ICE Officers Trapped in a Shipping Container With Deported Migrants
Eight deportees and over a dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are stranded in a shipping container in east Africa after a judge blocked their deportation flight.
Neither the officers or immigrants are able to leave the container, located in a U.S. naval base in the scorching-hot nation of Djibouti, until the matter has been resolved by the courts, which could take weeks.
The eight deportees, who hail from Myanmar, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Mexico and South Sudan, were accused of being convicted criminals by the Trump administration and deported in late May, the Washington Post reports. After the countries declined to accept them all eight were instead sent to South Sudan, until a U.S. federal judge ruled they had the right to challenge their convictions in court.
The thirteen ICE officials meanwhile, fell ill immediately after landing and are currently suffering from respiratory infections, as well as extreme heat and cramped living conditions. They, along with the deportees, have been forced to reside in a makeshift detention center until the matter is resolved, with only six beds between them.
Court documents filed by top ICE and DHS official Mellisa Harper claim the ICE officials are experiencing 'coughing, difficulty breathing, fever, and achy joints,'' and outside temperatures which exceed 100F, along with threats of malaria. At night, the air fills with a 'smog cloud' filled with rancid smoke formed from nearby pits where locals burn trash and human waste, which is so polluted that some officers have taken to sleeping with facial masks on.
'Upon arrival in Djibouti, officers were warned by U.S. Department of Defense officials of imminent danger of rocket attacks from terrorist groups in Yemen,' Harper said. 'The ICE officers lack body armor or other gear that would be appropriate in the case of an attack.'
Both officers and detainees fell ill within 72 hours of landing in Djibouti, she added, with the ICE officers at risk of developing malaria due to not being vaccinated or taking appropriate medication before arriving in Djibouti.
The declaration also outlined the conditions the detainees currently face, which includes only being able to shower once a day and being subjected to 'pat-downs and searches' every time they need to use the restroom, which is over 40 yards away from the container in which they are being held.
There is also limited lighting in the area, which 'makes visibility difficult and creates a significant security risk for both the officers and aliens.
'The conference room in which the aliens are housed is not equipped nor suitable for detention of any length, let alone for the detention of high-risk individuals,' Harper added. 'Notably, the room has none of the security apparatus necessary for the detention of criminal aliens. If an altercation were to occur, there is no other location on site available to separate the aliens, which further compromises the officers' safety.'
Trump officials have pounced on the ruling, made by Judge Brian E. Murphy, as proof of judicial overreach, and told the Supreme Court on Thursday that his decision violates the federal government's authority to deport violent immigrants.
'This Massachusetts District judge is putting the lives of our ICE law enforcement in danger by stranding them in Djibouti without proper resources, lack of medical care, and terrorists who hate Americans running rampant,' DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a post on X.
'Our @ICEgov officers were only supposed to transport for removal 8 *convicted criminals* with *final deportation orders* who were so monstrous and barbaric that no other country would take them. This is reprehensible and, quite frankly, pathological.'
Lawyers for the deportees meanwhile have expressed concern for the wellbeing of the detainees and the conditions the DHS has left them in.
It remains unknown how long both the detainees and ICE officials will remain confined in Djibouti.
