ice

With the US midterm elections approaching, the balance of power in Congress is at stake, and the outcome could shape the legacy of President Donald Trump’s second term. As Republicans face growing voter dissatisfaction, Trump’s record has become a central battleground in the fight to control Congress.

Trump faces mounting challenges, including low approval ratings, an unpopular war in Iran, high inflation and petrol prices, economic uncertainty surrounding his tariff policies, and widespread backlash over his immigration crackdown.

How does Trump’s second term measure up against the promises he made on the campaign trail?

In this interview, Mehdi Hasan goes head-to-head with Steve Cortes, a former Trump campaign adviser, who defends the president’s second-term agenda, including his economic and immigration policies, and Islamophobic rhetoric.

Joining the discussion:

Olivia Troye – Former homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Mike Pence
Mike Nellis – Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris
Rob Arlett – Former Trump campaign chair and political commentator

Federal immigration agents violently detained a 20-year-old U.S. citizen and Santa Maria, Calif., High School student with disabilities on Wednesday morning, according to school and city officials.

The student, who has limited verbal communication, was walking to school when agents tackled him, questioned him about his citizenship and restrained him in their vehicle. He was eventually returned to the area where he was picked up and walked to school, where officials called for an ambulance to take him to the hospital, said Santa Maria City Council member Gloria Soto.

The student underwent surgery for injuries to his wrist, she said, and was left with bruises and lacerations.

Soto said a school resource officer obtained security footage from a nearby grocery store and confirmed that the people who had detained the student are agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In an emailed statement, an unidentified ICE spokesperson wrote that agents were conducting a targeted enforcement operation in Santa Maria “when they encountered an individual they believed matched the description of the criminal illegal alien target.”

“When the individual resisted officers, refused lawful commands, and assumed a fighting stance with clenched fists, they relied on their training to safely control the situation until they could confirm his identity, whereupon he was released,” the spokesperson wrote.

The spokesperson added that claims that the student suffered broken bones are false because “he never requested medical assistance.”

Soto said it appears the student was racially profiled.

“Our community is living in terror right now and this needs to stop,” she said, referencing a recent uptick in immigration arrests across central California. “I’m a mother, and the thought of my child not being safe walking to school is frightening.”

The Santa Maria Police Department declined to comment and referred questions to ICE.

Alma Hernandez, board president of Santa Maria Joint Union High School District, said she was horrified by ICE’s actions.

“Our district remains committed to protecting our students and families,” she said.

This is a developing story.

The mayor of the small Central Valley farm town of Kerman pulled up to a bakery, her cellphone camera recording, and confronted federal immigration agents conducting an early-morning operation in which multiple people were detained.

“You’re not welcome in my city,” Maria Pacheco told the masked agents, identifying herself as the mayor. “You’ve taken enough people yesterday. We don’t want you here. You need to leave.”

As the men wearing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vests drove away, she shouted: “How can you make a living kidnapping people? How can you sleep at night doing what you’re doing? … You are a sorry piece of sh—!”

Pacheco, who is running for a seat on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, posted video of the Oct. 8 confrontation in Kerman — a mostly Latino city of 17,000 west of Fresno — on social media, labeling it: “Mayor Maria Pacheco Stands Up to ICE.”

The footage went viral. TikTok commentators praised her bravery. Comedian and actor George Lopez posted about it on Facebook — writing, “We need more politicians like Maria Pacheco!” — and she shared her campaign fundraising link in the comments.

A few days later, Pacheco allegedly drove through Fresno, closely following a vehicle driven by a man she assumed was an ICE agent.

Except, he wasn’t one.

Eric Bridges, a Fresno hairdresser, has accused Pacheco of closely trailing him in an orange Nissan Altima for more than 20 minutes on Oct. 14 and taking photos of his vehicles as she followed him to his sister’s house.

“I’m looking for ICE, and you look like ICE,” Pacheco told him, according to a signed statement submitted to the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office this week in which Bridges wrote that he wanted “to press charges to the fullest extent of the law.”

Bridges’ attorney, Roger Bonakdar, told The Times that Pacheco used his client “as a political trampoline so she could create social media clickbait” to benefit her political campaign.

“There are real concerns as to whether or not she is acting as some sort of vigilante law enforcement person, that she’s wrongfully abusing her position as an elected official,” Bonakdar said.

Bonakdar added that he filed complaints about the incident with the Fresno Police Department and county prosecutor.

Taylor Long, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office, said in an email that the information provided by Bonakdar had been referred to its Public Integrity Unit, which investigates public officials for potential crimes related to their office, but that “the receipt and review of information” does not mean a crime had occurred or that charges were warranted.

No charges had been filed by the district attorney’s office in connection with the incident as of Wednesday, Long wrote.

In an email to The Times, Pacheco wrote: “Regarding recent allegations, my only comment is this: If he wants to go to court, we will go to court.”

“Meanwhile, the Kerman Food Bank and other local organizations are experiencing food shortages as families face fear and uncertainty caused by recent immigration enforcement actions,” Pacheco wrote. “Parents are afraid to go to work or leave home, even to buy groceries, leaving more families struggling to put food on the table. … That is where our attention belongs, and where my time, energy and heart will remain.”

The encounter comes at a tense time in the Central Valley, where a surge this month in federal immigration operations and detentions has rattled agricultural communities, causing workers to stop showing up to farm fields and construction sites and families to keep their children home from school.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for information about the Oct. 8 operation outside La Princesa Real Bakery in Kerman, where Pacheco filmed her interaction with agents. Pacheco told the Fresno Bee that four of the bakery’s customers had been detained and that one was eventually released because he had lawful immigration status.

In his signed statement, Bridges wrote that he was driving near Kearney Park just west of Fresno on the afternoon of Oct. 14 when he noticed an orange car “pull behind me quickly and follow me into the park.” Bridges said he stopped his vehicle and was on the phone with his sister, telling her that he was being followed and that the driver was taking photos of him.

As he sat in the parking lot, he wrote, the car circled him for five minutes, and he could overhear the driver on the phone through her vehicle’s speaker system.

He then drove to his sister’s neighborhood, where the car tailed him into a cul-de-sac and stopped beside his white Mercedes sport utility vehicle — an encounter recorded by a home security camera.

When the female driver rolled down her car window, Bridges wrote, she asked who he was and he did the same. According to Bridges’ statement, the driver told him he was “in [her] ‘hood driving an unmarked car.”

Bridges wrote that he had a California Department of Motor Vehicles print-out affixed to the back of his vehicle and asked if she was a police officer or DMV employee.

She replied, “Don’t worry about who I am; I’m someone important” then accused him of being an ICE agent, Bridges wrote. Outraged, he began filming her.

In the home security footage, Bridges can be heard from a distance saying, “I didn’t know you owned the neighborhood,” and shouting in apparent surprise: “I look like I’m ICE?” after the woman speaks to him.

