As Trump Announces New Round of Sanctions Against Cuba, Democrats Warn Country Is Being ‘Strangled to Death’

Four members of Congress returned Monday from an oversight trip to Cuba, which they described as a “silent Gaza.”


Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) attends a news conference calling for the end to the blockade on Cuba on Capitol Hill on June 30, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Jul 14, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


As the Trump administration announced a new round of sanctions on Cuba’s tourism ministry, energy companies, and other entities on Monday, four Democratic members of Congress returned from a trip to the island and described how the oil blockade the US has imposed there for nearly six months “is producing indiscriminate pain for the most vulnerable Cubans.”

“As elected lawmakers tasked with oversight of US foreign policy, we traveled to Havana to meet with Cubans of all walks of life and political perspectives to hear about the hardships the Trump administration’s maximum pressure policies are creating for Cuban citizens,” said Reps. Delia Ramírez (D-Ill.), Teresa Leger-Fernández (D-NM), Mark Pocan, (D-Wis.), and Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.). “In our meetings with religious leaders, entrepreneurs, civil society organizations, humanitarian groups, medical professionals, and farmers, everybody we heard from... agreed on one thing: that they are being strangled to death under the current executive orders and longstanding economic blockade.”

The four Democrats traveled to Cuba last Thursday and spent several days meeting with local leaders, touring the streets of Havana, and speaking with President Miguel Díaz-Canel as the country grapples with the effects of President Donald Trump’s January executive order that baselessly claimed Cuba poses an “extraordinary” threat to US national security and threatened tariffs against any country that provides oil to the communist country.

The president had already cut off Cuba’s main energy supply by invading Venezuela, abducting its president and charging him with drug trafficking, and taking control of its vast oil reserves.

The lawmakers described how the energy blockade is “contributing to nationwide electrical blackouts—including one during our trip—buildups of trash on street corners; severe shortages of food, medicine, and public transportation; and widening inequality on the island.”

Dexter, a physician, noted that Cuba’s lauded healthcare system “is buckling under sanctions that the White House has unleashed on the Cuban people. This is creating a humanitarian catastrophe.”

“Cuba created a free, universal healthcare system that millions of Cubans and others around the world have come to expect and depend on,” said Dexter. “I will be using all the tools at my disposal to remove the barriers to delivering healthcare to the Cuban people.”

As Common Dreams has reported, the blockade has left hospitals struggling to provide care, with 96,000 people, including 11,000 children, on waitlists for surgeries.

“Over 300 pediatric surgeries per week are compromised by shortages of drugs, oxygen, anesthetics, and consumables,” wrote more than 8,000 Italian medical and scientific professionals in an open letter in June.

Leger-Fernández called Trump’s policy in Cuba, which has intensified sanctions that have been in place for years, “a siege.”

“We’re blocking medical supplies, fuel, and other essential inputs, leading its infant mortality rate to rise nearly 150% in recent years, from 4 to 9.9 per 1,000 live births,” said the congresswoman. “I doubt any American wants innocent Cuban babies to die due to our policies.”

Pocan told The Associated Press that one person he spoke to in Cuba called the crisis a “silent Gaza.”

“There may not be bombings, but there are certainly conditions that prevent people from going about their daily lives,” said Pocan. “They can’t go to work, they can’t preserve their food, they can’t access medical supplies, or live as they did before.”

Since imposing the blockade, Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire to take over the island by force and has doubled down on claims that Cuba poses a national security threat to the US.

On Sunday, United Nations Ambassador Michael Waltz claimed in a Fox News interview that China and Russia are “collecting information around our military bases in Cuba.” In May, an anonymous White House official told Axios that Cubans were “discussing plans” to launch drones at the US—even as the reporting acknowledged the country was thought to be preparing defensive, not offensive, capabilities.

As the members of Congress returned to the US and reported on the suffering they witnessed in Cuba on Monday, the administration announced a new round of sanctions on the country’s Ministry of Tourism, energy firms, a state-owned financial services company, a major foreign trade firm, and a maritime transportation company. Foreign banks, insurers, and companies will be exposed to potential penalties if they work with the entities under the sanctions.

The Trump administration, said Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, “continues to intensify the war against the people of Cuba, their living conditions, and their sources of livelihood.”

“The announcement on July 13 of additional coercive measures is a clear manifestation of the criminal and genocidal intent with which US rulers are determined to punish the entire population of the country,” he said.

The sanctions demonstrated the Trump administration’s “zeal to strangle our economy,” added Díaz-Canel. “They reinforce the aggression in search of greater harm to the people. We are facing a genocidal design plan.”

Ilhan Omar Takes Marco Rubio to Task With Call for US to Finally Join International Criminal Court

“America is strongest when we lead with our values, not when we demand immunity from them.”

US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaks at the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party Convention in the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester, Minnesota on May 30, 2026.
(Photo by Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Jul 15, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court, Rep. Ilhan Omar hit back on Wednesday with a resolution urging the US to join the international war crimes tribunal for the first time.

The Democrat from Minnesota was the first member of Congress to push back against the Trump administration’s pledge that it would “systematically disable” the ICC’s “ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.”