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Guatemalan man deported to Mexico flown back to US after judge's orders
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Kristi Noem: the made-for-TV official executing Trump's mass deportations
Little more than a year ago, Kristi Noem's political prospects appeared to be in freefall. The then South Dakota governor was criss-crossing the country on an ill-fated book tour, widely seen, at least initially, as an audition to be Donald Trump's running mate. Instead, Noem found herself on the defensive – a position Trump never likes to be in – after revealing in her memoir that she had shot the family's 'untrainable' hunting dog, a 14-month-old wirehair pointer named Cricket. Even in Trumpworld, where controversy can be a form of currency, the disclosure shocked. In the weeks that followed, she faded from contention and the breathless veepstakes rumor mill moved on. By the time Trump selected JD Vance as his vice-presidential nominee, Noem's path forward on the national stage was unclear. But a year is a lifetime in politics, the saying goes. 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While the department did not provide statistics, Tom Homan, the border czar, recently told reporters that at least 8,500 people have self-deported through the government's 'CBP Home' app and estimated that 'thousands' more were leaving without notice. In March, Noem delivered the message in person. Amid a legal standoff over the administration's decision to deport scores of Venezuelans to El Salvador under an 18th-century wartime law, the secretary traveled to the country. Wearing combat boots, an Ice baseball cap and a $50,000 Rolex on her wrist, she toured a notorious Salvadorian prison. Standing in front of a cell packed with prisoners bare from the waist up, Noem spoke into the camera: 'If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face.' On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that the men sent to El Salvador must be given a chance to challenge their removals, finding that many had likely been imprisoned on the basis of 'flimsy, even frivolous, accusations' of gang membership. DHS said it provides adequate due process to all deportees. In public statements, officials at DHS and the White House have repeated that their mass-removal effort targets the 'worst of the worst'. 'We are focusing on dangerous criminals,' Noem said during a Sunday appearance on Fox News. 'We are going out there and ensuring that people that repeatedly break our laws are being held accountable.' But the far-reaching campaign has ensnared legal residents, children with cancer and even US citizens. In multiple instances, the administration has blamed 'administrative errors' for deporting Salvadorians who had court orders protecting them from removal. This week, the government returned to the US a Guatemalan man wrongfully deported to Mexico. 'The administration wants to project fear and cruelty, with no limits as to how far they will go,' said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the pro-immigration advocacy group America's Voice. 'It's working in the sense that it is creating fear. There are pockets of communities that are changing their whole lives to adjust to the fact that our government is now using all its levers to go after immigrants.' *** A self-described 'farm kid' who took over her family's ranch after her father's sudden death, Noem catapulted to national prominence during the Covid pandemic. As governor of South Dakota, she mirrored Trump's handling of the virus, denouncing mask mandates and stay-at-home orders even as her state struggled, at times mightily, to contain its spread. Related:US judge temporarily halts deportation of Colorado fire attack suspect's family In 2020, Noem feted Trump in South Dakota with a star-spangled Independence Day celebration. It was then that Noem memorably gifted him a 4ft replica of Mount Rushmore that depicted his likeness alongside the faces of the four presidents carved into the granite over the Black Hills of South Dakota. 'At that point, she went all in and being Maga really became a part of her image,' Schaff said. In the years that followed, Noem worked studiously to burnish her national profile, becoming a regular presence in conservative media. She adopted Trump's rhetoric, especially on border security. Despite South Dakota's considerable distance from the US-Mexico border – roughly 1,000 miles (1,600km) north – Noem made the issue a top priority. 'South Dakota is directly affected by this invasion,' she declared in an address last year. In 2021, Noem deployed South Dakota national guard troops to Texas to assist with the state's border enforcement efforts. Yet residents recall that she did not deploy them to help recovery efforts after historic summer floods in the state. Until recently, Noem was banned from setting foot on tribal lands in her own state, after accusing tribal leaders of complicity with drug cartels – an allegation they strongly deny. During her Senate confirmation hearing in January, held days before Trump was sworn in, Democrats questioned Noem's credentials for leading the vast department responsible for border enforcement, disaster response and federal protection. She acknowledged her nomination may have come as a 'bit of a surprise'. But, Noem said, she had asked Trump directly for the position because it was his 'No 1 priority'. The job, she said, required someone 'strong enough' to carry out the president's immigration agenda. So far, she has proven to be a faithful executor, carving out a role that is part enforcer-in-chief, part high-wattage messenger. In an interview earlier this year, the secretary vowed to leverage the 'broad and extensive' authorities of her office to carry out Trump's immigration crackdown. With Noem at the helm, DHS has targeted blue states and cities over their sanctuary city policies, escalated the administration's feud with Harvard by moving to block the university from admitting international students, and departed from longstanding precedent to allow immigration enforcement in sensitive locations, such as places of worship, schools and hospitals. In visceral scenes, masked Ice agents in plain clothes have arrested foreign students and academics on the streets. Internally, Noem has administered polygraph tests to uncover leaks to the press about upcoming immigration raids. She works with Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and chief architect of Trump's immigration strategy, as well as 'border czar' Homan, both empowered by the president to help achieve the president's deportation goals. Related: Supreme court allows White House to revoke temporary protected status of many migrants Though Noem frequently touts the administration's success removing, in the secretary's words, 'dirt bags' and 'sickos', the White House has expressed disappointment with the pace of deportations. In a tense meeting with immigration officials last month, Noem and Miller announced an aggressive new target: they demanded federal agents more than triple their arrest figures from earlier this year to 3,000 people a day. Internal emails obtained by the Guardian show senior officials at Ice have instructed staff to 'turn the creative knob up to 11' as the agency scrambles to ramp up arrests. On Tuesday, Ice reportedly detained more than 2,200 people in a single day – an agency record. Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that the president was 'thankful for Secretary Noem's partnership in fulfilling one of his most important promises to the American people: deporting illegal aliens'. She continued: 'The Trump administration takes this promise seriously and will continue working to supercharge the pace of deportations and Make America safe again.' *** As the Trump administration turns to increasingly aggressive tactics, federal courts are pushing back, with Noem's DHS at the center of the legal firestorm. In a ruling last month, a federal judge found DHS had 'unquestionably' violated a court order on deportations to third countries. In response to the growing number of challenges, Noem has largely channeled the president's defiant posture. 'Suck it,' she gloated on X, after a lawsuit against the department involving detained migrants was voluntarily dismissed. While courts have hindered Trump's mass-removal effort, the supreme court handed the administration a major victory last week, temporarily allowing the US to strip provisional legal protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants who left dangerous and unstable countries, potentially exposing them to deportation. On Wednesday, Trump unveiled a sweeping new travel ban targeting 12 countries, many of them majority-Muslim or African. He said the timing was spurred by a recent attack at an event in Boulder, Colorado, honoring Israeli hostages, for which an Egyptian national was charged. In a video posted on social media, Noem announced that US immigration authorities had taken the suspect's family into federal custody. Within 24 hours, a federal judge blocked their deportation, citing constitutional concerns and warning that their swift removal could violate their due process. 'The actions of this secretary have been manifestly and almost universally determined to be unlawful and unconstitutional,' said Paul Rosenzweig, a former deputy assistant secretary for policy at the DHS. Noem, he said, seemed to be operating on 'political basis alone,' reorienting the department around Trump's priorities. 'This isn't working like it's supposed to,' he said. On Capitol Hill, congressional Republicans are racing to boost the department's efforts by delivering Trump's 'big, beautiful bill', which includes tens of billions of dollars for mass deportations, detention facilities and construction of the border wall. House Republicans, who zealously investigated – and ultimately impeached – Noem's predecessor, Alejandro Mayorkas, have so far shown little appetite for serious oversight inquiries of Trump's cabinet officials. But outside of Washington, public concern is rising. A recent survey found nearly half of Americans believe the administration's deportation polices have 'gone too far'. If Republicans lose the House in next year's midterms, Noem's leadership of DHS would likely face much tougher congressional scrutiny. One Democrat, the representative Delia Ramirez, has already called for Noem's resignation. 'The theatrics of terror and erosion of our constitutional rights are daily DHS violations under Secretary Noem,' Ramirez, who sits on the House homeland security committee, said. Yet the secretary, now firmly re-established at the center of Trump's orbit, appears undeterred. Her embrace of the spotlight – and unflinching execution of Trump's vision – has some wondering whether she's looking even farther ahead, perhaps to 2028, where the battle to become Trump's heir is already taking shape. 'Past secretaries of DHS have wanted to be, not seen, but heard,' Rosenzweig said. 'I'll put it another way: Noem is the first DHS secretary who's running for president.'
Washington Post
34 minutes ago
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Immigration authorities extend activity in Los Angeles area amid street protests
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