SACRAMENTO — Until the FBI raided his Capitol office last August, Assemblyman Pat Nolan of Glendale was a blazing young star of Republican politics.
Leader of the Assembly GOP, with a reputation for relentless pursuit of his goals and boundless ambition, he hoped to pick up enough seats over the next few elections to win a majority and become Speaker. He talked about running for governor one day.
None of it seemed beyond his reach.
Now, at age 38, stripped of his leadership post, Nolan is struggling for political survival.
Last June 29, Nolan and an aide were videotaped at a meeting in a hotel room where FBI agents posing as businessmen handed him two $5,000 checks for his campaign committees, sources familiar with the three-year FBI probe have told The Times.
Nolan failed to report one of those checks until after the Capitol raid, a full month after it should have been disclosed; just a mistake, according to those close to him.
The lawmaker has not been accused of a crime, but federal sources say he is a target of the investigation.
Nolan’s attorney has told him not to talk to the press beyond a brief statement, issued the day after the raid, saying that “when the investigation is completed, my office will be completely cleared.”
Friends and enemies alike describe Nolan as a driven soul, someone who has devoted himself unflaggingly to conservative politics since adolescence and who, once he attained power, could be ruthless in his exercise of it.
A review of public records as well as his daily calendar shows his preoccupation with raising money for political campaigns. During one hard-charging stretch last August, he was scheduled to attend five fund-raising events in a day as he hustled to keep pace with the money-raising of Assembly Democrats.
Spoils of High Office
The same records illustrate that with power came the spoils of high office. Special-interest groups paid him for speeches, sent him gifts and provided him with trips.
In his 10 years in the Legislature, the documents show, he has collected more than $60,000 in honorariums–about $55,000 of it in the four years that he was Republican leader.
Other legislators have collected far larger amounts for speaking, but some of the specifics about Nolan’s honorariums raise questions.
Nolan was one of several legislative leaders, for example, to receive sizable speaking fees–in his case, $5,000–from the California Retailers Assn. during the 1987-88 legislative session. Last year, the lobbying group won approval of its bill to eliminate an 18% cap on interest rates that department stores may charge customers, a limit in place since the early 1960s.
Arranged Meeting
One payment of $2,500 in 1988 came from Glaxo Inc., which was lobbying to have its anti-ulcer drug Zantac added to the list of medications covered by Medi-Cal. After a bill to add the drug to the list died in the Legislature, Nolan arranged a meeting between Glaxo representatives and top Administration health officials. The money, payment for a speech that Nolan never delivered, was deposited into his personal account by his secretary. But the payment was returned in late September, three months after it was received and one month after the FBI raid.
Other special-interest groups–the Seafood Institute and Ralphs Grocery Co.–in 1986 provided a total of $6,612 in food and beverages at Nolan’s wedding reception. And businessman Del Doye, whose firm, TSD Systems of Bakersfield, was trying to win a toxic disposal permit from the state, provided the newlyweds with a honeymoon condominium in Hawaii. (Doye has left the company and the permit still is pending.)
As leader of the Assembly GOP, Nolan met regularly with Gov. George Deukmejian and his top aides, according to his calendar, which was obtained by The Times from a Republican source.
Wife Hired
Through his contacts, Nolan learned that there was an unadvertised Administration job available that might be suitable for his wife, Gail, a marketing specialist. In February, she was appointed by the governor to the $3,323-a-month public relations post at the Department of Food and Agriculture. Part of her job was to win a spot for the Dancing Raisins on the “Today Show” on National Agriculture Day, department officials said. The raisins did not make the show and Gail Nolan left her job in June to have a baby.
While a legislator, Nolan has continued to receive a $6,000-a-year-retainer from Kinkle, Rodiger & Spriggs, a Southern California law firm he joined after law school. The firm specializes in defending individuals and insurance companies in personal injury cases. Nolan’s duties include meeting with attorneys and clients to discuss legislative procedures, according to managing partner John V. Hager.
Nolan’s friends defend him as a committed idealist, an honest man who has not profited personally from his office.
“There is not a more honest guy in the whole world, with more integrity and just good character than Pat Nolan,” said Assemblyman Dennis Brown (R-Los Alamitos), a close friend of Nolan’s for 20 years.
‘Decent, Caring Person’
“Pat is really a very decent, caring person, who has very strong political beliefs and has spent 10 years trying to advance them,” said his former chief of staff, Bill Saracino, who like Brown has known Nolan since their student days at USC. “He’s not one of those legislators who have enriched themselves.”