“The ICC is a crucial tool for justice in places where victims have nowhere else to turn,” Omar told The Guardian. “If we truly believe in human rights and the rule of law, we should strengthen international justice—not undermine it. The United States should lead by example and show that no one is above the law.”



The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC in 1998. But during President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has waged war on the body, specifically over its investigations into Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and investigations into US personnel over alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

It has imposed sanctions on most of the court’s leadership, as well as on those who have “materially assisted” ICC investigations it opposes, including lawyers and human rights groups that have provided evidence.

The administration has also reportedly demanded that the court amend the Rome Statute to ensure that Trump and members of his administration, as well as Israeli officials, cannot be investigated or prosecuted.

Rubio’s pledge to dismantle the court has drawn widespread condemnation from human rights advocates.

Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said that “in trying to discredit the court, Rubio instead highlights its very purpose: ensuring accountability when those with the power to act choose not to.”

“His arguments read like a tacit admission of wrongdoing,” she said, “suggesting concerns that US officials could one day be held accountable for actions that may amount to crimes under international law, including deporting people to torture in El Salvador’s prisons or the campaign of extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.”

She said, “The only reason he would have to fear the ICC is if US officials have committed such crimes outside the United States and the US government is unwilling to hold them genuinely accountable.”



Omar’s resolution came as a pair of advocacy organizations launched a lawsuit against Trump and other top administration officials alleging that they illegally “muzzle[d] Palestine advocacy” in violation of the First Amendment when they sanctioned human rights groups that called for investigations into US and Israeli nationals over war crimes in Gaza.

While Rubio has denounced the court’s very existence as a threat to “every aspect of [America’s] political and legal system,” and argued that it could lead to the prosecution of US soldiers simply for serving in the military, Omar said this was “simply not true.”

“The ICC is an international court of last resort, intended to prosecute only the most horrific crimes—war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity—when countries are unable or unwilling to do so themselves,” she said. “The best way to avoid ICC scrutiny is simple: don’t commit atrocity crimes, and if credible allegations arise, investigate them transparently and hold those responsible accountable.”

Omar has introduced two previous resolutions calling on the US to ratify the Rome Statute and join the ICC in 2020 and 2022. Neither of them was brought to the floor for a vote, though the latter one had nine Democratic cosponsors.

Announcing plans for a new resolution on Monday, she said, “I urge my colleagues who believe in justice and human rights to join me.”

She said: “America is strongest when we lead with our values, not when we demand immunity from them. If we respect human rights, uphold the rule of law, and hold ourselves to the same standards we ask of others, we have nothing to fear from the ICC.”

Trump Officials Sued Over ICC Sanctions Designed to ‘Muzzle Palestine Advocacy’

“The government is violating the constitutional rights of American citizens in order to shield officials of a foreign government who have committed a genocide.”

US President Donald Trump, flanked by top administration officials, speaks during a press conference at the NATO Summit in Ankara, Türkiye on July 8, 2026.
(Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jul 15, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A pair of advocacy organizations on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump and top members of his administration over sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court and its supporters, arguing the punitive measures violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution and illegally “muzzle Palestine advocacy.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan by Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG), contends that Trump’s Executive Order 14203 unlawfully restricts Americans’ ability to seek “justice on Palestine at the ICC” and work with human rights organizations sanctioned “solely for calling on the ICC to investigate Israeli and American nationals.”

“The Trump administration is using the blunt instrument of economic sanctions not only to punish human rights defenders but to police the political expression of millions of Americans,” said Omar Shakir, executive director of DAWN. “The government is violating the constitutional rights of American citizens in order to shield officials of a foreign government who have committed a genocide.”

DAWN notes that, under Trump’s February 2025 executive order, the administration has sanctioned ICC officials “as well as leading Palestinian human rights groups al-Haq, al-Mezan, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR),” as well as Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ special rapporteur for the human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Trump’s order authorizes sanctions against “any foreign person” deemed to have “materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of,” ICC efforts to “investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute” Americans or officials from allied nations, such as Israel.

The organizations behind the new lawsuit explain that “because the government can interpret the term ‘service’ to encompass anything that confers a benefit on the recipient, groups like DAWN and TAAG could face civil and criminal charges if they engage in routine advocacy with the sanctioned parties—for example, filing a brief with the ICC encouraging it to investigate possible crimes, sharing evidence or advocacy ideas with Palestinian human rights groups or Ms. Albanese, or working with them on a campaign to lift the sanctions.”

“The chilling effect on plaintiffs has been profound,” the lawsuit states. “They now face prison terms and ruinous fines if, in their interactions with the designated parties, they provide or receive anything that defendants could plausibly characterize as a ‘service’—an extraordinarily capacious term that potentially reaches any act that confers a benefit on its recipient. Fearing liability, plaintiffs—and countless others like them—have turned to self-censorship.”

Tarik Kanaana, president of TAAG, said that “with this executive order, Trump has put himself and those in the U.S. government above the law, shielding them from any accountability for their roles in the genocide in Palestine and Lebanon and for war crimes around the globe funded by US taxpayers.”

“As US taxpayers, we have the right to hold our government accountable for how it uses this public resource,” said Kanaana. “That right cannot be taken away.”

