Connect with us

News

Trump's border czar says immigration raids will begin next week, including in Chicago

Published

on

Trump's border czar says immigration raids will begin next week, including in Chicago

Incoming White House “border czar” Tom Homan speaks during Turning Point’s annual AmericaFest 2024 in Phoenix on Dec. 22.

Jos Edelson/AFP via Getty Images


hide caption

toggle caption

Advertisement

Jos Edelson/AFP via Getty Images

Incoming “border czar” Tom Homan said large-scale raids as part of President-elect Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration are set to begin as soon as Tuesday.

In an interview with Fox News on Friday night, Homan did not offer further details, but he did confirm that Chicago will be one of the cities targeted.

“On Tuesday, ICE is finally going to go out and do their job. We’re going to take the handcuffs off ICE,” he said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Advertisement

Homan, a former acting head of ICE, added that immigration agents will focus on the “worst first, public safety threats first, but no one is off the table. If they’re in the country illegally, they got a problem.”

The anticipated raids in Chicago were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. It comes after Homan visited the city in December and threatened to prosecute the city’s mayor if he refused to cooperate.

On Saturday, Homan told The Washington Post that the incoming administration was reconsidering launching raids in Chicago because details had leaked in the media, but had yet to make a final decision.

Chicago is one of the hundreds of sanctuary cities and counties in the U.S., which typically prohibit local resources from supporting federal immigration enforcement.

The prospect of raids in Chicago echoes Homan’s past remarks that he will not allow sanctuary jurisdictions to hinder the incoming administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Advertisement

On Saturday, Beatriz Ponce de León, Chicago’s deputy mayor for immigrant, migrant and refugee rights, said the news that immigration raids could start in Chicago on Tuesday “wasn’t a surprise,” but that “hearing confirmation made it more real, more concrete.”

She said the city is prepared. In addition to community agencies holding “know your rights” events all over, she said Chicago leaders have met with city departments and sister agencies, such as the police and public school district, to detail existing city policies.

An estimated 11 million immigrants live in the U.S. without legal status.

Both Homan and Trump have vowed to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. But the plan is expected to face legal and logistical hurdles, including where to house millions of people once they are detained.

In Chicago, community organizers and elected officials scramble to encourage residents to not panic

On the city’s Southwest Side, Any Huamani, a community organizer with the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, was fielding requests for Know Your Rights Trainings and leading a rapid response team via private group chat. Team members are ready to be dispatched in case ICE agents arrive in her community.

Advertisement

“Obviously each scenario is different,” Huamani said. “If they’re there to detain someone, rapid response teams respond in a different way. We have to yell out ‘These are your rights. You know, who can we call? Give us a phone number.’ And we’re also trying to record … ICE agents, if there’s an ICE truck or if it’s an unrecognizable truck.”

Meanwhile, 20 requests for trainings had come in.

The biggest fear among immigrants who don’t have a legal status in the U.S., Huamani said, is leaving their children behind.

During Trump’s first administration, his “zero tolerance” policy separated more than 5,000 children from parents who crossed the border, without systems to track and reunite families. Some also fear being detained or held in cities or states unfamiliar to them. Huamani has been advising people at risk of being detained by ICE to memorize at least three phone numbers so that they can be located if taken into ICE custody.

Organizers are worried that ICE agents could target the city’s Southwest Side and execute workplace raids in nearby suburbs, where there are also large concentrations of immigrants without legal status.

Advertisement

Garien Gatewood, Chicago’s deputy mayor of community safety, said the police department has been working under a welcoming city ordinance for 40 years, which stipulates that immigration enforcement is up to the federal government.

Chicago’s police department does not document immigration status, nor share information with federal immigration authorities, said spokesman Don Terry in a statement. But he added that police “will not intervene or interfere with any other government agencies performing their duties.”

“From the top down, everybody at CPD understands the roles that they play,” he said. “This is not the first time that they’ve had interactions with federal agents acting about immigration status.”

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office did not provide a response to news that immigration raids were going to start in Chicago next week. The office provided a transcript of the governor’s statement at a Dec. 11 press conference where he said he “believes it is his obligation to protect” immigrants without legal status who have not committed violent crimes.

WBEZ has more on how Chicago is preparing for the incoming Trump administration.

Advertisement

News

Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

Published

on

Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

Donald Trump has terminated the remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials nationwide just a few months before the midterm elections, multiple outlets reported Thursday.

The remaining three commissioners of the four-member bipartisan commission ⁠were forced out on Thursday in different ways. The one Republican appointee resigned and the other ⁠two, Democratic appointees were notified of their terminations via email from ​the White House presidential personnel office.

“On ‌behalf of President ‌Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position ‌as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the email, seen by Reuters, said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Election Assistance Commission serves as a “national clearinghouse of information on election ‌administration”, accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National ​Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the commission’s website. The terminations follow Trump and top administration officials’ advocacy to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Advertisement

“It is ⁠irresponsible and dangerous that this Administration remains dead set on ​causing chaos for ​our election officials across this ​country,” Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes said in a ​Thursday statement. “This ‌move undermines the integrity ​of nonpartisan ​election administration.”

The 2002 law that established the commission, the Help America Vote Act, states the president can appoint replacements to the commission.

It is unclear how Trump will move ahead with the commission.

Reuters contributed reporting

Advertisement
Continue Reading

News

Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

Published

on

Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

Former U.S. Olympian David Hearn (left) walks with his attorney Norman Eisen to speak to reporters and protesters gathered after his arraignment at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

Finn Gomez/Getty Images


hide caption



toggle caption

Advertisement

Finn Gomez/Getty Images

Former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in D.C. Superior Court Thursday morning.

Federal prosecutors charged Hearn with a single count of destruction of property causing more than $1,000 in damage to the pool.

Hearn has previously claimed, which his attorneys repeated during a short press conference outside the court, that he simply touched the water in the pool out of curiosity.

Advertisement

The Trump administration had just completed a $14 million renovation of the pool.

But shortly after the work finished, peeling paint and algae gathered in the water. The remodel has been largely criticized as a massive failure and waste of taxpayer dollars.

Superior Court Judge Carmen McLean released Hearn on his own recognizance. His next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 5.

Norm Eisen, one of Hearn’s attorneys, spoke to reporters outside of court following the hearing. He said the administration is using Hearn as a “scapegoat … for their own failures.”

“It is not a crime to touch the reflecting pool, to touch water in the United States of America,” he said.

Advertisement

Prosecutors say there is a host of evidence against Hearn.

This is a developing story.

Continue Reading

News

Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Published

on

Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

Advertisement

Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

Advertisement

The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending