Octopus Overlords

Immigration agents arrested a U.S. citizen and created warrants after an arrest, lawyers say in court

Cases include a Chicago resident who is a U.S. citizen

The 22 cases include Chicago resident Julio Noriega, 54, a U.S. citizen who, according to court documents, was arrested, handcuffed and spent most of the night at an ICE processing center in suburban Broadview. He was never questioned about his citizenship and was only released after agents looked at his ID.

“I was born in Chicago, Illinois, and am a United States citizen,” Noriega said in his statement, adding that on Jan. 31, after buying pizza in Berwyn he was surrounded by ICE agents and arrested. Officers took away his wallet, which had his ID and Social Security card. “They then handcuffed me and pushed me into a white van where other people were handcuffed as well.”

LordMortis wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 3:26 pm Is the Chicago Sun reputable nowadays?

https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigratio ... -attorneys

Immigration agents arrested a U.S. citizen and created warrants after an arrest, lawyers say in court

Cases include a Chicago resident who is a U.S. citizen

The 22 cases include Chicago resident Julio Noriega, 54, a U.S. citizen who, according to court documents, was arrested, handcuffed and spent most of the night at an ICE processing center in suburban Broadview. He was never questioned about his citizenship and was only released after agents looked at his ID.

“I was born in Chicago, Illinois, and am a United States citizen,” Noriega said in his statement, adding that on Jan. 31, after buying pizza in Berwyn he was surrounded by ICE agents and arrested. Officers took away his wallet, which had his ID and Social Security card. “They then handcuffed me and pushed me into a white van where other people were handcuffed as well.”

Imagine you, as a citizen and native of the US, are out getting a pizza and ICE shows up, takes your ID, and puts you on a "we don't care what they judges say" plane to a never hear from you again prison in El Salvador with the intention of later coming up with an administrative warrant with the pretense for you arrest after you are already being disappeared. We are soooo past the Rubicon on this stuff.

Trump administration lawyers have determined that an 18th-century wartime law the president has invoked to deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang allows federal agents to enter homes without a warrant, according to people familiar with internal discussions.

The disclosure reflects the Trump administration’s aggressive view of presidential power, including setting aside a key provision of the Fourth Amendment that requires a court order to search someone’s home.

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His order took aim at Venezuelan citizens age 14 or older who belong to the Tren de Aragua gang and who are not naturalized or lawful permanent residents. “All such alien enemies, wherever found within any territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are subject to summary apprehension,” the proclamation said.

Senior lawyers at the Justice Department view that language, combined with the historical use of the law, to mean the government does not need a warrant to enter a home or premises to search for people believed to be members of that gang.

President Donald Trump's administration's response to a judicial request for more details on timing of deportation flights carrying hundreds of Venezuelan migrants was "woefully insufficient," a judge said on Thursday, accusing officials of evading their responsibilities under an order he issued.

Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is weighing whether administration officials violated his March 15 order intended to temporarily block the expulsions. In a new order on Thursday, the judge told Justice Department officials to explain by next Tuesday why the administration's failure to bring the deported migrants back to the United States did not violate his order.
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The judge said the administration had "evaded its responsibilities" in responses submitted on Thursday to questions he asked about the timing of the flights.

The administration's response came in the form of a statement from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, official submitted to the judge outside of public view, the judge said. It repeated information that the administration had already given about the flights, and did not directly state whether the government would invoke a legal doctrine involving state secrets to avoid sharing those details, the judge added.

Instead, Boasberg wrote that the ICE official said unspecified cabinet secretaries were still deciding whether to invoke the state secrets privilege, and said the 24 hours the judge had given the administration to respond was not enough for a matter of national security.

Two brothers who were doing landscaping work outside a home off Brett Road were taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Wednesday evening.

The pair appear to be among the 10 people detained by ICE in the Berkshires on Wednesday.

Someone walked into the Monterey Police Station at around 5:15 p.m. to report the men missing, according to the Monterey police log entry, which was obtained by The Eagle.

When officers responded to the location at 70 Brett Road, they learned that the men had been detained by ICE and taken to Boston, according to the log. Officers found their “vehicles, equipment and personal items” still at the site.
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State Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, D-Pittsfield, said she was told by one of her “trusted community partners in this space” that ICE was "looking for certain individuals and whether or not they found them, they picked up people along the way.”

"I have heard that at least one child does not have parents at home now because of this," Farley-Bouvier said, citing the same community source. "Some kids had one out of two parents picked up."

The Eagle has not been able to independently verify this information.

“I know there’s a lot of fear in the community. I definitely heard that,” Farley-Bouvier said. “People don't know if they should go to work, for sure.”

At 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Curtis sent a letter to school families letting them know that, as of that writing, no ICE and other federal officials had been present at any of the city’s 14 schools, or approached its buses.

As a precaution, all district and school leaders, secretaries, counselors and bus drivers have access to copies of a comprehensive procedure to follow if an ICE officer arrives at a school or approaches a bus, Curtis said. Those policies were distributed in January.

Maria Fuller, a Pittsfield-based Spanish interpreter, is connected with many immigrants who are grappling with fear.

“The fear is so real that people are afraid of even sending the kids to school,” Fuller said. That problem is also compounded by worry that child welfare workers will be alerted, she added.

Lennon Tyler and her German fiancé often took road trips to Mexico when he vacationed in the United States since it was only a day’s drive from her home in Las Vegas, one of the perks of their long-distance relationship.

But things went terribly wrong when they drove back from Tijuana last month.

U.S. border agents handcuffed Tyler, a U.S. citizen, and chained her to a bench, while her fiancé, Lucas Sielaff, was accused of violating the rules of his 90-day U.S. tourist permit, the couple said. Authorities later handcuffed and shackled Sielaff and sent him to a crowded U.S. immigration detention center. He spent 16 days locked up before being allowed to fly home to Germany.

Since President Donald Trump took office, there have been other high-profile incidents of tourists like Sielaff being stopped at U.S. border crossings and held for weeks at U.S. immigration detention facilities before being allowed to fly home at their own expense.

They include another German tourist who was stopped at the Tijuana crossing on Jan. 25. Jessica Brösche spent over six weeks locked up, including over a week in solitary confinement, a friend said.

On the Canadian border, a backpacker from Wales spent nearly three weeks at a detention center before flying home this week. And a Canadian woman on a work visa detained at the Tijuana border spent 12 days in detention before returning home last weekend.

Sielaff, 25, and the others say it was never made clear why they were taken into custody even after they offered to go home voluntarily.

Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee, a nonprofit that aids migrants, said in the 22 years he has worked on the border he has never seen travelers from Western Europe and Canada, longtime U.S. allies, locked up like this.

“It’s definitely unusual with these cases so close together, and the rationale for detaining these people doesn’t make sense,” he said. “It doesn’t justify the abhorrent treatment and conditions” they endured.

“The only reason I see is there is a much more fervent anti-immigrant atmosphere,” Rios said.

U.S. authorities did not respond to a request from The Associated Press for figures on how many tourists have been held at detention facilities or explain why they weren’t simply denied entry.

Several countries have issued travel advisories for their citizens travelling to the United States amid US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and the detention of multiple tourists at various border points, including American airports. The United Kingdom and Germany have now updated advisories for those visiting the United States.

The United Kingdom, in its latest advice for travel to the United States, cautioned British nationals about the strict enforcement of US immigration laws and the severe consequences of violating them. The advisory stated that visitors must “comply with all entry, visa, and other conditions” while entering the US.

It further warned, “The authorities in the US set and enforce entry rules strictly. You may be liable to arrest or detention if you break the rules.”

According to Reuters, an archived version of the UK’s official travel guidance only noted that US officials “set and enforce entry rules”, without explicitly mentioning detention risks.

raydude wrote: Fri Mar 21, 2025 9:30 pm We were watching something on Tubi and this ad came on:

[redacted]

That is some next level propaganda type shit worthy of Paul Verhoeven's ads in Starship Troopers. I almost thought it was a parody but nope, it was dead serious.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Fri Mar 21, 2025 11:18 pm Also, tax money paid for it and for her wardrobe and makeup (sweet free outfit!).

A federal court has thwarted the Trump administration’s effort to deport Venezuelan immigrants under a roughly 225-year-old war powers law, ruling that individuals must receive hearings before their removal.

Judge James Boasberg on Monday rejected the government’s attempt to vacate restraining orders protecting Venezuelans accused of gang ties from deportation, instead insisting on due process for those contesting the allegations.

Homan: "Well, I don't care what that judges think, as far as this case. We're going to continue to arrest public safety threats and national security threats. We're going to continue to deport them from the United States. I understand this case is in litigation through the Alien Enemies Act and we'll abide by the court order as litigated. But my point was, despite what he thinks, we're going to keep targeting the worst of the worst, which we've been doing since day one, and deporting them from the United States through the various laws on the book. We're not making this up. The Alien Enemies Act was actually a federal law, it's a statute, enacted by Congress and signed by a president. Now that's our litigation."

Asked if there was anything Trump had done right, Sanders replied: “Yeah. I think cracking down on fentanyl, making sure our borders are stronger.”

So, today [2024], China is still the principal supplier of these precursors for fentanyl. China is also the global principal supplier of precursors for another synthetic drug, methamphetamine. And those precursors go, in in the case of fentanyl, to Mexican cartels, in the case of meth, to Mexican cartels and also criminal groups in Asia.

"Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than what has happened here," D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patricia Millett said during a hearing at the court on Monday. "And they had hearing boards before they were removed."

"People weren't given notice. They weren't told where they were going," she said about the removal of Venezuelans and others to El Salvador this month.
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Lawyers with the Justice Department are asking the appeals court in Washington, D.C., to overturn a temporary restraining order blocking deportations under the act, which was put in place by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. A ruling to lift the temporary pause on deportations, or keep it in place, is likely to prompt an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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The panel of three judges did not deliver a decision from the bench but could do so in the coming days.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the detention of a foreign Ph.D. student at Tufts University on Tuesday.

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“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campus. We’ve given you a visa and you decide to do that we’re going to take it away,” Rubio said.


“We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country,” he added.

The video of Ozturk’s arrest caused outrage on social media, with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) calling the footage “chilling.”

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Mar 27, 2025 2:57 pm https://thehill.com/homenews/education/ ... nt-arrest/

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the detention of a foreign Ph.D. student at Tufts University on Tuesday.

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“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campus. We’ve given you a visa and you decide to do that we’re going to take it away,” Rubio said.


“We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country,” he added.

The video of Ozturk’s arrest caused outrage on social media, with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) calling the footage “chilling.”

Revoke, detain, deport. Fick the first and fifth amendments. America.

Alvarado’s older sister, María, stressed in a call from Venezuela that her brother has no connection to Tren de Aragua. She said her brother was deeply devoted to helping Nelyerson—explaining that one of his three tattoos is an autism awareness ribbon with his brother’s name on it and that he used to teach swimming classes for children with developmental disabilities. “Anyone who’s talked to Neri for even an hour can tell you what a great person he is. Truly, as a family, we are completely devastated to see him going through something so unjust—especially knowing that he’s never done anything wrong,” María said. “He’s someone who, as they say, wouldn’t even hurt a fly.”

Still, Alvarado was detained by ICE outside his apartment in early February and brought in for questioning, Juan Enrique Hernández, the owner of two Venezuelan bakeries in the Dallas area and Alvarado’s boss, told Mother Jones. One day later, Hernández went to see him in detention and asked him to explain what had happened. Alvarado told Hernández that an ICE agent had asked him if he knew why he had been picked up; Alvarado said that he did not. “Well, you’re here because of your tattoos,” the ICE agent replied, according to Hernández. “We’re finding and questioning everyone who has tattoos.”

The agent then asked Alvarado to explain his tattoos and for permission to review his phone for any evidence of gang activity. “You’re clean,” the ICE officer told Alvarado after he complied, according to both Hernández and María Alvarado. “I’m going to put down here that you have nothing to do with Tren de Aragua.”

For reasons that remain unclear, Hernández said that another official in ICE’s Dallas field office decided to keep Alvarado detained. María Alvarado said her brother told her the same story at the time.

Hernández spoke to Alvarado shortly before he was sent to El Salvador. “There are 90 of us here. We all have tattoos. We were all detained for the same reasons,” he recalled Alvarado telling him. “From what they told me, we are going to be deported.” Both assumed that meant being sent back to Venezuela.

Hernández, a US citizen who moved to the United States from Venezuela nearly three decades ago, searched desperately for Alvarado when he didn’t show up in his home country that weekend. He was nearly certain that Alvarado was in El Salvador when he first spoke to Mother Jones on Thursday. “I have very few friends,” he said. “Very few friends and I have been in this country for 27 years. I let Neri into my house because he is a stand-up guy…Because you can tell when someone is good or bad.” Later that day, on Alvarado’s 25th birthday, Hernández got confirmation that his friend was in El Salvador when CBS News published a list of the 238 people now at CECOT.

A centerpiece of Bukele’s brutal anti-gang crackdown, CECOT is known for due process violations and extreme confinement conditions. Last year, CNN obtained rare access to the remote prison, which can hold up to 40,000 people. The network found prisoners living in crowded cells with metal beds that had no mattresses or sheets, an open toilet, and a cement basin. Visitation and time outdoors are not allowed. A photographer who was allowed into the prison as the Venezuelans arrived earlier this month wrote for Time magazine that he witnessed them being beaten, humiliated, and stripped naked.

A Russian medical researcher at Harvard University is being detained at a Louisiana immigration facility after her visa was revoked last month over undeclared frog embryo samples found in her luggage, her lawyer told NBC News.

