Politics

Marie Ange Blaise had been detained since Feb. 12, when she was stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Henry E. Rohlsen International Airport in Saint Croix while trying to board a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, according to ICE.

Croix. Trump Mass Deportations ICE Photo by: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. By: Scripps News Group Posted 8:08 AM, Apr 30, 2025 and last updated 5 minutes ago

A 44-year-old woman from Haiti died in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Florida last Friday, the agency said.

The cause of her death is still under investigation.

Marie Ange Blaise had been detained since Feb. 12, when she was stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Henry E. Rohlsen International Airport in Saint Croix while trying to board a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, according to ICE.

She was then taken to ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Miami’s staging facility in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Feb. 14, according to ICE.

A week later, Blaise was transferred to Richwood Correctional Center in Oakdale, Louisiana.

ICE said she was later transferred to the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Florida, on April 5, where she later died.

It’s unclear why Blaise was transferred to various facilities.

According to ICE’s online records, this is the fourth person to die in custody since January.

Note: The original link didn't work for some reason. For clarity, this is from The Verge and this is one of their quotes in the article:

On March 17th, the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency broke into the nonprofit, congressionally funded US Institute for Peace, according to court documents filed by the USIP’s board of directors. By allegedly threatening to “cancel every federal contract” of a private security firm that had worked with USIP until a day earlier, they convinced it to let them into the building — where, told by institute staff they were trespassing, the fired security firm headed for the USIP gun safe. That’s when the USIP called the cops. The DC police arrived to escort DOGE into the building. USIP head of security Colin O’Brien, along with two of USIP’s lawyers, was detained.

https://www.theverge.com/tech/656704/elon-musk-doge-100-days-recap-list

Last year, an opaque group called the Fair Election Fund began promising to pay “whistleblowers” who cited election fraud “with payment from our $5 million fund.” That never panned out, but the same organization found more success with a claim that “60,000 people who were named as small-dollar donors in the Biden-Harris campaign’s July [Federal Election Commission] report did not recall making the contribution when contacted by the Fair Election Fund.”

As Mother Jones reported last year, the Fair Election Fund appears to have generated this finding by blasting out ominous-sounding texts and emails telling ActBlue donors that their donations had been “flagged,” then tallying people who responded—accurately or not—by checking a box saying they did not recall making the contribution.

The Fair Election Fund’s findings have nevertheless become part of an array of GOP efforts to attack ActBlue, which the White House’s fact sheet cited, vaguely, on Thursday. “Press reports and investigations by congressional committees have generated extremely troubling evidence that online fundraising platforms have been willing participants in schemes to launder excessive and prohibited contributions to political candidates and committees,” the fact sheet says.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday in a Catholic virtual charter school’s bid to become the nation’s first religious charter school. The Oklahoma charter school board that approved the Catholic school’s application tells the justices that a state supreme court ruling invalidating its contract with the school violates the Constitution and harms lower-income families. But the state’s attorney general counters that a ruling in favor of the Catholic school could upend the charter-school system nationwide.

The Oklahoma law governing charter schools requires them to be non-religious “in their programs, admissions policies, and other operations.” The dispute now before the court began when the archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the diocese of Tulsa applied to the state’s charter school board to establish a virtual Catholic charter school, St. Isidore of Seville. The purpose of the school – which was named after the patron saint of the internet and projected to have an initial enrollment of 500 students, approximately half of whom would come from lower-income families – is explicitly religious: It “fully embraces” the Catholic Church’s teachings, “fully incorporates” them “into every aspect of the” school, and intends to participate “in the evangelizing mission of the church.”

Gross domestic product (GDP), a key measure of overall growth in the US economy, fell by 0.3% in the first quarter of the year, down from 2.4% in the last quarter of 2024. The contraction – the first since the start of 2022 – puts the US on the brink of a technical recession, defined by two quarters of negative growth.

The drop in activity comes amid a huge fall in consumer sentiment, which in April dropped 32% to its lowest level since the 1990 recession.

US stocks dropped Wednesday morning, with the benchmark S&P 500 and technology-focused Nasdaq each falling by as much as 1.5%.

Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old Department of Government Efficiency aide, disclosed the investments earlier this year in his public financial report, which lists as much as $365,000 worth of shares in four companies that the CFPB can regulate. According to court records and government emails, he later helped oversee the layoffs of more than 1,400 employees at the bureau.

Ethics experts say this constitutes a conflict of interest and that Kliger’s actions are a potential violation of federal ethics laws.

Executive branch employees have long been subject to laws and rules that forbid them from working on matters that “will affect your own personal financial interest.” CFPB employees are also required to divest from dozens of additional, specific companies that engage in financial services and thus either are or could be subject to agency supervision, rulemaking, examination or enforcement.

A federal judge in Vermont ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and student at Columbia University who was detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.

“The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” said Geoffrey Crawford, a US district judge, at a hearing Wednesday, according to ABC News. “Mr Mahdawi, I will order you released.”

Crawford ordered that Mahdawi be released from prison on bail, pending the resolution of his case in federal court.

Mahdawi walked out of immigration detention on Wednesday morning, greeting supporters and thanking them for their support.

The Federal Communications Commission is urging two federal appeals courts to disregard a 5th Circuit ruling that guts the agency's ability to issue financial penalties.

On April 17, the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit granted an AT&T request to wipe out a $57 million fine for selling customer location data without consent. The conservative 5th Circuit court said the FCC "acted as prosecutor, jury, and judge," violating AT&T's Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.

The ruling wasn't a major surprise. The 5th Circuit said it was guided by the Supreme Court's June 2024 ruling in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, which held that "when the SEC seeks civil penalties against a defendant for securities fraud, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant to a jury trial." After the Supreme Court's Jarkesy ruling, FCC Republican Nathan Simington vowed to vote against any fine imposed by the commission until its legal powers are clear.

Los Angeles County has confirmed it will pay a record $4bn (£3.4bn) to settle nearly 7,000 claims of "horrific" child sexual abuse related to their juvenile facilities and foster care homes over a period of decades.

Survivors say they were abused and mistreated by staff in institutions meant to protect them - with many of the claims linked to MacLaren Children's Center, a shelter that permanently closed in 2003.

"This was the fox guarding the hen house – they were raping boys and raping girls," Todd Becker, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the BBC.

The allegations stretch back to 1959, with most incidents taking place in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.

The unprecedented $4bn settlement was approved on Tuesday by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

As a statement from the congressman's office details, Trump's alleged constitutional violations are:

• Obstruction of Justice and Abuse of Executive Power: Including denial of due process, unlawful deportations, defiance of court orders, and misuse of the Department of Justice.
• Usurpation of Appropriations Power: For dismantling congressionally established agencies and impounding federal funds.
• Abuse of Trade Powers and International Aggression: Including imposing economically damaging tariffs and threatening military invasion against sovereign nations.
• Violation of First Amendment Rights: Through retaliatory actions against critics, media, and attorneys exercising constitutionally protected speech.
• Creation of an Unlawful Office: By establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and unlawfully empowering Elon Musk to unilaterally violate the Constitution.
• Bribery and Corruption: Involving dismissing criminal cases, soliciting foreign emoluments, and extortionate settlements for personal and political gain.
• Tyrannical Overreach: Seeking to consolidate unchecked power, erode civil liberties, and defy constitutional limits on presidential authority.

Voters in Gainesville and High Springs, Florida, a rural area north of the city, held empty chair town halls this past week after Cammack declined to hold a town hall after numerous requests.

At a 25 April empty chair town hall in Gainesville, Florida, several constituents, which included retired federal workers and teachers, expressed frustration with a lack of response from Cammack’s office and several cited promises from her office that a town hall would be scheduled in April 2025.

“People are afraid. They’re celebrating when their social security check shows up because they’re afraid it might not,” said Jenn Powell, co-chair of the Alachua County Labor Coalition, and one of the organizers of the town hall. “So while Kat Cammack is not listening to her constituents, we decided to have a town hall without her, and will deliver the forms of questions and video to her office.”

In fighting Trump’s assaults on democracy, I speak from experience. As the first governor to come out against his Muslim ban, one of the most vocal in speaking out against his Covid negligence, and telling him to his face to stop tweeting and start protecting our children, earning me the honor of being called a “snake”, I know standing up brings the heat. So be it.

But my more important experience is decades watching a courageous citizenry force its federal government to change course. In the 50s and 60s, the government was forced to change, thanks in large part to a woman refusing to sit in the back of the bus. In the 70s, the Vietnam war ended only because thousands marched, including myself, proving the ability of committed people, though unelected, to compel change. In the 80s it was private citizens who forced the federal government to start treating HIV patients like humans.

In each of these decades, small acts of defiance led to national change as courage rippled outwards. The benefit of having lived these decades during the American experiment is learning that leaders in civil society who resist should be exalted, joined, and followed.

Those who believe that this call to action is an overstatement of the threat understand neither the nature of the tyrant-in-chief nor the slow but inexorable nature of how democracies are lost. I witnessed Trump’s cruelty and lack of empathy as I dealt with him during the Covid pandemic, as he willfully withheld help and then consciously spread misinformation that caused so many needless deaths. Anyone who saw this up close would make the call for resistance I am making today. How can anyone not understand that the refusal to follow the law on January 6 continues in full force today? Why would it stop unless it is made to stop?

Last week, a federal judge blocked the administration's latest effort to withhold funding from 16 jurisdictions, including San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, St. Paul and New Haven.

"Here we are again," wrote U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco, who found that the Trump administration's actions were likely unconstitutional and granted a preliminary injunction.

"The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the Cities and Counties and the communities they serve," Orrick wrote.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said on Monday it has started using polygraph tests to aid investigations aimed at identifying the source of leaks emanating from within the law enforcement agency.

“We can confirm the FBI has begun administering polygraph tests to identify the source of information leaks within the bureau,” the bureau’s public affairs office told Reuters in a statement.

Donald Trump’s administration has been cracking down on people who leak information to journalists since he returned to office in January.

Last week, the Republican US Department of Justice made it easier to subpoena records and testimony from journalists.

The U.S. government admitted on Monday that it has “lost” a very, very expensive jet after it slipped off a moving aircraft carrier last week.

The warplane, a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet, somehow tumbled off the USS Harry S. Truman after the ship reportedly came under fire from Houthi rebels. The carrier has been deployed in the region for months as part of the U.S. effort to deter activity by the Yemen-based fighters, the Associated Press reports.

“The F/A-18E was actively under tow in the hangar bay when the move crew lost control of the aircraft. The aircraft and tow tractor were lost overboard,” a U.S. Navy statement says. “Sailors towing the aircraft took immediate action to move clear of the aircraft before it fell overboard. An investigation is underway.” After falling off the ship, the plane, as planes are wont to do, promptly sank, another official told CNN.

In making the request, Gun Owners for Safety cited a ProPublica investigation that detailed how the National Shooting Sports Foundation turned over sensitive personal information on gun buyers to political operatives while presenting itself as a fierce advocate for the privacy of firearms owners. The letter — sent last week to the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — called the NSSF’s secret program that spanned nearly two decades "underhanded.”

“Gun owners’ privacy is not a partisan or ideological issue,” wrote Malcolm Smith, a Gun Owners for Safety member. “No matter the industry, exploiting customers’ private data like their underwear size and children’s ages in a secret scheme is reprehensible and cannot be permitted.”

Gun Owners for Safety has been operated since 2019 by the gun violence prevention organization Giffords, which was co-founded by Gabby Giffords, the Arizona lawmaker who survived an attempted assassination in 2011. It has chapters in nine states and consists of gun owners and Second Amendment supporters who believe in what they call “common sense” measures to reduce gun-related deaths like safety locks and improved background checks on firearm purchases.

According to a lawsuit filed on VML's behalf, she and her family were taken into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody on Tuesday while attending a routine check-in with the mother's Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP).

ISAP is an alternative to detention for noncitizens who are in the country unlawfully.

It is not immediately clear what was flagged during that meeting to trigger deportation proceedings for VML's mother and sister. But according to a court petition, her father, who had dropped the trio off at the meeting, was informed about an hour after the start of the meeting that his partner and two daughters had been taken into custody.

According to the suit, at one point as VML's father tried to secure her release, New Orleans ICE Field Office Director Mellissa Harper began interrogating the family's attorney about the father's immigration status and attempted to lure him into custody as well.

So-called “active clubs” have proliferated across the US and are a combination of fitness and mixed martial arts groups that often espouse neo-Nazi and fascist ideologies, openly taking their historical cues from the Third Reich’s obsession with machismo and European soccer hooliganism.

Active clubs have emerged as perhaps the most dangerous form of far-right political organizing today. With links to other militant organizations, including Patriot Front, they encourage a seemingly mainstream version of masculinity, layered with ideologies promoting a US race war and using the popularity of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) as a gateway to recruiting.

U.S. Reps. Lloyd Doggett and Sylvia Garcia of Texas are pushing an inquiry into whether deals between several prominent law firms' and President Donald Trump constituted the bribe of a government official.

The pair joined 14 other Democratic members in penning letters to nine large firms on Thursday, several of which have offices in Texas, requesting details on how their deals with Trump came together and what exactly they agreed to in order to maintain access within the federal government.

Trump reached the agreements with some of the nation's largest firms after he issued executive orders taking away their attorneys' security clearance and barring government agencies from working with them. Many of those orders were revoked after firms agreed to provide tens of millions of dollars worth of pro bono legal work for causes important to Trump, as well as refraining from hiring practices designed to promote "diversity, equity and inclusion."

Donald Trump’s appointees at the Department of Justice have removed all of the senior civil servants working as managers in the department’s voting section and directed attorneys to dismiss all active cases, according to people familiar with the matter, part of a broader attack on the department’s civil rights division.

