WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump says he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the United States by revoking their legal status.
Trump is blaming immigrants for problems from crime to housing shortages as part of what he calls “social dysfunction” in America and demanding “REVERSE MIGRATION.”
His most severe social media post against immigration since returning to the Oval Office in January came after the shooting Wednesday of two National Guard members who were patrolling the streets of the nation’s capital under his orders. One died and the other is in critical condition.
A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war is facing charges. The suspect came to the U.S. as part of a program after U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to resettle those who had helped American troops.
Trump’s threat to stop immigration would be a serious blow to a nation that has long defined itself as welcoming immigrants.
Since Wednesday’s shooting near the White House, administration officials have pledged to reexamine millions of legal immigrants, building on a 10-month campaign to reduce the immigrant population. In a lengthy social media post late Thursday, the Republican president asserted that millions of people born outside the U.S. and now living in the country bore a large share of the blame for America’s societal ills.
“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”
Trump was elected on a promise to crack down on illegal migration, and raids and deportations undertaken by his administration have disrupted communities across the country. Construction sites and schools have been frequent targets. The prospect of more deportations could be economically dangerous as America’s foreign-born workers account for nearly 31 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The president said on Truth Social that “most” foreign-born U.S. residents “are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels” as he blamed them for crime across the country that is predominantly committed by U.S. citizens.
There are roughly 50 million foreign-born residents in the U.S., and multiple studies have found that immigrants are generally less likely to commit crimes than are people who were born in the country.
The perception that immigration breeds crime “continues to falter under the weight of the evidence,” according to a review of academic literature last year in the Annual Review of Criminology.
“With few exceptions, studies conducted at both the aggregate and individual levels demonstrate that high concentrations of immigrants are not associated with increased levels of crime and delinquency across neighborhoods and cities in the United States,” it said.
A study by economists initially released in 2023 found immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the U.S. Immigrants have been imprisoned at lower rates for 150 years, the study found, adding to past research undermining Trump’s claims.
Trump seemed to have little interest in a policy debate in his post, which the White House, on its own rapid response social media account, called “one of the most important messages ever released by President Trump.”
He pledged to “terminate” millions of admissions to the country made during the term of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. He also wants to end federal benefits and subsidies for those who are not U.S. citizens, denaturalize people “who undermine domestic tranquility” and deport foreign nationals deemed “non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
Trump claimed immigrants from Somalia were “completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota” as he used a dated slur for intellectually disabled people to demean that state’s governor, Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee last year.
On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration. On Thursday, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, said the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible.”
Edlow did not name the countries. But in June, the administration banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries and restricted access from seven others, citing national security concerns.
The shooting of the two National Guard members appeared to trigger Trump’s anger over immigrants, yet he did not specifically refer to the event in his social media post.
The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is accused of driving across the country to the District of Columbia and shooting two West Virginia National Guard members, Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. Beckstrom died Thursday; Wolfe is in critical condition.
Lakanwal, currently in custody, was also shot and had wounds that were not believed to be life-threatening.
Trump was asked by a reporter Thursday if he blamed the shootings on all Afghans who came to the U.S.
“No, but we’ve had a lot of problems with Afghans,” the president said.
CHICAGO — Chicago has entered what many consider a new uneasy phase of a Trump administration immigration crackdown that has already led to thousands of arrests.
While a U.S. Border Patrol commander known for leading intense and controversial surges moved on to North Carolina, federal agents are still arresting immigrants across the nation’s third-largest city and suburbs.
A growing number of lawsuits stemming from the crackdown are winding through the courts. Authorities are investigating agents’ actions, including a fatal shooting. Activists say they are not letting their guard down in case things ramp up again, while many residents in the Democratic stronghold remain anxious.
“I feel a sense of paranoia over when they might be back,” said Santani Silva, an employee at a vintage store in the predominantly Mexican American neighborhood of Pilsen. “People are still afraid.”
Intensity slows, but arrests continue
For more than two months, the Chicago area was the focus of an aggressive operation led by Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol commander behind similar efforts in Los Angeles and soon Louisiana.
Armed and masked agents used unmarked SUVs and helicopters throughout the city of 2.7 million and its suburbs to target suspected criminals and immigration violators. Arrests often led to intense standoffs with bystanders, from wealthy neighborhoods to working-class suburbs.
While the intensity has died down in the week since Bovino left, reports of arrests still pop up. Activists tracking immigration agents said they confirmed 142 daily sightings at the height of the operation last month. The number is now roughly six a day.
“It’s not over,” said Brandon Lee with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. “I don’t think it will be over.”
Suburb under siege
Bearing the brunt of the operation has been Broadview, a Chicago suburb of roughly 8,000 people that has housed a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center for years.
Protests outside the facility have grown increasingly tense as federal agents used chemical agents that area neighbors felt. Broadview police also launched three criminal investigations into federal agents’ tactics.
Community leaders took the unusual step of declaring a civil emergency last week and moving public meetings online.
Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson said the community has faced bomb threats, death threats and violent protests because of the crackdown.
“I will not allow threats of violence or intimidation to disrupt the essential functions of our government,” Thompson said.
Questionable arrests and detentions
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has touted more than 3,000 arrests, but the agency has provided details on only a few cases in which immigrants without legal permission to live in the country also had a criminal history.
The Trump administration posts photos on social media of supposed violent criminals apprehended in immigration operations, but the federal government’s own data paint a different picture.
Of 614 immigrants arrested and detained in recent months around Chicago, only 16, less than 3%, had criminal records representing a “high public safety risk,” according to federal government data submitted to the court as part of a 2022 consent decree about ICE arrests. Those records included domestic battery and drunk driving.
A judge in the cases said hundreds of immigrant detainees qualify to be released on bond, though an appeals court has paused their release. Attorneys say many more cases will follow as they get details from the government about arrests.
“None of this has quite added up,” said Ed Yohnka with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which has been involved in several lawsuits. “What was this all about? What did this serve? What did any of this do?”
Investigations and lawsuits
The number of lawsuits triggered by the crackdown is growing, including on agents’ use of force and conditions at the Broadview center. In recent days, clergy members filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging they were being blocked from ministering inside a facility.
Federal prosecutors have also repeatedly dropped charges against protesters and other bystanders, including dismissing charges against a woman who was shot several times by a Border Patrol agent last month.
Meanwhile, federal agents are also under investigation in connection with the death of a suburban man fatally shot by ICE agents during a traffic stop. Mexico’s president has called for a thorough investigation, while ICE has said it did not use excessive force.
An autopsy report, obtained by the Associated Press last week, showed Silverio Villegas González died from a gunshot fired at “close range” to his neck. The death was declared a homicide.
In October, the body of the 38-year-old father who spent two decades in the U.S. was buried in the western Mexico state of Michoacan.
A chilling effect
Many of the once bustling business corridors in the Chicago area’s largely immigrant communities that had quieted down were seeing a buzz again with some street vendors slowly returning to their usual posts.
Andrea Melendez, the owner of Pink Flores Bakery and Cafe, said she has seen an increase in sales after struggling for months.
“As a new business, I was a bit scared when we saw sales drop,” she said. “But this week I’m feeling a bit more hope that things may get better.”
Eleanor Lara, 52, has spent months avoiding unnecessary trips outside her Chicago home, fearful that an encounter with immigration agents could have dire consequences.
Even as a U.S. citizen, she is afraid and carries her birth certificate. She is married to a Venezuelan man whose legal status is in limbo.
“We’re still sticking home,” she said.
Tareen and Fernando write for the Associated Press.
The immigrant experience holds special meaning to Rams defensive end Kobie Turner — his grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica and his wife’s parents immigrated from Peru. When choosing an organization to highlight in the NFL’s “My Cause My Cleats” campaign, he wanted to show support not only for his family but all immigrants as well.