Saracino, now a deputy director at the state Department of Commerce, also defended Nolan’s acceptance of speaking fees from various interest groups: “No. 1, it’s legal. And look who Pat’s getting honorariums from–people who agree with him on the natural anyway.”
One of his chief Republican opponents, Assemblyman Stan Statham of Oak Run, in a bitter speech before the Assembly, accused Nolan of being a liar–harsh language for one legislator to use against another on a house floor, and especially so in this case because the attack came during normally festive opening-day ceremonies with Nolan’s family in attendance.
Personal Dealings Told
“I can’t be charitable because I’ve had too many personal dealings with him (Nolan),” Statham said in an interview. Nolan broke a promise not to become involved in 1986 Republican primaries and opposed a candidate supported by Statham, the lawmaker said.
“Nothing in politics is any more important than a person’s word,” Statham said.
He also pointed out that Nolan is a central figure in an investigation of forged letters sent out on White House stationery under a phony signature of then-President Ronald Reagan in support of Republican Assembly candidates in 1986.
Although Sacramento County Dist. Atty. John Dougherty decided not to press criminal charges in the case last fall, he asserted that both Nolan and Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) “asked staff members to give false explanations to White House staff” on how the forgery took place.
State Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, who conducted the initial investigation and referred it to Dougherty, is now deciding whether to drop the matter or move ahead on his own.
Several Maladies
Nolan is a large man, hefty but not obese, someone whose size can be intimidating in a head-to-head confrontation.
Recently his usually florid skin has had an orange cast from medication he takes for a chronic yeast infection, one of several maladies that he has complained of over the years, according to those close to him.
“He’s a bit of a hypochondriac,” observed Republican Assemblyman Gil Ferguson of Newport Beach, who acknowledges that Nolan does have some real health problems.
Ferguson, a Nolan ally, was one of several people interviewed who commented on Nolan’s hot temperament–something Ferguson attributed to hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. “He’d explode because of a lack of sugar content,” Ferguson said.
‘Jekyll and Hyde’
Others describe him as having a “Jekyll and Hyde” personality–a charming teller of jokes and stories one minute, an ogre growling out his displeasure the next.
As a young man, his storytelling got him booted from a group of conservative students attending free enterprise seminars sponsored by Coast Federal Savings, when a woman in the group complained that he was telling dirty jokes.
“People thought conservatives were humorless, stuffy and boring,” said another member of the group, Bilenda Harris. “Pat is a wonderful teller of jokes.”
He also sprinkles his conversations with quotations–from Shakespeare and Marcus Aurelius, Sophocles and Machiavelli–a practice that dates back to his days at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks.
“He’s like the renaissance man, a very well-read, very rounded individual,” Harris said.
But Harris, who also was a classmate of Nolan’s at USC and later an aide in his Glendale office, knows what it’s like to fall into Nolan’s disfavor. In 1983, Nolan fired her only six weeks after she moved with her son to Sacramento to take a new job in the lawmaker’s Capitol office.
Nolan is the boy’s godfather.
Others say that in 1987 Nolan fired another USC classmate, then-chief of staff Saracino, who had been the best man at his wedding.
“Pat just cut his head off,” Assemblyman Ferguson said.
Saracino denied that he was fired, saying that he and Nolan had agreed to go their separate ways because of “differences of style.”
But he agreed that Nolan was a tough boss. “ ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ is a bit of hyperbole,” Saracino said. “But he is a very demanding person, as you have to be if you want to get anything done.”
“Pat gets torn in this stuff,” Harris said. “The need to get elected overrides the friendship that used to be there.”
Focus on Goals
Ruthless is an adjective that Ferguson ascribes to Nolan.
“Few people have the ability or the willingness to focus on their objectives at the cost of almost everything else–friends, family life,” Ferguson said.
The sixth of nine children, Nolan showed a precocious interest in politics. He got his first taste in 1960 when he hung brochures on doorknobs for Richard M. Nixon’s unsuccessful first campaign for President.
In 1964, he walked precincts for Barry Goldwater.
Two years later, at the age of 16, he threw himself into Ronald Reagan’s first campaign for governor.
Nolan’s large family was solidly middle class. His father was an accountant, his mother a homemaker with wide interests, a constant reader. Nolan’s official biographies point out that he is a fifth-generation Californian, a direct descendant of the ranching family that founded the town of Agoura.
