DOJ prosecutes a California man who was shot in the face by ICE agents
DOJ/DHS say Carlos, 36, "assaulted" officers with his car, but video doesn't show his car hitting officers + officials haven't claimed an agent was injured. FBI's complaint says it has "not been able" to interview key ICE agents
handout photo of Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, wearing a white button down, with flowers behind him.
ICE pulled over a man in Patterson, CA + shot him 6 times, hitting his face. ICE now says he is part of a gang in LA – a city he has no connection to.
Carlos Mendoza Hernandez, 36, now in ICU, says he's "never ever been in a gang" + was shot without justification www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
California residents are now being sent to prison for shoplifting.
In the first year of Prop 36, shoplifters have been charged with felonies + imprisoned for stealing diapers, hygiene supplies, a $13 belt, groceries and soda.
DAs filed 15,000+ felonies for thefts previously treated as misdemeanors
NEW: California DAs have charged nearly 20,000 people with drug possession *felonies* under Prop 36, a new tough-on-crime law.
Despite promises for "mass treatment," only 57 of those people have successfully gone into treatment + had their cases dismissed in the first year. Others face prison time.
Under oath, ICE agents in Oregon revealed:
-quota of eight arrests a day per team, equaling roughly 50 arrests a day in OR
-agents use a special app to choose areas + ppl to surveil
-agents have followed, stopped + arrested ppl without probable cause, warrants or basic info about their targets.
NEW: Judge orders ICE to release a Minneapolis man and asylum seeker unlawfully detained for 50 days.
In January, Elvis Joel TE + his 2-year-old were arrested without a warrant + flown to Texas despite an order barring their transfer. The girl was later released, but he remain jailed until today.
I met with Juanita + her daughter Emely (who filmed the encounter) after the arrest became part of a court case that won a major victory for immigrants’ rights in Oregon. A judge ordered ICE to end warrantless arrests, saying officers had been “brutal and violent” + widely violated people's rights.
NEW: ICE tackled + arrested Juanita Avila, an Oregon shop owner who is a legal permanent resident and had her green card in her pocket.
When she asked through sobs why they didn't believe her, one masked agent replied: “Because they lie all the time.”
Video + interview with her and her daughter:
A MN protester accused of assaulting ICE officer had case dropped after vids showed no assault.
LA protester accused of assaulting ICE w/ “hat” had case dropped; judge said govt acted in “bad faith”
In Chicago, 92 ppl were arrested for assault/impeding ICE; 0 convicted
DOJ keeps lying and losing:
NEW: Jeffrey Epstein cultivated relationships with CBP officers at the airports he frequented.
Epstein emailed and texted with six CBP officers, invited them to his island, visited with them at the airport, and frequently sought to determine who was going to be on duty when he was traveling
NEW: Two women incarcerated in a CA prison have come forward to report sexual assaults by a staff cook while they were working in the kitchen, paid 12¢/hr. They told me he threatened discipline if they spoke up.
The prison concluded abuse occurred, a very rare outcome, but he hasn't faced charges.
NEW: Jonathon Redondo-Rosales, a 36-year-old LA protester, spent six months in jail accused of assaulting a federal officer with a *cloth hat.*
A judge tossed out the DOJ’s case, accusing govt of acting in “bad faith” and engaging in “prosecutorial harassment“ that could “chill lawful protest”
More than 1,400 pending criminal cases in Oregon must be dismissed due to a huge shortage of public defenders, state supreme court ruled.
Many defendants have waited months or years to get a lawyer, a constitutional violation leaving them unable to fight charges, indefinitely derailing their lives.
Elizabeth’s case was assigned to US judge Fred Biery, who had ordered Liam Ramos' release. Biery gave the govt 5 days to respond to Elizabeth's family's petition and hadn't yet ordered release but ICE released her + mom anyway. Tim Walz + school officials had held a press conf demanding her release.
