'Huge news': Judge denies Trump's motion to keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia in custody\

David McAfee
June 22, 2025 

RAW STORY

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S. legally with a work permit and was erroneously deported to El Salvador, is seen wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, in this handout image obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025. Abrego Garcia Family/Handout via REUTERS

Donald Trump's administration lost its bid to keep a wrongly deported Maryland man, Kilmar Ábrego García, in custody.

García, who was purportedly sent to El Salvador in error, was recently returned to the United States to face federal criminal charges.

According to legal expert Anna Bower on Sunday, "A federal magistrate judge DENIES the government’s motion to keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia in custody while his criminal charges are pending."

“A separate order will enter, following hearing, directing Abrego's release on conditions," she wrote, quoting the order dated Sunday.

Former immigration lawyer Aaron Reichlin-Melnick called the development "huge news with a huge caveat."

"This does NOT mean that he will be released, as ICE will immediately detain him if he leaves criminal custody," the expert noted.

Mahmoud Khalil Won His Freedom Despite the Best Efforts of ICE’s Intelligence Unit

By Shawn Musgrave  

June 21, 2025

Protests in Thomas Paine Park against the detention of Palestinian activist and Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil. 10 March 2025. | Image credit: SWinxy via Wikimedia Commons

a federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to immediately release Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University graduate student activist who has been held in a Louisiana detention center since his arrest in early March.

The judge had previously ruled that Khalil could not be held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement based on a vague federal statute focused on potential “adverse foreign policy consequences” of his presence in the country. The latest ruling rejected the government’s arguments that Khalil, who missed the birth of his son while in detention, posed a flight risk, much less a danger to the community.

“No one should fear being jailed for speaking out in this country,” said Alina Das, co-director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at New York University School of Law, who represented Khalil in court, in an emailed statement. “We are overjoyed that Mr. Khalil will finally be reunited with his family while we continue to fight his case in court.”

Khalil’s case is just the latest instance in which federal courts have ruled against the Trump administration’s dogged efforts to detain and deport noncitizens who protested Israel’s war in Gaza, many of them students who are in the U.S. on visas or green cards.

One under-scrutinized federal agency has been crucial to this effort: Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which markets itself as an elite force that targets human traffickers, drug smugglers, and war criminals. But under the second Trump administration, HSI has turned its surveillance apparatus on a different kind of target: noncitizens on college campuses with critical views of Israel.

As it built dossiers on Khalil and others, HSI deployed its full suite of investigative tools and techniques to “identify individuals within the parameters” of President Donald Trump’s executive orders about rooting out purported antisemitism, as one HSI agent explained in an affidavit.

For each target, HSI agents used surveillance tools to build a dossier, which was then passed to the State Department to confirm that the target was, in the eyes of the U.S. government, sufficiently antisemitic to be deported.

To track down protesters for arrest, HSI agents conducted “pattern of life” surveillance, The Intercept found, which meant monitoring targets’ movements and associates. HSI agents executed search warrants on college dorms based on flimsy affidavits, issued subpoenas for financial records and other data, and even put a trace on one target’s WhatsApp account.

“It’s notable that these components, which purportedly focus on threats to national security and public safety, are spending their time hunting down student protesters for their protected speech,” said Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which is suing the Trump administration for targeting pro-Palestinian campus activists. “From what I’ve seen, the government hasn’t made a plausible argument that these students actually pose a threat to the national security of the United States.”

For years, watchdogs have warned that Congress needs to rein in HSI. During the first Trump administration, HSI monitored protest plans, called in aerial surveillance of the George Floyd demonstrations, and helped compile a database of journalists and immigration advocates to target at the border.

When Trump returned to the White House in January, HSI wasted little time in using its broad, fuzzy authority to target and track down critics of Israel’s war on Gaza.

“HSI has a really broad, often unchecked authority that in moments like these can allow them to turn it into a weapon,” said Spencer Reynolds, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, who previously worked as senior intelligence counsel in the Department of Homeland Security.

“The Department does little to promote oversight and accountability of its operations,” Reynolds said of HSI, pointing to the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate or defang DHS’s civil liberties office as amplifying the risks of abuse.

“We’ve seen this happen in the past,” Reynolds said, “and it can result in abusive targeting.”

ICE did not respond to The Intercept’s questions for this story.

HSI sprang into action in late January, after Trump issued an executive order purportedly aimed at antisemitism, according to an affidavit filed by a high-ranking HSI official in the case of Momodou Taal, a Cornell University grad student.

HSI investigators launched a “proactive” review of “open-source information to identify individuals subject to the Executive Order,” wrote Roy M. Stanley III, who leads the counterterrorism unit within HSI’s Office of Intelligence. As part of this review, HSI conducted “targeted analysis to substantiate aliens’ alleged engagement of antisemitic activities.”

In the Knight Institute’s lawsuit, another official, Andre Watson, who leads HSI’s national security division, explained that “HSI Office of Intelligence proactively reviews open-source information to identify individuals within the parameters of” Trump’s executive order.

“The HSI Office of Intelligence is typically focused on identifying actual security threats,” said DeCell of the Knight Institute.

And just because the underlying information is open source, meaning available on the public internet, DeCell explained, “doesn’t mean the government isn’t using more advanced tech as part of its “boil the ocean” approach to surveillance.”

In fact, ICE officials’ references to “open-source” searches potentially refer to HSI’s massive database, called RAVEn, said Reynolds, of the Brennan Center. RAVEn uses large-language models to collate material from across ICE’s systems and the public internet, including social media posts and news stories.

For Taal, HSI’s open-source trawl turned up online articles about his participation in Gaza protests and run-ins with the Cornell administration. In mid-March, HSI referred its findings to the State Department, which revoked Taal’s visa the same day, according to other court filings.

After initially filing suit to challenge the revocation of his visa, Taal decided to leave the U.S. in late March rather than risk being detained like Khalil.

Court records across multiple cases reflect this general workflow: HSI agents use surveillance tools to build a dossier — an “HSI Subject Profile,” as Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred to them in memos.

“There seems to be a two-way street here” between HSI and the State Department, DeCell noted, by which HSI agents provide reports that “support the State Department’s decision to revoke a visa.”

HSI drafted “subject profiles” on Khalil and at least two other Columbia students targeted for their ties to Gaza protests, court records show: Yunseo Chung and Mohsen Mahdawi.

In many cases, Rubio quickly ratified HSI’s findings and ordered the targets should be deported under a rarely used provision for “adverse policy interests.” As in Taal’s case, Rubio signed off on the deportations of Khalil, Chung, and Mahdawi within 24 hours. He even did so in a single letter that gave ICE the green light to detain both Khalil and Chung.