Nine Dancing Nolans
As children, he and his brothers and sisters celebrated their Irish roots as the Nine Dancing Nolans, a group that performed at festivals and at Disneyland.
The clan, dressed in kilts, has continued to dance together for Nolan’s political events–a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Glendale and a campaign fund-raiser in Sacramento.
Nolan’s passion for politics came to dominate his life.
While a student at USC, he helped found the campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, a right-wing youth group that spawned a generation of conservative politicians. Among the members of the USC chapter were Assemblymen Dennis Brown and John Lewis, who remain two of Nolan’s closest friends and political confidants.
With the campus bitterly divided over the Vietnam War, the group staged a mock treason trial of Jane Fonda and hanged her in effigy. (A few years ago, however, Nolan found himself working hand in hand with Fonda’s husband, Democratic Assemblyman Tom Hayden of Santa Monica, on a bill to study the effects of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange on Vietnam veterans. The measure was vetoed by Deukmejian.)
Variety of Jobs
To make ends meet while at USC, Nolan worked at a variety of part-time jobs, waiting tables at the faculty center, serving in dormitory food lines and passing out towels in the gym. Later, he found a job with Los Angeles City Councilman John Ferraro.
He managed to find the time to learn to ride horseback, became a riding instructor and rode as Tommy Trojan in the 1974 Rose Parade.
An average student in college, Nolan scored well enough on qualifying tests to enter USC Law School. Graduating in 1975, he passed the Bar exam on his second try and started practicing law.
In 1978, he upset more seasoned politicians in his first bid for an Assembly seat by conducting an old-fashioned, door-to-door campaign that stressed his support for Proposition 13, California’s trend-setting property tax-cutting initiative.
At first, he was an outsider in his own caucus–so conservative that he and his closest allies were dubbed “the cavemen.”
Succeeded on Second Try
But by 1983, he came within one vote of being elected Republican leader. He succeeded on his second try a year later with the backing of two new GOP assemblymen he had recruited to run for office–Ferguson and Wayne Grisham of Norwalk.
Nolan’s goal was to win enough seats for Republicans to gain a 41-vote majority in the Assembly in time for the GOP to play a central role in drawing up new legislative and congressional districts after the 1990 Census.
To get the legislative staff he wanted, the new Republican leader worked out a compromise with Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown–”the devil incarnate” to many of the Republicans, according to Ferguson.
In return for staff appointments and the ability to decide which Republicans would serve on which committees, Nolan agreed not to challenge Brown’s position as Speaker as long as the Democrats held a majority.
Solid Voting Bloc
With control over his own members, Nolan was able to whip a divided Republican Assembly membership into a solid voting bloc. The GOP members could stop any measure requiring a two-thirds vote, including the annual state budget and attempts to override a Deukmejian veto.
To plot Republican strategy, Nolan drew on a tight group of colleagues, which called itself “the board” and met secretly every Monday night at the offices of Heron, Burchette, Ruckert & Rockert, a lobbying firm, according to Ferguson, a charter member. Other lawmakers in the group included Nolan’s USC friends, Dennis Brown and John Lewis, along with Frank Hill of Whittier, Ross Johnson of La Habra, William P. Baker of Danville, Bev Hansen of Santa Rosa, William P. Duplissea of San Marcos and a few others.
In 1986, despite a divisive Republican primary in which several Nolan-backed candidates were defeated, the GOP picked up three Assembly seats.
Within Reach
With 36 Republican members, five short of a majority, Nolan’s goal suddenly seemed within reach, if not in 1988, then perhaps by 1990–in time to redistrict the state.
In preparing for the 1988 elections, Nolan stepped up his fund-raising in a continuing effort to compete with Speaker Brown.
“You’re there to make a difference,” Saracino explained. “The way to do that is to compete with the Democrats on an equal footing. The way to do that is to raise political contributions. Legally.”
Another former Nolan employee believed that his boss had become too eager to collect money. “Willie Brown would never have walked across the street to pick up a check at the Hyatt Hotel,” where Nolan met with FBI agents posing as businessmen, the ex-staffer said. “Pat apparently did.”
By 1988, Nolan’s life had changed. He was married and his wife was expecting a baby. On June 28, the night he was originally scheduled to meet with “businessmen” who later proved to be FBI agents, he also planned to attend a natural childbirth class with his wife, his calendar shows. (He postponed his meeting with representatives of the bogus company to June 29, when he and an aide picked up the checks that have caused Nolan so much trouble.)
Nolan’s daughter was born a month later.
On the surface at least, Nolan had everything he wanted, according to Bilenda Harris. A family. A promising career.
But on Aug. 24, 30 FBI agents armed with search warrants raided the Capitol offices of Nolan, aide Karin Watson, and Assemblyman Hill. The FBI searched offices of Democrats as well–Assemblywoman Gwen Moore of Los Angeles, her aide Tyrone Netters, and Sen. Joseph B. Montoya of Whittier. Former Democratic Sen. Paul Carpenter, now a member of the State Board of Equalization, was questioned by the FBI.
While the federal investigation bruised the Democrats, it struck at the heart of the Assembly Republican leadership.
Many are convinced that the sting hurt Republicans at the polls last November.
“The Pat Nolan name was for the first time as negative as Willie Brown,” said one GOP lawmaker, who asked not to be identified. The contributions raised by Nolan for other Republicans suddenly became “tainted money, dirty money,” a liability for members in close races, the assemblyman said. “The Democrats beat them to death.”
Instead of picking up additional seats in the November election, the Assembly Republicans lost three. The losses finished whatever hopes Nolan might have had of remaining GOP leader.
Now his prospects for the future are uncertain.
Even if he is exonerated, his connection to the FBI sting could hamper his hope of ever running for an office outside his own heavily Republican district, according to two Republican assemblymen, who asked not to be identified.
His friends, however, believe that he will in the end be vindicated and that his career can recover.
“This is an ethical cloud, even if nothing comes of it,” said his former top aide, Saracino.
Commentary: Bodies are stacking up in Trump’s deportation deluge. It’s going to get worse
Like a teenager armed with their first smartphone, President Trump’s masked immigration enforcers love nothing more than to mug for friendly cameras.
They gladly invite pseudo-filmmakers — some federal government workers, others conservative influencers or pro-Trump reporters — to embed during raids so they can capture every tamale lady agents slam onto the sidewalk, every protester they pelt with pepper balls, every tear gas canister used to clear away pesky activists. From that mayhem comes slickly produced videos that buttress the Trump administration’s claim that everyone involved in the push to boot illegal immigrants from the U.S. is a hero worthy of cinematic love.
But not everything that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and its sister agencies do shows up in their approved rivers of reels.
Their propagandists aren’t highlighting the story of Jaime Alanís García, a Mexican farmworker who fell 30 feet to his death in Camarillo this summer while trying to escape one of the largest immigration raids in Southern California in decades.
They’re not making videos about 39-year-old Ismael Ayala-Uribe, an Orange County resident who moved to this country from Mexico as a 4-year-old and died in a Victorville hospital in September after spending weeks in ICE custody complaining about his health.
They’re not addressing how ICE raids led to the deaths of Josué Castro Rivera and Carlos Roberto Montoya, Central American nationals run over and killed by highway traffic in Virginia and Monrovia while fleeing in terror. Or what happened to Silverio Villegas González, shot dead in his car as he tried to speed away from two ICE agents in suburban Chicago.
Those men are just some of the 20-plus people who have died in 2025 while caught up in ICE’s machine — the deadliest year for the agency in two decades, per NPR.
Publicly, the Department of Homeland Security has described those incidents as “tragic” while assigning blame to everything but itself. For instance, a Homeland Security official told the Associated Press that Castro Rivera’s death was “a direct result of every politician, activist and reporter who continue to spread propaganda and misinformation about ICE’s mission and ways to avoid detention” — whatever the hell that means.
An ICE spokesperson asked for more time to respond to my request for comment, said “Thank you Sir” when I extended my deadline, then never got back to me. Whatever the response would’ve been, Trump’s deportation Leviathan looks like it’s about to get deadlier.
As reported by my colleagues Andrea Castillo and Rachel Uranga, his administration plans to get rid of more than half of ICE’s field office directors due to grumblings from the White House that the deportations that have swamped large swaths of the United States all year haven’t happened faster and in larger numbers.
Asked for comment, Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security assistant secretary for public affairs, described The Times’ questions as “sensationalism” and added “only the media would describe standard agency personnel changes as a ‘massive shakeup.’”
