Latest news with #TriciaMcLaughlin
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
DHS slams judge's release of transgender asylum seeker detained by ICE agents in Portland
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has accused an Oregon judge of 'caving' to pressure from activists after she of a transgender asylum seeker from Mexico who was . In a Thursday press release, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin referred to 'Biden-appointed' U.S. District Judge Amy Baggio as an 'activist judge' who 'is ignoring the biological reality of sex.' Wyden questions Trump admin's 'chilling' immigrant DNA collection rule McLaughlin further noted the 24-year-old woman – referred to as OJM by her attorneys – 'was placed into ICE's male detention center in accordance with the President's Executive Order and for the safety of women in ICE custody.' The release also contained a photo of OJM. OJM had already been in the United States for two years and was originally at a hearing for her asylum case in Portland on June 2 when ICE officials asked the court to dismiss her case and detained her. In response, attorneys at the Portland-based Innovation Law Lab said they filed an emergency petition, arguing ICE used 'deceptive and unethical practices' to detain her and strip her of her due process rights. Beaverton father detained by ICE outside of preschool According to OJM's attorneys, after she left the courtroom, ICE agents arrested her 'in an attempt to end her asylum claim, transfer her, and rapidly deport her.' 'This is a dangerous attempt by ICE to circumvent due process, speed up deportations, and eviscerate the right to asylum,' said Innovation Law Lab Attorney Jordan Cunnings after OJM's arrest. 'This unethical behavior goes against the values we hold as Oregonians, ensuring that everyone is welcomed and included in our state.' According to court documents, Judge Baggio claimed that OJM was 'erroneously deprived by the Government without procedural due process through the series of Government actions.' OJM was abducted and raped in Mexico because of her gender identity and sexual orientation 'at the hands of a dangerous cartel,' OJM's attorneys said, noting she fled to the United States for safety.' Innovation Law Lab called McLaughlin's recent comments 'disgusting' and an attempt to further intimidate an asylum seeker because of her gender identity. 'Let's be clear, the federal government is attempting to dox and intimidate this asylum seeker simply because she is trans,' they said. 'This is a disgusting effort to distract from the real issue. ICE is trampling due process, a core, fundamental freedom that protects every person in the United States, no matter where they were born. Asylum seekers have been following all the rules in their legal applications for asylum and federal agents are still snatching them off the street unlawfully.' Judge Baggio officially ordered OJM's release on July 14. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Politico
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Politico
‘It's like a game of Whac-A-Mole': How Trump's ICE raids knocked Los Angeles to its knees
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, contested reports that most people detained did not have a criminal record. She said the government's operations have arrested 'drug traffickers, MS-13 gang members, convicted rapists, convicted murderers — people you would not want to be your neighbors. And yet, Karen Bass, instead of thanking law enforcement, continues to demonize them and attack them.' The fear permeating Latino life has added resonance for Bass; her late ex-husband was Mexican American and many family members, including her late daughter, her step-children and grandchildren, have Latino heritage. 'So yes, it impacts me personally, because I know that all Latinos are suspect now, anybody that looks Latino,' Bass said, pointing to border czar Tom Homan's comments that 'physical appearance' was sufficient for federal authorities to detain someone. He later said appearance could not be the sole reason for suspicion. But the federal judge who blocked the roving immigration raids in Los Angeles said officials were relying on improper factors, such as race, occupation and speaking with an accent, during their operations. McLaughlin said it was a 'convenient and disgusting smear to say that law enforcement targets based on skin color. It is about it is about legal status, that everything and criminality. That's what we're focused on.' Beyond the family bonds, Bass said, leaning into immigrant rights is 'fundamentally who I am' — a culmination of years of community activism, of anti-apartheid advocacy, of collaborations between Black and Latino communities in the 1980s and 1990s. 'It's not because it's politically in. It's not because of some calculation of what happened in the first part of the year,' she said. 'This is an issue that has been fundamental to me for my entire adult life.' Loathe as Bass is to make comparisons to her handling of the fires, the contrast is notable, even to her closest allies. The mayor was hamstrung from the start of the blazes, when she was out of the country, and she failed to regain control of the narrative upon her return. This time, Bass has ramped up her media presence; during her brief stop at El Chapulín, she squeezed in two Zoom interviews with Spanish-language media, and she has been a regular staple on national cable. 'She is really trying to paint a different picture of what is going on here — not letting Breitbart and Fox tell the story,' said Courtni Pugh, a senior adviser for Bass' political operation. 'We really tried very hard to put a human face on the toll.' Onlookers watch as federal agents with US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) ride on an armored vehicle driving slowly down Wilshire Boulevard near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, California, on July 7, 2025. | Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images When militarized federal agents, including officials on horseback, descended onto MacArthur Park in the heart of downtown in an intimidating though largely theatrical display, Bass rerouted from a ceremony marking the six-month anniversary of the fires to the scene, demanding to speak to whoever was in charge.