The lawsuit comes days after the US State Department launched a sweeping broadside against the ICC, an independent tribunal based in The Hague that investigates and prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other atrocities. In late 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, one of the Trump administration officials named as a plaintiff in the new lawsuit, vowed on Monday to “dismantle” the ICC with increasingly aggressive sanctions against the court and its supporters and international pressure. (Neither the US nor Israel are party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC.)

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary-general, warned in a statement on Tuesday that if nations fail to fight back against the US assault on the ICC, “they will acquiesce to a new era of lawlessness, impunity, and rampant injustice.”

“Now is not the time to appease. Now is the time to resist,” said Callamard. “For the good of humanity, victims’ hopes of justice, and the prospect of lasting global security, the international community must come together, stand up to the bullies in the White House and State Department and protect the international rule of law. We must not accept a reality where the most powerful have the least legal responsibility.”

‘It’s Rule of Law or Barbarism,’ Says Francesca Albanese After Rubio Attack on ICC

“All states and people who care for freedom must rise up in defense of the ICC and international justice now, before it’s too late,” the UN Palestine expert implored.


Defenders of the International Criminal Court, led by the pan-European group Eumans, rally in Rome on July 17, 2025.
(Photo by Eumans/X)

Brett Wilkins
Jul 14, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

More defenders of human rights and the rule of law weighed on Tuesday after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement of a “campaign to dismantle” the International Criminal Court, many of whose judges and prosecutors have already been sanctioned by the administration of President Donald Trump.

Rubio raised eyebrows around the world by accusing the International Criminal Court—which is based in The Hague, Netherlands—of “waging a war against our country—not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts, and the force of so-called international law,” and cryptically vowing that the Trump administration “will teach the ICC the full meaning of American resolve.”

On Tuesday, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, called Rubio’s announcement “utterly shocking but not a surprise.”

“All states and people who care for freedom must rise up in defense of the ICC and international justice now, before it’s too late,” added Albanese, who is under legally contested sanctions imposed by the Trump administration for her outspoken criticism of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. “It’s rule of law or barbarism.”



Responding Monday to the secretary of state’s remarks, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said on social media that “Rubio’s announcement that he will dismantle the International Criminal Court is reckless and dangerous. It undermines the rule of law, weakens global accountability, and turns America’s back on the values we claim to champion.”

“The ICC is an international court of last resort, intended to prosecute only the most horrific crimes—war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity—when countries are unable or unwilling to do so themselves,” Omar added. “The best way to avoid ICC scrutiny is simple: Don’t commit atrocity crimes, and if credible allegations arise, investigate them transparently and hold those responsible accountable.”

The Trump administration has already hit ICC judges with sanctions, including asset freezes, travel bans, and other penalties for ordering the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, as well as for seeking to investigate US atrocities in Afghanistan.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan and two deputy prosecutors, as well as eight judges, have been sanctioned by the US.

While the US and Israel are not parties to the Rome Statute governing the ICC and do not recognize the tribunal’s legitimacy, the treaty states that individuals from nonsignatory nations can be held liable for crimes committed in the territory of a member state.

State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggott echoed Rubio’s remarks, telling Newsmax on Tuesday morning that “if the ICC continues to try to threaten our sovereignty, they will know the full power of American resolve.”

Responding to the interview, independent journalist Aaron Rupar asked, “Are we going to, like, bomb the International Criminal Court?”

Astute observers noted that the American Service Members’ Protection Act—passed during the George W. Bush administration and known colloquially as the “Hague Invasion Act”—authorizes the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate,” including military intervention, to secure the release of American or allied personnel held by or on behalf of the ICC.

“The ICC is not doing great. There’s a lot to complain about. But this, we cannot allow. We cannot allow these hegemons and bullies to run this project into the ground because there is something worthy of protection and improvement in it,” Iva Vukušić, an assistant professor of international history at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said Tuesday on Bluesky in response to Rubio’s threat.

“The arrogance of this man, his boss, and their corrupt administration is insufferable,” Vukušić said in a separate Bluesky post. “The empire must fall for a thousand reasons, but this childish arrogance is among the most important ones.”

Journalist Thor Benson also took to Bluesky, writing: “I hope Marco Rubio eventually gets tried before the ICC. That would be a good way for this to go.”

Rubio Threatens to ‘Teach the ICC’—Which Prosecutes War Crimes—the ‘Full Meaning of American Resolve’

“Is the secretary of state worried because he knows US personnel committed war crimes in Iran?”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a meeting in Ankara, Türkiye on July 7, 2026.
(Photo by Yves Herman/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jul 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday announced what he characterized as a “campaign to dismantle” the International Criminal Court, the Hague-based tribunal tasked with investigating and charging individuals with war crimes and other violations.

In a video posted to social media, Rubio accused the international court of “waging a war against our country—not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts, and the force of so-called international law.” The top American diplomat threatened that the US “will teach the ICC the full meaning of American resolve.”

The US State Department said in a statement that Rubio’s new campaign against the ICC would “feature a whole-of-government response to systematically disable” the court’s “ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.” The US is not party to the Rome Statute, the 1998 treaty that established the ICC.

