Free Republic

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers may soon be outfitted with gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks intended to gain compliance from combative individuals. ICE plans to spend up to $20 million to purchase thousands of “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices” for officers and agents by March, according to a notice published Monday by the Department of Homeland Security. The devices are known as the G.L.O.V.E., which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, and are manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC of Lexington, Kentucky. They have been used in recent years by some jails and police departments. DHS said Tuesday...

AUSTIN, Texas - An immigration enforcement operation unfolded directly outside Austin City Hall on Thursday morning, interrupting a city budget meeting and drawing sharp condemnation from local officials and community advocates. The backstory: Texas DPS said on Friday, August 7, around 9:30 a.m., troopers initiated a traffic stop at the intersection of César Chávez and Guadalupe Streets. The driver they pulled over was driving the wrong way down a one-way street. "The troopers on scene were federally certified Designated Immigration Officers under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. After determining the driver lacked proper identification and that all...

COOK COUNTY, Ill. (WLS) -- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is threatening to have Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart criminally charged. In letters obtained by ABC7 I-Team through the Freedom of Information Act, ICE requested Sheriff Dart serve immigration subpoenas. The federal agency said failing to serve them could result in prosecution for tampering with a witness. The Cook County Sheriff's Office says it cannot release an individual in custody to any law enforcement agency or federal agents for an interview. The sheriff's office also says three of the individuals named in the letters were released before the office received...

Federal immigration officers arrested more than 1,200 illegal immigrants in the Atlanta, Georgia area, including 720 who DHS said had been convicted of or charged with crimes. Speaking on “Fox & Friends,” Marcos Charles, executive associate director of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, said the sweep took violent criminals — including sex offenders and child abusers — off the streets. “We arrested over 1,200 aliens, illegal aliens, out in the Atlanta, Georgia area. More than half of those people had criminal histories,” Charles said. “We’re talking about sex crimes, assault and battery, some with DUI convictions, domestic violence. These individuals...

Firm in the belief that immigration enforcement is bad for business, Southwest Airlines is pushing back hard against efforts to detain illegal immigrants at U.S. airports, according to a new report. A report from The Wall Street Journal highlights a July 25 incident in which an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent tried to board a Southwest Airlines jet in Dallas. The agent was prevented from carrying out his duties by the airline, the outlet reported. Dallas-based Southwest staff also refused to share passenger information with ICE. The Wall Street Journal cited a source it did not name as saying that...

An instructor for the University of Maryland's (UMD) School of Pharmacy was detained by immigration officials last month at Dallas Fort Worth airport, according to the university and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). A statement by UMD said that on July 21, Dr. Berhanu Kibret was arrested at the airport after attending a job-related conference in the city. "He was returning from a meeting of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, where he received a Teacher of the Year award." "Dr. Kibret has a valid Work Authorization, so it is our hope that any issues surrounding his...

Detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement set a monthly record high for the second Trump administration in July, internal agency data obtained by CBS News shows, as ICE widened its crackdown, making arrests at airports, immigration check-in offices and communities across the U.S. Last month, ICE took into custody more than 46,000 individuals facing deportation because of alleged immigration violations, like entering the U.S. illegally or overstaying their visas, according to preliminary Department of Homeland Security figures. The statistics, which have not yet been publicly disclosed by the federal government, show that a summer enforcement surge by ICE continued to...

President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is arresting, on average, about 1,500 illegal aliens every day throughout American communities, a report released Monday suggests. The CBS News report states that the figures are based on internal documents not yet disclosed to the public, detailing “a summer enforcement surge” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that has seen more than 46,000 illegal aliens taken into the agency’s custody in July. “An average of 1,500 detainees entered ICE custody each day last month, the data indicates, though some of them were first arrested by Customs and Border Protection agents,” CBS...

An illegal migrant who poured lighter fluid onto a burning California Highway Patrol vehicle and tossed an electric scooter at cops trapped beneath a freeway overpass in a chaotic anti-ICE Los Angeles riot is headed to federal prison. Yachua Mauricio Flores, 23, was sentenced Monday to 37 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $253,415 in restitution for his role in a pro-illegal immigration riot that rocked downtown LA on June 8 of last year, prosecutors said. Born in Mexico in 2003, Flores came to the US as a toddler and lived in Lincoln Heights. He has no previous...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not planning an aggressive campaign at voting sites during the upcoming midterm elections, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday in response to a States Newsroom inquiry about a letter from U.S. Senate Democrats voicing concerns about armed federal agents at polling places.ICE, an agency within DHS that has sustained intense criticism since the start of the second Trump administration for its aggressive and sometimes deadly tactics, has no plans to target polling sites in November, a DHS official told States Newsroom in an email.The official left open the possibility, though, that...

