citizens

Country in the South Caucasus has witnessed several serious incidents involving the illicit trade in nuclear materials in recent years.

Three Chinese citizens have been arrested in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, while allegedly trying to buy 2kg (4.4lb) of uranium, the State Security Service says.

The suspects planned to transport the nuclear material to China through Russia, the security service said on Saturday in a statement, while also releasing video footage of the detention operation.

Authorities accused a Chinese citizen already in Georgia who was in breach of visa regulations of bringing experts to Georgia to search for uranium throughout the country.

Other members of the criminal group coordinated the operation from China, authorities said. The perpetrators were identified and detained while “negotiating the details of the illegal transaction”, the State Security Service said.

The agency did not specify when the arrests occurred or provide the identities of the suspects.

Members of the group planned to pay $400,000 for the radioactive material, authorities said. They face charges that could see them imprisoned for up to 10 years.

Several serious incidents involving the illicit trade in nuclear materials have occurred in Georgia over recent years. In July, Georgia arrested one Georgian and one Turkish national and charged them with the illegal purchase, possession and disposal of radioactive substances, which the State Security Service said could have been used to make a bomb.

The security of nuclear materials left over from the Soviet era was one of the biggest concerns after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, of which Georgia was a member. After Soviet research institutions shut down, the country became a rich picking ground for smugglers.

In 2019, Georgia said it had detained two people for handling and trying to sell $2.8m of uranium-238.

In 2016, authorities arrested 121 people, including Georgians and Armenians, in two sting operations in the same month and accused them of trying to sell about $203m of uranium-238 and uranium-235.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and congressional Democrats have announced a sweeping investigation into potential misconduct in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown that has ensnared citizens, made use of racial profiling and terrified communities for months.

Bass and the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), announced that Congress will open up “a broad investigation” into arrests of U.S. citizens by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, as well as another investigation into immigration raids overall. The announcement was made Monday at a news conference at L.A. City Hall.

“Donald Trump and [Department of Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem are terrorizing immigrants, working people, the people of Los Angeles and of our state every single day,” Garcia said. “They violate the law and they violate the constitution.”

Garcia said that his House committee would investigate “every single brutal misconduct” that immigration authorities have committed in Los Angeles as well as across the country.

Simultaneously, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will conduct an investigation into reports of the detention of at least 170 U.S. citizens by immigration authorities, which was reported by ProPublica last week.

“Troublingly, the pattern of U.S. Citizen arrests coincides with an alarming increase in racial profiling — particularly of Latinos — which has been well documented in Los Angeles,” Garcia and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote in a letter to Noem. “In a pattern symptomatic of a disregard for civil rights by DHS, U.S. citizens have faced extended periods of detention.”

For months, agents have roamed the streets of Los Angeles toting guns and chasing down immigrants. The scenes that have played out on the streets — protesters being arrested, immigrants dragged out of their cars — have been repeated in Chicago and other cities with largely Democratic leadership.

Mayor Bass said the arrests of American citizens means that no one in the country is safe.

“This can happen to anyone, to all of us, at any period of time,” she said.

Garcia said that the first hearing of the House committee will be held in Los Angeles and that Angelenos should attend and be heard on immigration enforcement issues.

The congressman did not give a date for the hearing, but said he hoped it would be soon.

In the letter that Garcia and Blumenthal sent to Noem on Monday, the legislators called on the Department of Homeland Security to report the total number of U.S. citizens who have been detained by immigration authorities, as well as how long each individual was detained. They also asked for information regarding the training that CE and Customs and Border Protection agents receive on use of force, among other things.

The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

For more than two years, India’s northeastern state of Manipur has been beset by violence between two ethnic groups, the Meitei and the Kuki-Zo.

With nearly 260 people killed and about 60,000 displaced, the Indian government has taken control of the state in a bid to restore order.

In what has been described as a civil war, both sides accuse the other of committing atrocities.

New Delhi has pledged to disarm the warring factions and restore peace to the region.