“There’s been a lot of hard times as of late, a lot of families that are not sure what comes next and I just want to uplift them,” Turner said. “Immigrants are so important to America; they are the backbone to this country.”
The NFL’s “My Cause My Cleats” initiative started after Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall was fined for violating the league’s uniform policy when he wore cleats promoting Mental Health Awareness Week in October 2013.
After criticizing the NFL for failing to support players and their charitable causes, he met with league officials and two sides created a campaign that allowed players to wear custom-designed cleats that highlighted an organization they support. Since 2016 the “My Cause My Cleats” campaign has been a mainstay on the NFL calendar.
With the immigrant community in Los Angeles and across the country dealing with raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Turner wanted to meet the moment by partnering with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, an organization that advocates for the civil rights of immigrants and refugees.
Rams defensive end Kobie Turner’s cleats for the NFL’s 2025 “My Cause My Cleats” campaign. The cleats support CHIRLA, an organization dedicated to the advance the human and civil rights of immigrants and refugees.
(Los Angeles Rams)
He is the only player in the NFL supporting an immigrant rights charity via the “My Cause My Cleats” campaign.
“I really wanted to do something to lend a voice to the immigrant community,” Turner said, “and I know that CHIRLA does a really good job of providing opportunities and pathways for citizenship.”
Luis Tadeo, director of marketing and public relations of CHIRLA, understands the critical role sports and culture play in shaping the way that the community engages and heals in unprecedented times. He knows having the support of a star player on one of L.A.’s biggest sports teams is a powerful statement.
“We hope that other players and other teams in Los Angeles, who have been silent during these moments, see Turner and the Rams as an example of what they could do for immigrant families,” Tadeo said.
Turner, 26, will wear the bright pink cleats when the Rams go for their sixth consecutive win Sunday night against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at SoFi Stadium. One of the stars of a Rams pass-rushing contingent that includes Byron Young, Jared Verse and Braden Fiske, Turner has 22 tackles and 1½ sacks for an 8-2 Rams team that is among the favorites to win the Super Bowl.
Bursting onto the NFL scene two years ago with an impressive nine-sack rookie campaign, Turner gained fame for an appearance on “The Masked Singer” last year, belting out notes befitting of “The Conductor” nickname he earned while singing in college. Music and football played big roles in Turner’s life while growing up in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Clifton, Va.
Rams defensive end Kobie Turner tries to break through the Baltimore Ravens’ offensive line during a game on Oct. 12.
(Terrance Williams / Associated Press)
Now he wants to give a voice to something that goes beyond football and singing — he wants to remind everyone that immigrants are an integral part of American culture.
“You look around and you see ‘Vamos Rams,’ the communities that we serve are immigrant communities,” Turner said. “It’s important to be able to lend a voice to those people and let them know that they are being heard.”
For Turner, his charitable efforts go beyond this weekend. On Tuesday, Turner, Rams staff members and cheerleaders, in conjunction with South L.A. nonprofit A Place Called Home, will serve meals and distribute 400 turkeys and Thanksgiving supplies to families in need. Turner also will perform with 29Live, the youth band of A Place Called Home, during the event.
“Our mission is to achieve a just society fully inclusive of immigrants, and whether that’s on the football pitch, if it’s in the halls of Congress, if it’s at the White House making decisions on laws that will impact the lives of immigrants, we need all of the support,” Tadeo said.
President Trump’s pledge to terminate temporary legal protections for Somalis living in Minnesota is triggering fear in the state’s deeply rooted immigrant community, along with doubts about whether the White House has the legal authority to enact the directive as described.
In a social media post late Friday, Trump said he would “immediately” strip Somali residents in Minnesota of Temporary Protected Status, a legal safeguard against deportation for immigrants from certain countries.
The announcement was immediately challenged by some state leaders and immigration experts, who characterized Trump’s declaration as a legally dubious effort to sow fear and suspicion toward Minnesota’s Somali community, the largest in the nation.
“There’s no legal mechanism that allows the president to terminate protected status for a particular community or state that he has beef with,” said Heidi Altman, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center.
“This is Trump doing what he always does: demagoguing immigrants without justification or evidence and using that demagoguery in an attempt to take away important life-saving protections,” she added.
The protection has been extended 27 times for Somalis since 1991, with U.S. authorities determining that it was unsafe for people already in the United States to return to Somalia.
The Trump administration could, however, move to revoke the legal protection for Somalis nationally. But that move would affect only a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of Somalis living in Minnesota. A report produced for Congress in August put the number of Somalis covered by TPS at 705 nationwide.
“I am a citizen and so are [the] majority of Somalis in America,” Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat born in Somalia, said in a social media post Friday. “Good luck celebrating a policy change that really doesn’t have much impact on the Somalis you love to hate.”
Still, advocates warned the move could inflame hate against a community at a time of rising Islamophobia.
“This is not just a bureaucratic change,” said Jaylani Hussein, president of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “It is a political attack on the Somali and Muslim community driven by Islamophobic and hateful rhetoric.”
In his social media post, Trump claimed, without offering evidence, that Somali gangs had targeted Minnesota residents and referred to the state as a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”
Federal prosecutors have in recent weeks brought charges against dozens of people in a social-services fraud scheme. Some of the defendants are from Somalia.
Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, has noted that Minnesota consistently ranks among the safest states in the country.
“It’s not surprising that the president has chosen to broadly target an entire community,” Walz said Friday. “This is what he does to change the subject.”
Community advocates say that the Somali diaspora in Minnesota has helped to revitalize downtown corridors in Minneapolis and plays a prominent role in the state’s politics.
“The truth is that the Somali community is beloved and long-woven into the fabric of many neighborhoods and communities in Minnesota,” Altman said. “Destabilizing families and communities makes all of us less safe and not more.”
As part of a broader push to adopt hard-line immigration policies, the Trump administration has moved to withdraw various protections that had allowed immigrants to remain in the United States and work legally.
That included ending TPS for 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians who were granted protection under former President Biden. The Trump administration has also sought to limit protections previously extended to migrants from Cuba and Syria, among other countries.
WASHINGTON — For more than a year, detainees at a California immigrant detention center said, they were summoned from their dorms to a lieutenant’s office late at night. Hours frequently passed, they said, before they were sent back to their dorms.
What they allege happened in the office became the subject of federal complaints, which accuse Lt. Quin, then an administrative manager, of harassing, threatening and coercing immigrants into sexual acts at the Golden State Annex in McFarland. A person with that nameworked in a higher-ranking post, as chief of security, at the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana until August — the same month The Times sent questions to the company that operates the facilities.
The Department of Homeland Security said it could not substantiate the allegations. According to an attorney for one of the detainees, the California Attorney General’s office opened an investigation into the matter.
Immigrant advocates point to the case as one of many allegations of abuse in U.S. immigration facilities, within a system which they say fails to properly investigate.
In three complaints reviewed by The Times that were filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), to a watchdog agency and with DHS, detainees accused Quin of sexual assault, harassment and other misconduct. The complainants initially knew the lieutenant only as “Lt. Quinn,” and he is referred to as such in the federal complaints, though the correct spelling is “Quin.”
The complaints also allege other facility staff knew about and facilitated abuse, perpetuating a culture of impunity.
The Golden State Annex, a U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement detention facility, in McFarland last year.
The California and Louisiana facilities are both operated by the Florida-based private prison giant, the GEO Group.
A Dec. 10, 2024, post on Instagram Threads appears to allude to issues Quin faced in California. The post pictures him standing in front of a GEO Group flag and states: “Permit me to reintroduce myself … You will respect my authority. They tried to hinder me, but God intervened.”
Asked about the accusations, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant Homeland Security public affairs secretary, said in a statement that allegations of misconduct by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees or contractors are treated seriously and investigated thoroughly.
“These complaints were filed in 2024 — well before current DHS leadership and the necessary reforms they implemented,” McLaughlin wrote. “The investigation into this matter has concluded, and ICE — through its own investigation reviewed by [the DHS office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties] — could not substantiate any complaint of sexual assault or rape.”
The GEO Group did not respond to requests for comment.
Advocates for the detainees say they are undeterred and will continue to seek justice for people they say have been wronged.
Advocates also say the potential for abuse at detention facilities will grow as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown brings such facilities to record population levels. The population of detained immigrants surpassed a high of 61,000 in August, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan research organization.
The allegations against Quin by a 28-year-old detainee are detailed in his FTCA complaint, a precursor to a lawsuit, filed in January with DHS. The complaint seeks $10 million for physical and emotional damages.
The Times generally does not identify alleged victims of sexual abuse and is referring to him by his middle initial, E.
McLaughlin’s response did not address the FTCA complaint that details E’s sexual assault allegations.
Reached by phone, Quin told The Times, “I don’t speak with the media,” and referred a reporter to the Golden State Annex. After being read the allegations against him and asked to respond, he hung up.
E alleged abuse in interviews with The Times, and in a recorded interview with an attorney, which formed the basis for the FTCA complaint.
In the complaint, he said that beginning in May 2023, Quin would call him into a room, where no cameras or staff were present, to say he had been given a citation or that guards had complained about him.
One day, the complaint alleges, Quin rubbed his own genitals over his pants and began making sexual comments. E told Quin he felt uncomfortable and wanted to go back to his dorm. But Quin smirked, dragged his chair closer and grabbed E in the crotch, the complaint says.
After E pushed Quin away and threatened to defend himself physically, the complaint alleges, Quin made his own threat: to call a “code black” — an emergency — that would summon guards and leave E facing charges of assaulting a federal officer.
Instead, E said, Quin called for an escort to take him back to his dorm.
After that, the late-night summons — sometimes at midnight or 2 a.m. — increased, E said in his complaint. Each time, Quin continued to rub his genitals over his clothes, according to the complaint.
The complaint alleges Quin repeatedly offered to help with E’s immigration case in exchange for sexual favors. Then Quin found out E is bisexual and E alleged Quin threatened to tell his family during a visit. Afraid of his family finding out about his sexuality, E said in the complaint, he finally acquiesced to letting Quin touch his genitals and perform oral sex on him.
“I just, I ended up doing it,” E said in a recorded interview with his attorney.
Afterward, the complaint says, Quin told E that he would make sure to help him, and that no one would find out.
The complaint alleges that Quin brought E contraband gifts, including a phone, and, around Christmas, a water bottle full of alcohol.
“I feel dirty,” E said in the recorded interview. “I feel ashamed of myself, you know? I feel like my dignity was just nowhere.”
E said in his complaint that a staff member told him in December 2023 that a guard had reported Quin to the warden after noticing E had been out of his dorm for a long time; the guard had reviewed security cameras showing Quin giving E the bottle of alcohol.
E said the staffer told him that Quin was temporarily suspended from interacting with detainees, and the late-night summons stopped for a while.
Lee Ann Felder-Heim, staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, which filed a complaint with the federal government alleging mistreatment of detainees at the Golden State Annex in McFarland.
(Maria del Rio / For The Times)
A second, earlier complaint alleging mistreatment at the McFarland facility was filed on E’s behalf in August 2024 by the Asian Law Caucus with the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL).
That complaint alleges that other GEO Group staff targeted him with sexually harassing and degrading comments. It does not address E’s sexual assault allegations, because E said he was initially too afraid to talk about them.
Once, when E was lying on his stomach in his cell, a guard commented loudly to other staff that he was waiting for a visit from Quin; the guard made a motion of putting her finger through a hole, insinuating that E sought to engage in sexual intercourse, the complaint states.
The broader issue isn’t one person, “but rather a system of impunity and abuse,” said Lee Ann Felder-Heim, a staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus. “The reports make it clear that other staff were aware of what was going on and actually were assisting in making it happen.”
In addition to detailing E’s own experiences, the complaint also details abuse and harassment of five other detainees. One detainee is transgender, a fact that would play a role in how federal officials investigated the complaint.
In February and March, CRCL sent Felder-Heim letters saying it had closed the investigation into the alleged sexual abuse and harassment, citing, as justification, Trump’s First-Day executive order concerning “gender ideology extremism.” The order prohibits using federal funds to “promote gender ideology,” so Felder-Heim said it appears the investigation was shut down because one of the complainants is transgender.
She called the investigation process flawed and “wholly inadequate.”
E filed a third complaint with another oversight body, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. To his knowledge, no investigation was initiated.
In March, the Trump administration shut down three internal oversight bodies: CRCL, OIDO and the Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) Ombudsman. Civil rights groups sued the following month, prompting the agency to resurrect the offices.
But staffing at the offices was decimated, according to sworn court declarations by DHS officials. CRCL has gone from having 147 positions to 22; OIDO from about 118 to about 10; and the CIS Ombudsman from 46 to about 10.
“All legally required functions of CRCL continue to be performed, but in an efficient and cost-effective manner and without hindering the Department’s mission of securing the homeland,” said McLaughlin, the DHS spokeswoman.
Michelle Brané, who was the immigrant detention ombudsman under the Biden administration, said the civil rights office generally had first dibs on complaints about sexual assault. She recalled the complaint about Quin but said her office didn’t investigate it because the civil rights office already was.
Brané said the decrease in oversight amid increased detention will inevitably exacerbate issues such as allegations of sexual assault. Worse conditions also make it harder to hire quality staff, she said.
Around the same time that E was held at Golden State Annex, a gay couple from Colombia reported in April 2024 to the OIDO that Quin had sexually harassed them.
D.T., 26, and C.B., 25, were separated upon arrival at Golden State Annex. D.T. began to experience severe anxiety attacks, they said in the Asian Law Caucus complaint and in an interview with The Times. The couple asked to be placed in the same dormitory.
Before granting their request, Quin asked what they would give him in return, the couple recounted in the complaint. Afterward, the complaint alleges, he frequently invited them to his office, saying they owed him.
“We never accepted going to his office, because we knew what it was for,” C.B. told the Times.
In their complaint, they allege that Quin asked D.T. if he wanted to have sex and told C.B., “You belong to me.”
The couple became aware that Quin had also harassed other detainees and gave preferential treatment to those who they believed accepted his requests for sexual favors, according to the complaint; one detainee told them that he had grabbed Quin’s hand and placed it on his penis to avoid being taken to solitary confinement for starting a fight.
D.T. said in an interview with The Times that he believes “below him are many people who never said anything.”
In a Dec. 2, 2024, internal facility grievance from Golden State Annex reviewed by The Times, another detainee alleges that Quin retaliated against him for speaking out against misconduct.
In the grievance and in an interview with The Times, the detainee said he spoke up after, on several occasions, watching another man walk to Quin’s office late at night and come back to the dorm hours later. He also said in the grievance that Quin brought in marijuana, cellphones and other contraband.
Another witness, Gustavo Flores, 33, said Quin recognized him as a former Golden State Annex detainee when he was briefly transferred to the Alexandria facility, just before his deportation to El Salvador in May.
Quin pulled Flores aside and offered to uncuff him and get him lunch in exchange for cleaning the lobby; after he finished, Quin brought him into his office, where he peppered Flores with questions about Golden State Annex, Flores said.
Flores said he asked about certain staffers and detainees. He told Flores people wanted to sue him, calling them “crybabies.”
“He’s telling me everything, like, ‘Oh yeah, I know what goes on over there,’” Flores said.
When E tried to end the sexual encounters, his complaint says, Quin threatened to have him sent to a detention facility in Texas or have his deportation expedited.
In October 2024, E was transferred to the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield.
Heliodoro Moreno, E’s attorney, said the California Attorney General’s Office confirmed to him in February that it was investigating. An investigator interviewed E in April and again in May, he said, and the investigation remains open.
