ICE launches assault on DC business in search of TV moments

Graffiti reads "Abolish ICE"; found under a bridge in Washington, D.C.

Mike Maguire, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Welcome to our news segment: TL;DR of Immigration News, for when the news is Too Long and you Didn’t Read it.

This is a weekly collection of immigration-related news stories. These bite-size summaries will keep you up to date without overwhelming your inbox.
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Wife desperately searches for husband after Nashville detention operation leaves dozens in limbo

In what Tennessee State Representative Aftyn Behn is calling a “disturbing” and “alarming” development, Tennessee Highway Patrol coordinated with ICE over the weekend to create a “dragnet” to detain and deport immigrants in Nashville, seemingly based solely on their appearance, language, and neighborhood. Behn reports witness accounts of THP detaining “mothers driving to work, allegedly leaving children in vehicles by themselves.”

One person picked up in the operation was Leugim Romero, who had just ended a twelve-hour shift at WalMart and whose paperwork should have prevented him from being detained, but who has nevertheless been pulled into the detention system to the point that his wife cannot find him.

Rep Behn goes on to say that operations like this “terrorize families” and “disrupt lives.”

Donate here to help the affected families. If you are in Tennessee, reach neveragainmiddletn@gmail.com to get involved in the response.
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ICE launches assault on DC business in search of TV moments

As working people, immigration organizers, and non-profits successfully mobilize and educate massive numbers of people on their right to not cooperate with ICE, the Trump administration has struggled to make good on their promise to detain and deport more people than the Biden administration. Which is one of the reasons why Kristie Noem and DHS have resorted to very public facing immigration raids in places like DC, where ICE aimed to arrest and imprison up to 2000 people in our nation’s capital in a planned series of operations. It seems as though DHS is desperately looking for photo ops so that Trump and MAGA will like them, even as our organizers powerfully and effectively get in the way of them carrying out their attacks.
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Anonymous Redditor creates map visualizing ICE contracting

Do you want to know the names and locations of the many companies that provide the infrastructure for the mass detention and kidnapping machine? Someone has put together a handy map for you. This map will keep growing as more research shows the full scope of these private sector contracts with government entities across the United States, and should provide a useful tool to shine light on just who is profiting from the terrorizing of vulnerable communities.

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Trump’s use of Alien Enemies Act for swift deportations is illegal, Trump-appointed judge rules

Despite all kinds of malarkey, including outright lies and the characterizing of desperate people walking to shelter as an invading army, a Trump-appointed federal judge has ruled that the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants suspected of gang activity is inappropriate.

US District Judge Fernando Rodriguez disputed the administration’s resort to this 18th century law that gives the executive power to deport foreign nationals of a country with which the US is at war. While admirably byzantine, use of this law will not stand in Rodriguez’ Texas district. Hopefully this eminently sane jurisprudence will become a useful precedent for striking down unjustifiable deportations elsewhere, as well.

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Lawmakers demand answers after a Haitian woman dies at an ICE detention center

Haitian immigrant Marie Ange Blaise, 44, died on Friday, April 25 in ICE detention at Broward Transitional Facility in Pompano Beach, FL. Blaise had been in ICE custody, transferred between several facilities, since Feb 14. According to Florida Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, the only Haitian-American member of Congress, Blaise had been denied adequate medical attention prior to her death. Cherfilus-McCormick and Representative Frederica Wilson, another south Florida Democrat, called for additional congressional oversight as well as an independent investigation.

Without transparency and public oversight, we can hardly expect ICE to be held accountable for criminal abuse and negligence. As it stands, Congress requires ICE to make public reports about in-custody deaths within 90 days. According to ICE data, Blaise is the 7th person to die in ICE custody since the start of the 2025 fiscal year. It should raise alarms that all of our information about the conditions surrounding Blaise’s death and other deaths taking place in ICE custody come from ICE itself, including most of the information cited in the article.

Broward Transitional Facility (BTC) is a private, for-profit prison (seeing profits to the tune of tens of millions of dollars annually) owned and operated by GEO group. BTC has seen many complaints of medical neglect, family separation, and more over the years. Biden refused to close BTC when GEO group’s contract last expired in 2021.
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7 actions you can take right now:

  1. Jeanette Vizguerra, community leader and mother, was arrested by ICE in Colorado. Jeanette has been fighting her deportation case since 2009 and is a pillar to her community and family. She has organized and supported immigrant and human rights for years, she needs our support now.

  1. College Students/Faculty/Staff: Sign the ICE Noncompliance Pledge. When Trump abuses “Jewish safety” to justify deportations, we must spread the word to not comply.

  2. Respond to reports of suspected raids in your area in real time by reading and sharing the information in this 1-page guide. For those of us who are allies especially, learn how to watch for ICE and protect your neighbors.

  3. Updated for 2025: Never Again Action is equipping members to organize themselves into neighborhood groups (or “pods”) to be trained and respond to deportation threats on a hyperlocal level. Learn more and build or join a pod: bit.ly/BuildAPod2025

  4. Support Never Again Action’s organizing by making a donation today. You can make a tax deductible donation via our fiscal sponsor at this link, or you can donate directly to our 501(c)(4) organization at this link.

  5. New: Sign up for Inside the Deportation Dystopia: First hand Reports from ICE Detention Centers, webinar by Amnesty International Wednesday, May 21 8pm-9:30pm EST.

  6. New: Sign up for Siembra NC’s Avelo “Abduction Airlines” Mass Call to learn about the airline enabling ICE abductions and what you can do to stop its kidnapping flights. Online event, Thursday May 22 at 8pm EST.

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Never Again Action