Kseniia Petrova has been in the U.S. on a J-1 scholar visa since May 2023, working at Harvard University. Her lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, said Petrova is fighting the possible deportation back to Russia for fear of persecution and jail time over her protests decrying the Ukraine war.

On Feb. 16, Petrova returned from France to Boston's Logan Airport from a work trip and passed through immigration without issue. But while awaiting her luggage, two Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers took her into a room to inspect her luggage and searched her phone, her lawyer said.

n an effort to crack down on student activists who support Palestinians, the U.S. has revoked hundreds of visas, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday at a press conference. He is delivering on President Trump's promise to deport noncitizens whose activism he claims supports Hamas terrorism and is antisemitic. This week, over a thousand people outside of Boston took to the streets to call on the government to free Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk. Federal agents in plain clothes and face masks arrested her. The agents plan to deport her.

A Tufts University doctoral student who was detained this week can’t be deported to Turkey without a court order, a federal judge in Massachusetts said on Friday.
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On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper gave the government until Tuesday evening to respond to an updated complaint filed by Ozturk’s attorneys.

“To allow the Court’s resolution of its jurisdiction to decide the petition, Ozturk shall not be removed from the United States until further order of this court,” the judge wrote.

"School administration, following protocol and guidance issued by the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, requested to see identification and a warrant. Following the agents’ departure, DCPS contacted partner agency DC Health to make them aware of the situation and for follow-up with the contractor's employer."

The Department of Homeland Security did not provide a specific reason for the agents' presence at the school despite multiple inquiries from 7News. The DHS Press Team reiterated, "ICE did not conduct any enforcement action at the school. HSI agents were present at the school unrelated to any kind of enforcement action."

Holman wrote: Sun Mar 30, 2025 9:30 pm I wish I were in a position to ask MAGA voters if this was what they really wanted, and if they think Stephen Miller's America is the one they voted for.

When a co-worker allegedly grabbed her hair, threw her to the ground and hit her in the face, Veronica Ramirez Verduzco did what most people would do: She went to the police.

But asking the Van Buren Township Police Department for help likely ensures her removal from Michigan and the United States.

Federal officers arrested Ramirez Verduzco last week on immigration-related charges. They argue the native of Mexico does not have authorization to be in the U.S., and returned despite previous deportations. Immigration officials did not know she lived in Michigan until February when she went to local police to report the assault allegation, records show.

Ramirez Verduzco has a felony on her record for returning to the U.S. years ago following a previous deportation. The federal criminal complaint shows she was removed from the country three times; on two occasions, she attempted to enter through a standard border crossing. In 2000, her first removal, she allegedly presented false identification materials, leading to an expedited removal, according to the recent criminal complaint.

And records show Van Buren Township police gave her two driving tickets in late 2024 from a traffic stop that apparently did not trigger an ICE investigation.

Isgrimnur wrote: Sat Mar 29, 2025 5:47 pm Detained Tufts student can’t be deported to Turkey without court order, judge says

A Tufts University doctoral student who was detained this week can’t be deported to Turkey without a court order, a federal judge in Massachusetts said on Friday.
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On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper gave the government until Tuesday evening to respond to an updated complaint filed by Ozturk’s attorneys.

“To allow the Court’s resolution of its jurisdiction to decide the petition, Ozturk shall not be removed from the United States until further order of this court,” the judge wrote.

$iljanus wrote: Mon Mar 31, 2025 4:09 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: Sat Mar 29, 2025 5:47 pm Detained Tufts student can’t be deported to Turkey without court order, judge says

A Tufts University doctoral student who was detained this week can’t be deported to Turkey without a court order, a federal judge in Massachusetts said on Friday.
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On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper gave the government until Tuesday evening to respond to an updated complaint filed by Ozturk’s attorneys.

“To allow the Court’s resolution of its jurisdiction to decide the petition, Ozturk shall not be removed from the United States until further order of this court,” the judge wrote.

Hopefully she won’t be in one of those “Oops she was already on the plane when we read this order. Sorry” situations.

The Trump administration accidentally sent a Salvadorian immigrant to a notorious Salvadorian prison and says it can’t do anything to get him back.

That’s even though the man had protected immigration status in the U.S., specifically barring him from being sent back to that country for fear of persecution.

On Monday, in a filing in Maryland federal court, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) admitted to mistakenly sending Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador’s notoriously brutal CECOT prison.
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The Trump administration argues that because the man is no longer in U.S. custody, a U.S. court lacks jurisdiction to issue orders regarding his detention and release.
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The administration has acknowledged that “many” of the over 200 Venezuelans sent to El Salvador did not have a prior criminal record.