California Department of Justice spokesperson Nina Sheridan declined to comment on a potential investigation. But in a statement she said the office remains vigilant of “ongoing, troubling conditions” at detention facilities throughout California.
“We are especially concerned that conditions at these facilities are only set to worsen as the Trump Administration continues to ramp up its inhumane campaign of mass deportation,” she wrote.
E, who had a pending claim for a special status known as withholding of removal, dropped his case in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Moreno said his client wished to no longer be detained.
“It’s very unfortunate that he’s in these circumstances,” Moreno said. His client was forced to forgo his appellate rights and leave “without really getting a conclusion to receiving justice for what happened to him.”
CHICAGO — When I turned on my phone after landing at O’Hare Airport on Wednesday, texts poured in from friends and colleagues warning that I was about to enter a region under siege.
Many sent a video from that morning of immigration agents running into a day care facility in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood to pull out a teacher. It was the latest attack against the metropolis by President Trump’s deportation Leviathan, whose so-called Operation Midway Blitz this fall has made its earlier occupation of Los Angeles look like a play date.
Armed agents have sauntered through downtown and manned a flotilla of boats on the Chicago River. They shot and killed a fleeing immigrant and raided an apartment building with the help of a Black Hawk helicopter. In nearby Broadview, home to the region’s main ICE detention facility, rooftop migra shot pepper balls at protesters below, including a pastor. They even tear-gassed a neighborhood that was about to host a Halloween children’s parade, for chrissakes.
From Back of the Yards to Cicero, Brighton Park to Evanston, immigration agents have sown terror throughout Chicagoland with such glee that a federal judge declared that it “shocks the conscience” and issued an injunction limiting their use of force — which they no doubt will ignore.
I was in town to speak to students at the University of Chicago about the importance of reporting on things one may not like. Heaven knows that’s been my 2025. But as I waited to deplane, I checked my email and found something I’ve sorely needed this year:
Hope.
On Tuesday, Democrats won governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia by wide margins. Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York, telling Trump to “Turn. The. Volume. Up” during a soaring victory speech.
Back home in California, 64% of voters favored Proposition 50, the ballot initiative crafted by Gov. Gavin Newsom to create up to five Democratic-leaning congressional districts in response to Trump’s gerrymandering in Texas.
It was a humiliating rebuke of Trumpism. And the tip of the Democratic spear? Latinos.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic governor-elect in New Jersey, takes a photo during an election-night party. Democrats reclaimed political momentum Tuesday with gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia, early signs that voter unease with the economy in President Trump’s second term could give them a path to winning control of Congress next year.
(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In New Jersey, where Trump received 46% of the Latino vote in 2024, a CNN exit poll showed just 31% of Latinos siding with the losing GOP candidate for governor. Nearly two-thirds of Latinos in Virginia went against Cuban American Atty. General Jason Miyares, a Republican who also lost. The CNN poll also found that more than 70% of California Latinos voted for Proposition 50, a year after GOP Latino legislators made historic gains in Sacramento.
At the same time, support for Trump has dropped among Latinos. Only 25% of Latinos surveyed in October by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research viewed Trump favorably — a cratering from the 45% who liked him in April. Even more telling, two-thirds of Latino men thought negatively of Trump — despite 51% of that demographic choosing him in 2024.
Latinos’ leftward shift on election night already set off as many thought pieces as Trump did when he captured 48% of the Latino vote — the most a Republican presidential candidate has earned, despite his long history of slurring, maligning and insulting America’s largest minority. Democrats, who have long depended on Latino voters, were shocked, and GOP leaders were delighted, feeling that a demographic that had long eluded them was finally, truly within reach.
This week Latinos sent a loud message: You had your chance, y nada.
House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to play off his party’s collapse among Latinos to NBC News, sniffling, “I do believe that the demographic shift that we were able to see and experience in the 2024 election will hold.”
Mike: time to bring the Republican Party out of its Stockholm syndrome. Your guy has blown it with Latinos. Let him keep doubling down on his madness, and Latinos will continue to flip on ustedes like a tortilla.
