CBPWatch

@cbpwatch.bsky.social

Stories on accountability (or lack thereof) at Customs and Border Protection & other border law enforcement. Compiled by POGO staff (usually @krhawkins. Message for free newsletter subscription info)

SCOOP: CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott attended Hegseth's meeting with generals. I reached out to the White House and CBP to ask why CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott was at Hegseth's lackluster pep rally today. The White House did not deny his presence but deferred to CBP for comment.

Why Was the CBP Commissioner at Hegseth’s Meeting of Generals?

Cohesion between federal agencies and the military to target migrants and other nonwhite groups makes this another alarming observation

open.substack.com

ICE arrested this guy and denied him a bond hearing even though he: - Has lived here for 32 years. - Has no criminal record - Is head of quality assurance and safety for a painting company - Has six U.S. citizen relatives - Suffered a stroke in 2022 and needs ongoing care. - Wasn't even a target.

Kyle Cheney@kyledcheney.bsky.social · 11mo ago

One detainend man has lived in the US for 32 years with no criminal record. Judge Sherriff ordered his release yesterday: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

NEW: Air Force jets are doing ICE flights to Africa with transponders turned off, making them nearly un-trackable. This includes the third-country removal to Ghana and another secret flight. We figured out where it landed. From me for @rollingstone.com: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

ICE Is Deporting People to Africa on Nearly Un-Trackable Military Flights

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is deporting people to African countries like Ghana on military flights that are nearly un-trackable.

rollingstone.com

López Alvarado said that she tried to tell agents that her baby was due soon. “OK, your baby is going to be born here, but you're from Mexico, right?” they responded. "I was born here," López Alvarado later told Spanish-language media. "I was born in Los Angeles; I was born in Hollywood Hospital.”

Gabe Ortíz@tusk81.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Brett Kavanaugh insisted that any targeting of US citizens by ICE would be nothing more than a mild inconvenience. The US-born American who went into labor prematurely after being violently detained might disagree with that: americasvoicecnn.substack.com/p/i-was-born...

On Thursday, House Democrats held a shadow hearing titled “Kidnapped and Disappeared: Trump’s Assault Destroys U.S. Families and Communities" to discuss many issues surrounding the White House’s mass deportation policies. A story you will only get here. open.substack.com/pub/extremea...

VIDEOS: Shadow Hearing: ICE Kidnapping Civilians, Racially Profiling Latinos

A shadow hearing in the House covered many of the inconsistencies, lies, and propaganda used to target Latino and Black communities

open.substack.com

NEWS: ICE's Chantilly office is a "black box" where conditions are increasingly dire, attorneys & a relative of person detained tell @msnbc.com - 1 meal a day = a single burrito - some 40-90 ppl crammed into room, sleeping on concrete - Some held as long as 7 days www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/v...

Inside a Virginia ICE office: One meal a day, 40 people in a room and no bathing for days

"The situation is getting worse by the day," warns Amy Fischer, an organizer with Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid. "It is an office; it is not intended to detain people."

msnbc.com

DHS took DNA from immigrant children and stored it in a database. "The agency’s aggressive DNA collection is but one node in a broader effort to redefine policing through vast use of biometric and behavioral data." This is what massive genetic surveillance looks like.

DHS Faces New Pressure Over DNA Taken From Immigrant Children

The US government has added the DNA of approximately 133,000 migrant children and teens to a criminal database, which critics say could mean police treat them like suspects “indefinitely.”

wired.com

"Federal judge blocks Trump from swiftly deporting immigrants granted parole" The decision could present a major hurdle for the Trump admin & bar federal immigration officers from summarily deporting hundreds of thousands I talked to the @washingtonpost.com about yesterday's ruling

Federal judge blocks Trump from swiftly deporting immigrants granted parole

The decision could present a major hurdle for the Trump administration and bar federal immigration officers from summarily deporting hundreds of thousands of people.

washingtonpost.com

For @slate.com, I wrote about one dimension of the totalizing Trump/Miller immigration crackdown that's not getting enough notice, which is that they're moving to make indefinite detention — with no release dates and few options to get out — a norm

How Trump Made One of the Most Controversial Post-9/11 Policies the New Normal

Thousands of other people are going to get put into detention of indeterminate length with far less recourse, which could stretch years.

slate.com

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act handed ICE $45 billion to expand ICE detention. A rural hospital costs ~$80-120 million each year. The amount handed to ICE is enough to run 50 rural hospitals for more than a decade.

The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · last yr.

Congress just handed the Department of Homeland Security “an amount larger than the annual military budgets of every country in the world except the United States and China,” Caitlin Dickerson writes:

Officers who shatter car windows aren’t being disciplined — they’re being promoted. One ICE official who smashed a window in front of a local TV reporter now has a senior ICE position overseeing operations on the East Coast.

“We’ll Smash the Fucking Window Out and Drag Him Out”

We’ve documented nearly 50 incidents of immigration officers shattering car windows to make arrests — a tactic experts say was rarely used before Trump took office. ICE claims its officers use a…

projects.propublica.org