But in some cases, HSI’s intel was a stretch even for Rubio’s staff.

HSI’s dossier on Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student, quoted from an op-ed she co-wrote calling on Tufts to “disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel,” the Washington Post reported. The State Department pushed back somewhat, determining the op-ed wasn’t sufficient evidence of antisemitic activity or support for a terrorism organization.

The State Department did not respond to The Intercept’s questions about whether Rubio’s staff had disagreed with HSI’s determinations as to any other targets beside Öztürk.

All the same, based on HSI’s threadbare findings, Öztürk’s visa could still be revoked at Rubio’s discretion, the State Department wrote in a reply memo later filed in court. “Due to ongoing ICE operational security, this revocation will be silent,” wrote John Armstrong of the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs to Watson on March 21. “The Department of State will not notify the subject of the revocation.”

Four days later, as Öztürk walked to a Ramadan dinner, six plain-clothed ICE agents surrounded her, placed her under arrest, and whisked her out of Massachusetts and ultimately to a detention center in Louisiana, where she was held for several weeks before a federal judge ordered her release in early May. 

Mahdawi also won his release in May, which the federal government has appealed in tandem with Öztürk’s case. Despite HSI agents’ best efforts, Chung has never been detained, and earlier this month a federal judge issued an injunction that prohibits ICE from taking her into custody.

HSI has not just taken lead on flagging people who criticized Israel on university campuses, but also in tracking down and arresting them through various surveillance tactics.

In Khalil’s case, even before Rubio signed off on their findings, HSI placed Khalil under “pattern of life” surveillance, according to an immigration court filing. As an ICE attorney explained, this meant gathering information about Khalil’s “frequent locations, people he associates with, and various other information essential to law enforcement activities.”

When Rubio gave the go-ahead, HSI agents were already parked outside Khalil’s campus apartment in New York City. Despite not having an arrest warrant, they took him into custody and quickly hustled him to a facility in Louisiana.

HSI special agents also staked out and arrested Badar Khan Suri, a scholar at Georgetown University, after Rubio determined he should be deported in mid-March. In May, a federal judge ordered his release.

When HSI struggled to locate targets, they used legal processes like subpoenas and search warrants to try to track them down.

In Chung’s case, ICE surveilled her campus apartment for five days and visited her parents’ home in Virginia but still couldn’t find her. So HSI agents sent administrative subpoenas to Columbia — seeking video footage from her dorm building and data showing when Chung swiped in and out of the building over an eight-day period, court records show.

Citing student privacy laws, a Columbia spokesperson would not answer whether the university complied with ICE’s administrative subpoenas, which would not be legally enforceable without a separate court order. “The University seeks legal advice for any type of warrant or subpoena, judicial or administrative,” the spokesperson wrote by email to The Intercept, adding that decisions about compliance “are made by the University after legal review to ensure there is a lawful requirement and, if so, the University must then comply.”

HSI agents also obtained and executed judicial search warrants for the dorm rooms of Chung and another Columbia student on the theory that Columbia was “harboring” them in violation of federal law.

The search warrant application materials, which were unsealed in mid-May, showed an assistant special agent in charge of HSI’s New York office filed a wildly inaccurate affidavit.

The affidavit misstated basic facts and federal law, attorneys told The Intercept, including that Chung, a lawful permanent resident with a green card, was in the country unlawfully.

When Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who grew up in the West Bank, was arrested by New York City cops last spring at a Gaza demonstration at Columbia University, she was not a prominent activist or a recognizable leader in the student pro-Palestine movement like Khalil or Mahdawi.

She wasn’t even a Columbia student or otherwise affiliated with the school. Kordia had gone into the city for the day from her home in Paterson, New Jersey, she says in a lawsuit challenging her detention at an ICE facility in Texas.

Kordia was one of dozens of people arrested the same day in April 2024 that NYPD stormed Columbia’s Hamilton Hall. Kordia was not part of the contingent of students who occupied the hall, but was arrested outside the closed campus gates after police told the crowd to disperse.

All charges against Kordia were later dropped without any court appearances. Her case was sealed, and her name did not make it into news coverage of the protest or onto lists by pro-Israel groups like Betar.

But her low profile didn’t stop Kordia, whose student visa had expired while her green card application was in process, from being targeted by HSI.

Early in March, HSI began investigating Kordia for “national security violations,” according to court records. And agents in HSI’s Newark office threw considerable investigative resources into profiling Kordia.

HSI agents subpoenaed her financial records, put a trace on her WhatsApp account, and asked NYPD for records about her arrest. They interviewed Kordia’s mother, who is an American citizen; several of her acquaintances; and even the tenants of an apartment Kordia once rented.

In mid-March, the week after HSI agents arrested Khalil at his apartment on Columbia’s campus, they detained Kordia in New Jersey and flew her to the Texas detention center.

After the Department of Homeland Security put out a gleeful statement, Kordia quickly became known as the “second Columbia student” arrested by ICE over Gaza protests — even as Columbia made clear she was never enrolled. It’s a basic error that ICE still can’t keep straight, claiming in a recent press release that Kordia is “another Columbia Student who actively participated in anti-American, pro-terrorist activities on campus.”

Kordia remains in ICE detention thousands of miles from her family. Together with others targeted by HSI because of their ties to protests over Gaza, her case underscores the Trump administration’s commitment to targeting dissent with advanced surveillance tools and federal manpower.

“The government is deploying resources that are purportedly focused on identifying threats” but instead “rounding up students protesting on their own college campuses,” summarized the Knight Institute’s DeCell. “That raises significant First Amendment concerns, and it raises a chilling effect for anyone here in the U.S. on a visa.”

 

The Booming Economy Based on the Criminalization of Migrants

It pays to prey on the innocent.

By Stephen J. Lyons     

June 20, 2025

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Photo by Stephen J. Lyons

Robo dogs. Tasers-equipped drone. Lie detectors. Smart walls. Iris scans. The imprecise, inhumane technology of AI algorithms.

This is the arsenal that migrants and their families now face when they flee horrific conditions in their native countries. If they survive perilous journeys by boat across the Mediterranean Sea, or on foot across the Sonoran Desert, they are treated like criminals, often brutalized and locked up for years in unsanitary detention camps without due process.

Their “crime”? Trying against all odds to find safe haven and a better life in the United States and across Europe.

In the book, “The Walls Have Eyes,” (The New Press, 2024) lawyer and anthropologist Petra Molnar shows in heartbreaking narratives and well-sourced research that the prevention of asylum and migration is now a big business on our planet.