101 East examines how the ethnic conflict in Manipur is affecting the lives of common citizens on both sides of the divide.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry official says the Trump administration plans to deport about 400 Iranians.

An Iranian official says the United States plans to deport hundreds of Iranian citizens in the coming weeks, with the first 120 deportees expected to arrive in Iran within days, as US President Donald Trump continues his immigration crackdown.

Hossein Noushabadi, director general for parliamentary and consular affairs at Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the Tasnim news agency on Tuesday that US immigration authorities plan to deport about 400 Iranians.

Noushabadi said the first planeload of Iranian nationals would arrive “within the next one or two days” after a stop in Qatar. Qatari authorities did not immediately comment on his remarks.

Noushabadi said most of the Iranian nationals targeted had entered the US without documentation, primarily through Mexico, while some faced other immigration issues.

The deportations, which have not yet been publicly acknowledged by the Trump administration, come as tensions remain high between the two countries after the US joined its ally Israel in bombing Iran during a 12-day June conflict.

They also come as part of a wide-reaching crackdown on migrants and asylum seekers in the US, with Trump pledging to carry out the largest deportation operation in the country’s history.

Noushabadi said on Tuesday that US authorities had unilaterally made the decision to deport the Iranian nationals without consultations with Iran.

But the New York Times, citing anonymous Iranian officials, reported that the deportations were “the culmination of months of discussions between the two countries”.

The US news outlet said some of the Iranians had volunteered to leave after being in detention centres for months, while others had not.

A US-chartered flight took off from Louisiana on Monday and was scheduled to arrive in Qatar late on Tuesday so the deportees could be transferred to a Tehran-bound flight, a US official said.

The White House and the US Department of State did not immediately respond to requests from the Reuters news agency for comment.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has set out to deport a record number of people living in the US.

However, his administration has struggled to increase deportation levels, even as it has created new avenues to send migrants to countries other than their own.

In February, the US deported 119 people from different countries, including Iran, to Panama as part of an agreement between the two nations.

On Aug. 14, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, intending to provide financial security during the Great Depression. More than four years later, in January 1940, the first monthly Social Security checks were sent out. Since then, the program has grown tremendously to be one of America’s largest and most important.

In the 90 years that Social Security has been in place, it has benefited hundreds of millions of retirees. In fact, the program will make over $1.6 trillion in payments to around 72 million beneficiaries, including those receiving retirement benefits, disability benefits, and survivor benefits.

Image source: Getty Images.

A lot has changed with Social Security over the past 90 years. If you’re a current recipient, you can attest to how much continues to change — including eligibility, benefit calculations, and full retirement ages. But arguably the most important change happens annually with the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).

The annual COLA was put in place in 1972 to help retirees deal with inflation while receiving fixed monthly benefits. The official COLA percentage will be announced on Oct. 15, but retiree advocacy group The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) has routinely put out projections to help retirees plan ahead.

In its latest estimate released this month, TSCL has the upcoming COLA at 2.7%. Although the projection shouldn’t be taken as a guarantee, it’s worth taking a deeper dive into how the COLA works and what a 2.7% adjustment could mean for retirees.

How the annual COLA is determined

To determine the yearly COLA, the Social Security Administration (SSA) looks at a specific measure of inflation called the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). It’s published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and takes into account the price of goods and services like food (groceries and restaurants), transportation (vehicles, gas, and public transportation), housing (rent and utilities), and healthcare (services, prescriptions, and insurance premiums).

The SSA uses a three-step process to come up with the specific percentage to set as the COLA:

1. Calculate the CPI-W average for the third quarter (July, August, and September) of the current year.
2. Calculate the same average for the previous year.
3. Set the percentage increase as the COLA for the upcoming year (rounding it up to the nearest 0.1%).

For example, the third-quarter CPI-W average in 2024 was 308.729, and the average in 2023 was 301.236. That 2.43% increase is how we ended up with the 2.5% COLA for 2025.

