U.S.A.

According to mainstream media, a group of masked men created a diversion to lure guards away from the Prairieland Detention Center before opening fire and wounding a police officer who was nearby, shooting him in the neck with what is reported to be an AR-15 assault weapon. 

According to the federal court, the defendants were dressed in all-black military fatigues and began attacking the facility with fireworks. Anti-ICE and political messages defending the public were painted on the facility’s vehicles. All suspects fled the scene, and ten people were arrested nearby. 

The Johnson County Sheriff’s Department says it stopped a vehicle with a driver and firearms. Others were arrested on foot nearby. The FBI says it found political literature in backpacks with the slogans “FIGHT ICE TERROR WITH CLASS WAR!” and “FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!” They also had a flag with a fist that read “RESIST FASCISM, FIGHT THE OLIGARCHY.” Subsequent house raids yielded “insurrectionary anarchist” literature. 

The charges against the defendants include three counts of attempted murder of federal officers and three counts of discharging a firearm in connection with a violent crime. Faced with desperation and fear that the masses will continue their justified rebellion against the reactionary old state, Acting U.S. Attorney Nancy E. Larson stated that “Those who use violence against law enforcement will be found and prosecuted with the harshest criminal laws and penalties available.” Such are the dark dreams of reactionaries who already use violence against the people, including the “harshest criminal laws,” to exercise their basic democratic rights, or simply to exist in this country and work illegally in backbreaking, low-paying jobs. Such threats can only fall on deaf ears of a people tired of inaction. 

[Source: The Worker News]

“By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1.  Purpose and Policy.  Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe.  The number of individuals living on the streets in the United States on a single night during the last year of the previous administration — 274,224 — was the highest ever recorded.  The overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both.  Nearly two-thirds of homeless individuals report having regularly used hard drugs like methamphetamines, cocaine, or opioids in their lifetimes.  An equally large share of homeless individuals reported suffering from mental health conditions.  The Federal Government and the States have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root causes, leaving other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats.

Shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order.  Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens.  My Administration will take a new approach focused on protecting public safety.

Sec. 2.  Restoring Civil Commitment.  (a)  The Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, shall take appropriate action to:

(i)   seek, in appropriate cases, the reversal of Federal or State judicial precedents and the termination of consent decrees that impede the United States’ policy of encouraging civil commitment of individuals with mental illness who pose risks to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time; and

(ii)  provide assistance to State and local governments, through technical guidance, grants, or other legally available means, for the identification, adoption, and implementation of maximally flexible civil commitment, institutional treatment, and “step-down” treatment standards that allow for the appropriate commitment and treatment of individuals with mental illness who pose a danger to others or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves.

Sec. 3.  Fighting Vagrancy on America’s Streets.  (a)  The Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and the Secretary of Transportation shall take immediate steps to assess their discretionary grant programs and determine whether priority for those grants may be given to grantees in States and municipalities that actively meet the below criteria, to the maximum extent permitted by law:

(i)    enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use;

(ii)   enforce prohibitions on urban camping and loitering;

(iii)  enforce prohibitions on urban squatting;

(iv)   enforce, and where necessary, adopt, standards that address individuals who are a danger to themselves or others and suffer from serious mental illness or substance use disorder, or who are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves, through assisted outpatient treatment or by moving them into treatment centers or other appropriate facilities via civil commitment or other available means, to the maximum extent permitted by law; or

(v)    substantially implement and comply with, to the extent required, the registration and notification obligations of the Sex Offender Registry and Notification Act, particularly in the case of registered sex offenders with no fixed address, including by adequately mapping and checking the location of homeless sex offenders.

(b)  The Attorney General shall:

(i)    ensure that homeless individuals arrested for Federal crimes are evaluated, consistent with 18 U.S.C. 4248, to determine whether they are sexually dangerous persons and certified accordingly for civil commitment;

(ii)   take all necessary steps to ensure the availability of funds under the Emergency Federal Law Enforcement Assistance program to support, as consistent with 34 U.S.C. 50101 et seq., encampment removal efforts in areas for which public safety is at risk and State and local resources are inadequate;

(iii)  assess Federal resources to determine whether they may be directed toward ensuring, to the extent permitted by law, that detainees with serious mental illness are not released into the public because of a lack of forensic bed capacity at appropriate local, State, and Federal jails or hospitals; and

(iv)   enhance requirements that prisons and residential reentry centers that are under the authority of the Attorney General or receive funding from the Attorney General require in-custody housing release plans and, to the maximum extent practicable, require individuals to comply.

Sec. 4.  Redirecting Federal Resources Toward Effective Methods of Addressing Homelessness.  (a)  The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall take appropriate action to:

(i)    ensure that discretionary grants issued by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery fund evidence-based programs and do not fund programs that fail to achieve adequate outcomes, including so-called “harm reduction” or “safe consumption” efforts that only facilitate illegal drug use and its attendant harm;

(ii)   provide technical assistance to assisted outpatient treatment programs for individuals with serious mental illness or addiction during and after the civil commitment process focused on shifting such individuals off of the streets and public programs and into private housing and support networks; and

(iii)  ensure that Federal funds for Federally Qualified Health Centers and Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics reduce rather than promote homelessness by supporting, to the maximum extent permitted by law, comprehensive services for individuals with serious mental illness and substance use disorder, including crisis intervention services.

(b)  The Attorney General shall prioritize available funding to support the expansion of drug courts and mental health courts for individuals for which such diversion serves public safety.

Sec. 5.  Increasing Accountability and Safety in America’s Homelessness Programs.  (a)  The Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall take appropriate actions to increase accountability in their provision of, and grants awarded for, homelessness assistance and transitional living programs.  These actions shall include, to the extent permitted by law, ending support for “housing first” policies that deprioritize accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency; increasing competition among grantees through broadening the applicant pool; and holding grantees to higher standards of effectiveness in reducing homelessness and increasing public safety.  

(b)  The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall, as appropriate, take steps to require recipients of Federal housing and homelessness assistance to increase requirements that persons participating in the recipients’ programs who suffer from substance use disorder or serious mental illness use substance abuse treatment or mental health services as a condition of participation.

(c)  With respect to recipients of Federal housing and homelessness assistance that operate drug injection sites or “safe consumption sites,” knowingly distribute drug paraphernalia, or permit the use or distribution of illicit drugs on property under their control:

(i)   the Attorney General shall review whether such recipients are in violation of Federal law, including 21 U.S.C. 856, and bring civil or criminal actions in appropriate cases; and

(ii)  the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, in coordination with the Attorney General, shall review whether such recipients are in violation of the terms of the programs pursuant to which they receive Federal housing and homelessness assistance and freeze their assistance as appropriate.

(d)  The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall take appropriate measures and revise regulations as necessary to allow, where permissible under applicable law, federally funded programs to exclusively house women and children and to stop sex offenders who receive homelessness assistance through such programs from being housed with unrelated children. 

(e)  The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, shall, as appropriate and to the extent permitted by law:

(i)   allow or require the recipients of Federal funding for homelessness assistance to collect health-related information that the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development identifies as necessary to the effective and efficient operation of the funding program from all persons to whom such assistance is provided; and

(ii)  require those funding recipients to share such data with law enforcement authorities in circumstances permitted by law and to use the collected health data to provide appropriate medical care to individuals with mental health diagnoses or to connect individuals to public health resources.

Sec. 6.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(d)  The costs for publication of this order shall be borne by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

                              DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,

    July 24, 2025.”

[Source: White House]

On June 14, as part of the No King protests that brought together millions of Americans against Trump’s migration policy, protesters in Portland, Oregon, clashed with federal agents outside the local ICE headquarters. Groups chanted slogans and occasionally threw objects – mainly water bottles and at least one rock – at the building. Security forces fired riot ammunition from the building’s roof and entrance, further escalating tensions as the protest continued into the evening. At one point, demonstrators tried to force their way into the building, eventually smashing a glass door with an improvised battering ram. They then moved up the street as federal agents in tactical gear mounted fired tear gas, stun grenades and used acoustic weapons.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued a statement threatening the protesters with criminal prosecution, adding that ICE agents were “facing a nearly 700% increase in assaults against them”. In the end, 20 people were charged with federal crimes related to protests outside the ICE building. Five people were charged with serious crimes.

[Source: Secours Rouge]

This July, in another widely circulated case, officers stopped an Iranian chiropractor and green-card applicant near Portland, Oregon. He was on his way to his toddler’s preschool. “There is a baby in the car,” the man said. They allowed him to continue to the school, then broke a window once the toddler was out. We found no criminal history for him.

The arrest marked the first confirmed immigration enforcement action outside of an Oregon school. Until earlier this year, federal policy prohibited immigration officials from making arrests near certain locations such as schools, houses of worship and hospitals.

OPB obtained edited video clips showing the arrest from Khanbabazadeh’s family. OPB authenticated the footage before publishing it and is using Khanbabazadeh’s name with his family’s permission.

One video from inside the vehicle blurred the faces of Khanbabazadeh and his child, who was in the backseat. It was recorded at 8:17 a.m., according to a timestamp on the video.

“Daddy, police!” the child said from a carseat as officers told the man to roll his window down further.

“Yeah, that’s police,” Khanbabazadeh replied as he retrieved his identification for the officers.

“Where are you headed?” one of the ICE officers asked.

“Day care,” Khanbabazadeh replied.

In another clip from the same video, recorded around 8:32 a.m., the father implores the officers to delay their arrest.