“Corporate interests prey upon anxieties about migration,” Molnar writes. She notes that the technologies I listed above are part of “a global multi-billion-dollar border industrial complex, involving everyone from obscure Israeli surveillance companies to well-known players like Airbus, Accenture, Palantir, and Thomas Reuters, to name but a few.”

Border anxieties perpetuated by politicians that use jacked-up rhetoric to grab power while doling out these multi-billion-dollar contracts have greased the wheels of oppression to create a new form of western colonization.

Look no further than the United States. In the 2024 Republican platform of candidate Donald Trump, the number one priority was not the economy, healthcare, veterans or climate change. Instead, screams the platform in upper caps, “SEAL THE BORDER, AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION.”

“We will complete the Border Wall, shift massive portions of Federal Law Enforcement to Immigration Enforcement, and use advanced technology to monitor and secure the Border.”

The second policy for the GOP? “CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY.”

Later in the document: “Stop the migrant crime epidemic.”

Copan, Honduras. 2024. Photo by Stephen J. Lyons

Crime epidemic? Hardly. The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research did an exhaustive study titled, “The mythical tie between immigration and crime.”

Researchers found that over 140 years, “first-generation immigrants have not been more likely to be imprisoned than people born in the United States since 1880.

“Today, immigrants are 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated than are U.S.-born individuals who are white, the study finds…the likelihood of an immigrant being incarcerated is 60 percent lower than of people born in the United States.”

“From Henry Cabot Lodge in the late 19th century to Donald Trump, anti-immigration politicians have repeatedly tried to link immigrants to crime, but our research confirms that this is a myth and not based on fact,” says Ran Abramitzky, lead author of the study.

But facts (and humanity) be damned when there is money to be made from exclusion.

When it comes to the criminalization of the “Other,” Europe is no better. Molnar reports that, according to the Transnational Institute (TNI), the “European Union is directly involved in supporting detention in at least twenty-two countries, funding the construction of detention centers and related infrastructure including providing surveillance technology, training guards, and even exerting political pressure on governments to crack down on migration.”

This despite the 1951 Refugee Convention that grants certain rights to refugees, including in Article 16, “…free access to the courts of law” in the nation that she has fled to.Too often that right to an attorney is denied through the arrest and incarceration of refugees in migrant camps. Molnar notes that there are “nearly 1,400 detention centers worldwide,” some completely privately run.

Israel is a “leader” in border surveillance technology. Elbit Systems employs 18,000 and had a revenue of $5.28B in 2021, according to Molnar. She also witnessed how that spy technology is often first tested on Palestinians in Gaza. A former Israeli soldier told her, “How do we control the Palestinians? We make them feel like we are everywhere. We are not only invading your home but also your private digital space.” (This begs the question: how did it miss the surprise attack by Hamas?)

Controlling poorer, desperate populations in countries where condition have deteriorated because of wealthier nations is not new. It is today’s form of colonialism.

In the book “This Land is Our Land,” (FSG, 2019) Suketu Mehta recalls a confrontation his grandfather had in London when a British man “wagged a finger in his face” and asked “Why are you in my country?”

‘“Because we are the creditors,” responded my grandfather, who was born in India, worked all his life in colonial Kenya, and was now retired in London. ‘You took all our wealth, our diamonds. Now we have come to collect.”’

Mehta, regarding the way rich countries exploit the poor, “…they fouled the air above us and waters around us, making our farms barren, our oceans lifeless; and they were aghast when the poorest among us arrived at their borders…”

They will not stop arriving. The bill we have amassed is overdue. Time to pay up.

SOURCES:

GOP platform

https://thehill.com/latino/4760673-migrant-invasion-mass-deportations-southern-border-2024-gop-platform/mlite

Myth of migrant crime

https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/mythical-tie-between-immigration-and-crime

1951 Refugee Convention, access to courts page 5

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.23_convention%20refugees.pdfEmail

Stephen J. Lyons

• Website

Stephen J. Lyons is the author of six books of reportage and essays, including Going Driftless, Life Lessons from the Heartland for Unraveling Times. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The Sun, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, Newsweek, High Country News, the Independent, South China Morning Post, the New York Daily News, the Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Reason, Psychotherapy Networker, Salon, Audubon, USA Today, and many other magazines and newspapers.

Trump administration suspends enforcement of Biden-era farmworker rule

Kanishka Singh
Fri, June 20, 2025 


Farmworkers labor during a heat wave in Woodland
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump's administration said on Friday it was suspending enforcement of a "burdensome" farmworker rule from former President Joe Biden's administration.

The 2024 rule provided protection for workplace organizing to foreign farmworkers in the U.S. on H-2A visas. The U.S. Department of Labor said the rule had already been suspended because of federal injunctions.

"The decision provides much-needed clarity for American farmers navigating the H-2A program, while also aligning with President Trump's ongoing commitment to strictly enforcing U.S. immigration laws," the department said in a statement.

"As multiple federal court injunctions have created significant legal uncertainty, inconsistency, and operational challenges for farmers lawfully employing H-2A workers, this field assistance bulletin clarifies that the department will not be enforcing the 2024 final rule effective immediately."

The H-2A visa program allows farmers to bring in an unlimited number of foreign seasonal farmhands if they can show there are not enough U.S. workers willing, qualified and available to do the job.

The program has grown over time, with 378,000 H-2A positions certified by the Labor Department in 2023, three times more than in 2014.

That figure is about 20% of the nation's farmworkers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Trump said last week he would take steps soon to address the effects of his immigration crackdown on the country's farm and hotel industries, which rely heavily on migrant labor.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese and Tom Hogue)

US Immigration raid at car wash sparks tense scene, hours of protests in LA

Jad El Reda, Ruben Vives, Rong-Gong Lin II
Sat, June 21, 2025 
Los Angeles Times

A protester, in white T-shirt, is restrained on Atlantic Avenue in the city of Bell on Friday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

LONG READ

Protesters gathered in southeast Los Angeles County on Friday evening, facing off with masked men in fatigues after federal agents detained at least three people at a car wash in the city of Bell, according to witnesses, and visited another car wash in neighboring Maywood.

The immigration action in Bell took place at Jack's Car Wash and Detailing, located in the 7000 block of Atlantic Avenue, just north of Florence Avenue. Security camera footage reviewed by The Times shows masked men wearing olive vests chasing a car wash employee, who was wearing a bright green uniform and cap.

The video shows another employee — wearing a bright green cap, a white long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans — surrounded by the masked men, his hands restrained behind his back. The employee is tackled to the ground as customers and others gathered, with some taking out their phones to record videos.