If the CPI-W decreases or stays the same, there is no COLA, and benefits remain unchanged. It’s not common, but it has happened (in 2010, 2011, and 2016).

US Inflation Rate data by YCharts.

Complaints about the COLA

A benefits increase sounds like a good thing for Social Security, and for the most part, it is. However, a major (and valid) complaint has been that the COLA isn’t typically enough to truly offset the effects of inflation.

According to TSCL, Social Security recipients have lost around 30% of their purchasing power since 2000. This means every $100 in benefits received in 2000 would only buy $70 worth of goods and services today. From 2010 to 2024, TSCL says that Social Security benefits lost 20% of their purchasing power; that’s far from ideal.

If TSCL’s 2.7% COLA estimate turns out to be true, the average monthly benefit would increase from $2,007 (July’s average) to $2,061. A $54 monthly increase is better than no increase, but retirees have likely seen their monthly expenses increase by more than that.

There aren’t any concrete plans in place to change how the SSA calculates the annual COLA. In the meantime, it’s best for retirees to assume that benefits alone may not fully keep up with inflation, and make efforts to adjust their spending accordingly.

Israel said ‘terrorist organisations’ were motivated to exact revenge on it due to its recent military campaigns against Iran and in Gaza.

Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) has sharpened its travel warnings for Israelis visiting and staying in the United Arab Emirates, citing a heightened risk of “terrorist organisations” carrying out attacks in the Gulf State.

In a statement published on Thursday, the NSC cited a growing threat from “terrorist organisations (The Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad)” attacking Israeli targets, motivated by Israel’s military operations in the Middle East.

“They are driven by heightened motivation to exact revenge following Operation Rising Lion, in addition to the anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian incitement which has intensified since the start of Operation Iron Swords, and even more so in response to Hamas’ starvation campaign,” it said, using the names for its military assaults on Iran and Gaza.

Israel is facing mounting international pressure over Gaza’s ongoing starvation crisis, caused by the Israeli military’s months-long blockade on aid entering the Palestinian enclave.

In 2020, the UAE became the most prominent Arab state in 30 years to establish formal ties with Israel under a United States-brokered agreement dubbed the Abraham Accords. The country’s Israeli and Jewish community has grown larger and more visible in the years since the accords were signed.

But the NSC statement said “past experience” has taught Israel that “terrorist organisations often focus their efforts in neighbouring countries”.

“In light of this, the NSC is reiterating the possibility that they will try to carry out attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets in the UAE, especially on Jewish holidays and Shabbat,” it added.

The NSC’s travel alert for the UAE – which remains unchanged at level 3 – strongly advises against non-essential travel and urges Israeli citizens to “seriously reconsider” visiting the Gulf state.

While the UAE is viewed as one of the safest places in the Middle East, three people were sentenced to death there in March for the murder of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi.

The Abu Dhabi Federal Appeal Court ruled that the November killing of 28-year-old Zvi Kogan – a representative of Orthodox Jewish organisation Chabad in the UAE – was committed by the defendants in pursuance of a “terrorist purpose”.

A new poll says most Europeans accept they must prepare for war.

This comes in the wake of President  Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities at the weekend.

The multi-country polling report, published ahead of the 2025 NATO Summit, shows widespread support across Europe for increases in defence spending, scaled rearmament programmes, and the reintroduction of mandatory military service. 

Polling by the  European Council on Foreign Relations suggests Europeans remain committed to Ukraine, and will not countenance withdrawing military support, pressuring Kyiv to cede occupied territories, or lifting sanctions on Russia if the U.S. changes course. 

Despite anti-EU rhetoric from the White House, and rising anti-American sentiment in a number of European countries, many citizens still believe the U.S. can be relied upon for nuclear deterrence and a military presence on the continent. There is also widespread optimism that the Transatlantic Alliance can be repaired in the future.   