The Citizen
a day ago
- Politics
- The Citizen
US sends child rapist and violent offenders to Eswatini: Should SA be worried?
US sends child rapist and violent offenders to Eswatini: Should SA be worried? The US this week deported five hardened criminals to Eswatini under a 'safe third-country deportation' policy, a decision that has sparked significant concern within international diplomatic circles. The five men, from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba and Yemen, are incarcerated for serious crimes ranging from child rape to murder, battery of a police officer and grand theft auto. Tricia McLaughlin, US assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, posted on X, describing the men as 'so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back'. NEW: a safe third country deportation flight to Eswatini in Southern Africa has landed— This flight took individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back. These depraved monsters have been terrorizing American communities but thanks to @POTUS… — Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) July 16, 2025 Eswatini has confirmed that the men have arrived in the country and that they are being kept at correctional facilities. 'Government has, however, acknowledged the security concerns of emaSwati, further confirming that indeed, the five prisoners are in the country and are housed in correctional facilities within isolated units, 'where similar offenders are kept',' the Eswatini government posted on X. Government has assured emaSwati that the arrival of five third-country deportees from the United States of America poses no security threat to the Nation. — Eswatini Government (@EswatiniGovern1) July 16, 2025 Caxton Local Media approached Dr Sonja Theron, a lecturer in security studies at the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Pretoria, to provide context and assess the possible impact of the deportation on South Africa. What is a safe third-country deportation? Theron explains that a safe third-country deportation refers to the practice of a deporting country, in this case the US, sending a deportee to a 'third' country instead of their country of citizenship. 'This usually occurs either when the country of citizenship refuses to co-operate with the deportation of the citizen, or when the country of citizenship is not safe for the deportee to return to. 'The word 'safe' is meant to indicate that the 'third country' is safe for the deportee, usually meaning that the deportee will not be killed, face torture or encounter other grave human rights violations,' says Theron. Could Eswatini say no? Theron says that, in principle, Eswatini had a choice in accepting the men as no country can be forced to take in deportees. 'However, the power dynamics between a country like the US and Eswatini are important to consider. The US holds much more bargaining power and can compel a country to accept deportees using economic and political incentives or threats.' She says messaging from the Nigerian government has suggested that the US has been pressuring a variety of African countries to accept deportees, using this strategy. Why would Eswatini agree to the deportation? According to Theron, it is likely that a bargain was struck between Eswatini and the US. 'This could involve promises of reduced tariffs or threatening Eswatini with increased tariffs, promises to cut or increase aid, or any number of political and economic incentives. Unfortunately, in this case, the details of the deal have not been released.' Is this a security threat for South Africa? Several South African towns and communities, including Barberton, Mkhondo and Pongola, closely border Eswatini. This raises the question of whether South Africans should be worried about the deportation. Theron says relative to the many security threats faced by South Africa, this is not significant enough to warrant panic or widespread fear. However, if this becomes a pattern, with massive numbers of deportees being sent to Eswatini, it would require more attention. 'What is more concerning is that this is further evidence of the current US administration's trend towards intimidation rather than co-operation when dealing with the African continent. African states need to ensure they maintain their agency when working with the US.' Is safe third-country deportation a common practice? According to Theron, this kind of deportation is rare. 'Only a handful of countries have practised or tried to practise this, and it almost always comes hand in hand with controversy.' She says other notable examples include the UK's scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was cancelled, and Australia's practice of housing asylum seekers in offshore detention facilities. How is this kind of deportation viewed in the international relations and law realm? Theron explains that international law primarily deals with this in the context of asylum seekers (which is different from the Eswatini case). 'In this situation, 'refoulement', which entails returning a refugee to a country where they could be killed or persecuted, is prohibited. Therefore, as long as the 'third country' is considered safe, it is legal. Safety, however, is relative and legally open to interpretation.' She says the deportation of prisoners, as in the case in Eswatini, is mostly a bilateral agreement that is governed by the laws of the two countries involved. 'Both cases are generally frowned upon and generate criticism for a variety of reasons. In practice, safe third-country deportation of asylum seekers often results in refugees being held in poor, often inhumane, conditions for extended periods (as seen in the controversy around Australia's offshore immigration facilities).' She says in the case of the deportation of prisoners, both the possibility of human rights violations of the prisoners and the impact on the receiving country have raised concerns. Breaking news at your fingertips… Follow Caxton Network News on Facebook and join our WhatsApp channel. Nuus wat saakmaak. Volg Caxton Netwerk-nuus op Facebook en sluit aan by ons WhatsApp-kanaal. Read original story on At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
DHS accuses 'activist' judge of pushing radical gender ideology by releasing trans migrant
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ripped a federal judge in Washington for releasing a transgender illegal migrant from detention, saying the release was caused by the judge bowing to activist pressure. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that U.S. District Court Judge Amy Baggio, a President Joe Biden appointee, ignored the rule of law and promoted "gender ideology fanaticism" by releasing the migrant, a transgender woman who is claiming asylum in the U.S. The migrant, identified by DHS as "Odalis Jhonatan Martinez-Velasquez, a male illegal alien from Mexico," entered the country in 2023 and was released under the Biden administration. Martinez-Velasquez was detained on June 2 and placed into ICE's male detention center for the safety of women in ICE custody in accordance with President Donald Trump's executive order aimed at protecting women, DHS said. Baggio ordered Martinez-Velasquez released this week, despite having already been processed for expedited removal, ruling that the asylum seeker had been deprived of liberty without proper procedural safeguards. "The activist judge is ignoring the biological reality of sex, undermining ICE's commitment to promoting safe, secure, and humane environments for women in custody, and subverting the American people's mandate to restore commonsense to our immigration system and reject extreme gender fanaticism," McLaughlin said. "An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Odalis Jhonatan Martinez-Velasquez should be released or detained." On his first day back in office, President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Order of Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, which prohibits DHS from detaining males in women's detention centers. McLaughlin said Martinez-Velasquez is no exception. "The President made it clear on Day One: DHS will not buy into radical gender ideology when detaining illegal aliens," McLaughlin said. Martinez-Velasquez is claiming asylum after allegedly being abducted and raped by cartel members in Mexico. The migrant was arrested outside a Portland courtroom last month and transferred to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. and held there for over 40 days after a judge granted the government's request to dismiss the asylum case. The nonprofit Innovation Law Lab, whose attorneys represent Martinez-Velasquez, decried the fact that Martinez-Velasquez was being held at a men's facility. Martinez-Velasquez' attorneys filed a habeas petition, a legal motion asking the court to review whether the detention was lawful, saying they were not aware of their client's location after the migrant was taken into custody. Under due process standards, especially in asylum cases, attorneys must be able to locate their client and ICE is required to notify or justify sudden detentions and transfers. In Martinez-Velasquez's case, the judge found that ICE's failure to provide timely, specific information about the migrant's location and legal status violated fundamental procedural fairness. The judge had also demanded to know why it was deemed immediately necessary. One of the migrant's attorneys, Stephen Manning, of Immigrant Law Group, previously told OPB that Martinez-Velasquez was processed into the Tacoma detention center, but he had not been granted access to her since her transfer. Martinez-Velasquez was identified only as "O-J-M" in court documents. "They threatened to kill her because O-J-M is a transgender woman," her habeas petition states, per OPB. "Fearing for her life, she fled and sought asylum in the United States in September 2023," Manning said. Manning told Willamette Weekly that his client had not committed a crime while in the U.S. and had regularly checked in at ICE offices as instructed. Oregon sanctuary laws prevent it from having long-term immigration detention facilities, and — aside from temporary holding cells at the Portland ICE office — the nearest immigration detention center is the Tacoma facility.