The man in the white-long sleeved shirt is a car wash worker who is a U.S. citizen, according to the employee's brother, Jesús Rafael Cervantes. He said his brother, who lives in Bell Gardens, wanted to defend a coworker — an action that, Cervantes said, prompted agents to detain his brother.

"Just for defending someone, they came and knocked him down. As you can see in the videos, they came and knocked him down like that, just like that. And that's unfair, that they come and grab a person like that as if he were an animal or something," Cervantes told The Times.

Protesters gathered to confront the agents in the area, which is about six miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. In one video shared with The Times, a protester sprays white paint on a silver SUV and a voice can be heard saying, "Get the ... out of here!" while others jeer. People can be seen hitting the vehicle.

Residents confront federal agents as residents scream over their presence in their neighborhood on Atlantic Boulevard in the city of Bell on Friday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Read more: 

'They are grabbing people.' L.A. and Orange County car wash workers targeted by federal immigration raids


Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return a request for comment. In a statement posted on social media, the agency said Border Patrol vehicles "were violently targeted during lawful operations" in Bell and Maywood.

The Department of Homeland Security said one vehicle was rammed and had its tires slashed on Atlantic Boulevard. On Slauson Avenue, a civilian struck a federal vehicle, totaling it, according to the department.

"The driver was arrested for suspicion of vehicular assault as a mob formed and slashed additional tires," the department said.

The statement included photos showing silver vehicles with cracked or shattered windows. One silver SUV was shown with dented doors and scratched paint.

"Federal law enforcement is facing an ever-escalating increase in assaults — but we will not be deterred," the department said. "If you assault a federal officer, you will be prosecuted."

The statement did not indicate how many were detained on immigration-related matters.

U.S. Border Patrol respond to the scene after a traffic collision with one of their vehicles on Atlantic and Brompton avenues as ongoing immigration raids take place across the greater L.A. area on Friday. (Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

The protest in Bell, a city with a large Latino and Lebanese community, comes as the federal government continues its campaign in Los Angeles to find and capture undocumented immigrants. The actions have spurred backlash from local and state officials and have forced some residents into hiding.

"We're not sure who these armed men are. They show up without uniforms. They show up completely masked. They refuse to give ID. They're driving regular cars with tinted windows and in some cases, out-of-state license plates. Who are these people?" Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said at a briefing Friday night.

"If they're federal officials, why is it that they do not identify themselves?" Bass asked.

Residents scream and film federal agents and local police who they surrounded after an immigrant raid on Atlantic Boulevard in the city of Bell on Friday, June 19, 2025. 

Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times

Around Atlantic and Brompton avenues, crowds of people gathered, taking videos and looking at the agents — armed individuals wearing balaclavas, some carrying long weapons, wearing vests and camouflage pants. They stood in the street near a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop.

The crowd and agents were separated by yellow tape. One woman with a bullhorn hurled obscenities at the agents and President Trump; others waved a Mexican flag and an upside-down U.S. flag, traditionally a symbol of protest or distress.

"Losers!" another woman called out. "Go fight a real war!" Another shouted, "Shame on you!"

Read more: More L.A. car washes targeted in immigration raids, some closed amid fears of further sweeps

Elsewhere, one of the armed people wore a U.S. flag on his vest, and some onlookers called out to them. "Are you a bounty hunter? How much is the bounty for an illegal right now?" someone on the street yelled.

A federal agent walks through tear gas that was fired to push protesters back during a raid on Atlantic Boulevard In the city of Bell on Friday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Cudahy Mayor Elizabeth Alcantar Loza was in Bell as the crowds gathered, and said the mood on Atlantic Avenue shifted when suddenly an unmarked silver SUV drove toward her and other people standing near her, angering the crowd. Some began to hit and throw objects at the SUV. A second unmarked vehicle attempted to do the same thing moments later, she said.

"It felt like there was a point being made to incite violence," Alcantar Loza said. "People were peacefully protesting, and it became something completely different because of the vehicle that was trying to drive into the crowd."

"We've seen it across the board, folks show up to an immigration activity and then violence is enacted upon them. Then they respond and we're shown as violent protesters — when in reality folks were calm, they were chanting, they were protesting. And they tried to run people over," she said.

Just after 8 p.m., peaceful protesters waving Mexican and American flags gathered around Jack's Car Wash in Bell, as motorists honked their horns in support. "ICE out of everywhere!!!" one sign said. "Immigrants built this country," said another.

There was another immigration action that appeared to focus on a car wash in Maywood on Friday, according to Maywood Councilman Eddie De La Riva. Ultimately, no one was taken from that business, he said.

At one point, there was considerable commotion near the car wash.

Video shared with The Times shows a minor collision between a blue BMW and a blue SUV with at least three agents inside, all wearing green vests.

One of the passengers in the SUV opens his door in front of the slowly moving BMW, causing the BMW to hit the SUV's door.

Agents detained the BMW's driver, who was later released, the councilman said, after onlookers shouted at the agents to let the driver go. By then, a crowd of protesters had formed.

Fernando Botello, 39, was driving back to Maywood after picking up his girlfriend's 14-year-old son when he got an alert on his citizen app that people suspected to be immigration agents were spotted in the area.

Moments later, he said, he learned that the agents were at an Xpress Wash at Slauson and Alamo avenues, just blocks from his home. When Botello got close to the intersection, he could see several vehicles were blocking the roadway.

Read more: Tensions over L.A. immigration sweeps boil over as Padilla is tackled, ICE arrests pick up

Unable to move, he got out of the car and watched the scene.

He said the crowd started screaming to let the man go. He could hear people asking for the agents' badge numbers. After five minutes, he said, local police arrived.

It was at that point, he said, the agents got in their vehicles and threw tear gas at a group standing on a corner near a park.

A video taken by Botello shows an armed masked man standing from the ledge of an open door of a black SUV slowly driving along a street near Maywood's Riverfront Park. The video shows the agent throwing an object toward a crowd of people, and a loud bang can be heard as he gets back in the vehicle. Botello said the object was a flash bang grenade, and was tossed at people who were taking video.

"They knew what they wanted to do," he said.

As he recounted the situation, Botello paused, trying to hold back tears.

"I was upset because the people were exercising their right. They weren't hitting the officers' vehicles, they weren't in the middle of the street," he said. "You're punishing people for standing up for their neighbors and yourself."

"It feels surreal. I don't know how long this is going to last."

The Dodgers were about to break their silence on Trump’s immigration crackdown. Then federal agents showed up

Natasha Chen and Kyle Feldscher, CNN
Sat, June 21, 2025 

A small group of demonstrators protests outside the entrance of Dodger Stadium on Thursday, claiming the organization supports federal immigration efforts in Los Angeles. - Etienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images


After about two weeks of building public pressure for the Los Angeles Dodgers to speak out against immigration raids throughout the metro area, the team announced on Friday a partnership with the city to commit $1 million to assist families of impacted immigrants – a statement that was delayed by one day after dozens of federal law enforcement showed up just outside the vast parking lot surrounding Dodger stadium.

As one of the City of Angels’ first major professional sports teams, the Dodgers are a cornerstone of Southern California culture. Their interlocking LA logo is as iconic as the Hollywood sign, recognized around the world and worn as a symbol of pride by millions of Angelenos.

In times of crisis, teams like the Dodgers are usually a rallying point – a unifying force in moments of struggle. But over the last few weeks, as major protests popped up in Los Angeles in response to increased immigration raids by the Trump administration in the Southern California area, the Dodgers became a target of local ire. It was a tough demotion from being the subject of local adoration just months ago during a World Series championship parade.

On June 6, raids outside a Home Depot and an apparel warehouse in Los Angeles set off days of protests and, on some nights, clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement. President Donald Trump on June 7 deployed National Guard troops to the city to “temporarily protect ICE” – the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement – “and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions” and to protect federal property, according to a memo – overriding California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called the move a “brazen abuse of power.”

Families have been split, people were arrested by plain-clothes agents wearing masks and hats and Trump and his administration reveled in the chance to clash with Democratic politicians. As fear spread throughout Los Angeles, many of the city’s institutions spoke up to defend the undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers who were being picked up by the federal government.

But not the Dodgers. The team – whose stadium itself is part of the long story of the Latino experience in Los Angeles, given the land on which it sits was once home to a Mexican-American neighborhood that fought for years against being displaced – was publicly quiet for two weeks about the tension gripping its city.

The silence infuriated many members of the fanbase, who felt abandoned by their team

“I just feel like the organization, as a whole, needed to say something. The fanbase is predominantly Latinos, and we have been supporting them forever,” said Amanda Carrera, a Dodgers fan who was demonstrating outside of Dodger Stadium on Thursday.

On Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Times reported that the team would be breaking that silence with a plan to support immigrant communities in the city.

A few dozen people were also protesting as the Dodgers played the San Diego Padres. They shouted to keep “ICE out of LA” and “ICE out of Dodger Stadium.” Many expressed anger toward the Dodger organization for remaining silent on the issue plaguing a core part of their fanbase. “And so why should we keep supporting them if they don’t support us?” Carrera asked. “And, as heartbreaking as it sounds, it’s like we love our team so much and it just feels like they don’t love us.”
A strange day in Chavez Ravine

It was against that backdrop that federal law enforcement arrived just outside the vast Dodger Stadium parking lot on Thursday morning.

Reports began to circulate that federal agents were present at the stadium outside downtown LA, sparking concerns the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown was coming to the home of the World Series champions hours before a game against the San Diego Padres. Protesters rushed to the area and began chanting anti-ICE slogans at the federal agents.

In the team’s telling, agents from ICE arrived at Dodger Stadium and asked for permission to access the parking lots. The Dodgers said no.

The Trump administration’s version of what happened is quite different. US Customs and Border Protection vehicles were in a parking lot on the grounds, and one of them had a car malfunction that caused them to stay longer, according to an official who maintained there were no operations related to the MLB franchise.

Unidentified agents and their vehicles at Gate E of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. - Zin Chiang/dpa/picture alliance/Getty Images

The ICE account on X even called out the Dodgers directly, saying their post was false.

“We were never there,” the post read.

There has been an influx of CBP agents in the Los Angeles area on the heels of the protests against Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. The Department of Homeland Security surged agency personnel to the region, including border agents, to respond to those protests and many have remained in the area.

“This had nothing to do with the Dodgers. CBP vehicles were in the stadium parking lot very briefly, unrelated to any operation or enforcement,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

An Echo Park Rapid Response community activist, who did not want to be named, told CNN that early Thursday morning, members of the community signaled “what they called a really heavy ICE presence at the Home Depot in Hollywood,” so they headed that way.

The activist said they saw two people being detained at a Home Depot and followed the vehicles in which the detainees were taken away to near Dodger Stadium.

They saw a CBP agent, the activist said, whom they had also seen and spoken to at the Home Depot. “I asked what they were doing. He responded they bring the detainees there (near Dodger Stadium) to process them,” the activist said. “They conduct their investigation there without public interference, (…) that they can’t do it in the Home Depot parking lot because the public makes it too dangerous.”

CNN has contacted CBP and ICE for clarification regarding the community member’s description of events.

Another activist in the area, Chelsea Kirk, followed what she believed to be ICE vans from the Home Depot to Dodger Stadium’s Gate A entrance. She later followed them to a second entry point at Gate E, where the unmarked vans and agents in tactical gear remained for a few more hours.

Protesters gathered at Gate E before dispersing in the early afternoon. Demonstrators gathered again in the early evening to protest outside Gate A, as the Dodgers played the San Diego Padres. They shouted to keep “ICE out of LA” and “ICE out of Dodger Stadium.” Many expressed anger toward the Dodger organization for remaining silent on the issue plaguing a core part of their fanbase.

“Why should we keep supporting them if they don’t support us?” Carrera asked. “And, as heartbreaking as it sounds, it’s like we love our team so much and it just feels like they don’t love us.”

With the attention on the presence of federal agents Thursday, the original plan for the Dodgers to announce support for the immigrant community was delayed.

Dodgers President Stan Kasten said Thursday that the delay was “because of the events earlier today,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
Frustration and fear run deep in LA

No matter the agency or their purpose, the appearance of federal agents at Dodger Stadium is enough to create a high-profile event, given the atmosphere gripping Los Angeles.

Some businesses have been closing early, with more customers staying home. As the school year wound down, some students wept openly in class, worried about the future of their families. Relatives stayed away from graduation ceremonies, while some nannies chose to stay close to their employers’ homes, only taking the children around the block instead of public parks.

Rumors of where ICE will be or how it will be meeting the White House’s demands for more arrests have been rife, not just in LA but around the country. With the FIFA Club World Cup attracting soccer fans to stadiums throughout the US, there have been worries federal agents could target people coming to the games.

So, when reports of federal agents being outside Dodger Stadium began to circulate on Thursday, protesters flocked to the team’s complex just outside of downtown Los Angeles. Images from the parking lot outside the stadium showed a line of police blocking protesters from being near the large group of unmarked federal law enforcement vehicles that had gathered in the stadium’s expansive concrete apron.