In their analysis, published on Monday, ECFR report authors and foreign policy experts, Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard, argue that the second coming of Trump has already had far-reaching impacts and led to a breakout of ‘political cross-dressing’ in Europe. They believe today’s disorder presents an opportunity for those of the political mainstream to “get out of the business of defending the status-quo – and reinvent European identity for a revolutionary new world”. 

The trajectory of Donald Trump’s second presidency is upending European opinion, vis-a-vis defence and security, and forcing citizens to accept that they must prepare for a world at war, according to a new multi-country polling report published today by the (ECFR). 

Data from the think-tank’s latest study suggest sthat the second coming of Trump has changed not only the internal political system of the United States (U.S.), but how Europeans view their own security and identities. It points to a fundamental shift, away from the Transatlantic Alliance and Washington-backed security guarantees, towards a more autonomous Europe that must ramp up its own capabilities. This has changed Europe from a ‘peace project’ to one that is now scaling, at speed, in preparation for war, with publics in a number of leading Atlanticist states (including Denmark, Germany and the UK) being among those most confident about the need for Europe to take care of its own security and defence.  

Published to coincide with this week’s 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, the multi-country poll of 12 European countries (Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) reveals widespread support across Europe for an increase in defence spending (50% on average across 12 polled countries vs. 24% opposing), a commitment to maintaining military support to Ukraine in the event of the U.S. withdrawal (59%), and backing for developing an alternative European nuclear deterrent that does not rely on the US (54%).  

The dataset, which was commissioned through leading pollsters, YouGov, Datapraxis and Norstat, also indicates far-reaching ideological shifts within political parties following Trump’s return to the White House. It shows that Europe’s far-right have, in the space of six months, transformed themselves from ‘sovereigntists’ to ‘internationalists’, and become ideological allies of the U.S. President in his quest to remake the ‘world order’. Several mainstream parties have also similarly recast themselves as national-minded advocates, and agitators for a more autonomous Europe, with the power to push back at U.S. interference. This transformation constitutes a form of “political cross-dressing”, according to the report’s authors, Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard.  

Krastev and Leonard, in their analysis, note that while many in Europe are sceptical of Trump, and want to see greater continent-wide rearmament and defence, this does not translate into full confidence that the EU can stand on its own. The authors argue that while Europeans are convinced that their governments should part with American policy when it comes to Ukraine, they are relaxed about the reliability of U.S. security guarantees and the possibility of rekindling bands across the Atlantic once Trump leaves office.   

They believe Europe, today, is responding to the Trump ‘revolution’ in a similar manner to the 2016 Brexit vote – by “stepping back” and “buying time to prepare for the coming leap”. That so many citizens still believe the U.S. can be counted on to provide a nuclear deterrence (48%), and a military presence on the continent (55%), speaks to this, they argue. They also point to widely felt optimism surrounding the future of the Transatlantic Alliance (with 45% of respondents across the surveyed countries believing it will be ‘repaired’), and a majority view (54%) that the EU can avert a trade war with Washington, as further examples. While the authors see merit in this “wait and see” approach, they also encourage European governments to use Trump’s prominence to reshape their own politics. Today’s disorder, they write, has presented a path for the political mainstream to “get out of the business of defending the status-quo”, and an opportunity for them to recreate a European identity for a “revolutionary new world”. 

Key findings from ECFR’s multi-country survey include: 

There is widespread agreement in Europe that defence spending must rise. Majorities in Poland (70%), Denmark (70%), the UK (57%), Estonia (56%) and Portugal (54%), support (either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’) the idea of increasing national defence spending – with majorities in Denmark and Estonia (the only two countries where the other question was asked) also in favour of increasing defence spending to 5% of national GDP. Pluralities in Romania (50%), Spain (46%), France (45%), Hungary (45%), Germany (47%), and Switzerland (40%) also expressed support for increased defence spending. Italy, however, is an outlier to this trend, with a 57% majority either ‘somewhat’ or ‘strongly’ opposed, and only 17% supporting a hike in defence spending.  
 