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Trump wants to hire 10,000 new ICE agents. Is that goal doable?
WASHINGTON — President Trump says he wants to hire 10,000 new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 3,000 new Border Patrol agents, but experts and the history of law enforcement hiring sprees suggest the process could be challenging, lengthy and possibly result in problematic hires. The massive funding bill signed into law this month by Trump earmarks about $170 billion for border and immigration enforcement, including tens of billions for new deportation agents and other personnel. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement to The Times, said that the agency will deliver on the president's hiring directive. 'In June, our 2025 Career Expo successfully recruited 3,000 candidates and generated 1,000 tentative job offers — nearly double the 564 from 2023,' she wrote. 'Our recruitment strategy includes targeted outreach, thorough vetting and partnerships with state and local law enforcement.' During his first term, when Trump called for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to hire 15,000 people collectively, a July 2017 report by the Homeland Security inspector general found significant setbacks. 'Although DHS has established plans and initiated actions to begin an aggressive hiring surge, in recent years the Department and its components have encountered notable difficulties related to long hire times, proper allocation of staff, and the supply of human resources,' the report states. The independent watchdog concluded that to meet the goal of 10,000 new immigration officers, ICE would need more than 500,000 applicants. For CBP to hire 5,000 new agents, it would need 750,000 applicants. It doesn't appear either goal was met. In 2017, ICE hired 371 deportation officers from more than 11,000 applications and took 173 days on average to finalize hires, the news outlet Government Executive reported. And Cronkite News reported that when Trump left office in 2021, Border Patrol had shrunk by more than 1,000 agents. 'The mere mechanics of hiring that many people is challenging and takes time,' said John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University who studies U.S. incarceration and has researched the hiring challenges ICE faces. When the initial version of the funding bill passed the House of Representatives, it laid out a target of at least 10,000 ICE officers, agents and support staff, specifying a minimum of 2,500 people in fiscal year 2025 and 1,875 people in each subsequent year through 2029. The legislation didn't outline specific hiring goals for Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of Border Patrol, though Homeland Security said that, in addition to the 3,000 Border Patrol agents, the funding will also support the hiring of 3,000 more customs officers at ports of entry. The Senate modified the bill and on final passage, the law removed those hiring specifics, meaning ICE can use the funding for a variety of purposes. ICE has more than 20,000 law enforcement and support personnel. CBP has 60,000 employees, including about 19,000 Border Patrol agents. Studies on accelerated hiring efforts have found that, in some cases, contracts were poorly managed. Ten months into a 2018 contract with the professional services firm Accenture, by which point CBP had paid $13.6 million, the inspector general found that just two people had accepted job offers. Hiring thousands of employees would be an even bigger lift today, Pfaff said. He pointed to the fact that since 2020, police departments nationwide have also struggled to recruit and retain officers. Immigration officer pay is lower than rookie salaries at big-city law enforcement agencies, such as the New York Police Department. A job posting for a deportation officer offers a salary range of about $50,000 to $90,000. Pfaff compared that with NYPD, where officer salaries start at just over $60,000 and rise to more than $125,000 in less than six years. Another recruitment push resulted in a wave of high-profile corruption cases. During a Border Patrol hiring spree from 2006 to 2009, standards for hiring and training were lowered, about 8,000 agents were brought on. The Associated Press reported that the number of employees arrested for misconduct — such as civil rights violations or off-duty crimes like