US President Donald Trump and his subordinates, who have been accused of myriad violations of international law, have adopted an increasingly aggressive posture toward the ICC since taking power last January.

In a February 6, 2025 executive order, Trump declared “a national emergency to address” the purported “threat” posed by the ICC and announced sanctions against court officials, including its judges. The president’s order cited the ICC’s “investigations concerning personnel of the United States and certain of its allies, including Israel,” which is also not party to the Rome Statute.

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.

Rubio warned in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday that US officials accused of international crimes could be next to face ICC action.

“Border Patrol agents working to remove violent criminals from our country, US Marines risking their lives to restore order in the Western Hemisphere, federal prosecutors working to dismantle terror networks plotting attacks on the American homeland—all would face the constant risk of persecution for the ‘crime’ of defending our country,” Rubio wrote. “Using all the tools at our government’s disposal, working beside every ally with whom we can make common cause, we will dismantle the ICC—brick by brick, if necessary.”

Raed Jarrar, advocacy director of the human rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said in response to Rubio’s op-ed that “when the world’s most powerful country aims to dismantle the world’s only permanent international court, it sends the message that the powerful are above the law.”

“It is not the ICC that Rubio is dismantling brick by brick, but the rules-based international order that grew out of the ashes of World War II,” said Jarrar. “Rubio’s attack doesn’t just underscore US hypocrisy, but undermines access to justice across the globe, from Ukraine to Sudan and could amount to obstruction of justice, a crime under the Rome Statute in and of itself.”

In his op-ed, Rubio pointed to DAWN’s call earlier this year for Iran and other Middle East nations to grant the ICC jurisdiction to investigate apparent war crimes committed during the conflict launched in late February by Trump and Netanyahu.

Omar Shakir, DAWN’s executive director, said Monday that Rubio mischaracterized the group’s call as focusing solely on actions by US personnel. That move, said Shakir, “begs the question: Is the secretary of state worried because he knows US personnel committed war crimes in Iran?”

Under Rubio’s plan, the State Department is threatening to impose “increased sanctions against the ICC and affiliated organizations,” hit court personnel with “visa revocations and travel bans,” and pressure other nations that aren’t party to the Rome Statute to “leverage their diplomatic networks to take similar actions alongside” the Trump administration.

Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch who has demanded international accountability for the Trump administration over its illegal assault on Iran, wrote Monday that Rubio “can’t even make an honest case for attacking the International Criminal Court.”

“He makes it sound like the ICC acts out of the blue anywhere it wants when in fact it acts only against crimes committed on the territory of states that have invited it,” Roth wrote. “He never explains why the United States should be able to commit crimes on the territory of those states with impunity, contrary to the desire of their sovereign governments for an international backstop to reinforce justice for such crimes.”

Trump admin's devised crackdown on dissent mirrors another 'imaginary' fiasco: report

Matthew Chapman
July 15, 2026 


People cross the South First Bridge during a "No Kings" protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's policies, in Austin, Texas, U.S., October 18, 2025. REUTERS/Nuri Vallbona

The Trump administration is laying the groundwork to crack down on political dissent, Ken Klippenstein reported on his Substack — using a three-letter acronym.

The whole situation, he said, recalls how the George W. Bush administration constantly raised the boogeyman of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and this acronym came to be a scare word disparaging anyone who would dare question the Iraq war — even though ultimately no active weapons of mass destruction program existed in Iraq at the time of the 2003 invasion.

This time, Klippenstein wrote, the political acronym du jour is FLT — meaning "far-left terrorism." Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to discuss the administration's plans to combat "FLT" at a summit later this week.

"Far-left is hard enough to define (who decides what’s 'far'?) but to add terrorism takes it to another level of crazy," wrote Klippenstein. Nonetheless, Rubio's announcement will clamp down on visas for people affiliated wit "far-left terrorist and other aligned groups." And this won't just include acts of violence, "but also 'economic sabotage including against public and private property' — a phrase broad enough to cover a broken window or a boycott."

While the specifics of what does and doesn't count as left-wing motivated terrorism can be argued, even the most generous estimates show the frequency of terrorism motivated by left-wing ideology is significantly lower than terrorism motivated by either right-wing or Islamist ideology.

This crusade makes more sense, noted Klippenstein, when you look at the "rogues' gallery" advising Rubio on the policy.

For starters, he said, there's Tera Dahl, a former Breitbart writer and Michele Bachmann staffer who once tried to warn inspectors general that the U.S. was infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood. There's also Monica Jacobsen at the Counterterrorism Bureau, who has repeatedly claimed Christians are under assault worldwide, Brent Munyon, a former RNC researcher, and Oscar Buynevich, another Breitbart writer "whose career amounted to shoveling culture war slop."

All told, Klippenstein said, it's precisely the same kind of team that advised Bush into the "imaginary Iraqi WMD fiasco" — and the result could be similar.

Trump Admin Finally Hands Over Evidence on Good and Pretti Killings to Minnesota Prosecutors After Withholding It For 6 Months

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said it “should never have taken this long.”


People walk by signs memorializing Renee Good and Alex Pretti on February 12, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
(Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Jul 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

After being shut out of the investigations by the Trump administration, Minnesota prosecutors announced on Monday that federal investigators finally turned over reams of unseen evidence related to shootings by immigration agents that killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti and injured Julio Sosa-Celis in January.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced that after “six months of relentless collective effort,” state and local prosecutors had “obtained hard drives of previously withheld evidence” about the killings, which took place during the administration’s aggressive surge of immigration agents in and around Minneapolis and sparked a wave of protests.

Moriarty added that prosecutors had also obtained some physical evidence that was “previously withheld” by federal investigators. This includes the SUV that Good, a 37-year-old US citizen and mother of three, had been driving when she was shot through her driver’s side window by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross as she appeared to be leaving the scene of an enforcement operation.



Attorney Antonio Romanucci and the legal team representing the family of Good said in a statement that turning over the vehicle and other evidence was “an important and meaningful step towards justice and accountability,” and that they were “grateful for the resumption of regular investigatory protocols, which is not only important for the families impacted in these cases, but it is essential for the community and the country.”

Shortly after Good was shot, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin portrayed her as a “violent rioter” who had attempted to run over Ross with her car, which then-Secretary Kristi Noem claimed was an “act of domestic terrorism.” But video evidence showed that her wheels were pointed away from the agent, indicating that she was attempting to leave.

Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller similarly described Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, another US citizen, as a “would-be assassin” while DHS said he showed up at a protest against ICE attempting to “massacre law enforcement” based on the fact that he was carrying a legal firearm when he was shot by two Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents.

Videos showed that Pretti had intervened to stop agents from harming another protester and only held his phone during the confrontation, never reaching for his gun.

Sosa-Celis, a 24-year-old Venezuelan national, was called a “violent criminal alien” by DHS, which accused him and his two roommates of having attacked agent Christian Castro with snow shovels, leading Sosa-Celis to be shot in the leg through the door of the home.

Assault charges against him and his roommate were dropped by federal prosecutors after video and medical evidence showed that Castro had not been attacked. ICE Director Todd Lyons acknowledged that the agents had lied about the incident, and Castro has since been arrested after being charged by Moriarty’s office as part of an independent investigation.

Neither Ross nor the two CBP agents who shot Pretti—Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez—have been charged.

Federal authorities have repeatedly rejected demands from Minnesota officials to cooperate with investigations into the three shootings and grant access to evidence and the ability to interview witnesses.

In the case of Pretti, agents blocked investigators with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from entering the shooting scene after the BCA had obtained a search warrant and removed physical evidence before Minnesota investigators could document it. This included Pretti’s gun, cellphone, and body camera footage, and other physical and digital evidence.

In March, Minnesota sued the Trump administration over its refusal to cooperate with the investigations, a lawsuit that was still ongoing as of Monday.

The federal government did not explain its sudden change of direction. The Associated Press described it as part of an agreement in which Minnesota agreed to share evidence it had collected in Castro’s case if the federal government shared evidence it was withholding about the shootings of Good and Pretti.

Moriarty thanked the federal officials for “their willingness to consider changing course to share evidence and promote public trust.”

But Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison emphasized that it “should never have taken this long.”

“I remain deeply troubled that the federal government spent more than half a year attempting to conceal this evidence from state investigators,” he said in a statement. “And I hope this is the beginning of a major course correction on the part of the federal government.”

US Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) agreed that “this took way too long” and said, “It’s not enough.”

“Minnesotans’ trust has been fundamentally broken,” she said. “There’s a long way to go before we get true justice for ICE killing two of our neighbors.”



The federal government’s decision to turn over evidence to Minnesota officials came less than a week after an ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican father in Houston, whom DHS claimed had attempted to attack officers with his car, only to once again be undermined by video and witness accounts.

DHS has acknowledged that it was not attempting to target Salgado for removal and had mistaken his van for someone else’s.

Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare has said that, just like in Minnesota, the federal government was refusing to share evidence with local officials.

“The federal government has not invited us in,” Teare said. “The federal government is not collaborating with us with this investigation.”

On Monday, ICE agents killed another man in Maine, 26-year-old Colombian father Joan Sebastian Guerrero, who was reportedly shot several times after stopping his vehicle, according to video footage.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said Guerrero “weaponized” his vehicle and attempted to ram officers. One eyewitness told Reuters they saw a federal SUV ram Guerrero’s car.

According to Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), Mullin said that Guerrero, who was authorized to work in the US and had a Social Security number, was not the target of the warrant agents were executing.

Analysts shocked as focus group finds swing voters never heard about ICE killings

Bennito L. Kelty
July 14, 2026  

RAW STORY

Flowers and a portrait with writing that reads "Joan Sebastian Guerrero" sit at a makeshift street-side memorial, a day after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents fatally shot a driver, in Biddeford, Maine, U.S., July 14, 2026. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Political analysts expressed their shock at learning that swing voters are unfamiliar with the latest killings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

During an episode of The Next Level, former Republican pollster Sarah Longwell revealed that a focus group she held this week found that swing voters and voters from swing states hadn't heard about the ICE killings in Texas and Maine.

