the Doomsday Clock backwards.
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy