MAGA lawyer says 'illegal aliens' don't have due process: The Constitution clearly says they do

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Friday June 20, 2025 · 8:48 PM PDT

2025/06/20 · 20:48

The Constitution is open to interpretation, cherry-picking, and spin. Sometimes, it is opaque. For instance, the commerce clause comes with no definition of 'commerce.' There is no consensus on the meaning of the Second Amendment. And America's founding document's lack of clarity is why one Supreme Court says that a woman's right to privacy gives her a right to abortion. While another Court swans in later and denies it does.

However, sometimes the language is plain. Take section 1 of the 14th Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Even a Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge understands that "any person" means everyone - not just citizens. Judge Stephanie Haines upheld a 21-day notice period for migrants to challenge their deportations instead of the mere seven days currently allotted by the Trump administration.

Predictably, this caused consternation among the bigots. MAGA Attorney Mike Davis, who is so far up Trump's ass he was under consideration for US AG, posted to Truth Social:

We The People never agreed to give illegal aliens—especially foreign terrorists—constitutional due-process rights related to their expulsion.

Not at our founding.

Not after the Civil War.

Not in any Congress since then.

Certainly not after the last election.

This is a serious and unacceptable violation of our sovereign rights. John Roberts and his Supreme Court colleagues are squarely to blame.

Sadly for the gung-ho Davis, the law is not decided by social media posts. In addition, this soap box warrior fails Logic 101. How do we know who is an illegal alien or foreign terrorist without due process?

I suspect he's trying to finesse that consideration by specifying "constitutional due-process rights related to their expulsion." He implies that once someone is determined to be in the U.S. illegally — especially a foreign terrorist — they are no longer covered by the 14th Amendment.

There are two problems with that. One, that's not what the Amendment says. Two, who has determined that someone is here illegally and is a terrorist?

That's the whole point of due process. It prevents the state from simply declaring someone is a lawbreaker and disposing of the victim as they see fit. As much as Davis and his fellow travelers would love to see Soviet-style justice in the U.S., the rules do not allow it.

Let's also note that Davis is a petulant bastard. Judge Haines gave Trump a massive victory by agreeing with Trump that undocumented aliens were an "invasion." Therefore, he was legally entitled to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. And doing so after the Supreme Court had prevented Trump from invoking it in May.

She was able to do so because when SCOTUS blocked Trump, they sent the matter back to the lower courts without ruling on the merits of Trump's claim.

As for "John Roberts and his Supreme Court," it is safe to say that in any way the Court's six Conservative Justices can stretch the Constitution to promote and protect Trump and MAGA, they have done so. Dear God, they gave the man complete absolution to commit crimes while in office. If they deny him anything, it can only mean that the Constitution is rock solid on that point.

However, anyone who believes in a restrained state bound by constitutional limits should not pop the champagne cork just yet. Judge Haines' decision will be reviewed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. That Court is currently evenly split — with six Democratic-appointed judges and six Republican (including four by Trump). However, it has two vacancies awaiting two more Trump loyalists.

Lastly, as the due process rights for non-citizens is a constitutional issue, SCOTUS is almost guaranteed to take it up. Especially as it will again have to consider whether Trump can invoke the Enemy Alien Act. And as stated above, they are willing to do their boy a solid if they can find the merest wisp of a loophole.

Davis's aim is to pressure Roberts and his gang when they do get the case. Will it work? I don't know. But I wouldn't bet against it.

The Massive Cost of Mass Deporting American Dreamers

jamess

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday June 20, 2025 · 8:43 PM PDT

2025/06/20 · 20:43

If they only had the funds to "contract out" their services ...

—

I have no words … except that we’ve only seen the ‘trial balloon’ phase of the Trump-Miller police state rollout — that is, if this Budget Bill sails through without a hitch.

Trump's Big Bill Would Let Him Expand His L.A. Immigration Crackdown ‘Everywhere'

by Andrew Perez and Asawin Suebsaen, Rollingstone, via msn.com — 6/12/2025

[...]

The Trump tax bill would steer tens of billions of dollars to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for detention capacity, employee bonuses, and to hire new agents. It would supercharge ICE's ability to conduct raids, and allow the administration to expand the campaign of terror it's waging on immigrants in Los Angeles to blue cities around the country.
[...]