The voting section had seven managers in January overseeing around 30 attorneys. Of the two other managers, one retired and another was detailed to work on an antisemitism task force.

Political appointees have also instructed career employees to dismiss all of their active cases without meeting with them and offering a rationale – a significant break with the department’s practices and norms.

The justice department did not return a request for comment.

Taken together, the changes have raised significant alarm about what the future of voting rights enforcement will look like for the federal government at a moment when states continue to pass restrictive voting measures.

For conservative, traditionalist or self-described “orthodox” Catholics, fresh from 12 uneasy years under Francis, this interregnum will be the last chance in a long time to try to reset a church that they believe has drifted too far left. To some, that means pushing for a church that clearly affirms polarizing but longtime Catholic teachings on sexuality, marriage and abortion. Others, many of them associated with the priorities of Donald Trump and his supporters, would go further, and press for a church that is explicitly, politically rightwing – or at least less hostile to the Maga movement’s stances on immigration, social welfare and the environment.

Steve Bannon, perhaps the most public and inflammatory voice of rightwing Catholic discontent, has said he intends to organize a “show of force of traditionalists” with confrontational “wall-to-wall” media coverage. Most politicking, however, will take the form of quieter wheeling and dealing.

But Martin’s ties to Timothy Hale-Cusanelli—who is known for wearing a Hitler-style mustache and who once allegedly told a co-worker that the Nazis “should have finished the job”—are far more extensive than just that one meeting.

Martin told the Forward this week that he was “sorry” for bestowing an award on Hale-Cusanelli during an August 2024 event at Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

“I denounce everything about what that guy said, everything about the way he talked, and all as I’ve now seen it,” Martin said. “At the time, I didn’t know it.”

Martin was not specific in the portions of interview quoted by the Forward, but he seemed to suggest that he previously had known only of a photo in which Hale-Cusanelli wore a Hitler-style mustache, not “the full scope of his repulsive behavior.” Martin reportedly said he now understands Hale-Cusanelli’s behavior was “clearly far more serious than a singular act that, by itself, might look like a mistake.” Martin’s office did not respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones.

I'm not sure why this is filed under opinion and very hard to find on their site. All facts.

Portions of the memo:

For purposes of this guidance memorandum, an "Alien Enemy" under the Proclamation and 50 U.S.C. § 21 is a person who is: (1) fourteen years of age or older; (2) not a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States; (3) a citizen of Venezuela; and ( 4) a member of the hostile enemy Tren de Aragua, as determined by reference to Form AEA-21A, titled, "Alien Enemies Act: Alien Enemy Validation Guide," attached to this memorandum.

(2) Removal of Alien Enemies

All aliens who are determined to be Alien Enemies under the Proclamation and 50 U.S.C. § 21 shall be issued a.Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal under the AEA and removed from the United States, except as provided in section (8) of this memorandum. In effectuating the removal of Alien Enemies, law enforcement officers and agents ("officers") must follow the procedures below.

A. Apprehension and Removal Procedures in Proactive Matters i. Step 1: Validation of Alien Enemy Status and Execution of Form AEA-21A At Step 1 of the proactive AEA apprehension and removal procedures, a line officer, or any other available officer ("line officer"), is responsible for determining whether an individual qualifies as an Alien Enemy. As outlined above, that requires determining that an individual is:

• (1) at least fourteen years ofage;
• (2) not a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States;
• (3) a citizen of Venezuela; and
• (4) a member ofTren de Aragua.

As outlined in that form, there may be instances where removal proceedings under the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") would be more appropriate based upon a review of the facts of the case than removal under the AEA. Line officers should adhere to the instructions in Form AEA-21A, including consulting with their supervisor(s) and the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in making such a determination.

As much as practicable, officers should follow the proactive procedures above—and have an executed Warrant of Apprehension and Removal—before contacting an Alien Enemy,” the memo reads. “However, that will not always be realistic or effective in swiftly identifying and removing Alien Enemies.… An officer may encounter a suspected Alien Enemy in the natural course of the officer’s enforcement activity, such as when apprehending other validated members of Tren de Aragua. Given the dynamic nature of enforcement operations, officers in the field are authorized to apprehend aliens upon a reasonable belief that the alien meets all four requirements to be validated as an Alien Enemy. This authority includes entering an Alien Enemy’s residence to make an AEA apprehension where circumstances render it impracticable to first obtain a signed Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal” (emphasis added).

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25915967-doj-march-14-memo-alien-enemies-act/#document/p1

Federal agents on Friday arrested a judge in Wisconsin on obstruction charges after she allegedly helped an undocumented immigrant evade arrest, FBI Director Kash Patel said.

Patel made the announcement in an X post, which was quickly deleted. The FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on why the post was removed.