A close-up video that Bridges recorded shows a woman in sunglasses smiling as she drives away, with him saying, “Don’t you ever in your … life follow me, you weird-ass b—.”

Bridges wrote that she flipped him off as she left and that he learned she was the mayor of Kerman after reviewing the video footage.

Bonakdar, his attorney, said Bridges is a grandfather and hair stylist who has never worked for ICE or the Department of Homeland Security. When the driver of the orange vehicle saw him, Bonakdar said, Bridges was not wearing a face covering, as immigration agents often do, or a badge or tactical vest.

Pacheco “claims to be an advocate for minority groups, or to somehow have an interest in helping those people,” Bonakdar said. “I mean, she just victimized somebody who is a member of two minority groups. [Bridges] is a thin-framed, middle-aged Black gay man.”

Bonakdar said Bridges had received threats from people accusing him of being an undercover ICE agent and that some had told him he was not welcome in certain places.

On Oct. 15, the day after the alleged encounter with Bridges, Pacheco wrote a Facebook post about a street corner near agricultural fields just west of Fresno city limits: “I have spotted ICE on Shaw and Dickenson. White SUV. No plates. Driver is masked and hooded.”

Two days later, she took to Facebook again, writing: “I never imagined we’d live in a time when communities would fear masked men in unmarked vehicles. It’s exhausting living on constant high alert, watching for out-of-state or missing license plates, never knowing who’s next.”

NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani and top New York Democrats are calling on the owners of private parking lots to block federal immigration officers from using their properties as staging areas, days after immigration officers shot a man in the city.

In a Friday letter, Mamdani, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and dozens of state and local lawmakers told lot and garage owners that the city needs their “help at a critical juncture.”

“In solidarity with immigrant New Yorkers and in our shared commitment to the City we love, we ask that you do not rent, lend, or otherwise make your property available to ICE as a staging area for its enforcement operations,” the letter reads. “Make it known to ICE that it is not authorized to use your garages and lots.”

The plea came after immigration officers shot 28-year-old Dominican national Oscar Belgal during an arrest last week as he rode in a car with his young son. The shooting sparked protests and drew renewed attention to the federal government’s immigration crackdown.

The federal officers had been using a nearby private parking lot as a staging area before the shooting, according to Friday’s letter.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security slammed the letter in a statement that read: “Mayor Mamdani should be grateful to our brave law enforcement officers for cleaning up the streets of NYC since he won’t. Luckily, no terminated parking will stop ICE from deporting criminal illegal aliens to make New York safe again.”

Federal officials maintain the immigration officers believed their lives were in danger and opened fire only after Belgal smashed his car into two government vehicles and accelerated toward them.

New York City has previously barred outside law enforcement agencies such as DHS from setting up staging areas on city property unless they have a judicial warrant or qualify for certain “limited legal exceptions,” according to the letter. “But these laws govern City property, not the private lots and garages that you operate,” it adds.

Private businesses have at times found themselves in the middle of tense political fights over President) Trump’s administration’s immigration enforcement push.

In one instance, a Minnesota hotel that refused to let immigration officers stay there in January apologized after public criticism from DHS, saying the decision violated its internal policies. In another, protesters occupied the lobby of a Manhattan hotel they said was housing some immigration officers.

Izaguirre writes for the Associated Press.

‘A major failure’

A round-faced man with dark-rimmed glasses, a moustache and short-trimmed hair, Ismael came to the US when he was only five years old.

Southern California became his home, and as an adult, he qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, which offered temporary protection against deportation.

He lost his DACA status, however, in 2015 after a conviction for driving under the influence.

His family remembers him as a caring son and uncle, always willing to buy his niece and nephew new clothes or school supplies.

“Ismael was always looking after his siblings. He just had a big heart,” said his brother, Jose Miguel Ayala. “He was very protective of not just us, but my mum and dad too.”

He was 39 years old when he was brought to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center.

Two weeks after his arrival, Ismael told his family that he developed a high fever and a painful sore on his backside.

On September 18, 2025, workers at Adelanto initiated a Code Blue alert for Ismael, signalling a life-threatening medical emergency. Medical staff rushed him from his dorm to the infirmary in a wheelchair.

ICE documents show that Ismael was given pain medication, an ointment and a fibre supplement.

But according to Physicians for Human Rights’ Cuneo, who reviewed the case, Ismael should have received a physical examination and antibiotics.

“That is a major failure,” Cuneo said.

That weekend, hours after Lucia’s visit, Ismael’s condition worsened. Just after midnight on Sunday, ICE records say he was vomiting, shaking and sweating.

According to ICE documents, he was later sent to an intensive care unit, where he went into cardiac arrest within minutes of his arrival and subsequently died.

“I believe Ismael’s death could have fully been prevented by timely care,” Cuneo said. “It was a simple abscess that was not treated in a timely manner.”

Fault Lines obtained a coroner’s investigation that reveals Ismael was critically ill when he first arrived at the hospital, a fact that was left out of ICE’s public report on his death.

The coroner’s report also contradicts ICE’s timeline for Ismael’s death. It indicates Ismael went into cardiac arrest early on September 21, nearly a full day before he passed away. Medical staff, however, managed to restore his heartbeat after intubating him.

That conflicts with ICE’s report, which only notes his pulse stopping once: shortly before his death was announced on the morning of September 22. ICE described his condition on September 21 as “calm and cooperative”, but it signalled no heart problems.

“If they had given him the medical care and what he needed, maybe he would be here with us,” Lucia said.

In a statement about Ismael’s death, ICE said detainees receive “comprehensive medical care” throughout their time in custody.

But California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta told Fault Lines that his office found “the exact opposite” during its inspections of the state’s detention centres.

“We’ve gone to these facilities. We’ve gone into Adelanto. We have done our own physical inspections,” Bonta explained.

“If what the ICE spokesperson said was true, Mr Ayala-Uribe would be with us today.”

An internal mortality review committee also found that the care provided to Ismael at Adelanto “deviated beyond safe limits of practice”, according to a document obtained by US media earlier this year.

It also suggests that medical staff delayed responding to calls about Ismael’s declining health in the days leading up to his death.

California sued the Trump administration for the 100th time in under two years Thursday, challenging the practice of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arresting people for civil immigration violations at or near state courthouses.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said such arrests have long been barred because they are unconstitutional and deeply disruptive to the rule of law and the rights of victims, witnesses, defendants and other parties to court proceedings.

“We’ve seen serious criminal charges dropped and entire cases jeopardized because victims and witnesses are too scared to come to the courthouse to testify,” Bonta said. “Our justice system cannot function this way.”

Bonta said his office having to take the Trump administration to court 100 times in less than two years, often alongside other Democrat-led states, was a “sobering milestone” and a reflection not of political interference on California’s part — as the president and his supporters have cast it — but of Trump’s nearly unbridled lawlessness.

“It’s very troubling when the most powerful person on the planet and the president of our country is the one trampling over the Constitution, breaking the law so blatantly and brazenly, so consistently, so frequently,” Bonta said.

Independent legal experts said several factors have driven the wave of lawsuits.

Presidents of both parties have increasingly flexed their executive power, and state attorneys general have increasingly sued in response. During Trump’s first term in office, California — under the leadership of then-attorney general and current gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra — sued the Trump administration more than 120 times over four years. Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton — now a Republican candidate for Senate — sued the Biden administration just over 100 times in four years.

Trump in this term quickly began implementing an array of policies leftover from his first term or outlined in the Project 2025 policy blueprint, many of which Bonta and other Democratic attorneys general were prepared to sue over, experts said.

Trump was also able to appoint a host of loyalists with the help of the Republican-controlled Congress, who helped advance policies that less loyal agency heads would have balked at, and which were sure to draw additional legal challenges, experts said.

Daniel Farber, a professor at UC Berkeley Law School and author of “Contested Ground: How to Understand the Limits on Presidential Power,” said California’s raft of lawsuits is a result of the current Trump administration “doing more aggressive things right off the starting block” — but also repeatedly targeting California specifically.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. However, it has consistently derided Bonta’s litigation against the administration as baseless and misguided.

When Bonta claimed in August that his lawsuits had saved California more than $200 billion, namely by reversing Trump cuts to federal funding meant for the state, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Bonta should stop “filing frivolous lawsuits” and “focus on addressing problems in his own state.”

ICE, which also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has defended its arrests near courthouses as a “common sense” approach to apprehending offenders at times and locations where authorities know they will be.

The 100th case

Bonta’s lawsuit argues that such arrests are arbitrary and capricious given the chilling effect they have on justice in the state. They violate the Immigration and Nationality Act as intended by Congress, and interfere with California’s rights under the 10th Amendment to execute its “core sovereign judicial and police functions,” Bonta’s office said.

His arguments echo those made by other state officials in the past. During Trump’s first term, for example, then-California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye called the arrests “disruptive, shortsighted, and counterproductive.”

Arrests at or near courthouses began to rise again after Trump took office in January 2025. An ICE memo, issued in May 2025, said agents could conduct “civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses when they have credible information that leads them to believe the targeted alien(s) is or will be present at a specific location.”

Incidents quickly began cropping up. In June 2025, ICE agents arrested two women outside a Los Angeles courthouse after a hearing in a local criminal case. The same unfolded across the state.

Alejandro Barraza, a criminal defense and immigration attorney, said he has witnessed the impact firsthand.

In October 2025, a client was arrested driving home from a hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice. In December, another client was arrested leaving the Rancho Cucamonga courthouse. And a third client chose to plead guilty in his criminal case rather than go to jury trial, despite Barraza’s advice that the case was worth fighting, for fear of being arrested by ICE.

“The victims are losing. Our clients are losing their rights to due process. Everyone is losing,” Barraza said.

In June, U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts in San Francisco struck down ICE’s expanded courthouse arrest policies nationwide. Although the lawsuit focused on immigration courthouses, the ruling also covered state criminal courthouses, restoring earlier restrictions that barred civil immigration arrests in or near courthouses except in limited circumstances. The Trump administration is appealing the ruling.

Since then, California court officials have tracked arrests by federal agents and reported them to the Judicial Council of California. Thirty people were taken into custody in June, 29 in July, 19 in August and 14 in September.

State legislators have tried to push back. Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law strengthening California’s protections against civil arrests for people traveling to, attending or leaving courthouses for lawful purposes. The measure extends those protections to public ways within 1,000 feet of court facilities, while preserving an exception for arrests made under a valid judicial warrant.

Bonta said his lawsuit is necessary despite the new California law, in part because the Trump administration thinks that “no state law applies to them,” and courts have in some cases agreed — including the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which this week blocked a state law that would have required federal immigration agents to display identification while working in the state.

The wider legal battle

Bonta’s office has had substantial success in halting some of the Trump administration’s biggest policy moves — including its plans to end birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of immigrants, its worldwide tariffs, its deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, and its withholding of billions of dollars in federal funding allocated to the state by Congress.

Michael McConnell, director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, said many of California’s lawsuits have been “legally meritorious,” as there is a “whole lot of legal error” coming out of the Trump administration — with a “lot of the overreach” having been “facilitated by the lack of internal checks” from loyal Trump agency heads.

However, he also said that as a California taxpayer, he doesn’t “appreciate having government using my tax dollars for what essentially are in many cases ideological lawsuits, even if meritorious,” because private litigants can and often do bring lawsuits of their own. He said he felt the same way about many of the lawsuits brought against the Biden administration by Republican states.

Bonta said he is proud of his team for challenging the Trump administration every time they believed it had broken the law and harmed California, despite Trump’s intentional effort to make that difficult.

“It was a shock and awe. It was flood the zone. It was trying to overwhelm with speed and volume, and we kept pace every time,” he said.

What happens next, he said, will depend on Trump. If he keeps breaking the law in ways that hurt the state or its residents, he’ll keep getting sued by California.

The immigration agency has rejected a report from a government watchdog, making suggestions for improved body camera policy.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a United States agency that has taken a central role in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, has rejected a government report calling for its agents to wear body cameras that automatically activate.

On Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that provides research to Congress, released a report recommending an update to ICE guidelines for camera usage.

It suggested that “automated camera activation” would be helpful in situations where “unexpected and unplanned incidents, unrelated to sensitive operations, result in use of force by or against personnel”.

“Given the important role of body-worn cameras in law enforcement activities, we maintain that additional controls are needed to help ensure that ICE personnel capture footage in accordance with policy,” the report said.

Automatic activation, it added, would address difficulties ICE agents face in manually turning on their cameras during enforcement operations.

But ICE has rejected the recommendation for automatic activation, which could be triggered by an agent pulling a gun or turning on a car siren. The agency cited privacy concerns.

But the Trump administration faces public pressure to improve transparency during its immigration raids.

Agents from ICE and other agencies such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have faced accusations of excessive force and civil liberties violations.

In January, two US citizens – Renee Good and Alex Pretti – were shot to death in separate shootings in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during immigration operations.

The New York Times estimated in July that immigration agents had opened fire on at least 25 people since the start of Trump’s second term. A CBS News review updated this week counts at least 30 shootings, with nine people killed and 13 others wounded.

ICE has often blamed such incidents on aggression against its agents, and it has argued that its officers have opened fire to defend themselves from danger.

But in several cases, that rationale has come under scrutiny.

Critics argued that video footage in Good’s fatal shooting disproved government statements alleging that she had weaponised her vehicle against agents. Her car, according to observers, appeared to be turning away from agents, not towards them.

In another case, ICE agent Christian Castro was accused of making false statements about a shooting that resulted in injury to Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan man living in Minneapolis.

Castro faces federal charges for allegedly lying about being attacked with a snow shovel and broom before the shooting, after video footage contradicted his account. Castro pleaded not guilty last month.

More recently, on October 8, immigration agents shot a man named Oscar Belgal in New York City while his five-year-old son was in the backseat of his car. ICE stated that Belgal appeared to be “going towards officers” in his car when they opened fire.

On Tuesday, a judge rejected the government’s effort to have Belgal deported.

Activists say better recording procedures for body camera footage could help clarify what happened in such incidents.

But the Trump administration has largely refused to implement reforms to ICE protocol.

Earlier this year, Democrats in Congress delayed funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, on the basis that significant changes needed to be made to reduce incidents of excessive force.

The department said on Wednesday that automatically recording cameras could result in “the unauthorised recording of sensitive interactions with informants or victims”.

The agency added that all ICE offices had received body cameras as of August 5, but that training in their use was still ongoing and would be finished “soon”.

WASHINGTON — Federal immigration officials need to ensure that body cameras worn by officers are uniformly activated when needed, a government report released Wednesday said, following a series of contentious shootings and aggressive arrests by ICE officers.

The agency rejected the recommendation, saying that using cameras that automatically activate when an officer pulls their weapon or activates a car siren could risk privacy concerns.

ICE has come under intense scrutiny after numerous incidents where officers have opened fire during enforcement operations and the agency has claimed they were under threat but officers weren’t wearing body cameras. Critics say the cameras could help hold officers accountable and promote transparency at a time when the agency is operating at a high tempo across the country and increasingly accused of excessive use of force. The report by the Government Accountability Office covers the period from February 2025 until September of this year. The report, conducted at the request of Democratic members of Congress, delves into policies governing the use of body-worn cameras by ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection and details improvements both agencies can make to improve their programs. But it did not go into any of the high-profile ICE-involved shootings that have focused attention on the agency’s body-worn camera usage, such as the shooting deaths of Renee Good in Minneapolis or Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston.

A fatal shooting exposed gaps in ICE’s camera rollout

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced in February that every Homeland Security officer on the ground in Minneapolis would be issued body-worn cameras. Noem, who was later fired by Trump, said officers across the country would receive them as funds became available.

The department later received $20 million from Congress to finish the ICE body-camera rollout plan. But then came a shooting in July of Salgado Araujo, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers shot and killed the Mexican man who lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years. Those officers were not wearing body cameras, raising questions about why the agency still hadn’t gotten the cameras out to officers in the field. Homeland Security said after Salgado Araujo’s death that body cameras had been deployed to more than half of ICE field offices and that the remainder would get them in the next 60 days. In the GAO report, DHS said all ICE offices had received the body-worn cameras as of Aug. 5 and that officers were being trained on their use.

In a statement Wednesday, DHS said that while they’d purchased devices for all ICE officers across the country, the required training was still ongoing and that they expected to be finished “soon.”

DHS rejects automatic recording, citing privacy concerns

The report recommended ICE take additional steps such as “automated camera activation” that it said would be particularly helpful in situations where “unexpected and unplanned incidents, unrelated to sensitive operations, result in use of force by or against personnel.” The report said this would improve transparency and public trust. But DHS disagreed, saying that cameras that automatically activate could result in “the unauthorized recording of sensitive interactions with informants or victims.” The agency said the body-worn cameras are required to be turned on at the beginning of pre-planned enforcement activities.

Confusion over camera rules kept one ICE office from using them

The report also said some of the officers they talked to at both ICE and CBP were confused as to when they should activate the cameras. For example, some officers told the GAO they didn’t know whether to activate the cameras during vehicle searches or when transporting detainees. The report noted that at one ICE office, staff was so uncertain about when they were supposed to use the cameras that they hadn’t begun using them even after they’d been trained.

The report also found that neither agency had updated the plans that oversee their body-worn camera programs even as their staff had grown significantly.

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

Danny Trejo made his stance on Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics clear.

The actor spoke out Friday after it was revealed last week he was cast in the film “Pawn Shop,” which is reportedly inspired by the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.

The feature is co-produced by the Daily Wire — the right-wing media company launched in 2015 by conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro — and Bonfire Legend, a production company formed by prolific producer Dallas Sonnier in 2021.

Frequently featured in movies targeting Latino audiences, Trejo built a devoted following within the demographic over the years as one of the more prominent Mexican American actors in Hollywood.

He was criticized online for his involvement in “Pawn Shop” due to its positive portrayal of ICE agents, who have been antagonizing the Latino community at an accelerated clip over the last two years. Trejo was called a “sellout” and a “traitor” across social media in recent days.

“I want to address some social media comments about me. Make no mistake. I am a proud Mexican who has always been and will always be a supporter of my community,” Trejo wrote in an Instagram post. “I am also obviously pro-immigrant. I am not pro ICE. I know where I come from and I know our struggles. I am an actor. My job is to tell a story.”

Trejo’s casting was first announced by the Montana newspaper Bozeman Daily Chronicle after speaking with one of Trejo’s cast members on the film’s set in Livingston, Mont., as well as Livingston locals who had seen and photographed the actor in the city’s downtown area.

Deadline confirmed that Trejo, along with “Reservoir Dogs” actor Harvey Keitel and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” star Henry Thomas, was scheduled to appear in the film after reviewing the call sheet.

The 82-year-old Trejo has previously voiced support for immigrant communities. During the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, he was part of a coalition of Latino actors who pushed forward the #AyudaEnEspanol campaign, which advocated for providing COVID-19 resources kits in Spanish for Latino migrant farmworkers across the U.S.

In an interview with TMZ in fall 2025, the actor, who has appeared in over 400 films and television programs, was asked to give a message to the families that had been affected by ICE raids.

“To the families, keep up hope,” Trejo said. “Help your neighbor and do whatever you can for people in need.”

His recent statement came after “Pawn Shop” made headlines for hitting snags in its production in Livingston following local protests. Residents claimed the movie’s production interrupted local businesses’ operations — and that the crew did not properly communicate with businesses about its schedule.

Production on the film was temporarily paused on Oct. 3 from an order by the Livingston city commission. Filming resumed on Oct. 6 after Livingston officials reinstated permits for the movie.

WASHINGTON — Federal immigration officers opened fire on a Dominican man in New York because he drove his car into officers’ vehicles and they believed their lives were in danger, a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said Friday.

The 28-year-old man, whom New York City police identified as Oscar Belgal, was shot “superficially” in the neck as ICE officers attempted to arrest him, said Marcos Charles, head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations. Authorities have not released details of Belgal’s condition.

Officers used their vehicles to block the man as he attempted to drive away, but he accelerated toward them, Charles said during a news conference with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in Washington. The Department of Homeland Security said the news conference was about the “dangerous consequences of sanctuary city policies.”

“Our officers, using their training and believing that their life and the life of the partners and the general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons,” Charles said.

Belgal had his 5-year-old son in the car with him when the shooting happened, officials said.

Mullin said ICE agents didn’t know the child was in the car, but that Belgal “was aware” and chose to put the boy at risk by trying to evade officers.

ICE previously tried to detain Belgal, Charles says

Belgal was associated with a robbery crew that used mopeds and weapons, and was convicted of grand larceny last year and sentenced to five years of probation, Charles said, adding that he evaded officers in September when ICE tried to arrest him for deportation.

The Legal Aid Society, which was representing Belgal in an ongoing drug case, called Friday for a “full and transparent” investigation of the shooting, the officers involved to be held accountable and an end to “ICE’s escalating presence in New York City.”

Federal agents walk near the scene where a man was shot by an ICE officer during an operation in the Bronx borough of New York on Oct. 8, according to local media and police.

(Charly Triballeau / AFP via Getty Images)

Belgal has pleaded not guilty to narcotics-sale charges in the drug case. The Legal Aid Society did not comment further.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, said late Thursday that they had pressed Mullin and Republican President Trump to release Belgal, but to no avail. They also urged the administration to immediately release ICE officers’ body camera footage of the shooting and to halt immigration enforcement operations in the city.

Mullin said Belgal was being held in a “highly secured” detention facility outside New York City but declined to say where.

Attorneys representing Belgal filed an emergency petition Thursday night calling for his release. A hearing is scheduled for Friday afternoon.

He also confirmed ICE officers were wearing body cameras that were activated, but didn’t say when any of that footage would be released. Under agency policy, bodycam video can be released within 72 hours if “determined that it is in the best interests of the agency.”

On Friday, New York City police released footage from its officers as they arrived at the scene following the shooting. The department previously said its officers were not involved in the arrest and not at the scene when the shooting happened.

The video shows a city officer responding to a chaotic scene where Belgal — sitting on the ground with his hands behind his back and head drooping to one side — was surrounded by several officials. The video shows officers lifting Belgal and placing him in a black SUV. Police said he was taken to a hospital.

“Yo put pressure. Put pressure,” an officer can be heard saying as the SUV reverses down the block.

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Belgal was pulling into a parking space when a federal officer in plainclothes approached with his gun drawn, followed by another federal officer who also wasn’t in uniform. Belgal started to pull the car forward, and at least one of the officers fired seven rounds, hitting the man below his left ear.

Protesters and local officials decried the shooting as an example of the dangers of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani arrives to speak to the media about the ICE shooting in the Bronx borough of New York on Oct. 8. Mamdani said he would ask President Trump to remove federal immigration agents from the city as tensions flared over the latest shooting involving ICE.

(Charly Triballeau / AFP via Getty Images)

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin takes questions from reporters during a news conference at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters on Friday in Washington, DC. Mullin, joined by ICE officials, addressed Thursday’s shooting of a man in New York City by a federal immigration agent as he spoke out against sanctuary city policies.

(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)

“There is no justification for what we have seen today,” Mamdani said late Thursday at the scene of the shooting.

Federal officers who surrounded the vehicle wore construction vests and masks, making it difficult to identify them as immigration officers, he said.

Mullin criticizes NYC’s immigration policies

Mullin devoted much of Friday’s news conference to criticizing Mamdani and New York City’s limits on cooperation with ICE. The Democrat, who took office in January, has restricted local cooperation with immigration enforcement operations and repeatedly called for the abolition of ICE.

“Sanctuary politicians, they create an environment for criminal activity to thrive, not for the American citizens to be safe,” Mullin said.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin takes questions from reporters during a news conference at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters on Friday in Washington, DC. Mullin, joined by ICE officials, addressed Thursday’s shooting of a man in New York City by a federal immigration agent as he spoke out against sanctuary city policies.

(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)

ICE has asked local officials in New York to hold onto more than 14,000 people for federal officers to collect and place in immigration detention, he said.

“Silence. Absolute silence is what we have gotten back,” the secretary said. “Why would they release these individuals back onto the streets?”

“We’re enforcing our nation’s laws. We’re not picking and choosing,” Mullin continued. “Why is that controversial? We should all want law and order on our streets.”

ICE has justified other shootings with perceived threats to officers

During Trump’s second term, Homeland Security has often accused suspects of attempting to ram officers with vehicles or otherwise pose a threat and using that as justification for opening fire. But evidence from other shootings involving immigration enforcement officers has sometimes called into question that rationale.

In the Jan. 7 shooting death of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Homeland Security officials initially claimed an ICE officer opened fire in self-defense after Good attempted to run him over with her vehicle. Videos filmed from multiple angles challenged the administration’s narrative.

On July 10, ICE officers fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston as the Mexican national was driving his construction crew to a job site. DHS maintained Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle, but the three men inside his vehicle disputed the narrative.

Last year in a Chicago suburb, immigration officers fatally shot Silverio Villegas González after they say the Mexican national drove at them and dragged one with his car, causing “serious injuries.” But body camera videos from local police showed the agent who shot Villegas González walking around afterward and dismissing his own injuries as “nothing major.”

Santana and Marcelo write for the Associated Press. Marcelo reported from New York. AP reporters Anthony Izaguirre and Jennifer Peltz in New York City and Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa, contributed to this report.

The shooting prompted protests in New York City as officials defended ICE and Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned the incident.

The United States Department of Homeland Security has defended Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) shooting of a man in New York City while his child was present. Federal officials used the incident to criticise sanctuary-city policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

New York officials have condemned the shooting and have called for ICE to end its operations in the city.

The shooting took place on Thursday afternoon when ICE officers attempted to arrest a man identified by New York City police as Oscar Belgal.

Homeland Security officials gave their account of the incident on Friday during a news conference, saying that Belgal refused to exit his car when approached by officers and then accelerated, striking two ICE vehicles.

They said officers then opened fire, grazing Belgal’s neck while his five-year-old child was in the back seat.

According to Homeland Security officials, Belgal received first aid and was taken to hospital before being transferred to a secure detention facility outside New York state. They did not disclose where Belgal is being held.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin said that the agents did not know the child was inside the vehicle when they fired.

ICE senior official Marcos Charles said agents had attempted to arrest Belgal as part of an investigation into suspected gang involvement in an earlier shooting of a US Customs and Border Protection officer.

According to US officials, Belgal is an undocumented migrant from the Dominican Republic who had previously evaded arrest and received a five-year sentence for grand larceny in April 2025.

“[Belgal] was a thug,” Mullin said at the Friday news conference. “The absolute worst of the worst.”

Mullin confirmed that officers were wearing body cameras but the footage has not been made public. New York City police released bodycam footage on Friday of police officers on the scene who had responded to a 911 call about the incident.

In other violent incidents involving federal immigration officers, video evidence has contradicted initial accounts from ICE and Homeland Security officials, including in Minneapolis, where footage of the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good challenged federal officials’ descriptions of the encounters.

The latest shooting prompted protests on Thursday night in the Bronx, where the shooting took place, with demonstrators condemning ICE and calling for the agency to be abolished. Tensions rose after NYPD officers clashed with some of the protesters.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned the shooting and said he had called US President Donald Trump to demand an end to ICE enforcement in the city.

Speaking to reporters late on Thursday at the scene of the shooting, Mamdani said he had tried unsuccessfully to secure Belgal’s release in phone calls with Trump and Mullin.

“These actions are making the city less safe,” Mamdani said. “ICE is rotten to its core.”

Mullin accused Mamdani of prioritising politics over public safety and said Trump had offered to transfer Belgal to New York police custody if they pursued charges. Mullin said Mamdani refused this offer.

Award-winning filmmaker, who was detained last month, released on bond with next hearing set for October 27, campaign says.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in the United States has released Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh from custody after he was detained on September 24.

The award-winning filmmaker was released on Thursday, two days after he was granted bond, according to a statement by a campaign of his friends and relatives to free him.

However, ICE’s deportation case against Sheikh continues with the next hearing set for October 27, the campaign said.

Sheikh, whose work has explored conflict in his native India-administered Kashmir, was detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as he disembarked from a plane at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, DC, after arriving from California.

The 42-year-old, who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, entered the US on a student visa in 2019 to pursue graduate studies in film at Georgia State University and filed for asylum in 2020.

The campaign said he had a pending asylum application and was authorised to work and live in the US.

The DHS confirmed on Wednesday that Sheikh had been arrested on September 24 and said he “legally entered the US on a temporary basis and illegally overstayed his lawful admittance”.

A pending application does not confer legal status in the US, the DHS said, adding he ⁠will receive due process.

Sheikh’s first feature film, Saffron Kingdom, garnered multiple honours, notably best feature film at the Chicago Filmmakers Awards, Los Angeles Film and Documentary Awards, Melbourne Independent Film Festival, Wake Forest Film Festival and Anatolian International Film Awards.

In 2025, Sheikh was also recognised with the emerging filmmaker activist award at the Teaneck International Film Festival.

His detention came amid a surge in the number of ICE arrests across the US, which hit record levels over the summer. About 50,000 arrests were recorded in July and August.

President Donald Trump’s administration said in August that it was ‌working “to identify ⁠and revoke the non-immigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the US claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently”.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — When the U.S. Department of Homeland Security publicized the arrest of a Nigerian man for indecent exposure this week, it included a political attack that’s drawing complaints from Democrats and a nonpartisan government watchdog.

The department’s news release alleges that the man worked for a Democratic congressional candidate in a Pennsylvania battleground district, an unusual reference to a high-profile midterm contest.

“It’s unbelievable that Janelle Stelson would employ an illegal alien to work on a congressional campaign, let alone a pervert who exposed himself in public,” Charles Wall, deputy director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in the news release.

A police report said the man had fliers for Stelson in his vehicle. Stelson denied that the man was a campaign employee.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about how it established the man worked for Stelson. Its news release cited a news report quoting a conservative activist who asserted the connection.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint Thursday with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, calling the department’s attack on Stelson a blatant violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials from using their official positions to influence elections.

Donald Sherman, who leads CREW, said he’d never seen anything like the department’s statement, where a law enforcement agency “goes out of its way” to reference a campaign affiliation in a news release that has nothing to do with election-related crimes.

The news release is “consistent with the message that the administration and that the president has sent from the top that ICE is to be involved in elections, regardless of what the law says,” Sherman said.

Stelson, a former local television personality, is running for the second time against Republican Rep. Scott Perry in Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District. It’s expected to be one of the races that determines control of the U.S. House in the November midterms.

“If he is an illegal immigrant who committed a crime he should be deported,” Stelson’s campaign said. “We never heard of him prior to the news of his arrest. We are grateful to law enforcement for acting swiftly to arrest him.”

President Trump’s administration is already under scrutiny for using federal resources for political purposes. The Department of Homeland Security has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on advertisements glorifying Trump and promoting his campaign messaging, drawing a pair of lawsuits and bipartisan backlash.

According to a police report obtained by the Associated Press, Chimaobim Adedayo Igbojekwe was arrested by an East Pennsboro Township police officer on Sept. 27 after a report of a suspicious vehicle parked next to a public park on a residential street in the Harrisburg suburb.

The officer wrote that, when Igbojekwe opened the door to talk to the officer, he noticed that Igbojekwe’s “genitals were exposed.”

Igbojekwe told the officer he was “in the neighborhood for work and that he was waiting to hand out [fliers] for Janelle Stelson’s political campaign,” according to the report. Igbojekwe produced a stack of fliers, the officer wrote.

It’s not clear whether the man was working as a paid canvasser for another organization.

Igbojekwe was charged with disorderly conduct and indecent exposure. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, courts records say, and later was arrested by ICE.

Homeland Security said Igbojekwe entered the country legally in 2017 but remained past his “authorized period.” He was granted deferred action in 2021.

Igbojekwe’s public defender did not return a call about the case.

Levy writes for the Associated Press.

THE festive season would not be complete without a trip to London’s iconic Hyde Park Winter Wonderland. And this year you can experience the festive fun for FREE thanks to The Sun!

Here is your chance to grab two FREE tickets to the event, including entry to the amazing Magical Ice Kingdom presents Neverland, in partnership with Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity.

Join Sun Club now — don’t miss out.

We have 10,000 FREE tickets up for grabs on a first-come, first-served basis, so do not miss out.

Spreading festive cheer since 2007, Hyde Park Winter Wonderland returns from Thursday, November 19 to Sunday, January 3. 

With more than 150 rides, attractions and magical experiences to enjoy, there is something for everyone. 

Your tickets will allow you to escape to the fantastic Magical Ice Kingdom presents Neverland – an enchanted world crafted from over 500 tonnes of ice and snow and brought to life in partnership with GOSH Charity. 

The adventure begins in the Darling family nursery, where you will meet Tinkerbell and Peter Pan. 

Together you will journey through the Lost Boys’ camp, cross the enchanted mermaids pool and ‘board’ the Jolly Roger. 

Fly down frozen slides and take on the fearsome Captain Hook to free Peter Pan – but be careful not to walk the plank!

Every turn will bring the story breathtakingly to life through hundreds of hand-carved sculptures, with a donation from every ticket going towards GOSH Charity.

From visits from Santa to carol singing with the Chaplaincy team, GOSH Charity brings comfort and joy to the wards, while giving more children the hope of many more Christmases to come.

And there is plenty more Christmas magic waiting to be discovered at Winter Wonderland. 

Step out of the Magical Ice Kingdom and onto the UK’s largest open-air ice rink, enjoy a drink at Hyde Park’s iconic Victorian bandstand, or get your adrenaline pumping on one of the attraction’s many rollercoasters.

Thrillseekers can enjoy a spin on the 70m Giant Wheel for views across London or brave the Real Ice Slide powered by Joybuy.

If you fancy a party, head to the Bavarian Village for live music, DJs, seasonal singalongs and authentic German food and drink. 

Or grab some stocking fillers at the Christmas Market where you can find handcrafted gifts and tempting seasonal treats.

You can also catch the new Gandeys K-pop Dragon Circus, bringing together K-pop music, dance and circus acts.

Two FREE Winter Wonderland tickets

To claim your tickets, follow the steps below:

• Step 1: Join thesun.co.uk/club for just £1.99 a month or £12 for the first year, then £19.99 thereafter.

• Step 2: Go to the Offers Hub and select the Winter Wonderland page. You do not need to collect Sun Savers codes.

• Step 3: Your unique booking code will appear on this page. Redeeming a code does not guarantee tickets. Click the ‘Copy’ button and then hit ‘Book’. You will be directed to the Winter Wonderland website.

• Step 4: Select your preferred date and time, then choose ‘The Sun Winter Wonderland Entry & Magical Ice Kingdom Offer’. Two tickets will be added automatically to your basket. 

• Step 5: Continue to checkout to complete your booking. You must book your tickets by Sunday, November 1.

Our tickets are available for visits between Thursday, November 19 to Sunday, December 6.

Or you can pick up the The Sun newspaper from Saturday, October 10 and collect Sun Savers codes to book your tickets. 

• Go to the Offers section, click Start Collecting on the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland page.

• Collect THREE out of five Sun Savers codes printed daily in The Sun from Saturday, October 10 to Wednesday, October 14.

• Enter your THREE Sun Savers codes on sunsavers.co.uk or scan them on the Sun Savers app.

• Click ‘Book’ from 11am Monday, October 12. If you do not see the ‘Book’ button, you will need to refresh the page or restart your app. 

• Your unique booking code will appear on this page. Redeeming a code does not guarantee tickets. Click the ‘Copy’ button and then hit ‘Book’. You will be directed to the Winter Wonderland website. 

• Enter your code in the ‘Offer code’ box, select your preferred date and time. Select two tickets on ‘The Sun Winter Wonderland Entry’. Add any paid extras you would like.  

• Continue to checkout to complete your booking. You must book your tickets by Sunday, October 25. 

Join Sun Club now — don’t miss out.

18+ UK only (exc. NI, IoM & CI). Sun Savers multiple code collect 10/10/26-14/10/26 or digital subscription required. Online access required. 5,000 pairs of tickets available (7,000 off-peak, 2,000 standard & 1,000 peak) on a first come, first served basis. Subject to availability, daily allocation limits apply. Tickets available between 19/11/26 – 06/12/26. 2 tickets per person only. Non-transferable and non-refundable. T&Cs apply, see sunsavers.co.uk  or club.thesun.co.uk/sun-club. New customer offer: £2.99 per month for 3 months, £6.99 thereafter unless you cancel at least 7 days before your next billing date. Full T&Cs apply, visit thesun.co.uk/terms-and-conditions.

WASHINGTON — Six years after he was released from a California immigrant detention facility, Wilfredo Gonzalez Mena has to sleep with his back propped up by pillows, nearly in a seated position, to avoid gasping for air.

He blames his lasting medical issues on the 10 months he spent in custody until September 2020 at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles, during which guards sprayed him and fellow detainees nearly around the clock with a concentrated disinfectant meant to guard against COVID-19.

Now Gonzalez Mena, who is one of six named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2023 over the use of the cleaning solution, is expected to get a six-figure payout as part of a proposed settlement in the case, which was given preliminary approval on Sept. 25 by a federal judge in Riverside. The settlement applies to around 2,700 people detained at the Adelanto facility between March 11 and Sept. 30, 2020, who were exposed to the disinfectant called HDQ Neutral.

“When you least expected it, you would feel the mist,” Gonzalez Mena said. “They would spray us like we were animals.”

The Adelanto facility is operated by the GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison corporation that has faced criticism for years over conditions at its immigrant detention facilities. The company has also pushed back against California laws seeking to increase oversight of its facilities and inform the public about health and safety shortcomings.

Under the settlement, GEO Group and Spartan Chemical Co. Inc., the company that manufactures HDQ Neutral, acknowledged that HDQ Neutral — which is classified as a pesticide — can cause symptoms including blistering, chemical burns, vomiting, permanent eye damage, and damage to the respiratory tract, throat and stomach.

Those findings can now be used by class members who weren’t named plaintiffs and may pursue their own lawsuits, the settlement says.

Neither GEO Group nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to requests for comment. After the lawsuit was filed, GEO Group denied its allegations and said cleaning products are used safely and securely, in accordance with the manufacturer’s guidelines and sanitation standards, at all detention centers.

At the time, a GEO Group spokesperson called the allegations “part of a radical politically motivated campaign to attack ICE contractors, abolish ICE and end federal immigration detention.”

The company later swapped HDQ Neutral for a different cleaning product.

Lawyers from the Los Angeles-based civil rights nonprofit Trial Impact Project who are representing the former detainees called the settlement a victory.

Executive Director Sara Haji referenced other pending lawsuits addressing allegations such as medical neglect, retaliation and substandard food and water. Each one is a different lens into the same problem, she said.

“When a company like GEO settles instead of defending itself at trial, and when it admits that the pesticide it sprayed everywhere can cause serious health problems, it should cause us all to sit up and pay attention to what detained people have been telling us about the everyday cruelty of immigration detention,” Haji said.

The lawsuit alleged that GEO Group engaged in a “months-long poisoning” of detainees when its employees sprayed HDQ Neutral inside the facility. Before the pandemic, staffers had used it as a cleaning product. But as COVID-19 spread, they began spraying the concentrated solution across wide areas, “directly into the air and on all types of surfaces,” the lawsuit said.

Detained immigrants quickly began experiencing the effects, the lawsuit claimed, including nosebleeds, headaches and dizziness.

Spartan Chemical warns that inappropriate exposure can cause the types of effects detainees experienced. Long-term exposure has been linked to asthma and, in laboratory studies on animals, reproductive issues and birth defects.

In 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency found that GEO Group had violated federal law by misusing HDQ Neutral. The report found that staff and detainees were instructed to apply the pesticide inside the facility as often as every 30 minutes, without proper ventilation and at a dilution rate of 2 ounces per gallon of water, which is double the amount allowed for disinfectant use.

In September 2021, a federal judge ordered GEO Group to discontinue use of HDQ Neutral at the Adelanto facility, writing that it had been used “with a callous disregard for the safety of Adelanto’s detainees.”

Among the more than 100,000 pages of documents released during discovery for the lawsuit was an email from a nurse at the facility to Wendy Baca, who was acting health services administrator at the Adelanto facility for Wellpath, the company providing its medical care at the time.