"This bill would give Donald Trump the ability to do what he's doing [in California] on a scale we really haven't seen before," says David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "He will be able to replicate this militarized approach to Los Angeles across maybe dozens of American cities."
[...]

Deportations to Add Almost $1 Trillion in Costs to the “Big Beautiful Bill”

by David J. Bier, CATO.org — 6/6/2025

[...] The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the bill will direct an astounding $168 billion of the budget to immigration and border law enforcement, and there is even more for agencies that indirectly support immigration law enforcement.

However, the CBO’s cost estimate is deficient in three ways. First, CBO assumes that all this increase is temporary, and second, it will happen gradually over the next 10 years, rather than in an immediate, reckless spending spree. Most importantly, it neglects the more significant cost of removing immigrants who would have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits. Properly considered, the actual cost of H.R. 1’s immigration enforcement spending is nearly $1 trillion more than the CBO estimates. When seen in the context of the overall costs of the bill, mass deportation would account for almost a quarter of the bill’s total price tag.
[...]

The Trump administration desperately wants to spend this money immediately. It is even plausible that they could blow through this money by next year and demand more from Congress. It is already stealing from other agencies and the military to do enforcement, and it is currently spending money for ICE appropriated for the end of the year. The bill appears to confirm this more aggressive timeline by mandating the hiring of 10,000 ICE agents for a cost of $8 billion—$800,000 per agent. It costs ICE about $200,000 in compensation per agent per year (p. 12), meaning that $8 billion is only enough to employ these agents for four years. The same math applies to CBP personnel.
[...]

Currently, about 50,000 people are detained, so this means that ICE would likely be detaining more than 200,000 people at a time once the funding kicks in. Most of the detention capacity already exists. ICE just needs to sign the contracts, which it would do immediately. During Trump’s first term, there were about 10 detentions in a year for every detention bed available, implying that at least 2 million people would be detained annually under H.R. 1.
[...]

There has been some debate in Congress over this supercharging of the Trump-Miller Deportation agenda — despite his high-jacking of the news-cycle, day after unbelievable day ...

Trump's actions in Los Angeles spur debate over deportation funds in his 'big, beautiful' bill

by Lisa Mascaro, AP, via msn.com — 6/11/2025

[...]
But Republicans are in agreement on border security, deportation and military funding, over the objections of Democrats who fought vigorously during the committee process to strip those provisions from the bill.

The package includes about $150 billion for border security and deportation operations, including funding for hiring 10,000 new ICE officers — with what Johnson said are $10,000 hiring bonuses — as well as 3,000 new Border Patrol agents and other field operations and support staff.

There's also funding for a daily detention capacity for 100,000 migrants and for flights for 1 million deportations annually. The package includes $46 billion for construction of Trump’s long promised wall between the U.S.-Mexico border.
[...]

—
Dems have to win back the House and put a stop to this madness. Rampant lawlessness is not going to make America “great again” — despite unpopular opinions, to the contrary.

Now that I think about it, “I do have no some words” on their police state take-over, still only in its “spring-training” phase … but you’ll have to click here, if you really want to read them.
—

Peace out, for now. Stay watchful. Stay vigilant.

Say “Hell No,” whenever you get the chance. America is better than this. At least it should be.

— —

Migrant workers pay taxes too … Last I checked, the vast majority of them are not “Criminals.”

Courts side with college students in blow to Trump’s cruelty

Alix Breeden

Daily Kos Staff

Friday June 20, 2025 · 8:18 PM PDT

2025/06/20 · 20:18

no image description available — Students, faculty, and members of the Harvard University community rally on April 17 in Cambridge, Mass.

International students finally have some relief from President Donald Trump’s wrath—at least for now.

On Friday, a federal judge granted bail to Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student who was targeted for deportation because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy. After being imprisoned in a Louisiana ICE facility, Khalil will now be free as he awaits his trial.

Khalil was among the first students who were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Despite being a green card holder, Khalil—whose wife and newborn child are U.S. citizens—still faces deportation under the Trump administration.

“After more than three months we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” Khalil’s wife Dr. Noor Abdalla said in a statement provided by the ACLU.

FILE - Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil is seen at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University campus in New York, April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File) — Mahmoud Khalil

“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family, and the community that has supported us since the day he was unjustly taken for speaking out for Palestinian freedom,” she continued.

Just before it was announced that Khalil would be returning home to his family, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s attempt to ban Harvard from enrolling international students.

Last month, Trump declared that international students at Harvard either needed to transfer or give up their legal status. And as Trump made students’ lives impossibly difficult and scary, he claimed to have done it in the name of antisemitism. He also accused Harvard of colluding with the Chinese Communist Party.

Both wins for Khalil and international students overall are welcome successes in Trump’s war on immigrants and higher education.

And as universities push back against Trump’s attempts to police what they teach, who they hire, and who receives scholarships or grants, the income generated by international students may help them continue fighting this battle of educational autonomy a little longer.

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Friday June 20, 2025 · 4:35 PM PDT

2025/06/20 · 16:35

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randym77

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Friday June 20, 2025 · 11:54 AM PDT

2025/06/20 · 11:54

25.6.10_jldoa_good_trouble_lives_on_twitter.png

Looks like the next nationwide protest will be on Thursday, July 17 — the fifth anniversary of John Lewis’ passing. There’s a web site here:

Good Trouble Lives On

As with previous protests, there’s a map with protest locations. It’s early yet; I expect more will be added.

Good Trouble Lives On is a national day of nonviolent action to respond to the attacks posed on our civil and human rights by the Trump administration and to remind them that in America, the power lies with the people.

From felony disenfranchisement to voter suppression bills like the SAVE Act, anti-democracy forces are working overtime to silence our voices. 60 years ago, President Johnson federalized the National Guard to protect peaceful civil rights marchers in Selma. Now, President Trump is calling the Guard to stop protestors from using their voice and to block progress on issues we care about.

We can’t wait. We need Good Trouble now!

Poll

101 votes Show Results

RSVP?

101 votes Vote Now!

RSVP?

I'll be there!

47 votes

I'll be there and bring a friend

25 votes

I'll be there virtually

3 votes

I'll be there in spirit

23 votes

Pie

3 votes

Imitation ICE

SpacePilot

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday June 19, 2025 · 5:29 PM PDT

2025/06/19 · 17:29

Poor Housekeeping at PDX ICE Headquarters — Abuse of power.

This is my first Ever post to Daily Kos. I was up since 4 am composing this letter to my Representatives. I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to stand for this anymore!

Dear Senator / Congressperson,

When “ICE” started with these unmarked raids and arrests, wearing masks, using unmarked vehicles and a mish mash of uniforms, and with most not identifying the agency they were with, my wife and I looked at each other and said that this opened the door wide open for Law Enforcement Impersonators to start grabbing people, especially lone women, for rape, slavery, human trafficking and possible forced prostitution. The implications were obvious and chilling.

Well, it didn’t take long! There have been several cases of law enforcement impersonators in the last week, from the murder of the Minnesota legislator to supposed Immigration raids where the people cannot be located by family or lawyers. In many cases such as the NY Comptroller, the “Agents” refuse to show ID or a Judicial Warrant and even arrested the NY Comptroller for interfering with the snatching of the person he was trying to protect when he was simply trying to determine if this was legal and legitimate.

THIS HAS TO STOP!

I have several friends who are here legally, have committed no crimes, and are in the process of taking all the legitimate steps to become full US Citizens. I am feeling a degree of trauma worried about them being snatched up, their legal status changed on short notice, and them being deported, or worse renditioned to a detention center where they have NO Due Process. I might just lose contact with them and wonder the rest of my life what happened to them. If I am there when it happens, I will be like the NY Comptroller, demanding ID and a Judicial Warrant, and calling 911 to verify if this is legitimate. I would be traumatized the rest of my life if I stood by and let ICE Impersonators abduct a young woman friend or associate of mine, finding out later, and wondering what horrors she was going through for the rest of her life. I will risk arrest (shouldn’t have to) to try and verify the legitimacy of the arrest and will do all I can to ensure that person gets due process.

One citizen who tried to photograph a license plate had an “Officer” jump out of the SUV and point a gun at him. A legitimate law enforcement officer only points a gun at someone in a situation where there is just cause and sufficient threat to warrant using that gun. Don’t unholster unless you intend to use it. THIS IS OUT OF CONTROL! These people are acting like the Schutzstaffel.

Jen Psaki had a very good 10 minute summary of what is going on last night. Please watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmpOZsjbCks

I am writing to all three of my national reps and my State Rep with these suggestions for new legislation that is needed YESTERDAY! Please consider these suggestions.

Any Law Enforcement officer must show an official ID to a subject being detained, and to a representative of the group observing, and must allow at least agency and badge number to be written down or preferably photographed, and subsequently allowing subject or witnesses to verify that the officers are legitimate. A proper Judicial Warrant must be presented and be allowed to photograph to determine legitimacy. Uniforms must be properly marked with the agency in a form that is not readily available for non-official people to buy to impersonate an officer. Citizens must retain the right to video or photograph the events and vehicles without intimidation. A phone App should be developed to allow the badges, license plate, and Warrant to be transmitted to local law enforcement for rapid verification. Public PSA announcements should be made explaining the new law and how to identify real vs fake ID and Warrants.
The subject or witnesses must be allowed to contact 911 to determine the legitimacy of the arrest BEFORE the person is placed in a vehicle. I don’t care if it slows down meeting Dear Leaders Daily Quota.
Speaking of Quotas, they are one of the main reasons for the agents to go after the low hanging fruit, people whose status is abruptly changed at routine court check-in’s and who are then are often abruptly and inhumanely scooped up and taken from their families with no chance to get their affairs in order. The Quota system needs to be outlawed, and we need to go back to the slightly harder job of identifying the real criminals (there are very few criminals among the immigrant community BTW. Not nearly as many as among the White Nationalist).
Allowing “officers” to detain someone on “Suspicion” of being illegal needs to end. The current criteria seem to be that the subject has more melanin than Steven Miller. ICE needs to do its homework, determine who is subject to legal deportation, get a JUDICIAL Warrant, hand signed by a proper Judge, and then go get that person.
If the detainees have no criminal record and have simply overstayed a Visa or are in process of obtaining citizenship or asylum, there is no risk to the community or real risk of flight. Put a tracking device on them if necessary, but mandate that non-violent non-criminal detainees be given a minimum of say 2 weeks to get their affairs in order. They may need to sell a car, business, house, do normal out processing from a job such as turning in ID badges, getting final pay, retirement, we may need to make special legislation to require that employers pay out any retirement, sick leave or PTO balances, IRA, stock options or whatever on an expedited basis.
For procedural deportations, we need to allow the person to self deport either back to their home country, or if that is not an option, to the country of their choice. It may take a little while to contact embassies and arrange travel. No one, not even violent offenders, deserves to be sent to a hell-hole detention center where they have no due process or contact with friends and family.
Speaking of Employers, why is no one going after the Illegal Employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers who they know they can abuse??? I know that a lot of farmers, meat packers and such could not find enough people to work for them, so let’s fix that. I don’t mean requiring Child Labor (I picked strawberries in the summer as a Kid, but I did it when and as much as I wanted to). My suggestion is to reform our guest worker laws to make it easy for enough farm workers to come up to work in the fields or other hard to fill jobs. Give the employers the rest of this year to straighten out their employment practices, make them pay at least Minimum Wage to the guest workers, and starting next year aggressively enforce sanctions against employers who still employ undocumented workers.
In order for this enhanced guest worker program to work, we will have to give assurances that their status (green card, work permit, or whatever) will not be revoked abruptly unless they commit a felony or violent crime.
Due Process is afforded EVERY Person (Citizen or not) in the United States by our Constitution. We need to enforce that in the courts and make sure it is not ignored out of convenience and in a misguided attempt to meet Dear Leaders daily quota. That is NOT WHO WE ARE, and we need to show the WORLD that we are fighting back and not going to let that happen on our watch. It will take Seven Atta-boy’s to make up for one dumb abuse, so it will be a long climb back out of this hole of global disrespect we have fallen into in just a few short months, but we need to start now and work diligently to restore and even improve our reputation as a world leader in Human Rights.
If the Republicans will not go along with these kind of reforms, MAKE THEM VOTE AND PUT IT ON THE RECORD that they favor this type of inhumanity.

In summary, please fix the laws ASAP so that I don’t have to risk arrest or intimidation at gunpoint just to protect a friend or colleague or stranger from potentially being kidnapped by someone impersonating a law enforcement officer. This is happening way too often already, and we need protections enacted NOW to protect the citizens and lawful residents of our once great nation.

Video: Juneteenth Music

jtg

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday June 19, 2025 · 5:06 PM PDT

2025/06/19 · 17:06

20200618-comic-JTGPolitics-OnlyConfederateFlagMattered-aa-1080x1080.jpg — White flag of surrender...

Oh Freedom

Post-Emancipation Spiritual. This song was written at or soon after the date of the first Juneteenth.

Oh freedom, oh freedom
Oh freedom over me!
And before I’d be a slave
I’ll be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free.

• • •

No more moaning, no more moaning
No more moaning over me
And before I’d be a slave
I’ll be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free

YouTube Video

#jtg

About that Guardian article claiming the VA can discriminate against Democrats and unmarried people

ChrisRodda

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday June 19, 2025 · 5:00 PM PDT

2025/06/19 · 17:00

On Monday morning, The Guardian published an article by Aaron Glantz titled “’Extremely disturbing and unethical’: new rules allow VA doctors to refuse to treat Democrats, unmarried veterans.” (Link is to the original June 16 article archived in the Wayback Machine.)

The Guardian’s article claimed that the VA had changed the bylaws for its hospitals, removing “politics” and “marital status” from the list of reasons that VA medical staff can’t discriminate against patients. The article further claimed that these new VA bylaws allowed for similar discrimination in the hiring of medical staff.

A few hours after the article was published, one of my colleagues at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) e-mailed it to the rest of us.

A number of other organizations and news outlets were already starting to spread the story, and my colleagues, including my boss, MRFF’s fearless leader Mikey Weinstein, were discussing what MRFF should put out about it.

Then I read the article, after which I immediately sent my colleagues an e-mail that ended, in all caps:

“THIS NEEDS MORE RESEARCH TO MAKE SURE IT'S TRUE!”

I know this administration is doing plenty of heinous and unbelievable things to discriminate against classes of people it doesn’t like, but this just didn’t seem to be one of them.

Here, very briefly, are some of the reasons I doubted the article’s veracity:

Each VA medical center (or VA health care system in some cases) has its own independent bylaws, approved by the medical staff at that facility. There is not, to my knowledge, any VA-wide set of bylaws. I suspected that the article’s author had obtained the bylaws of just one VA medical center or VA health care system and mistakenly thought the changes in them were VA-wide.
There are a number of things that I’ve been closely monitoring since this administration began, and among the things that I check on a daily or near-daily basis are the VA’s and VHA’s official issuances sites, where new VA and VHA directives are posted. I had not seen any directive or other issuance from the VA or VHA directing VA facilities to change their bylaws.
The utter ridiculousness of the notion that the VA — even in this looney-tunes administration — would think it could get away with denying care to all Democrats and unmarried veterans.
MRFF had not received a single complaint about this from any of its VA staff clients. The only e-mails we received about it were because of The Guardian’s article.

So, MRFF, which had an e-mail blast going out that day, decided to acknowledge The Guardian’s article, since it couldn’t be ignored at this point, but with this disclaimer: “MRFF Cannot Substantiate The Guardian's Reporting. Our Research Team is Investigating the Story.”

Later that day, The Hill published an article titled “White House denies reporting by Guardian on VA benefits: ‘Totally FALSE story’.” The Hill quoted the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, who cited the same primary reason that I had for my doubts about The Guardian’s reporting — each VA medical center and/or health care system has its own set of bylaws.

Late yesterday afternoon, The Guardian toned down its article, including changing the headline to “VA hospitals remove politics and marital status from guidelines protecting patients from discrimination.”

By this time, however, the article had been spread far and wide, even eliciting a statement on it from Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) with the heading “Trump Administration Allows VA Doctors to Deny Care to Unmarried Women and Democrats, Senator Murray Responds,” which linked to The Guardian’s article.

Enter Snopes, which has deemed five allegations in The Guardian’s article to be “False.”

After “scores of Snopes readers emailed” the trusted debunking site “to ask whether the claim was true,” Snopes looked into it, and received this statement from The Guardian:

“While we have no plans to retract the story - which highlights the VA's removal of ‘politics’ and 'marital status' from a list of protections against discrimination within its bylaws - we are considering additional context provided by the VA after publication.”

I’ll leave it to you astute readers here to compare The Guardian’s original article to its revised version, the changes to which are also detailed by Snopes.

I have taken no pleasure in writing this post. I love The Guardian and have always considered it to be among the most reliable news sources. But no matter who a story comes from, if I have any doubts about it, my MRFF colleagues will get the same message from me, the foundation’s research director:

“THIS NEEDS MORE RESEARCH TO MAKE SURE IT'S TRUE!”

Happening NOW: The Los Angeles Dodgers Shut Out ICE from Their Stadium (Update #8 - Lies, More Lies)

JekyllnHyde

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday June 19, 2025 · 4:35 PM PDT

2025/06/19 · 16:35

It is often said that owners of professional sports teams are notoriously apolitical, or at least, give the distinct impression that they are. Professional sports teams often have issues that involve the city and local governments. Hence, it is in their interest to appear to be apolitical and keep everyone happy.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are making a different calculation. They are siding with the city’s residents and standing up to ICE.

Good for the team and the residents of Los Angeles.

Dodgers block ICE agents from entering stadium in Los Angeles

The MLB organization reportedly had plans to announce assistance for immigrant communities in L.A. today.

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LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers announced Thursday they blocked federal immigration agents from entering their stadium as dozens of anti-ICE protesters gathered outside the sports venue.

On social media, the MLB team said that federal agents working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived at the stadium and "requested permission to access the parking lots."

"They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization," the Dodgers said, adding that their game against the Padres will go on at the stadium as scheduled.

Demonstrators standing outside the stadium's gates were seen holding signs and chanting "ICE out of L.A." and "ICE go home" as several dark SUV vehicles stood on the opposite side of the road. Some of the federal agents appeared to be wearing Homeland Security uniforms.

The federal agents who showed up in those vehicles were turned away from entering the stadium gates, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

This morning, ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots. They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization. Tonight’s game will be played as scheduled.
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 19, 2025

Update #1 — 4:10 pm ET

Juneteenth celebrations across the US commemorate the end of slavery

Associated Press

Thursday June 19, 2025 · 4:00 PM PDT

2025/06/19 · 16:00

Juneteenth celebrations unfolded across the U.S. on Thursday to mark the day in 1865 when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Texas. The events include one in Galveston — the holiday's birthplace — where former President Joe Biden was expected.

Juneteenth has been celebrated by Black Americans for generations, but became more widely observed after Biden designated it a federal holiday in 2021. It is recognized at least as an observance in every state, and nearly 30 states and Washington, D.C., have designated it as a permanent paid or legal holiday through legislation or executive action.

On the East Coast, the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire orchestrated a weekslong celebration that will culminate with a community dance and rededication of the African Burying Ground Memorial Park in Portsmouth. In Virginia, a ceremonial groundbreaking was held for rebuilding the First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, one of the nation’s oldest Black churches.

The holiday to mark the end of slavery in the U.S. goes back to an order issued on June 19, 1865 as Union troops arrived in Galveston at the end of the Civil War. General Order No. 3 declared that all enslaved people in the state were free and had “absolute equality."

Those who planned the history tours, community discussions and other events in New Hampshire said they wanted to highlight contradictions in the familiar narratives about the nation’s founding fathers ahead of next year’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

“Although they are historically courageous, smart men, they were also human. They held people in bondage. They had children with their enslaved,” said JerriAnne Boggis, the Heritage Trail’s executive director. “What would the story look like if the story of America was told from these Black descendants?”

A view of a section of the 1865 Juneteenth General Order No. 3 that is displayed by the Dallas Historical Society at the Fair Park Hall of State in Dallas, Friday, June 6, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero) — A section of the 1865 Juneteenth General Order No. 3 displayed by the Dallas Historical Society.

The celebrations come as President Donald Trump's administration has worked to ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI, in the federal government and remove content about Black American history from federal websites. Trump’s travel ban on visitors from select countries has also led to bitter national debate.

During his first administration, Trump issued statements each June 19, including one that ended with “On Juneteenth 2017, we honor the countless contributions made by African Americans to our Nation and pledge to support America’s promise as the land of the free.”