Majorities also favour reintroducing mandatory military service. Respondents in France (62%), Germany (53%), and Poland (51%) are the strongest supporters for such a move, with the softest support coming from Hungary (32%), Spain (37%) and the UK (37%) (this question was not asked in Denmark, Estonia, and Switzerland because military service is already mandatory there). Those within the age groupings 60-69 and 70+ are keenest on the idea of mandatory military service (with 54% and 58%, respectively, indicating their support). This plummets, however, when put to the youngest demographic group (those ages 18-29). On average, just 27% of this group – who are of age to serve in any armed conflict – expressed support, while a majority, 57%, indicated that they would oppose such a move.  

Europeans are committed to Ukraine, irrespective of U.S. policy. ECFR data shows that majorities or pluralities in eleven of the twelve countries surveyed are against the idea of Europe withdrawing its military support for Ukraine, pushing Ukraine to give up on territory occupied by Russia, or lifting economic sanctions on Russia – irrespective of a U.S. policy shift across these points. Respondents in Denmark (78%), Portugal (74%), the UK (73%), and Estonia (68%) are the staunchest supporters of continued military support in the event of a U.S. withdrawal. Similarly, those in Denmark (72%), Portugal (71%), the United Kingdom (69%), and Estonia (68%) are the most opposed to the idea of pushing Ukraine to give up occupied territory, if the U.S. adopted such an approach; and are also the strongest opponents of lifting economic sanctions against Russia, if the U.S.  behaved in this manner (Denmark, 77%; the UK, 71%; Estonia, 69%; and Poland, 68%). 

Trump’s hostility towards Europe has given rise to anti-American sentiment. This is particularly true in Denmark, where 86% of respondents believe the U.S. political system is ‘broken’, and where the share of population that consider Trump’s re-election a bad thing for American citizens has increased from 54% to 76% per cent in just six months. A similar picture emerges among Portuguese citizens, where 70% view the U.S. political system, today, as ‘broken’, compared to just 60%, when ECFR asked the same question in November 2020, following Joe Biden’s election victory. In the UK, and Germany, majorities of 74% and 67% also think the U.S system is broken. And, even in traditionally pro-American Poland, the share of citizens sharing this view has risen from 25% to 36% since November 2020.  

There is scepticism about whether the EU can effectively decouple from the U.S.  on defence and security. Respondents inDenmark and Portugal are the most optimistic about achieving this, with 52% and 50% of citizens, respectively, believing it is ‘possible’ for the EU to become independent of the U.S. on defence and security in the next five years. Scepticism is the most pronounced in Italy and Hungary, where 54% and 51%, respectively, see EU autonomy on security and defence as ‘very difficult’ or ‘practically impossible’ to achieve in the next five years. Elsewhere, respondents are torn, including in Romania (45% think it is possible vs. 39% think it is difficult or impossible), France (44% vs. 39%), Germany (44% vs. 45%), Poland (38% vs. 48%), Estonia (41% vs. 49%) and Spain (43% vs. 47%). Europeans are also sceptical about whether the EU can put aside its internal differences and become a global power, capable of competing economically with the U.S. and China. Belief that the EU can become such a player is soft – and a minority view – In eleven of the twelve countries polled by ECFR (with Danes being the sole outliers in their optimism).  

Many also harbour the belief that the Transatlantic Alliance will be repaired, once Trump leaves office. There is a widespread expectation that the transatlantic relationship will improve once Trump leaves office, with this view most evident in Denmark (62%), Portugal (54%), Germany and Spain (52%), and France (50%). This view is the weakest in Hungary (20%) and Romania (28%), where relatively many people – 24% and 19% respectively – believe Donald Trump hasn’t really damaged the transatlantic relationship. Only a minority in every country – and 22% on average, across 12 countries polled – are of an opinion that not only Donald Trump has damaged the relationship between Europe and the USA but also that ‘the damage will probably last even once Trump has left office’. Besides, the prevailing view, across the twelve countries surveyed by ECFR, is that Europe can continue to rely on U.S. nuclear deterrence (48% of citizens, on average across polled markets, share this view), maintain the U.S. military presence on the continent (55%), and avoid a trade war with Washington (54%).  
 