domestic violence — grew yearly between 2007 and 2012, reaching 336, or a 44% increase. More than 100 employees were arrested or charged with corruption, including taking bribes to smuggle drugs or people. A 2015 report from an internal audit by a CBP advisory council said that 'arrests for corruption of CBP personnel far exceed, on a per capita basis, such arrests at other federal law enforcement agencies.' Josiah Heyman, an anthropology professor who directs the University of Texas at El Paso's Center of Inter-American and Border Studies, studied the mid-2000s hiring spree. He said smuggling organizations have only gotten more sophisticated since then, as have security measures, so it's more valuable for smugglers to 'buy someone off' instead of attempting to bring in people or drugs undetected. Beyond corruption, Heyman said he worries the drive to quickly increase Homeland Security staffing could lead to Americans being deported, as well as an increase of assault and abuse cases and deaths of detainees. 'Getting 10,000 [new employees] means basically hiring the people who walk in the door because you're trying to hit your quota,' he said. 'Rapid, mass-hiring lends itself to mistakes and cutting corners.' The recruitment issues at Border Patrol led to reforms, such as the Anti-Border Corruption Act of 2010, which included mandatory polygraph testing for job applicants (though that requirement was not implemented for ICE applicants). The polygraph tests revealed some applicants had concerning backgrounds, including some believed to have links to organized crime. The reforms also slowed hiring as two-thirds of Border Patrol applicants began failing the polygraph exam by 2017, the Associated Press reported. If the government is not able to hit its hiring goals, it might turn to contractors, the U.S. military and local law enforcement to help carry out Trump's aggressive crackdown on immigration. It is likely to continue its expansion of the 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to function as deportation agents. Homeland Security said the new budget will fully fund the 287(g) program. Pfaff said that while using local police to make immigration arrests could help in the short term, many major cities and states, including California, have already banned the agreements or limited cooperation with ICE. Still, ProPublica reported that more than 500 law enforcement agencies have signed 287(g) agreements since January. Jason Houser, who was ICE's chief of staff under the Biden administration, said training new hires takes about a year and that classes are typically capped at 50 students. Houser said another short-term workaround for permanent staff could be the use of contractors. Most immigrant detainees are held in facilities that are run by private prison companies, including the Florida-based GEO Group and Tennessee-based CoreCivic. But those companies have a limited inventory of detention space. CBP could also use its funding to erect soft-sided, temporary facilities on military bases within the 100 miles of the U.S. boundary, in which CBP has authority to conduct immigration checkpoints and other enhanced enforcement activities. Houser said temporary facilities could be set up by October, and they could be staffed with National Guard or U.S. military personnel in administrative, nursing, food and sanitation roles. Federal law generally prohibits the military from arresting civilians. But Homeland Security officials have said military personnel have the authority to temporarily detain anyone who attacks an immigration agent until law enforcement can arrest them. But Houser worries that placing young service members, who aren't trained to conduct civil detention, in charge of those facilities will lead to people getting hurt. He also worries that without other countries agreeing to accept more deportees, the number of immigrants detained for months could quickly balloon. As of June 29, there were nearly 58,000 immigrants held in detention, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization. That's far beyond the congressionally approved 41,500 detention beds this fiscal year. 'This is 9/11-style money,' Houser said. 'Think about the money in counterterrorism post-9/11. It turns the entire apparatus toward this goal. Everything in government is going to turn to where the money is, and that's the scary piece to me.'