Federal agents are arresting spouses of Americans, tech workers and others whose visas have expired, including many who have active applications to stay in the country. The Trump administration has begun arresting foreign citizens with expired U.S. visas as they travel through airports, including spouses of Americans, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with immigration lawyers — a tactic that opens up a vast new pool of people for deportation. Immigration agents in plain clothes have whisked away targets at check-in counters and arrival gates, with enforcement actions in at least 15 airports in recent...

The New York Attorney General’s Office has directed the Steuben County Sheriff’s Office and 11 other law enforcement agencies to end agreements that allow local officers to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Chief Deputy Attorney General for Social Justice Meghan Faux informed Sheriff James Allard that new provisions in the state budget prohibit local governments and police agencies from entering, renewing or extending agreements under which their employees perform immigration enforcement duties. The legislation, called the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, affects Steuben County’s agreement with ICE under Section 287(g) of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act. The program...

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a 27-year-old Ecuadorian woman as she prepared to board a flight from Denver to Oakland on July 20, according to ICE and a friend who witnessed the arrest. Chantal Morales Rojas had been living in Oakland and was returning from a visit to Denver with her former host family, according to Bay Area resident Alycia Dantzker. Dantzker said Rojas previously worked for the family as an au pair when they lived in Santa Cruz County. The family has since moved to Denver. Dantzker said she has known Rojas for three...

Forty-three percent of the people Portland police arrested at protests against immigration enforcement have had their cases dismissed or dropped with no complaint or they’ve been acquitted, a WW analysis has found.Of the eight defendants who went to trial, five were acquitted, and those convicted received only short probations. That suggests juries have largely found that the charges don’t pass muster.“When arrests are made, they’re based on probable cause that a crime was committed by the person. When a public order situation is becoming dangerous, there are times where arrests are made based on probable cause to prevent a situation...

A former NFL player from Kenya with a criminal record has been removed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Chicago, ICE exclusively told Fox News Digital. Daniel Ogama Adongo, 37, was a linebacker for the Indianapolis Colts until 2015 and has been arrested multiple times over the last decade, including a conviction for criminal mischief with damage in 2020. He was sentenced to a year in jail. ICE said Adongo overstayed his visa in 2016 and under the Laken Riley act, signed by President Donald Trump last year, those in the country illegally are required to be detained...

STERLING, Va. (7News) — Federal immigration agents say a truck that crashed into a Virginia townhome during an enforcement operation was occupied by people who fled as officers were trying to make an arrest. The crash happened around 6:46 a.m. July 22 in the 900 block of Sherwood Court in Sterling. In a statement on Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said officers were having a targeted enforcement operation to arrest what the agency described as a "criminal illegal alien." According to ICE, officers tried to pull over a truck occupied by someone matching the description of the target. The...

Under Governor Abigail Spanberger, Virginia has become a hotbed of illegal alien crimeWASHINGTON – The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the following statement after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested an illegal alien who has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual battery in the death of a 2-year-old girl in Virginia.According to local reporting, the child’s mother took her to the Goochland County Sheriff’s Office on July 4. Deputies began life-saving measures to save the child, who was then taken to a local hospital, where she later died.The Louisa County Sheriff’s Department arrested Raul Genesis...

Florida's Tampa International Airport (TPA) is on track to privatize its security in a bid to reduce chaos and delays, angering federal workers and their union. TPA's move, announced earlier this week, comes amidst a broader push by the Trump administration to privatize airports around the country. In May, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced a public-private partnership model called TSA Gold+, which will allow private contractors to oversee airport security operations by hiring personnel and managing security equipment. That is the program TPA opted into. A record-long, 43-day government shutdown late last year, as well as lengthy partial shutdowns...

A Rhode Island lawmaker who previously referred to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers as “Nazi Gestapo thugs” said “your day of reckoning will come mother——” in a charged social media post aimed at the agency tasked with carrying out the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. State Rep. Enrique Sanchez, a Democrat, directed his anger at ICE in a post Wednesday on X decrying its enforcement tactics. “Fighting and dealing with ICE since last year has f—– me up in the head after trying to protect and defend hundreds and hundreds of our community members in Providence and...

Citizens Bank said it will exit lending agreements with two private prison operators after receiving intense public scrutiny over those relationships. The financial group announced in a statement Friday that it would stop extending credit to GEO Group and CoreCivic. The companies, which collectively run about 130 facilities in the United States, contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to provide detention centers. Numerous progressive groups have protested Citizens Bank's business dealings with GEO Group and CoreCivic in recent months, calling on the company to sever ties through pickets outside bank branches and even a flyover banner across the...