New Hampshire, one of the nation's whitest states, is not among those with a permanent, paid or legal Juneteenth holiday, and Boggis said her hope that lawmakers would take action making it one is waning.

“I am not so sure anymore given the political environment we’re in," she said. “I think we’ve taken a whole bunch of steps backwards in understanding our history, civil rights and inclusion.”

Still, she hopes New Hampshire's events and those elsewhere will make a difference.

“It’s not a divisive tool to know the truth. Knowing the truth helps us understand some of the current issues that we’re going through,” she said.

And if spreading that truth comes with a bit of fun, all the better, she said.

“When we come together, when we break bread together, we enjoy music together, we learn together, we dance together, we’re creating these bonds of community,” she said. “As much was we educate, we also want to celebrate together.”

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UPDATE- As if we didn’t have enough to worry about: Trump’s health

xaxnar

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday June 18, 2025 · 10:47 PM PDT

2025/06/18 · 22:47

Trump at his birthday parade. — Does this look like a man in the prime of health to you?

UPDATE: Thursday, Jun 19, 2025 · 9:36:07 PM +00:00 · xaxnar

Do you think Trump’s health is a real problem?

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Do you think Trump’s health is a real problem?

Meh

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Yes.

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Hell yes - and that’s just one item on a long list.

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See my thoughts.

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He’s making me sick.

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There’s only so much damage Trump can do in a sanctuary city

kos

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday June 18, 2025 · 10:41 PM PDT

2025/06/18 · 22:41

On Sunday, just two days after President Donald Trump pulled another TACO twist on immigration raids by suspending enforcement at farms, hotels, and restaurants, he rage-posted on his Truth Social site, demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers ramp up deportations in America’s sanctuary cities.

A protester taunts a line of California National Guard protecting a federal building in downtown Los Angeles on Monday, June 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer) — A protester yells at California National Guard members protecting a federal building in Downtown Los Angeles on June 9.

“[W]e must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside,” he wrote. “These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens. These Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country, and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities — And they are doing a good job of it! There is something wrong with them. That is why they believe in Open Borders, Transgender for Everybody, and Men playing in Women’s Sports — And that is why I want ICE, Border Patrol, and our Great and Patriotic Law Enforcement Officers, to FOCUS on our crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities, and those places where Sanctuary Cities play such a big role. You don’t hear about Sanctuary Cities in our Heartland!”

“The heartland” just told Trump to stop his draconian immigration enforcement, lest he destroy rural economies, and Trump listened. And who knew about this unholy alliance between immigrant workers and transgender people? Dastardly!

Related | Why do Republicans hate American cities?

Trump, clearly still butthurt over the embarrassing turnout at his poorly executed, creepy $45 million military-themed birthday parade, is doing what authoritarians always do: lashing out at his enemies. And no one triggers him more than the people living in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York—three cities that hosted massive “No Kings” protest rallies, eclipsing Trump’s grotesque celebration. So he wants ICE to punish them.

But Trump and ICE have a problem: Sanctuary cities don’t cooperate. Local law enforcement won’t help federal agents. And these cities are in blue states with Democratic governors who despise Trump. As I’ve written before, federal agencies operating solo simply don’t have the capacity to pull off large-scale raids.

The U.S. Border Patrol only has 20,000 agents, 17,000 of whom patrol the border (that isn’t about to stop, is it?). And as the CNN article cites, Homan said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has only 6,000 officers—not nearly enough to deport millions of people.
As Trump’s former Border Patrol Commissioner Mark Morgan said in an interview with Stateline, “It’s not going to be successful, as long as we have sanctuary cities and states that refuse to allow local and state police departments to work with ICE.”

So here’s the pickle: If Trump targets areas where he can rack up arrest stats—like Republican farm country—he guts the GOP’s agricultural base. But if he sticks to terrorizing sanctuary cities, he faces a hostile, organized citizenry that increasingly knows how to block ICE. Community watch groups and mobile alerts now routinely warn immigrants when raids are coming, slowing federal agents struggling to meet quotas to a crawl.

Yes, Trump and his masked ICE goons (the bad guys always hide their faces) can spread fear. But practically speaking? The federal government simply doesn’t have the boots on the ground to make a meaningful dent in the undocumented population of sanctuary cities.

The right can rant and rage about it all they want—but sanctuary cities are built to resist.

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