With the White House expecting ICE to arrest 3,000 people per day and Los Angeles-area officials telling the public they don’t have any idea where federal agents will pop up next, the entire area is on edge.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said during a news conference Friday the agents didn’t provide any identification, so they aren’t sure who they are or what they were doing.

“We’re not sure who these armed men are,” she said. “They show up without uniforms, they show up completely masked, they refuse to give ID, they are driving regular cars with tinted windows, and in some cases out of state license plates. Who are these people? And frankly, the vests they have on looked like they ordered them from Amazon.”

Protesters demonstrate not far from federal agents staged outside a gate of Dodger Stadium on June 19 in Los Angeles. - Mario Tama/Getty Images

Carerra said she’s organizing a protest later this week and she hears mixed things about whether people actually want to be in public.

“The community has voted to protest. They want to come out and do it, but I think that there is the other half that’s scared,” she said.

“It’s scary when you see images and videos of people being kidnapped. You know, I mean, ICE agents, unmarked vehicles, masks covering their face. … We don’t even know who to trust. We don’t know, like, are these actually, actual agents or not, you know? So, there’s a lot of fear. It’s horrible. It’s so just heartbreaking.”

The tension meant many fans lashed out at the Dodgers for not having done more to express support for their fans, many of whom are Latino. The replies to the Dodgers’ X account were full of fans demanding the team say something condemning the federal government’s actions or – at the very least – express support for the immigrant community in LA.

Vice President JD Vance traveled Friday to Los Angeles, where he toured a multiagency Federal Joint Operations Center before meeting with leadership and Marines. While speaking with the press, Vance defended the administration’s controversial use of the California National Guard in Los Angeles after a federal appeals court allowed President Donald Trump to maintain control over thousands of guardsmen.

“That determination was legitimate, and the president’s going to do it again if he has to, but hopefully it won’t be necessary,” Vance said.

The vice president is the highest-ranking administration official to travel to Los Angeles since protests roiled the city following ICE raids and troop deployments earlier this month.

Fans demand more from the Dodgers

As the Dodgers delayed their announcement, Al Aguilar stood outside Dodger Stadium with a sign that read “Los Doyers Silent? Silent” on Thursday afternoon. He said the team’s history in LA should make it more understanding of the pressure on the community.

He said the Dodgers buying the Chavez Ravine land at a discounted price and the eviction of the final families remaining on the land came with the stipulation the stadium would be used for the community. He said Latinos largely stayed away from the team until Fernandomania – the debut of Dodger legend Fernando Valenzuela and his subsequent success – in 1981 made fans for life.

That history isn’t forgotten today, he said.

“Nothing was said. They were silent about the issues going on, not even taking sides. They could say, ‘We believe in equal rights, constitutional rights, due process,’ without taking sides, just those things, but they didn’t say anything,” Aguilar told CNN.

Dodgers Stadium. - Etienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images

He added, “With the amount of Latin American players that they have, with the community being behind them all these years, being (forgiven) – if you were thrown out of your houses and dragged out for a sports franchise that interrupted the community, you might have feelings about that.”

When singer Nezza performed the National Anthem ahead of a game last weekend, as “No Kings” protests were taking place around the nation and LA was enduring another weekend of protests, she decided to do so in Spanish. What sparked more outrage against the Dodgers was the fact that she said a Dodgers employee specifically asked her not to.

“I didn’t really see an issue with it and I wanted people to know that I’m with them and I’m standing by them,” Nezza told CNN on Tuesday.

An unidentified person, who Nezza says is a Dodgers employee, can be heard on a video saying to the singer, “We are going to do the song in English today, so I’m not sure if that wasn’t relayed.”

Following her performance, the Dodgers employee – who she would not name – called Nezza’s manager almost immediately and told them to never call or email them again, and their client was not welcome back, according to the singer.

The Dodgers have said publicly there are “no consequences or hard feelings” regarding her performance and she is not banned from – and is welcome to return to – the stadium.

Nezza, whose parents are both immigrants, said she hasn’t been contacted by the team and doesn’t plan on attending the stadium again.

“I don’t feel welcome to come back,” she said.

Carerra said that attitude from the team confused and angered many fans.

“That’s kind of what’s been the confusion because they have spoken out against or regarding other social issues before,” she told CNN. “They’ve made statements before about things, and so, you know, the fact that it’s taking them this long is just, it’s very confusing, and it hurts.”

‘Can we even trust them?’

Frustration with the Dodgers could ease among fans after Thursday’s confrontation with the Trump administration and the club’s new pledge of support for immigrant families.

Gary Lee, the founder of DodgersNation.com, said silence is the Dodgers’ “default position” on the immigration crackdown, but the announcement by the team on how it plans to assist immigrants in the area was a relief.

“The Dodgers have arguably been more culturally influential to the city of Los Angeles” than other sports franchises, Lee said, “so there seems to be more responsibility to the community on their shoulders than any other franchise, including the Lakers.”

While the planned announcement didn’t immediately materialize after Thursday’s incident with federal agents, the Dodgers on Friday ended up announcing “$1 million toward direct financial assistance for families of immigrants impacted by recent events in the region” with “additional announcements with local community and labor organizations” to be shared in the coming days.

“What’s happening in Los Angeles has reverberated among thousands upon thousands of people, and we have heard the calls for us to take a leading role on behalf of those affected,” Kasten, the Dodgers president, said Friday. “We believe that by committing resources and taking action, we will continue to support and uplift the communities of Greater Los Angeles.”

Part of the calls for action came from more than 50 Los Angeles leaders who wrote an open letter asking the team to denounce ICE raids.

In response to the Friday announcement, Reverend Zach Hoover, Executive Director of LA Voice, federation of PICO California, said, “The Dodgers have taken a meaningful step toward addressing the fear in our communities. By committing real resources to immigrant families, they’re showing that moral courage and civic leadership still matter in Los Angeles, and that we can heal the wounds of hate with the power of love. We pray this is just the beginning—because dignity demands more than silence, and faith calls us to act.”

But for some fans, the damage is done regardless of what the team says. Carerra told CNN the amount of public pressure on the Dodgers has her questioning the team in ways she never would have before. Regardless of the Dodgers’ statement of support or whether or not the club really threw federal agents off Dodger Stadium property on Thursday, she’s wondering if it’s all a public relations move.

“It’s like, can we even trust them? Like, can we trust them up to this point that what they’re doing isn’t just to kind of, you know, protect themselves, and that sucks. I hate that it has to get to this point,” she said.

CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to note the Dodgers were not the first major professional sports team in Los Angeles.

CNN’s Diego Mendoza, Martin Goillandeau, Rebekah Riess, Jacob Lev and Taylor Romine contributed to this report.

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AMERIKAN GESTAPO

Many Americans are witnessing immigration arrests for the first time and reacting

JULIE WATSON, JAKE OFFENHARTZ and CLAIRE RUSH
Fri, June 20, 2025 


Melyssa Rivas poses for a photo at a location where she witnessed masked federal agents detaining a person earlier this month outside Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Downey, Calif., on Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)More


SAN DIEGO (AP) — Adam Greenfield was home nursing a cold when his girlfriend raced in to tell him Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles were pulling up in their trendy San Diego neighborhood.

The author and podcast producer grabbed his iPhone and bolted out the door barefoot, joining a handful of neighbors recording masked agents raiding a popular Italian restaurant nearby, as they yelled at the officers to leave. An hour later, the crowd had grown to nearly 75 people, with many in front of the agents’ vehicles.

“I couldn't stay silent,” Greenfield said. “It was literally outside of my front door.”

More Americans are witnessing people being hauled off as they shop, exercise at the gym, dine out and otherwise go about their daily lives as President Donald Trump's administration aggressively works to increase immigration arrests. As the raids touch the lives of people who aren’t immigrants themselves, many Americans who rarely, if ever, participated in civil disobedience are rushing out to record the actions on their phones and launch impromptu protests.

Arrests are being made outside gyms, busy restaurants

Greenfield said on the evening of the May 30 raid, the crowd included grandparents, retired military members, hippies, and restaurant patrons arriving for date night. Authorities threw flash bangs to force the crowd back and then drove off with four detained workers, he said.

“To do this, at 5 o’clock, right at the dinner rush, right on a busy intersection with multiple restaurants, they were trying to make a statement,” Greenfield said. "But I don’t know if their intended point is getting across the way they want it to. I think it is sparking more backlash.”

Previously, many arrests happened late at night or in the pre-dawn hours by agents waiting outside people's homes as they left for work or outside their work sites when they finished their day. When ICE raided another popular restaurant in San Diego in 2008, agents did it in the early morning without incident.

White House border czar Tom Homan has said agents are being forced to make more arrests in communities because of sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with ICE in certain cities and states. ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide but seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding that person until federal officers take custody.

Vice President JD Vance, during a visit to Los Angeles on Friday, said those policies have given agents “a bit of a morale problem because they've had the local government in this community tell them that they're not allowed to do their job."

“When that Border Patrol agent goes out to do their job, they said within 15 minutes they have protesters, sometimes violent protesters who are in their face obstructing them,” he said.

Melyssa Rivas had just arrived at her office in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, California one morning last week when she heard the frightened screams of young women. She went outside to find the women confronting nearly a dozen masked federal agents who had surrounded a man kneeling on the pavement.

“It was like a scene out of a movie,” Rivas said. “They all had their faces covered and were standing over this man who was clearly traumatized. And there are these young girls screaming at the top of their lungs.”

As Rivas began recording the interaction, a growing group of neighbors shouted at the agents to leave the man alone. They eventually drove off in vehicles, without detaining him, video shows.

Rivas spoke to the man afterward, who told her the agents had arrived at the car wash where he worked that morning, then pursued him as he fled on his bicycle. It was one of several recent workplace raids in the majority-Latino city.

The same day, federal agents were seen at a Home Depot, a construction site and an LA Fitness gym. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people had been detained.

“Everyone is just rattled,” said Alex Frayde, an employee at LA Fitness who said he saw the agents outside the gym and stood at the entrance, ready to turn them away as another employee warned customers about the sighting. In the end, the agents never came in.

Communities protest around ICE buildings

Arrests at immigration courts and other ICE buildings have also prompted emotional scenes as masked agents have turned up to detain people going to routine appointments and hearings.

In the city of Spokane in eastern Washington state, hundreds of people rushed to protest outside an ICE building June 11 after former city councilor Ben Stuckart posted on Facebook. Stuckart wrote that he was a legal guardian of a Venezuelan asylum seeker who went to check in at the ICE building, only to be detained. His Venezuelan roommate was also detained.

Both men had permission to live and work in the U.S. temporarily under humanitarian parole, Stuckart told The Associated Press.

“I am going to sit in front of the bus,” Stuckart wrote, referring to the van that was set to transport the two men to an ICE detention center in Tacoma. “The Latino community needs the rest of our community now. Not tonight, not Saturday, but right now!!!!”

The city of roughly 230,000 is the seat of Spokane County, where just over half of voters cast ballots for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

Stuckart was touched to see his mother’s caregiver among the demonstrators.

“She was just like, ‘I’m here because I love your mom, and I love you, and if you or your friends need help, then I want to help,’” he said through tears.

By evening, the Spokane Police Department sent over 180 officers, with some using pepper balls, to disperse protesters. Over 30 people were arrested, including Stuckart who blocked the transport van with others. He was later released.

Aysha Mercer, a stay-at-home mother of three, said she is “not political in any way, shape or form." But many children in her Spokane neighborhood — who play in her yard and jump on her trampoline — come from immigrant families, and the thought of them being affected by deportations was “unacceptable," she said.

She said she wasn't able to go to Stuckart's protest. But she marched for the first time in her life on June 14, joining millions in “No Kings” protests across the country.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt as strongly as I do right this here second,” she said.

_____

Offenhartz reported from Los Angeles and Rush from Portland, Oregon.

'A good day': Detained U.S. citizen said agents bragged after arresting dozens at Home Depot

Brittny Mejia, Rachel Uranga
Fri, June 20, 2025\


Job Garcia in his apartment in Silver Lake. Garcia, an American citizen, was arrested and held during a raid at a Los Angeles area Home Depot on Thursday. He was released at 8:30 a.m. the next day. (Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

A 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was tackled to the ground and arrested after filming federal agents at Home Depot on Thursday said he was held for more than an hour near Dodger Stadium, where agents boasted about how many immigrants they arrested.

“How many bodies did you guys grab today?” he said one agent asked.

“Oh, we grabbed 31,“ the other replied.

"That was a good day today," the first agent responded.

The two high-fived, as he sat on the asphalt under the sun, Job Garcia said.

Garcia was released on Friday from a downtown federal detention center. No apparent criminal charges have yet to be filed. He is one of several U.S citizens arrested during enforcement operations in recent days. Department of Homeland Security officials say some have illegally interfered with agents' jobs.