Trump’s 2024 victory was the culmination of an extraordinary shift in the Latino electorate that few saw coming — but I did. As I’ve written ad nauseam since 2016, Latinos were beginning to favor the GOP on issues like limited government, immigration restrictions and transgender athletes in high school sports because Democrats were taking them for granted, obsessing over woke shibboleths while neglecting blue-collar issues like gas prices and high taxes.
A voter holds a sign in Spanish while riding with other voters to the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center as part of a 2024 event organized by LUCHA (Living United For Change In Arizona) for Latinx voters and volunteers in Arizona.
(Anna Watts/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
All this was was happening as the Biden administration made it easier for newly arrived undocumented immigrants to remain, angering those who have been here for decades without similar help. The long-standing tendency for Latinos to sympathize with the latest Latin Americans to cross over eroded, and some became more receptive to Trump’s apocalyptic words against open borders.
Last year 63% of Latinos in California considered undocumented immigrants to be a “burden,” according to a poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.
That happened to be the same percentage of California voters who favored Prop. 187, the infamous 1994 initiative that sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants and showed the GOP that xenophobic politics can work.
After the 2024 election, Latinos seemed to be joining earlier Catholic immigrants who were once cast as invaders — Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans — on the road to assimilation and the waiting arms of the Republican party. All Trump had to do was improve the economy and clamp down on the border. If he did the former, Latinos would have been largely supportive of the latter, as long as deportations focused on newcomers.
Instead, Trump wasted his opportunity.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents knock on the door of a residence during a targeted enforcement operation in Chicago.
Trump officials keep issuing punitive policies that crush the dreams of Latinos, like a crackdown on English fluency in the trucking industry and ending federal grants that helped colleges and universities recruit and retain Latino students.
Federal agents leave the area of North A Street as residents and community members protest an early morning federal enforcement action in Oxnard.
(Julie Leopo/For The Times)
But Trump’s biggest mistake has been his indiscriminate deportation raids. His toxic alphabet soup of immigration enforcement agencies — HSI, ERO, CPB, ICE — largely has ignored the so-called “worst of the worst” in favor of tamale ladies, fruteros and longtime residents. Nearly three-quarters of immigrants in ICE detention as of September have no criminal convictions, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Trump’s deportation deluge has rained down across the country as his administration repeatedly has exhibited white supremacist tendencies, from effectively blocking all new refugees except South African Boers to pumping out social media garbage extolling a mythical America where white makes right and Latinos exist only as blurry mug shots of alleged illegal immigrants.
A federal agent holds his weapon as law enforcement officers conduct a raid on street vendors. New Yorkers witnessing the attempted detainments began protesting and attempted to block agents.
(Michael Nigro/LightRocket via Getty Images)
No wonder 65% of Latinos feel it’s a “bad time” to be Latino in the U.S. — a 25-percentage-point drop in optimism from March of last year, according to an Axios-Ipsos poll done with Telemundo and released this week.
Trump even is losing credibility among Latino Republicans, with a September 2024 AP-NORC poll finding that 83% of them had a “very” or “somewhat” positive view of the president last year.
Trump very well can win back some of those Latinos in 2026 if the economy improves. But every time his migra goons tackle innocents, another Latino will turn on him and get ready to fight back.
At the University of Chicago, orange whistles hung around a bronze bust just outside the room where I spoke. They’ve become a symbol of resistance to Trump’s invasion of the City of Strong Shoulders, blown by activists to alert everyone that la migra is on the prowl.
A bronze bust with whistles around it inside Swift Hall at the University of Chicago. They’ve become a symbol of resistance, blown by activists to alert everyone that la migra is on the prowl.
(Gustavo Arellano/Los Angeles Times)
I grabbed one as a memento of my time here and also as a reminder of what’s happening with Latinos right now. Nationwide, we’re warning everyone from the front lines — the streets, the ballot box, the courtroom, everywhere — about the excesses of Trump and warning him what happens if he doesn’t listen.
