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
u.s. immigration and customs enforcement
Stateless Palestinian Woman Details 'Very Traumatizing' Abuse Suffered in ICE Detention
Trump administration immigration officials reportedly dismissed Ward Sakeik's ordeal as a "sob story."
Jul 06, 2025
A newlywed Palestinian woman from Texas released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention earlier this week says she was shackled for long periods, denied food and water, and subjected to other human rights abuses during nearly five months in ICE custody—all because she is a stateless person.
Ward Sakeik, 22, was born in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian parents from Gaza. Because Saudi Arabia does not grant birthright citizenship to the children of foreign nationals, Sakeik was officially stateless when her family legally emigrated to the United States when she was 8 years old.
“I was moved around like cattle.”
Ward Sakeik, US college graduate and homeowner, speaks out following 140 days in ICE hellhole pic.twitter.com/bNTgs7362h
— World Socialist Web Site (@WSWS_Updates) July 5, 2025
Sakeik's parents subsequently applied for—and were denied—asylum in the U.S. but were allowed to remain legally in the country pending routine check-ins with ICE.
After graduating high school and the University of Texas, Arlington, starting a wedding photography business, marrying a U.S. citizen, and beginning the process of obtaining a green card, Sakeik and her husband went on their honeymoon in the U.S. Virgin Islands. She was detained shortly after arriving back in the United States after Customs and Border Protection agents flagged her for flying over international waters—a move that Department of Homeland Security officials said violated immigration policy.
"After a few hours from returning from our honeymoon, I was put in a gray tracksuit and shackles," Sakeik said at a press conference following her release. "I was handcuffed for 16 hours without any water or food on the bus. I have moved around like cattle. And the U.S. government attempted to dump me in a part of the world where I don't know where I'm going and what I'm doing or anything."
"We were not given any water or food, and we could smell the driver eating Chick-fil-A," she continued. "We would ask for water, bang on the door for food, and he would just turn up the radio and act like he wasn't listening to us."
Sakeik said unhygienic conditions at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas—where an ICE officer was shot in the neck during a Friday evening attack—caused widespread illness among detainees.
"The restrooms are also very, very, very unhygienic," she said. "The beds have rust everywhere. They're not properly maintained. And cockroaches, grasshoppers, spiders, you name it, are all over the facility. Girls would get bit."
"I wouldn't wish this upon anybody," Sakeik said during a Saturday interview on CNN. "It was very hard, very traumatizing, and very, very difficult."
Eric Lee, an attorney for Sakeik, told CNN that immigration officials dismissed Sakeik's account as a "sob story."
"I guess what we would ask the American people is, 'Who are they gonna believe, their lying eyes or the statements of the people who are responsible for carrying out what are really crimes against humanity here in the United States?'" Lee added.
Sakeik said she now plans to advocate on behalf of women and girls imprisoned by ICE.
"I... want the world to know that the women who do come here come here for a better life, but they're criminalized for that," she said. "They are dehumanized, and they're stripped away from their rights. We have been treated as a 'less-than' just simply for wanting a better life."
Keep ReadingShow Less
DOJ Indicts East LA Community Defender Accused of Giving Face Shields to Anti-ICE Protesters
One group asserted that Alejandro Orellana "has done nothing wrong; speaking out against ICE terror, raids, and deportations is not a crime, protesting is not a crime!"
Jul 03, 2025
The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday indicted a longtime immigrant rights defender who allegedly distributed items including face shields and bottles of water to demonstrators during a downtown Los Angeles protest last month against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
Alejandro Orellana, 29, of East Los Angeles was indicted by a federal grand jury for alleged conspiracy to aid and abet civil disorders. According to federal prosecutors, Orellana and others met on June 9 and loaded his Ford pickup truck with face shields, masks, bottles of water, and other items and then drove to a protest and handed out the items.
Orellana was arrested during a June 12 raid by FBI agents backed by National Guard troops and county law enforcement on his family home in East L.A. According to Los Angeles Public Press, federal agents executed a search warrant two weeks later against fellow activist Verita Topete, seizing her phone and leaving her bruised.
At a June 27 press conference at Ruben F. Salazar Park in East Los Angeles, Orellana thanked "friends, family, community, and allies" for their support.
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli told Fox News at the time of Orellana's arrest that "we have made it a huge priority to try to identify, locate, and arrest those who are involved in organizing, supporting, funding, or facilitating these riots."
If fully convicted, Orellana—a U.S. Marine Corps veteran with no criminal record—could face up to five years behind bars.
Orellana and Topete are members of Centro CSO, a Chicano-led civil rights group that is no stranger to state surveillance and repression. Founded in 1947 by Fred Ross, Antonio Rios, and Edward Roybal—who was later elected to the Los Angeles City Council and then the U.S. House of Representatives—the group was originally known as Community Service Organization (CSO).
Notable CSO members have included César Chávez and Dolores Huerta of United Farm Workers, both of whom were targeted for FBI surveillance under longtime Director J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO program.
Centro CSO was born out of CSO in the 2000s to "fight against the war in Iraq, and military recruiters, and also the fight for public education," longtime member Carlos Montes told Los Angeles Public Press. Another Centro CSO member, Sammy Carrera, told the outlet that the arrest of Orellana and seizure of Topete's phone are a continuation of state suppression of CSO.
"I don't think they anticipated such an organized community that was willing to defend our neighbors, our family members, and so they're scrambling to see, you know, see how they can smash us to stop, you, these rebellions that are being organized," Carrera said of the government's response to the anti-ICE protests.
Responding to Orellana's arrest, the Los Angeles-based Legalization 4 All (L4A) Network said last week: "Alejandro has done nothing wrong; speaking out against ICE terror, raids, and deportations is not a crime, protesting is not a crime! As Chicanos, Mexicanos, Centroamericanos around the country are being racially profiled and viciously kidnapped, activists like Alejandro have every right to speak out."
"Protesting is not a crime, fighting against ICE terror is not a crime! Legalization for all and stop the ICE raids now!" L4A added.
Noting the numerous documented injuries suffered by anti-ICE protesters at the hands of police and the Los Angeles Police Department's long history of spying on and repressing civil rights defenders, attorney Peter Bibring told Los Angeles Public Press that "taking protective measures isn't a sign of criminal activity, it's common sense."
Centro CSO has been organizing events in support of Orellana, including a planned press conference at 4:30 pm Thursday at the Edward Roybal Federal Building and a Saturday rally in La Placita Olvera.
"Our movement will continue, even if they obtain warrants to confiscate our electronic devices," Carrera said at the June 27 press conference. "Our movement will continue, even if they bring in the National Guard to raid our members. Our movement will continue. Drop the charges now!"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Lawsuit Aims to End 'Systematic' Snatching of Brown-Skinned People by Trump Agents
"These guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end," one attorney in the case said of Department of Homeland Security agents.
Jul 02, 2025
Immigrant rights defenders in California on Wednesday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, accusing the Trump administration of "abducting and disappearing community members using unlawful stop and arrest practices and confining individuals at a federal building in illegal conditions while denying them access to attorneys" as part of its mass deportation effort.
The lawsuit was brought by five individual workers, three advocacy groups, and a legal services provider: The Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers (UFW), the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), and Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Their complaint accuses DHS of unconstitutionally arresting and detaining people, according to the ACLU, which is assisting with the legal challenge, "in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration."
According to the complaint:
The raids in this district follow a common, systematic pattern. Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from. If they hesitate, attempt to leave, or do not answer the questions to the satisfaction of the agents, they are detained, sometimes tackled, handcuffed, and/or taken into custody. In these interactions, agents typically have no prior information about the individual and no warrant of any kind. If agents make an arrest, contrary to federal law, they do not make any determination of whether a person poses a risk of flight before a warrant can be obtained. Also contrary to federal law, the agents do not identify themselves or explain why the individual is being arrested.
"DHS—at explicit direction from the Trump administration—has gone after day laborers, car wash workers, farm workers, street vendors, service workers, nannies, and others who form the lifeblood of communities across Southern California," said ACLU Foundation of Southern California senior staff attorney Mohammad Tajsar, who is representing plaintiffs in the case. "Everyone deserves to feel safe going about their daily lives. DHS must stop disappearing people from our communities."
Tajsar told the Los Angeles Times that "these guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end."
Alvaro M. Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center and a plaintiff's attorney in the suit, said in a statement that "the federal government is waging a campaign of terror across Southern California, abducting community members off the streets and warehousing them in deplorable conditions away from their loved ones, all while denying them access to legal counsel."
"It's blatantly unconstitutional, cruelly inhumane, and a violation of any common decency," Huerta added. "If the Trump administration insists on trampling Angelenos' rights, we'll see them in court."
Plaintiffs in the case—who are seeking to represent people subjected to random stops and arrests—are asking the court to certify the case as a class action. They have also requested preliminary and permanent injunctions barring further violations of constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and self-incrimination, as enshrined in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, respectively.
As the lawsuit notes, "one of the clearest patterns that have emerged in the raids in Southern California... has been stops and interrogations... on the basis of apparent race and ethnicity."
"These raids have targeted the most vulnerable members of our workforce, essential workers who are the backbone of our local economy," said Los Angeles Worker Center Network executive director Armando Gudino. "We cannot allow racial profiling, warrantless arrests, and denial of due process to become the standard operating procedure in our communities."
DHS has been holding arrested people in the basement of a federal building in downtown Los Angeles commonly referred to as B-18. The lockup has no beds, showers, or medical facilities, according to the ACLU of Southern California. Furthermore, B-18 is meant to hold only a small number of people on a temporary basis while they are processed.
"We have heard from over 100 families of Individuals taken to B-18 and other detention centers that attest to their loved ones being kept in overcrowded, cold, and inhumane conditions," said CHIRLA executive director Angelica Salas. "They are held in small windowless rooms with dozens or more other detainees, in extremely cramped quarters while being verbally humiliated and pressured into signing papers they don't understand."
The ACLU of Southern California said: "The ongoing raids have led to the disappearance of more than 1,500 people. The suit details how federal agents consistently refuse to identify themselves or what agency they are with when asked, using anonymity as a tactic to shield lawlessness."
UFW president Teresa Romero noted in a statement that "the raids in the greater Los Angeles area have not been limited to the urban center; we have also seen horrific instances of Border Patrol agents chasing down farm workers in the fields of Ventura County. The spouse of a UFW member was among those unjustly detained."
"Now the very workers who feed America go to work in fear," she added. "Their American-born children are scared not knowing if their parents will come home. Farm workers deserve better. We've seen these unconstitutional and un-American tactics before, with Border Patrol targeting random farm workers and anyone with brown skin in Kern County during their large sweep in January. We sued then and we are suing now."
While U.S. President Donald Trump, members of his administration, and Republican lawmakers and supporters claim the DHS crackdown is targeting dangerous criminals, critics have noted that people legally seeking asylum, families, relatives of American citizens, and even citizens themselves have been swept up in the mass deportation dragnet.
According to the libertarian Cato Institute, 65% of people taken by ICE had no criminal conviction whatsoever and 93% had no conviction for violent offenses.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular