Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The imposing Shrine of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic church a short drive from the White House, was intended to be a sanctuary for worshippers. Now, its mostly immigrant congregation is steeped in fear. Church leaders say more than 40 members of their parish have been detained, deported or both since federal law enforcement stepped up their deployment in August. Many parishioners are too scared to leave home to attend Mass, buy food or seek medical care, as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown targets their communities. Cardinal Robert McElroy, who leads the Archdiocese of Washington, said the...

🧵🚨 MAJOR BREAKING: International actors are involved in the State Department led color revolution 🚨🚨 This is not speculation; it’s straight from a recorded call. Ex-USAID employees describe how, before January 20, they moved internal groups off government systems and into encrypted Signal chats, then quickly linked with foreign partners and NGOs after the inauguration. This attempt at creating a color revolution isn't new news; this part was already reported in NOTUS earlier this year. But what's not reported is the international aspect. One participant explicitly frames it as "a global anti-authoritarian movement," connecting U.S. officials with "colleagues from around...

One of the better posters/commenters on X is the aptly-named @DataRepublican, who does some great work digging into data, crunching numbers, taking big nests of snakes and laying them all out straight, and uncovering things that just generally make the left uncomfortable. DataRepublican has outdone herself on this thread. Let's look at a few highlights. First, the opening post: [X post at link] DataRepublican writes in full: Ex-USAID employees describe how, before January 20, they moved internal groups off government systems and into encrypted Signal chats, then quickly linked with foreign partners and NGOs after the inauguration. This attempt at...

The first nine months of the President Trump’s second term have seen repeated instances of a Federal District Court judge temporarily enjoining some action of the administration, only to have the Supreme Court stay the injunction while the litigation proceeds. Examples of this pattern of events have occurred in cases involving such things as funding rescissions, staff lay-offs, and deportation procedures. A recurring feature of this pattern has been dissents from the three liberal Supreme Court justices — Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson — who would have left the temporary injunctions in place during the pendency of the litigation. Justice Jackson,...

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) has launched an investigation into a Portland anti-ICE activist who was captured on viral video disrupting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in a North Portland neighborhood, where agents were making targeted arrests of illegal immigrants with foreign gang affiliations. The agitator, who had been recklessly driving through the neighborhood to impede ICE operations, was stopped by ICE officials on Thursday afternoon after blowing a red light and nearly colliding with a school bus while trailing federal vehicles, which she attempted to box in multiple times with her Mustang. The Post Millennial captured the incident...

Illinois has now joined California and Connecticut in barring federal immigration agents from conducting "civil arrests" of illegal aliens in or around state courthouses. The sanctuary law appears largely performative since it also appears unconstitutional. It is difficult to see how a state can bar the exercise of federal jurisdiction, at least after the Civil War.Gov. JB Pritzker has been ratcheting up the rhetoric against ICE and the Trump administration for months, including analogies to the Nazis and claims that democracy is dying. The new law, however, crosses the constitutional Rubicon by not only limiting the operation of Immigration and...

@SenRonJohnson The records that were made public yesterday were not obtained from an agency — they were obtained through a whistleblower. We need more whistleblowers who want to see the integrity and credibility of @TheJusticeDept and @FBI restored. I am concerned that the partisan actors burrowed into these agencies are sabotaging the efforts of the Trump Administration

An appeals court has temporarily paused a federal judge's order requiring U.S. Customs and Border Patrol commander-at-large Greg Bovino to appear in court daily and give updates on immigration enforcement activity in Chicago under the Trump administration's "Operation Midway Blitz." The Department of Justice on Wednesday appealed U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis' order, which mandated Bovino check in with her at 6 p.m. daily to ensure compliance with a temporary restraining order that restricted federal agents' use of force in crowd-control tactics.

A federal judge has indefinitely blocked President Trump’s efforts to lay off thousands of federal employees amid the government shutdown. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, an appointee of former President Clinton, sided with government employee unions that asked her to bar the administration from carrying out the reductions in force (RIFs) as the lawsuit moves forward. More than 4,000 workers were set to be impacted by the job actions.The preliminary injunction extends Illston’s previous order temporarily stopping the administration’s attempted layoffs, which she has said she believes will ultimately be deemed illegal and an overstep of executive authority.The judge said...