Agents are becoming more brazen as more of them get hired thanks to billions of dollars in new funds. In Oakland, one fired a chemical round into the face of a Christian pastor from just feet away. In Santa Ana, another pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at activists who had been trailing him from a distance in their car. In the Chicago area, a woman claimed a group of them fired pepper balls at her car even though her two young children were inside.
La migra knows they can act with impunity because they have the full-throated backing of the White House. Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller crowed on Fox News recently, “To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.”
That’s not actually true, but when have facts mattered to this presidency if it gets in the way of its apocalyptic goals?
Greg Bovino, El Centro Border Patrol sector chief, center, walks with federal agents near an ICE detention facility in Broadview, Ill.
(Erin Hooley / Associated Press)
Tasked with turning up the terror dial to 11 is Gregory Bovino, a longtime Border Patrol sector chief based out of El Centro, Calif., who started the year with a raid in Kern County so egregious that a federal judge slammed it as agents “walk[ing] up to people with brown skin and say[ing], ‘Give me your papers.’” A federal judge ordered him to check in with her every day for the foreseeable future after the Border Patrol tear-gassed a neighborhood in a Chicago suburb that was about to host its annual Halloween children’s parade (an appeals court has temporarily blocked the move).
Bovino now reports directly to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and is expected to pick most of the ICE field office directors from Customs and Border Protection, the arm of the federal government that the Border Patrol belongs to. It logged 180 immigrant deaths under its purview for the 2023 fiscal year, the last year for which stats are publicly available and the third straight year that the number had increased.
To put someone like Bovino in charge of executing Trump’s deportation plans is like gifting a gas refinery to an arsonist.
He’s constantly trying to channel the conquering ethos of Wild West, complete with a strutting posse of agents — some with cowboy hats — following him everywhere, white horses trailed by American flags for photo ops and constant shout-outs to “Ma and Pa America” when speaking to the media. When asked by a CBS News reporter recently when his self-titled “Mean Green Machine” would end its Chicago campaign — one that has seen armed troops march through downtown and man boats on the Chicago River like they were patrolling Baghdad — Bovino replied, “When all the illegal aliens [self-deport] and/or we arrest ‘em all.”
Such scorched-earth jibber-jabber underlines a deportation policy under which the possibility of death for those it pursues is baked into its foundation. ICE plans to hire dozens of healthcare workers — doctors, nurses, psychiatrists — in anticipation of Trump’s plans to build more detention camps, many slated for inhospitable locations like the so-called Alligator Alcatraz camp in the Florida Everglades. That was announced to the world on social media with an AI-generated image of grinning alligators wearing MAGA caps — as if the White House was salivating at the prospect of desperate people trying to escape only to find certain carnage.
In his CBS News interview, Bovino described the force his team has used in Chicago — where someone was shot and killed, a pastors got hit with pepper balls from high above and the sound of windshields broken by immigration agents looking to snatch someone from their cars is now part of the Windy City’s soundtrack — as “exemplary.” The Border Patrol’s peewee Patton added he felt his guys used “the least amount of force necessary to accomplish the mission. If someone strays into a pepper ball, then that’s on them.”
One shudders to think what Bovino thinks is excessive for la migra. With his powers now radically expanded, we’re about to find out.
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Feds charge 12 in alleged arson, attacks during immigration protests
Federal prosecutors announced charges Wednesday against 12 people who allegedly engaged in violence during demonstrations against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
The charges, part of an effort dubbed “Operation Bridge Too Far” by federal authorities, largely centered on demonstrations that erupted on a freeway overpass near an immigration detention center in downtown Los Angeles on June 8, the first day the National Guard was deployed to the city.
What started as a small, peaceful protest on Alameda Street exploded into a series of tense clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement. After National Guard members and U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials used tear gas and smoke bombs to try and disperse a crowd outside the detention center, more protesters flooded the area.
A number of Waymo self-driving vehicles were set on fire near Olivera Street, and a group of California Highway Patrol officers on the 101 Freeway were pelted with items from protesters on the overpass above. At times, they returned fire with less-lethal rounds and tear gas. At least one protester had previously been charged in state court with throwing a flaming item at a CHP vehicle from the overpass.
Authorities announced that 10 defendants charged in connection with the incident were in federal custody this week. Another is in state custody and expected to be handed over to federal authorities, and one remains a fugitive.