"We asked about these shootings. They didn't know they'd happened, hadn't heard anything about them, just didn't even know," Longwell said. "We do not have an engaged populace in this. People are not paying attention the same way."

Longwell suggested that voters don't pay as much attention when the victims of the shootings aren't American citizens, unlike the cases of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis in January. In those situations, "'People can sort of put themselves like, 'Hey, I could have been out in those streets and cops are just shooting me,'" Longwell said.

With the latest killings, Lorenzo Salgado Ajaujo, the victim in Texas, was a Mexican national, and Joan Sebastian Guerrero was a Colombian with legal status.

"The other difference was it wasn't caught on tape," Longwell said. "When things are caught on tape and people are able to do their own Rorschach investigation of what am I seeing here."

Former GOP operative Tim Miller admitted that "this is something that I've changed my view on." He said denunciatory posts that "make you roll your eyes" are "better than the alternative of nothing." He noted that the Trump administration reeled operations back after reactions to the Minneapolis shootings.

ICE curbing public health agency over tuberculosis outbreak at Colorado facility: report

Matthew Chapman
July 14, 2026

RAW STORY


Health officials in Adams County, Colorado, have said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not provided "sufficient records" to determine the scope of a tuberculosis outbreak in a detention facility in the area, reported Kyle Clark of local news station 9 News.



This follows reporting that at least 12 people have been sickened in the outbreak of the deadly bacterial lung disease.

According to The Guardian, detainees who have tested positive are "being made to endure their isolation without air conditioning, one detainee who has been at the facility in Aurora since December told the Guardian, through his partner, in a telephone call on Monday afternoon." This detainee "gave a detailed account of developments inside the troubled center over the past few days, which have included the mass testing of everyone within one of the center’s so-called pods."

DHS and ICE have declined to comment as of press time, as well as GEO Group, the private for-profit prison management company that runs the facility.

The detainee did say he saw some of his fellows receiving medications for their illness. But his partner told The Guardian, “I don’t know if they understand the severity of what TB is. Obviously, it’s not a good thing, and he has some other underlying health conditions which are a concern for us. The first day he was very scared, very worried."

This comes amid reports from all around the country of substandard conditions in immigration lockups, including admissions from ICE itself that a facility in Manhattan was barely fit for habitation and a breeding ground for disease.

It also comes amid higher-profile cases of detainees who have died in facilities after brutal treatment, including Cuban national Geraldo Lunas Campos during an incident at Camp East Montana in Texas.

Brutality Against Anti-ICE Protests Caused Blindings and Traumatic Brain Injuries: Medical Experts

“The high number of head injuries... suggests a pattern of force directed towards the head. Whether intentionally or recklessly, this violates virtually all use-of-force guidelines.” 

A US Customs and Border Patrol agents pulls the pin out of a canister of tear gas before tossing it towards residents in a residential neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 12, 2026.
(Photo by Madison Thorn/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Jul 14, 2026

COMMON DREAMS

Federal, state, and local law enforcement agents’ brutal attacks on protesters across the US have caused blindings, traumatic brain injuries, permanent disabilities, and other maladies, according to a report released Monday by researchers at Physicians for Human Rights and the Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley.

In an examination of actions taken by authorities in response to demonstrations against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions over the span of a year, the report documents 412 instances of misuse of force against protesters, journalists, and bystanders.

Just over half of the misuses of force were directed at demonstrators, while 43% were directed at journalists, the report finds.

This misuse of force led to 203 documented injuries affecting 119 individuals, including 44 incidents of laceration, 19 traumatic brain injuries, 10 ocular injuries, seven permanent disabilities, and one instance each of amputation and hearing loss.

The report adds that the actual number of injuries inflicted upon anti-ICE demonstrators “is likely far greater” given researchers’ limitations in documenting “invisible injuries” such as chronic pain or hearing loss.

What is particularly troubling, the report emphasizes, is the number of injuries impacting people’s heads.

“The high number of head injuries (19 brain, 10 eye, 1 hearing loss) suggests a pattern of force directed towards the head,” the researchers write. “Whether intentionally or recklessly, this violates virtually all use-of-force guidelines and results in significant harm.”

The report documents 97 incidents of law enforcement officials shooting crowd control projectiles at people’s heads, making it the second-most frequent type of improper force used, following shots taken at close range.

Dr. Rohini Haar, the lead author of the report, said in an interview with The Guardian that she started tracking misuse of force in response to anti-ICE protests after a federal agent shot a pastor in the face at close range during a demonstration in Oakland last year.

“Those weapons can cause harm,” said Haar, who for years has been researching the health impacts of crowd control weapons. “It’s just when they’re used, how they’re used, and if they’re used.”

Tactics used by ICE and other law enforcement agencies have come back into focus over the last week after the fatal ICE shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine over the span of less than a week.

Salgado Araujo, 52, was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who had lived in the US for more than three decades and ran a small construction business. Sebastian Guerrero, 26, was a Colombian national who was authorized to work in the US and was shot and killed by ICE in front of his three-year-old daughter.

Community Activism Forced Federal Government to Abandon Plans for ICE Warehouses

Activists are now watching to see whether the Trump administration will instead further privatize immigration detention.

By Brian Dolinar , 

Truthout

July 13, 2026

Outside of the proposed ICE warehouse in Romulus, Michigan, near Detroit, protesters hold a weekly “Solidarity Saturdays” rally.Coalition to Shut the Camps

In a change of course, the Trump administration’s plans to detain tens of thousands of immigrants in Amazon-style warehouses have been massively scaled back. As Truthout reported earlier this year, local communities mobilized swiftly to stop these massive detention sites, some capable of holding up to 10,000 people with no infrastructure to manage the waste and water needs.

In January 2026, an internal memo was leaked revealing a list of some two dozen places where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had purchased or was seeking to buy large warehouses to hold immigrant detainees. Now, after spending nearly $1 billion buying up 11 warehouses at a 134 percent markup over assessed value, the Trump administration is ditching the idea.

Truthout talked to activists on the ground in Romulus, Michigan; Roxbury, New Jersey; and Social Circle, Georgia, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) warehouses have been stopped, as well as Surprise, Arizona, where one has been paused pending an environmental analysis


“This is a great victory for the whole movement and communities who are organizing against the detention expansion here in Georgia,” said Amilcar Valencia, executive director of El Refugio, an organization that assists families with loved ones at the Stewart Detention Center south of Atlanta, where they are based. “Georgia’s Social Circle was one of the largest facilities, able to detain up to 9,000 people, which is incredible to know that human beings would be detained in a facility that is not meant for people, but for packages.”

Detention Watch Network, which coordinated a national campaign against the proposed ICE warehouses, shared a statement with Truthout noting that ICE’s move to offload warehouses “illustrates the growing national consensus that people across the country do not want ICE in their communities. Far and wide, people are against immigrants being locked up in abusive ICE detention centers, and will fight tooth and nail to keep their communities safe.”

As Opposition Grows, Oklahoma Organizers Share How They Halted an ICE Warehouse
Organizers also channeled mass outrage into long-haul organizing for immigration justice in Oklahoma and beyond. By Lydia Pelot-Hobbs , Truthout April 25, 2026

Those on the front lines agreed: It was not bipartisanship, lawsuits, or the wisdom of elected officials, but sustained community activism that forced the federal government to abandon the warehouses.

One former Trump official admitted as much. John Fabbricatore, who has been a commentator on Fox News and worked as senior adviser to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, told The New York Times that the warehouses were a quick effort to “scale up” mass deportations, but failed because “the left was able to throw up immediate roadblocks.”
A Volatile Situation

The brazenness of the Trump administration’s occupation of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis provoked a popular response. Stopping ICE warehouses became a way for communities to fight back.

Many of these warehouses were built during the COVID-19 pandemic to meet the boom in online shopping but have since sat empty. They are located in many city centers or nearby and became easy targets for activists.


It was not bipartisanship, lawsuits, or the wisdom of elected officials, but sustained community activism that forced the federal government to abandon the warehouses.

In January 2026, rumors of an ICE warehouse in Romulus, Michigan, about 20 minutes outside of Detroit, started to circulate. The next month, more than 300 students at Romulus High School organized a walk-out to protest ICE. The walk-out was a response to the situation nationally and the rumors in Romulus locally, according to Chris Oliphant, a member of the Metro Detroit Democratic Socialists of America, which is a part of the Coalition to Shut the Camps that organized to stop the proposed warehouse in Romulus. “What was going on around the country with ICE raids, particularly in the Twin Cities area, was really having quite a serious effect on people,” he told Truthout. Students were “lighting the way” for what was to follow.

After rumors were confirmed in late February 2026, there was a large demonstration against the proposed warehouse at a meeting of the Romulus City Council. When only 30 to 40 people were admitted into the council chambers, a crowd of hundreds grew outside. “People were very, very angry,” Oliphant recalls, “so anyone that was there knew that this was a pretty volatile situation, politically.” After that night, it was clear that there was “very widespread opposition” to a warehouse in Romulus.

Outside of the warehouse, the coalition held “Solidarity Saturdays” where hundreds of people stood with signs opposing the ICE warehouse. A “pivotal moment,” said Oliphant, was their participation in Detention Watch Network’s National Day of Action on April 25, when they joined 200 other actions across the country against warehouse detention.

In Georgia, immigrant communities from around the state in cities like Athens and Gainesville, as well as Atlanta, got involved in the campaign to stop the large detention center in Social Circle. “That has involved letter-writing, participating in rallies, and talking to members of Congress,” said Valencia.
We’ll Keep Fighting

A warehouse purchased by DHS in Surprise, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, has been put on pause pending an environmental analysis. In April, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sued DHS and ICE to block the proposed warehouse, which, as the lawsuit states, “lacks the water and wastewater infrastructure needed to safely house that many people.”

Research for the lawsuit was provided by grassroots organizers, says Brent Peak, co-chair of the group Northwest Valley Indivisible. The group had been organizing protests at meetings of the Surprise City Council.

At meetings of the city council in Surprise, Arizona, outside of Phoenix, community members show up to express their opposition to the ICE warehouse.Northwest Valley Indivisible

“Aside from the humanitarian reasons to be against ICE detention,” Peak told Truthout, “what is uniquely terrible about this site is that it is right across the street from a massive chemical storage warehouse.”