The nurse wrote that patients were arriving with headaches, rashes and blisters, “we believe, due to the chemicals being used to spray.”

“Some of the officers have also reported ‘feeling burned’ after touching their skin with the same gloves that were used to handle the chemical. Please look into this so we do not endanger everyone we are trying to protect,” the nurse wrote.

Baca appeared dismissive of the nurse’s concern. She forwarded the email to GEO Group’s chief of security, asking him to look into it.

“Please also remind them not to put metal into light sockets, run with scissors, or anything usually avoided with a little common sense,” she wrote.

Mark Anthony Ferretiz, a former GEO Group cook supervisor who worked at the Adelanto facility for 14 years until March 2025, wrote in a declaration that his team was told to spray the red chemical “like Lysol.”

“I could taste the spray in my mouth when I used it, and it felt heavy in my lungs,” he wrote.

At some point, the facility’s safety manager brought men from HD Supply to talk to the staff about HDQ Neutral. After learning how often the chemical was being sprayed, one of the men told Ferretiz that it was “rat poison” and that “you’re going to kill someone like that,” he said.

Years later, former detainees such as Gonzalez Mena say they’re still living with the fallout. The former long-haul truck driver said his health deteriorated so significantly while he was detained that, afterward, he could no longer pass the required physical assessment because of his vision and breathing issues.

To make ends meet, he has turned to online resale.

“My wife says that after I was released, I didn’t go back to being the same person,” he said. “I’ve had depression and I often dream that I am there, in that place, and I want to get out.”

A UK holiday park has revealed its huge multi-million pound upgrade – and will be its largest in history.

Thurston Manor is less than an hour from Edinburgh, and has stays for as little as £18 per night.

Along with its cosy caravans and lodges, there are some very exciting additions coming its way.

The park has announced it is undergoing a huge £4million upgrade with work starting this November.

One of the largest upgrades will be to its existing indoor swimming pool which will be expanded to become 18-metres long.

It will also add a new toddler splash area, designed specifically for little children – and for adults, there will be a new jacuzzi, steam room and sauna.

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The pre-existing gym facilities will also be upgraded.

Its entertainment complex is set to be revamped too with new activities and facilities both indoors and outdoors.

Outside will be a new pirate-themed 9-hole adventure golf course, giant chess and lots of things to do like table tennis, curling – and it will install a padel court.

Inside will be a new soft play area with an upgraded games arcade including interactive darts.

The Hunter’s Bar and Restaurant is being refurbished, and will have a brand-new sports bar, as well as a transformed showbar where there will be entertainment for guests.

A new outdoor terrace will be a new spot that guests can enjoy throughout the year with open-air seating through the summer and covered for when the weather doesn’t play ball.

For those wanting sweet treats, there will also be a brand-new ice cream parlour. 

When it comes to accommodation, holiday homes and pitches will be added to the site too.

Currently, guests can stay in basic caravans, to luxury lodges including The Hideout and The Hideaway which have outdoor decks and lots of inside space.

Work is due to start in November of this year with a Grand Opening event planned for Easter 2027.

For those who want to book a break that coincides with the new additions, three-night breaks on April 23 start from £219 – or £18.25pppn.

With this break, a family of four can stay in an Essential Clover Caravan which has two bedrooms (one double, one twin), kitchen and living area.

Simon Lane, CEO of Verdant Parks, said: “This is an incredibly exciting time for Verdant Parks, our employees, our owners and our holidaymakers.

“We’re committing our biggest investment to date to Thurston Manor Holiday Park and completely transforming what guests can see, do and experience when they visit.

“From the extended swimming pool and new toddler splash area to the new padel court, pirate-themed adventure golf and transformed entertainment offering, there will be something for everyone to enjoy. 

“We’re delighted to reveal our plans for the next chapter of Thurston Manor and we can’t wait to share more details and sneak peeks as the transformation takes shape over the next six months.”

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has purchased three immigrant detention facilities in Adelanto for $950 million, according to the private prison corporation that sold them.

The sale by the GEO Group, a Florida-based government contractor, follows an initial $1.5-billion sale over the summer of two other California detention facilities by GEO’s competitor, CoreCivic of Tennessee.

The facilities owned by GEO Group include the 1,280-bed Adelanto West ICE Processing Center, the 660-bed Adelanto East ICE Processing Center and 704-bed Desert View Annex.

In total, the federal government has now spent nearly $3.2 billion on detention facility purchases, the majority of them in California. CoreCivic sold off two other facilities, in Minnesota and Kansas, in August.

The sales were made possible by an infusion last year of $45 billion for immigration detention from President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

In its announcement, GEO Group sad it will continue managing daily operations at the facilities under the company’s existing contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is effective through Dec. 19, 2034.

The company said it is engaged in an “active process” with Homeland Security for the potential sale of multiple other facilities. Those sales hinge on GEO Group’s ability to continue managing those facilities under long-term contracts, the company wrote.

“We are pleased with the completion of these important asset sales to the U.S. federal government, and we look forward to continuing to provide high-quality secure support services under our existing long-term contracts with ICE,” George C. Zoley, the company’s CEO, wrote in a news release.

“We are proud of our 40-year public-private partnership with ICE, and we stand ready to continue to assist the federal government in meeting its immigration enforcement priorities,” Zoley added.

During a shareholder call in August, Zoley said ICE was contemplating buying more than 10 facilities, and that number “could continue to grow.”

“We believe we have two types of assets: the buildings and the businesses of providing support services,” he said on the call. “We are pursuing a potential sale of the buildings, but we want to retain the business. We consider ourselves primarily a support services operator, and will place particular importance on our ability to continue our support services at any facility sold to ICE.”

GEO Group said it anticipates receiving $705 million in proceeds from the sales, after taxes and transaction fees. The company wrote that net proceeds will reduce the company’s debt and facilitate the repurchase of company shares.

This story will be updated.

Von Wilpert, 43, has served as a member of the San Diego City Council since 2020, representing District 5.

Before her foray into politics, she was an attorney who founded a legal health clinic in Mississippi to combat discrimination in housing, employment and medical care against HIV/AIDS patients. She later served as counsel on the House Education and Labor Committee and focused on labor rights during the second Obama administration.

As a council member, Von Wilpert authored bills to ban untraceable guns and launched housing grant initiatives for educators. She focused much of her tenure working to update labor laws to allow federal workers to organize, bargain with employers and establish monetary penalties for labor violations.

Desmond, 70, has served as a member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors since 2019.

Desmond is a Navy veteran and former Delta Air Lines pilot and served as the mayor of San Marcos from 2006 to 2018. As mayor, he worked to reform the pension system in order to balance the city’s budget, growing $40 million in fiscal reserves.

He has been a staunch, fiscally conservative voice on the county board of supervisors, representing county District 5, with a focus on regional infrastructure and supporting additional behavioral health facilities after San Diego County had a series of closures.