Conservative voters are now more than twice as likely to consider Brexit a failure for the UK (46%) compared to a success (22%). Of the 62% who say Brexit has been a failure, 80% point the finger of blame at Boris Johnson, who before he became prime minister was a high profile Leave campaigner. In 2019, he won a huge majority in a snap general election to “get Brexit done”. Bank of England governor Bailey has warned that Brexit will have a negative impact on the UK’s economic growth “for the foreseeable future”, highlighting a decline in the UK’s potential...

Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday warned top California Democrats to “stand down or face prosecution” after Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) threatened to have federal law enforcement agents operating in her district arrested. Pelosi stated in a press release Wednesday that San Francisco police may arrest federal agents if they are found violating state law during U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Blanche stated on Friday that any officer who lays a hand on federal law enforcement will be committing a crime. The former speaker issued the press release in reaction to “reports of a...

The Justice Department on Thursday warned California officials, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), against engaging in an “apparent criminal conspiracy” to arrest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued the letter to Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, state Attorney General Rob Bonta and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins after the former House speaker suggested Wednesday that local police could arrest ICE agents if they violate state laws while carrying out immigration enforcement operations. “Rather than supporting and working with federal law enforcement professionals, California politicians, including U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco District Attorney...

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Thursday night that the Justice Department has opened investigations into Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot over sustained efforts to dox and obstruct federal immigration agents. While speaking with Fox News, host Jesse Watters asked about recent comments from former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who announced a new project aimed at “unmasking” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents nationwide. “We want to create a centralized archive of all the purported criminal actions of ICE and CBP agents,” Lightfoot said of her new website while...

New York Attorney General Letitia James, even as she already faces fraud charges and an ever-expanding scandal of criminal allegations, has launched a portal for Democrats to report and therefore dox ICE agents. After an ICE raid where federal officers arrested nine illegal aliens with criminal records in New York City, James and other Democrats flipped their lids, screaming about alleged abuses. Following the example of Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and his fellow House and California Democrats, James launched her own ICE reporting portal, which could potentially justify yet more charges against her for violating federal immigration law. James proudly...

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell has ruled that Planned Parenthood affiliates in California, Iowa, and New York do not have to comply with recent executive orders requiring them to affirm biological sex and discontinue the promotion of radical gender ideology and promiscuity in order to receive federal funding Key Takeaways: * Despite multiple Trump executive orders specifying otherwise, a district judge has ruled that certain Planned Parenthood affiliates in three states do not have to rid their sex ed curricula of radical gender ideology. * The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program has been shown in the past to have failed to...

Early in the morning of April 20th we poured concrete on the train tracks that lead out of the Port of Olympia to block any trains from using the tracks. We took precautions to notify BNSF (the train company) – we called them and we used wires to send a signal that the tracks were blocked. We did this not to avoid damaging a train, nothing would bring bigger grins to our faces, but to avoid the risk of injuring railway workers. This action was done to disrupt the movement of trains carrying proppants used in natural gas fracturing. These...

Cook County will now prohibit the use of county owned property, resources, and personnel for civil immigration enforcement. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said the executive order is yet another move to safeguard against federal immigration enforcement she said has “instilled fear rather than promote fairness and justice.” Agents have been prohibited from using county facilities and personnel time for ICE investigations without a criminal warrant since an ordinance was put in place in 2011. “It is critical that the government’s interactions with the public adhere to our nation’s laws and values,” Preckwinkle said in a statement Thursday. “Yet,...

Cook County’s chief judge has signed an order banning federal immigration agents from arresting people around local courthouses without a warrant. Timothy Evans on Tuesday signed a new general order, which reaffirms the common law privilege against civil arrest while attending court, after county officials complained of arrests by immigration agents being made before, during and after unrelated court hearings. “The fair administration of justice requires that courts remain open and accessible, and that litigants and witnesses may appear without fear of civil arrest,” the order states. “The common law has long recognized this privilege to ensure individuals can fulfill...

Key Points A federal judge blocked the Trump administration, for now, from firing federal workers during the ongoing government shutdown. The order came five days after the administration issued reduction-in-force notifications to more than 4,000 federal workers.

In issuing her decision, U.S. District Judge April Perry said, “I simply cannot credit [the Trump administration’s] declarations to the extent they contradict state and local law enforcement. … DHS’ perception of events are unreliable.”