Thursday Two-fer, Part Two.
Depressing. Feel free to skip.
“Leonardo Garcia Venegas [NATIVE-BORN AMERICAN CITIZEN, GUILTY ONLY OF EXISTING WHILE BROWN] stands outside the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama in downtown Mobile, Ala., on Wednesday, May 6, 2026. [Photo by] John Sharp.”
RANDOM DEPRESSING ITEMS; FEEL FREE TO SKIP:
John Sharp, May 6, 2026: “For the third time in less than 12 months, a Baldwin County man was detained by federal immigration agents, placed in shackles, and had his citizenship status questioned. It is a jarring experience for Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a Florida-born man who was detained Saturday near his Silverhill home, months after he was previously taken into custody while working at construction sites in Baldwin County. In each instance, his attorneys say he attempted to provide proof of U.S. citizenship to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, to no avail. At a court hearing Wednesday before Chief U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Beaverstock, attorneys requested a preliminary injunction in hopes that Venegas can return to work without facing a fourth arrest.”
Whitney Curry Wimbish, May 7, 2026: “Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wants to expand its concentration camp network in California with a dilapidated Bay Area prison known as the “Rape Club,” advocates and organizers warned on Tuesday. They said repurposing the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin (FCI Dublin), for use as a detention center would endanger immigrants in multiple ways—not only does it have a lengthy history of unchecked sexual abuse, but also the buildings are falling to pieces and heavily contaminated with toxic waste.”
Michael Wriston, May 6, 2026: “As Trump Officials Vow Deportation Surge, ICE Searches for Detention Space; the administration is looking at warehouse conversions, purchases of private detention facilities and expanded local jail partnerships as it promises a surge in immigration arrests. White House “Border Czar” Tom Homan was speaking Tuesday to a room of Homeland Security officials and immigration enforcement contractors in Phoenix when he offered a blunt assessment of the administration’s plans. “You ain’t seen shit yet,” Mr. Homan said at the Border Security Expo. “This year will be a good year. Mass deportations are coming.” The remarks, delivered at an industry conference rather than a press event and reported by CNN, underscored the administration’s intention to sharply escalate immigration enforcement in the months ahead. They also raised a practical question officials have not publicly answered: Where does the administration plan to hold the people it arrests?”
Ariana Jasmine, May 6, 2026: “Inside America’s immigration detention centers, people asking for food, water, or medical care are increasingly met with violent, chemical force. A new investigation from The Washington Post found that ICE guards used pepper spray, restraint tactics, and physical force on 1,330 detained immigrants over the course of a year, a staggering increase from the year prior. Many of the immigrants targeted weren’t accused of violence; they were asking for basic necessities: access to doctors, edible food, water, or even their personal belongings. In one especially disturbing case, detainees at an Alaska facility complained they were being held in cramped, windowless cells without access to their property. Guards responded by firing pepper balls into a communal room filled with detainees.”
Torrie Harrington, May 5, 2026: “The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Tuesday that it has shut down an office dedicated to exposing misconduct at immigration detention facilities.”
Alexis Waiss, Suzanne Monyak, May 6, 2026: “Federal courts, already fielding a deluge of requests to free adults from immigration jails, are now hearing pleas from a more vulnerable population: migrant children detained by immigration authorities without their parents. Unaccompanied kids are experiencing ballooning timelines in Health and Human Services custody while the Trump administration tightens sponsor vetting. That’s prompted an uptick in these court challenges, known as habeas petitions. Previously rare for children, more than a dozen have been filed over the past year, lawyers said.”
FWD.US, May 2026: “DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is a tremendously successful program for undocumented individuals who came to the United States as children and have built their lives here. However, escalating attacks by the Trump administration, through a combination of administrative delays and denials, increased enforcement actions, and ongoing threats of termination of the entire program, are putting DACA recipients and their families at risk. Delayed renewals and backlogs mean DACA recipients are being forced out of status and losing their jobs through no fault of their own. Arrests and deportations of DACA recipients are also increasing. Hundreds of DACA recipients have been detained, dozens unlawfully deported and thousands more at risk of losing their status through no fault of their own.”
That’s all for now. THANK YOU! to all subscribers, new, free and paid.
Comments always welcome.
As Joe Pendleton would say, “86, 47, hike!”
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