Trump 2.0 has prompted a revolution in not just Europe’s geopolitical – but also in the political identity of its main political parties. Trump’s return to power appears to have driven an outbreak of ‘political cross-dressing’ in Europe. Supporters of populist parties are no longer exclusively against the status-quo – they are now in favour of the Trumpian counter-project. And those who back mainstream parties are no longer simply in favour of the status-quo – they are now increasingly drawing energy from being defenders of national sovereignty against Trump. As a result, the European public is currently strongly polarised in its perceptions of the U.S. political system. For example, voters of the right-wing parties, Fidesz (Hungary), PiS (Poland), Brothers of Italy (Italy), AfD (Germany) and Vox (Spain), have a predominantly positive view of America – while the mainstream electorates in their countries hold a mostly negative view of the U.S. political system. Furthermore, being able to treat the U.S. as the model appears to allow voters of the far-right to become even more outspoken in their criticism of the EU. This represents a huge leap for supporters of some populist parties – like those of PiS (Poland), Vox (Spain) or Chega (Portugal) – where the perception that the EU is broken has now become majoritarian, after being previously held only be a minority of their voters. Conversely, voters for mainstream parties appear to be rallying around the European flag – most visibly in Germany and in France. The result of these various changes in public opinion is the emergence of a reverse relationship in the perception of the U.S. and the EU, which wasn’t there before.  

Commenting on the multi-country survey report, co-author and founding director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Mark Leonard, said: 

“Donald Trump’s revolution has come to Europe – overturning its political and geopolitical identity. Our poll shows that Europeans feel unsafe and that Trump is driving demand for increased defence spending, the reintroduction of military service, and an extension of nuclear capabilities across much of Europe.  

He is also transforming domestics politics in a similar way to Brexit. Far-right parties are no longer simply seen as anti-system; they have become part of a pro-Trump internationale. On the other hand, many mainstream parties are reinventing themselves as defenders of sovereignty against Trumpian chaos.” 

Co-author and chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, Ivan Krastev, added: 

“The real effect of Trump’s second coming is that the United States now presents a credible model for Europe’s far-right.  

To be pro-American today mostly means to be sceptical of the EU, to be pro-European means being critical of Trump’s America.” 

Brian Gavidia had stepped out from working on a car at a tow yard in a Los Angeles suburb Thursday, when armed, masked men — wearing vests with “Border Patrol” on them — pushed him up against a metal gate and demanded to know where he was born.

“I’m American, bro!” 29-year-old Gavidia pleaded, in video taken by a friend.

“What hospital were you born?” the agent barked.

“I don’t know, dawg!” he said. “East L.A., bro! I can show you: I have my f—ing Real ID.”

His friend, whom Gavidia did not name, narrated the video: “These guys, literally based off of skin color! My homie was born here!” The friend said Gavidia was being questioned “just because of the way he looks.”

In a statement Saturday, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said U.S. citizens were arrested “because they ASSAULTED U.S. Border Patrol Agents.” (McLaughlin’s statement emphasized the word “assaulted” in all-capital and boldfaced letters.)

When told by a reporter that Gavidia had not been arrested, McLaughlin clarified that Gavidia had been questioned by Border Patrol agents but there “is no arrest record.” She said a friend of Gavidia’s was arrested for assault of an officer.

As immigration operations have unfolded across Southern California in the last week, lawyers and advocates say people are being targeted because of their skin color. The encounter with Gavidia and others they are tracking have raised legal questions about enforcement efforts that have swept up hundreds of immigrants and shot fear into the deeply intertwined communities they call home.