“There is a baby in the car,” Khanbabazadeh said. “Is it hard to wait for three minutes?”

A clip taken from the same dashboard camera shows ICE officers smashing the driver’s side window of the car after the child has left the vehicle. Khanbabazadeh tells the officers he is getting out.

“We told you three times. Unbuckle your seatbelt and step out of the car,” one officer said.

Another video taken from outside the vehicle shows Khanbabazadeh standing next to a black SUV being handcuffed and led away by several ICE officers, some of whom are wearing masks.

A spokesperson for ICE declined late Monday to comment on the videos.

Khanbabazadeh is currently being held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, a detention facility in Tacoma, Washington. He was born in Iran and is married to a U.S. citizen. The couple had recently completed an interview with immigration authorities and were awaiting final approval on a green card.

The family is pressing for Khanbabazadeh’s release from the facility. His immigration attorneys have declined to comment on the case.

According to ICE, Khanbabazadeh entered the United States on a student visa, which a spokesperson for the agency said he overstayed, in violation of the law. His family has disputed that characterization, saying that he had completed his green card application, including an interview with federal immigration officials earlier this year.

The incident left the Guidepost Montessori School community shaken, with the school itself going into a “soft lockdown” that day and holding a meeting with families the following evening.

Randy Kornfield, who had been dropping off his grandchild at the time and witnessed the arrest, told OPB one of the ICE agents got into a heated exchange with a teacher from the school after that person asked that the officers identify themselves. Kornfield described the arrest as “heartless.”

In a press release the day after the arrest, ICE stated it initially attempted to arrest Khanbabazadeh during a traffic stop, but decided to allow him to drop his son off at preschool first.

“Officers allowed him to proceed to the daycare parking lot where he stopped cooperating, resisted arrest and refused to exit his vehicle, resulting in ICE officers making entry by breaking one of the windows to complete the arrest,” a spokesperson for ICE said in a statement last week.

The ICE action was condemned by local and state leaders, including Beaverton Mayor Lacey Beaty and Gov. Tina Kotek.

[Source: OPB]

In Vermont, a judge has ordered the release on bond of two jailed immigrant rights leaders. José Ignacio “Nacho” De La Cruz and Heidi Perez were violently arrested last month after being pulled over on the road. They organize with the group Migrant Justice.

[Source: Democracy Now!]

Democratic lawmakers blasted the horrific conditions in Florida’s new immigration detention jail in the Everglades, known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” after visiting the facility on Saturday. This is Florida Congressmember Maxwell Frost.

“Hey, everybody. I just left the Everglades internment camp, the Everglades detention facility for immigrants, and I’ve got to tell you that the conditions are horrible. These are people being caged, 32 people per cage, only three toilets for a group of 32 grown men. And where they drink water is from the toilet. It’s only a spigot that comes from the toilet, and that’s where you also drink water. … And, you know, they didn’t let us walk fully in. They opened the door and let us look in, and people were yelling at us, ‘Help me! Help me!’ I heard somebody in the back yell, ’I’m a U.S. citizen!’ We’re going to look into that.”

The Miami Herald found hundreds of detainees at the Everglades immigration prison have no criminal records or charges, contradicting claims by the Trump administration.

[Source: Democracy Now!]

A federal judge in California temporarily blocked the Trump administration on Friday from conducting sweeping immigration raids and racially profiling people in Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong said agents are prohibited from targeting people based on their apparent ethnicity, the language they’re speaking, their presence at a particular location or the type of work they’re engaged in. The judge also ordered immigration authorities to provide anyone they arrest with immediate access to lawyers.

One of the plaintiffs in the case is Brian Gavidia, who was aggressively pushed up against a fence by ICE agents during a raid and questioned as he repeatedly told the agents he was a U.S. citizen. Gavidia spoke at a press conference Friday.

“I truly believe that. I believe in the Constitution. I believe in America. I believe in what we stand. I believe in this court system. And I believe that what’s going down right now in the United States is wrong. I believe in the Constitution. We are ignoring the Constitution at this very moment. It is not right. We will not stand down. We are all Americans here. We will not allow this to happen. We follow the Constitution.”

[Source: Democracy Now]

The ‘No Kings’ rally on 14 June in Los Angeles turned chaotic when the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) violently dispersed the crowd a few hours before curfew, firing flashballs, pepper balls and tear gas grenades. The shots also targeted (intentionally) journalists and (unintentionally) (at least we assume) other police officers.

On 7 July, a federal judge ruled that the LAPD could not force journalists to leave protest areas or use non-lethal weapons against them, after reporters were targeted. The judge granted the Los Angeles Press Club a 14-day restraining order against the city’s police department after the group said it had documented dozens of incidents in which police officers forced journalists to leave public spaces where protests were taking place, struck them with rubber bullets and non-lethal weapons, and exposed them to tear gas.

LAPD officers found themselves caught in the crossfire of tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets fired by Los Angeles County sheriffs. The first report of ‘friendly fire’ came at 4:55 p.m. when police officers were trying to move protesters away from City Hall. Twenty minutes later, police officers were fired upon again by sheriffs at the corner of Temple and Main Streets. Three minutes later, the sheriffs once again fired pepper balls and other projectiles at the police officers. Videos show LAPD officers taking cover behind concrete pillars on the steps of City Hall, with one of them being directly hit by a tear gas grenade.

[Source: Secours Rouge]

The first trial in Georgia’s massive case against activists opposed to Atlanta’s infamous “Cop city” public safety training center began on July 7. The trial brought by the State of Georgia against 19-year-old Ayla King could provide a glimpse of how Georgia will handle the more than 60 ongoing cases of the “Stop Cop City” campaign and shape the future of protest and criminal law in the state.

Massachusetts resident Ayla King is accused of storming the DeKalb County construction site in March 2023 with more than 20 other masked activists after a nearby protest concert. Ayla King, who faces a sentence of five to 20 years in prison, requested an accelerated trial in late 2023, shortly after their indictment, alongside 60 others charged with domestic terrorism, racketeering, money laundering and other charges (RICO Act). The proceedings dragged on due to a procedural debate over whether the trial began on time. Supporters and defenders of freedom of expression are denouncing the charges, as well as new state laws toughening penalties for people committing “acts of vandalism” during demonstrations.

A 22-year-old stateless Palestinian woman, has been released from a Texas ICE jail after five months in custody. On Tuesday, Ward Sakeik reunited with her husband, who’d been fighting for her freedom.

The Trump administration repeatedly attempted to deport her despite a judge’s order barring her removal from the U.S. Sakeik’s family is from Gaza, and she was born in Saudi Arabia, which does not grant birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants.

Sakeik was taken by federal agents in February upon returning from her honeymoon in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

[Source: Democracy now]

A new gadget for the US immigration control agency. Agents are equipped with a facial recognition application that will enable them to carry out identity checks in real time, revealed the 404 Media website on June 26. Mobile Fortify promises to turn ICE agents’ smartphones into weapons of mass identification. No more taking fingerprints and then comparing them with files, a photo taken with the phone should suffice, according to ICE’s description of the system, which we don’t know if it’s already deployed or still in the testing phase.

Mobile Fortify will be directly linked to various biometric databases set up by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It will compare photos taken by agents with the DHS Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) file, which contains information on 270 million people in the USA. This facial recognition application will also send the images to the Customs database, which takes photos of everyone entering and leaving the United States. The aim: to identify people residing legally or illegally in the United States, and to be able to carry out raids to arrest as many illegal immigrants as possible.

By September, the agency should be able to rely on a brand new data processing system called ImmigrationOS. This software offers a wide range of tools for: checking in “real time” which people decide of their own accord to leave US territory; managing the flow of arrests and deportations; and, last but not least, identifying priority targets for ICE agents more quickly.

Palantir, the ubiquitous data processing giant, has secured $30 million from the immigration authorities to implement this software. Palantir has been working with the agency since 2011. The collaboration of tech companies is essential for an agency like ICE, which needs these companies’ technology not only for facial recognition or data processing, but also for geolocation or vehicle identification.

[Source: Secours Rouge]

Hridindu Roychowdhury is an anarchist who was sentenced in 2022 to 7.5 years for vandalizing and burning down a far-right Christian nationalist abortion office as part of the Jane’s Revenge movement, which claims several direct actions against anti-abortion institutions in the USA.

In May 2025, he was transferred to appear before a grand jury. He refused to cooperate during a hearing. Following this, the judge found him in contempt for refusing to answer the grand jury’s questions. He is incarcerated in a county jail, so his federal sentence is suspended until the contempt is served.

[Source: Secours Rouge]

In August 2023, the Georgia Attorney General filed an unprecedented indictment against 61 individuals, opening the largest political RICO trial in U.S. history. A federal law in the United States, RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) typically targets organizations motivated by racketeering and corruption, and provides extensive criminal penalties for offenses committed as part of the activities of a “criminal organization”. This radical measure targets activists associated with the Stop Cop City movement, which opposes a militarized police training center planned for Atlanta’s Weelaunee Forest.

Among those charged is Priscilla Grim, a cultural worker and long-time activist. Priscilla was arrested at a music festival in Weelaunee Forest in 2023 for organizing a meditation and opposing Cop City. She was jailed for over a month on terrorism charges and denied bail twice. Now, two years later, the state continues its RICO proceedings against her and dozens of others. Everyone, including Priscilla, had to return to jail for more than 24 hours in Fulton County for arraignment. By June 2025, hearings were underway and motions were being considered. The charges are serious.

[Donate to support Priscilla]

[Source: Secours Rouge]