In response to questions about why Garcia was arrested and if he'd been charged, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. recommended a reporter contact the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment.

Job Garcia in his apartment in Silver Lake Friday, June 20, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA. Garcia, an American citizen, was arrested and held during a raid at a Los Angeles area Home Depot on Thursday, June 19, 2025. He was release at 8:30 a.m. Friday morning. (Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)More

Garcia said he was shaken by what he heard while he was detained

“They call them 'bodies,' they reduce them to bodies,” he said. "My blood was boiling."

Garcia, a photographer and doctoral student Claremont Graduate University, had been picking up a delivery at Home Depot when someone approached the customer desk and said something was unfolding outside.

"La migra, La migra," he heard as he walked out. He quickly grabbed his phone and followed agents around the parking lot, telling them they were "f— useless" until he came to a group of them forming a half-circle around a box truck.

A Border Patrol agent radioed someone and then slammed his baton against the passenger window, his video shows. Glass shattered. He unlocked the door as people shouted.

In the video, a stunned man can be seen texting behind the wheel. He had apparently refused to open his door.

It's unclear from the footage what happened next, but Garcia said an agent lunged toward him and pushed him.

"My first reaction was to like push his hand off," he recalled. Then, he said, the agent grabbed his left arm, twisted it behind his back and threw his phone.

The agent brought him to the ground and three other agents jumped in, Garcia said

"Get the f— down sir" and "give me your f— hand. You want it, you got it, sir, you f— got it. You want to go to jail, fine. You got it," an agent can be heard saying in the video.

"You wanted it, you got it," the man yelled.

An agent handcuffed him so hard "that there was no circulation running to my fingers," Garcia said.

Pinned down, Garcia had difficulty breathing.

"That moment, I thought I could probably die here," he said.

The agent put Garcia's phone back in his pocket. The recording kept running.

As Garcia was put into a vehicle, his video captured an agent twice saying: "I've got one back here."

"You got one what?" Garcia shot back. "You got one what?"

He said an agent told him in broken Spanish to "wait here,' though it could not be heard on the video.

"I f— speak English, you f— dumbass," he clearly shouts back.

No agent asked if he was an American citizen, he said. Nobody asked for identification.

“They assumed that I was undocumented," he said later in an interview.

The video ends after about four minutes, while he is waiting in the van.

Read more: Raid at a Home Depot in Hollywood shatters an immigrant refuge

Garcia asked an agent to get his wallet from his car, so he could prove he was a U.S. citizen. Another agent retrieved his ID, but he remained handcuffed.

They were so tight, his hands began to swell.

The agents switched him to handcuffs that looked like shoelaces. They took off around a corner, stopped to shuffle him into another van and sped off down the 101 Freeway.

"I smeared my blood in their seat," he said. And he thought, "They're going to remember me."

With him in the van was a Mexican man, face downcast, who said his wife was six months pregnant.

"My wife told me not to go to work today," the man said. "Something doesn't feel right," he said she told him.

"It broke my heart," Garcia said. "I wish he was the one who got away when they were trying to grab me."

On what he described as a ramp going into Dodger stadium near Lot K, Garcia was taken out of the car and told to sit on the asphalt as agents shuffled detainees into different vans and processed them for about an hour. A woman ran his background for criminal offenses.

It felt surreal and enraging.

“They were trying to build some sort of case," Garcia said. He told The Times he was arrested at 17 for driving without a license.

After they transported him, agents later fingerprinted him and tried to interrogate him.

The agent said they wanted to "take your side of the story."

Garcia declined.

He said he overheard an agent tell someone, “Trump is really working us."

While held at a downtown detention facility, he met Adrian Martinez.

Martinez, a 20-year-old Walmart worker and also a U.S. citizen, had been arrested on Tuesday while he tried to stop the arrest of a man who cleaned a shopping center in Pico Rivera. The two spoke for about 10 minutes, as Martinez waited to go to court.

"You're the Walmart kid, right?" he asked him.

Garcia told him what had unfolded outside the Home Depot.

"That's exactly what happened to me," he said Martinez told him. "They were bullying this older guy. I didn’t like that so I went and confronted them and they put their hands on me and I pushed their hands off.”

U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted a photo of Martinez on X and said he "was arrested for an allegation of punching a border patrol agent in the face after he attempted to impede their immigration enforcement operation." Martinez was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to impede a federal officer.

The complaint makes no reference to a punch, but alleges that Martinez blocked agents' vehicles with his car and then later a trash can.

“A complaint generally contains one charge and does not include the full scope of a defendant’s conduct, or the evidence that will be presented at trial," said Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. "Considering this is an active case, we will not be providing further comments outside of court proceedings.”

Martinez was released Friday on a $5,000 bond.

“U.S. Attorney Essayli and U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino outrageously alleged that Adrian assaulted a federal agent," Martinez's attorneys said in a statement. "However he has not been charged with an assault charge because he didn’t assault anyone, and the evidence of that is clear."

Garcia said his cellmate was worried about these protests. He asked, "Don’t you think the protesters who are out there destroying property, rioters, is a bad look?"

“Rioting is the language of the unheard," he said, riffing on a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

NTSB recommends quick modifications to 737 Max engines

due to a safety problem caused by bird strikes.

Ashleigh Fields
Fri, June 20, 2025 

THE HILL

NTSB recommends quick modifications to 737 Max engines

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Wednesday recommended that Boeing modify the engines on 737 Max planes due to a safety problem caused by bird strikes.

The issue came to light during two 2023 flights in Havana, Cuba, and New Orleans when smoke filled the cockpit or cabin after a strike, according to The Associated Press.

Both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned pilots about the issue, which the NTSB said is caused by a safety feature known as a load reduction device.


“This is a case of an unintended consequence of a new and innovative safety idea where if the fan gets unbalanced that this is a way to alleviate the load and thereby doing less damage to the engine, the engine pylon, all of that,” aviation safety expert John Cox told the AP.

The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China’s C919 planes and Airbus A320neo planes have similar reactions.

The engine’s manufacturer, CFM International, said the company is working on a software update to mitigate the issue in a joint venture with GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines.

CFM International said the current model is “aligned with the NTSB’s recommendations and the work is already underway, in close partnership with our airframers, to enhance the capability of this important system,” according to the AP.

Boeing told The Hill on Friday that it supports the NTSB recommendation.

The FAA said when “the engine manufacturer develops a permanent mitigation, we will require operators to implement it within an appropriate timeframe,” according to AP.

Several 737 pilots told the outlet they were unaware of previous incidents caused by the load reduction device after bird strikes.