Agents picking up street vendors without warrants. American citizens being grilled. Home Depot lots swept. Car washes raided. The wide-scale arrests and detainments — often in the region’s largely Latino neighborhoods — contain hallmarks of racial profiling and other due process violations.

“We are seeing ICE come into our communities to do indiscriminate mass arrests of immigrants or people who appear to them to be immigrant, largely based on racial profiling,” said Eva Bitran, a lawyer at ACLU of Southern California.

When asked about the accusations of racial profiling, the White House deflected.

Calling the questions “shameful regurgitations of Democrat propaganda by activists — not journalists,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson chided The Times reporters Saturday for not reporting the “real story — the American victims of illegal alien crime and radical Democrat rioters willing to do anything to keep dangerous illegal aliens in American communities.”

She did not answer the question.

McLaughlin said in a statement, “Any claims that individuals have been ‘targeted’ by law enforcement because of their skin color are disgusting and categorically FALSE.”

She said the suggestion fans the flames and puts agents in peril.

“DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted, and officers do their due diligence,” she said. “We know who we are targeting ahead of time. If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement is trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability.

“We will follow the President’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets,” she said.

Customs and Border Protection officers are stationed at the federal building in Los Angeles on Friday.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The unprecedented show of force by federal agents follows orders from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration plan and a Santa Monica native, to execute 3,000 arrests a day. In May, Miller reportedly directed top ICE officials to go beyond target lists and have agents make arrests at Home Depot or 7-Eleven convenience stores.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not answer specific questions about the encounter with Gavidia and said that immigration enforcement has been “targeted.” The agency did not explain what is meant by targeted enforcement.

But a federal criminal complaint against Javier Ramirez, another of Gavidia’s friends, said Border Patrol agents were conducting a “roving patrol” in Montebello around 4:30 p.m. when they “engaged a subject in a consensual encounter” in a parking lot on West Olympic Boulevard. The complaint noted that the parking lot is fenced and gated, but that, at the time of the interaction, the gate to the parking lot was open.

The enforcement was part of a roving patrol in what John B. Mennell, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, said was a “lawful immigration enforcement operation” in which agents also arrested “without incident” an immigrant without legal status.

Gavidia said he and Ramirez both rent space at the tow yard to fix cars.

On video captured by a security camera at the scene, the agents pull up at the open gate in a white SUV and three agents exit the car. At least one covers his face with a mask as they walk into the property and begin looking around. Shortly after, an agent can be seen with one man in handcuffs calmly standing against the fence, while Ramirez can be heard shouting and being wrestled to the ground.

Gavidia walks up on the scene from the sidewalk outside the business where agents are parked. Seeing the commotion, he turns around. An agent outside the business follows him and then another does.

Gavidia, whom Mennell identified as a third person, was detained “for investigation for interference (in an enforcement operation) and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants.”

“Video didn’t show the full story,” he said in a statement.

But it is unclear from the video exactly what that interference is. And Gavidia denies interfering with any operations.

CBP, the agency that has played a prominent role in the recent sweeps, is also under a federal injunction in Central California after a judge found it had engaged in “a pattern and practice” of violating people’s constitutional rights in raids earlier this year.

U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Greg Bovino, who oversaw raids that included picking people up at Home Depot and stopping them on the highway, has emerged as a key figure in L.A. He stood alongside Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday at a news conference where Sen. Alex Padilla — the state’s first Latino U.S. senator — was handcuffed, forced to the ground and briefly held after interrupting Noem with a question.

“A lot of bad people, a lot of bad things are in our country now,” Bovino said. “That’s why we’re here right now, is to remove those bad people and bad things, whether illegal aliens, drugs or otherwise, we’re here. We’re not going away.”

Bovino said hundreds of Border Patrol agents have fanned out and are on the ground in L.A. carrying out enforcement.

A federal judge for the Eastern District of California ordered Bovino’s agency to halt illegal stops and warrantless arrests in the district after agents detained and arrested dozens of farmworkers and laborers — including a U.S. citizen — in the Central Valley shortly before President Trump took office.