One plausible scenario, said Peak, is a “rolling cloud of hydrochloric acid” from an accident. “You will have hundreds of people in a warehouse with an inadequate HVAC system that will suck the cloud in and distribute it throughout the building.”

Members of the local Indivisible group held two meetings with Attorney General Mayes before the lawsuit was filed. “We presented the information,” Peak said. “They sat very straight-faced and kept saying: ‘Thank you for bringing this to our attention.’”

Northwest Valley Indivisible got a tip that there was to be a press conference at the warehouse site announcing the lawsuit, which members attended. Their research was cited on page 23 of the lawsuit. “It was exhilarating when she announced that lawsuit,” Peak remembered fondly.

The federal government has agreed that construction at the Surprise warehouse will not move forward until an environmental impact analysis is done, which is standard for federal construction rules under to the EPA. GardaWorld, a security and surveillance company, has been contracted to do the review. According to research by the Indivisible group, GardaWorld has never before conducted an environmental analysis, but it has performed security work at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz.” Every 60 days, the contractor has to provide an update on its progress. For now, the project is on pause.

“We’ll keep fighting it,” Peak said. “We can take a breather right now.”

Protesters hold a demonstration in Surprise, Arizona, where an ICE warehouse has been put on pause pending an environmental impact analysis.Northwest Valley Indivisible
Victory for Grassroots Groups

Activists mobilized quickly against the ICE warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey. The news broke in December 2025, and as William Angus, who is with No Ice North Jersey Alliance (Project NINJA), relayed to Truthout, “Four days later we were at our town council, and 10 days later we already had protests going. Within six weeks, we had almost 2,000 protesting in front of city hall.”

A lawsuit filed by New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport also benefited from local activists’ input. “We were immediately able to do a lot of legal research,” said Angus. “We gave [the office of the attorney general] a lot of the information that enabled them to file that lawsuit.”


“There’s been a lot of ICE kidnappings in North Jersey recently. For us, the fight merely pivots. We are focusing on Delaney Hall and the ICE kidnappings in general.”

Activists drew attention to the site’s proximity to major waterways. As the lawsuit states, “there is a serious risk of damage to the sewer system and sewage overflows into nearby streets, land, and waterways. These waterways include Lake Musconetcong, which is 1,000 feet away and downhill from the warehouse, and Lake Hopatcong, the largest freshwater lake in New Jersey.”

The government eventually “threw up their hands and said: ‘We surrender,’” Angus said. “So, for me, this is 100 percent a victory for grassroots groups.”

According to investigative reporting outlet Project Salt Box, on July 8, over a week after saying they would sell the Roxbury warehouse, a notice filed in court stated that “upon reconsideration,” the agency was still moving forward with plans for the warehouse.

David Broderick, legal counsel for Project NINJA, said that the government had presented no new facts in the case. “One can’t help but suspect,” said Broderick, “that this is nothing more than a political charade designed to embarrass state and local leaders who declared victory at the time of DOJ’s original filing,” he said.

The comments by former Trump official John Fabbricatore were telling, said Angus. “He didn’t say local officials, he didn’t say Congress. He said ‘the left,’ and that means people like me, the grassroots groups. And I think he is being genuine.”

“We will take the W, but that does not mean that the effort is over,” Angus remarked. “There’s been a lot of ICE kidnappings in North Jersey recently. For us, the fight merely pivots. We are focusing on Delaney Hall and the ICE kidnappings in general.”
The Struggle Continues

Delaney Hall, located in Newark, New Jersey, is the largest immigration jail on the East Coast with a capacity for more than 1,000 people. In June, more than 300 imprisoned people participated in a hunger strike at Delaney protesting inadequate food, medical neglect, and inhumane conditions. They joined others in recent hunger strikes across the country at North Lake, Michigan; Moshannon, Pennsylvania; and Adelanto, California.

If the Trump administration has abandoned the warehouse strategy, it may signal a shift toward the privatization of immigrant detention. North Lake, Moshannon, and Adelanto are all operated by GEO Group, the private prison company. Former GEO Group executive David Venturella is currently the acting director of ICE.

As Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg has reported for The Appeal, at the quarterly earnings call in May 2026, GEO Group CEO George Zoley said the warehouse project had been “paused” and that DHS may be considering shifting to purchasing “turn-key” facilities ready for opening that may be less “politically problematic.”

According to Zoley’s report, GEO Group has six empty facilities with 6,000 beds sitting idle that could be activated in a few months and bring the company $300 million in new revenue.

In California, DHS has purchased two prisons from CoreCivic, the other major private prison company, that will still operate the daily functions of the prisons. The Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County and California City Detention Facility in Kern County were sold by CoreCivic in a deal worth $1.5 billion.

As these moves indicate, ICE continues to pursue the goal of having the ability to detain 100,000 people. Communities that want to stop mass detention will have to keep up the fight.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Brian Dolinar

Brian Dolinar is an independent journalist based in Urbana, Illinois. His articles have appeared at The Appeal, In These Times, The Nation, and Truthout. You can follow his stories by subscribing to his Substack newsletter called “Sentences.”