“I’m just excited to see Elizabeth come back to school. Im extremely relieved + we have to continue advocating for other people to come home" -Carolina Gutierrez, secretary at Highland Elementary supporting the family. "When she was flown to Texas, she thought her dreams of being a doctor were over"
Elizabeth, a 10-year-old Minnesota girl, spent a month detained at the ICE facility in Dilley, TX before her release last night w/ her mom.
Dilley now has a measles outbreak and hundreds of other kids remain detained. Elizabeth has flu-like symptoms and her mom has hives, a school official told me
After Border Patrol shot two people in Portland, DHS claimed they were "vicious gang members" tied to a past shooting.
But records I obtained reveal a US prosecutor has since directly contradicted DHS, saying, "We're not suggesting he is a gang member." My dive into how DHS' claims have collapsed:
“Liam’s release is an important development + we hope it will lead to positive developments for other families incl our other four students held at Dilley in Texas. We want all children to be released from detention centers and hope for the reunification of families who have been unjustly separated“
Liam, 5, has been freed, but four other students from his school district remain detained in Texas. Two boys from his elementary school were taken Thurs
“This isn’t something we are prepared or trained for. We’ve dedicated our lives to protecting + educating children,” school superintendent told me
smiling portrait of Liam, age 5, in a school picture
witness photo, courtesy of the school district, showing Liam outside his front door with a masked agent by his side.
Liam is one of four Columbia Heights, MN school district students who have been taken by ICE in the last two weeks, the school district said. Liam's teacher: “He is so kind and loving, and his classmates miss him. He ... just brightens the room. All I want is for him to be back here and safe.”
ICE detained a 5-year-old Minnesota boy coming home from school + took him and his dad to Texas, school officials say. The family has an active asylum case + entered the US at a port of entry.
"They’re taking children. They're not violent criminals. They're little kids," the superintendent told me.
The Supreme Court is focused on bans in West Virginia and Idaho, but the outcome could be hugely consequential for trans rights and LGBTQ+ equality more broadly.
Experts here breakdown what's at stake:
These teenage athletes have faced death threats, attacks by the president + people in their community pushing to ban them. They've also been embraced by teammates, coaches + competitors and say they just want to keep doing what they love.
“I’m just a kid that wants to play sports with my friends"
As the Supreme Court considers state laws banning trans girls from sports, hear from three youth directly about the joy of athletics and the impact of the efforts to kick them off their teams.
“Playing sports and loving being out there on the field is in its own beautiful way an act of resistance.”
NEW: Five trans youth athletes speak out about what school sports means to them + the toll of exclusion.
"Sports is my escape" -Lina, 14-yr-old tennis + track athlete. "We’re just kids. We’re just trying to have fun…We’re not trying to be monsters. We’re just trying to find connection + community."
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The new FBI report is coming to light after we revealed last month that the FBI and NYPD have spied on a Signal group of NYC court watch activists who monitor public proceedings, labeling the volunteers “anarchist violent extremists."
From earlier records unearthed by @propertyofthepeople.org:
FBI cited two violent cases: Dallas ICE office shooting by gunman w/ unclear political beliefs who killed 2 detainees; + shooting at Alvarado ICE jail. In Alvarado, DOJ accused 15 ppl of being in an "antifa cell" but my colleague @samrlevine.bsky.social dug into it + raised qs about govt's narrative
Hina Shamsi, ACLU: “The FBI report is infused w/ vague + overbroad language. Ppl entirely innocent of wrongdoing can be subjected to surveillance or investigations...No matter what NSPM-7 says, the Constitution constrains federal agencies if they seek to punish ppl for exercising free speech rights"
“At its core, the war on antifa is a war on dissent, a war on free speech” -@rshapiro.bsky.social @propertyofthepeople.org. The docs “strongly suggest one of the primary functions of NSPM-7 is to serve as a vehicle for targeting anti-ICE organizing broadly as an anarchist violent extremist threat"