The lawsuit, brought by the United Farm Workers and Central Valley residents, accused the agency of brazenly racial profiling people in a days-long enforcement. It roiled the largely agricultural area, after video circulated of agents slashing the tires of a gardener who was a citizen on his way to work, and it raised fears that those tactics could become the new norm there.

The effort was “proof of concept,” David Kim, assistant chief patrol agent under Bovino, told the San Diego investigative outfit Inewsource in March. “Testing our capabilities, and very successful. We know we can push beyond that limit now as far as distance goes.”

Bovino said at the news conference that his agents were “not going anywhere soon.”

“You’ll see us in Los Angeles. You’ll continue to see us in Los Angeles,” he said.

Bitran, who is working on the case in the Central Valley, said Miller’s orders have “set loose” agents “with a mandate to capture as many people as possible,” and that “leads to them detaining people in a way that violates the Constitution.”

In Montebello, a 78% Latino suburb that shares a border with East Los Angeles, Border Patrol agents took Gavidia’s identification. Although they eventually let him go, Ramirez, also American and a single father of two, wasn’t so lucky.

Tomas De Jesus, Ramirez’s cousin and his attorney, said authorities are accusing him of “resisting arrest, assaulting people” after agents barged into a private business, “without a warrant, without a probable cause.”

“What is the reasonable suspicion for him to be accosted?” De Jesus questioned. “What is the probable cause for them to be entering into a private business area? … At this moment, it seems to me like they have a blanket authority almost to do anything.”

Ramirez has been charged in a federal criminal complaint with assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer. Authorities allege that Ramirez was trying to conceal himself and then ran toward the exit and refused to answer questions about his identity and citizenship. They also allege he pushed and bit an agent.

Montebello Mayor Salvador Melendez said he’d watched the video and called the situation “extremely frustrating.”

“It just seems like there’s no due process,” he said. “They’re going for a specific look, which is a look of our Latino community, our immigrant community. They’re asking questions after. … This is not the country that we all know it to be, where folks have individual rights and protections.”

A third individual was detained on the street for investigation for interference and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants.

Even before the video was looping on social media feeds, Angelica Salas — who heads one of the most well-established immigration advocacy groups in Los Angeles — said she was getting reports of “indiscriminate” arrests and American citizens being questioned and detained.

“We have U.S. citizens who are being asked for their documents and not believed when they attest to the fact that they are U.S. citizens,” said Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. “They just happen to be Latino.”

The Supreme Court has long held that law enforcement officers cannot detain people based on generalizations that would cast a wide net of suspicion on large segments of the law-abiding population.

“Some of the accounts I have heard suggest that they’re just stopping a whole bunch of people, and then questioning them all to find out which ones might be unlawfully present,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA Law School.

An agent can ask a person about “anything,” he said. But if the person declines to speak, the agent cannot detain them unless they have reasonable suspicion that the individual is unlawfully here.

“The 4th Amendment as well as governing immigration regulations do not permit immigration agents to detain somebody against their will, even for a very brief time, absent reasonable suspicion,” he said.

Just being brown doesn’t qualify. And being a street vendor or farmworker does not, either. A warrant to search for documents at a work site also is not enough to detain someone there.

“The agents appear to be flagrantly violating these immigration laws,” he said, “all over Southern California.”

Gavidia said the agents who questioned him in Montebello never returned his Real ID.

“I’m legal,” he said. “I speak perfect English. I also speak perfect Spanish. I’m bilingual, but that doesn’t mean that I have to be picked out, like, ‘This guys seems Latino; this guy seems a little bit dirty.’

“It was the worst experience I ever felt,” Gavidia said, his voice shaking with anger as he spoke from the business Friday. “I felt honestly like I was going to die.”

On Saturday, Gavidia joined De Jesus in downtown L.A. for his first-ever protest.

Now, he said, it felt personal.