Among those charged tied to the June 8 protest are Ronald Alexis Coreas, 23, of Westlake; Junior Roldan, 27, of Hollywood; Elmore Sylvester Cage, 34, of downtown Los Angeles; Balto Montion, 24, of Watsonville; Jesus Gonzalez Hernandez Jr., 22, of Las Vegas; Hector Daniel Ramos, 66, of Alhambra; Stefano Deong Green, 34, of Westmont; Yachua Mauricio Flores, 23, of Lincoln Heights; and Ismael Vega, 41, of Westlake.
Prosecutors also charged Virginia Reyes, 32, and Isai Carrillo, 31, who they say are members of “VC Defensa,” an immigrant rights group that has been documenting raids in the region.
Yovany Marcario Canil, 22, of Boyle Heights, was charged with assault on a federal officer for pepper-spraying members of an FBI S.W.A.T. team who were inside a government vehicle leaving the site of a raid in the downtown L.A. Fashion District on June 6.
A protester lobs a large rock at CHP officers stationed on the 101 Freeway below.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“Acts of violence against the brave law enforcement officers who protect us are an attack on civilized society itself,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a news release. “Anyone who engages in such disgusting conduct will face severe consequences from this Department of Justice.”
The FBI offered up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of 10 other unknown individuals accused of engaging in similar attacks from the overpass.
“A group of violent protesters threw rocks, pieces of concrete, electric scooters, and fireworks at officers and patrol cars” on the 101 Freeway, the FBI said.
Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor for the Central District of California, has aggressively pursued charges against those who clashed with law enforcement during protests against the Trump administration’s immigration raids over the last few months. On Wednesday, Essayli said that his office has charged 97 people with assaulting or impeding officers.
Of those, Essayli said, 18 have pleaded guilty and 44 are set to go to trial. His office has taken two defendants in misdemeanor assault cases to trial, but both ended in acquittals.
Earlier this year, a Times investigation found Essayli’s prosecutors have failed to convince grand juries to secure indictments in a number of protest-related cases.
Prosecutors face a much lower legal bar before a grand jury than they do in a criminal trial, and experts say it is rare for federal prosecutors to lose at that preliminary stage. Prosecutors in Chicago and Washington have faced similar struggles, court records show.
The defendants who have pleaded guilty in L.A. include a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant who hurled a molotov cocktail at L.A. County sheriff’s deputies during a June rally against immigration enforcement.
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Palestinian child killed in Israeli raid on West Bank as settlers rampage | Israel-Palestine conflict News
A Palestinian child has died of wounds sustained during an Israeli military raid in the Askar camp in Nablus, in the latest violence against civilians in the occupied West Bank, as a fragile ceasefire in Gaza brings little respite to Palestinians in the destroyed enclave.
Israeli forces on Friday also stormed the town of Aqaba, north of Tubas in the West Bank, and made a number of arrests earlier today in Hebron and Tal.
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The Israeli army said they arrested 44 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over the past week. A military statement says operations were carried out in various parts of the territory and all people detained were wanted by Israel. It added that troops also confiscated weapons and conducted interrogations during the operations.
Last week, 10-year-old Mohammad al-Hallaq was shot dead by Israeli forces while playing football in ar-Rihiya, Hebron.
According to the United Nations, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army and settlers since October 7, 2023, in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.
A fifth of the victims are children, including 206 boys and seven girls, the UN said. The number also includes 20 women and at least seven people with disabilities. This does not include Palestinians who died in Israeli detention during the same period, the UN added.
A United States-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal has seen nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees released from Israeli jails, many bearing visible signs of abuse.
Dozens of Palestinian bodies returned have been badly mutilated and show signs of torture and execution.
Meanwhile, in tandem with the military’s sustained crackdown in the occupied territory, Israeli settlers have rampaged near Ramallah, destroying Palestinian property at an alarming rate daily with impunity, protected by the military.
Settlers set fire to several Palestinian vehicles in the hill area in Deir Dibwan, east of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, at dawn this morning, the Wafa news agency reported.
On Sunday, an Israeli settler brutally assaulted a Palestinian woman while she was harvesting olives in the West Bank town of Turmus Aya.
Afaf Abu Alia, 53, suffered a brain haemorrhage due to the attack.
“The attack started with around 10 settlers, but more kept joining,” one Palestinian witness told Al Jazeera. “I think by the end, there were 40, protected by the army. We were outnumbered; we couldn’t defend ourselves.”
According to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), settlers have attacked Palestinians nearly 3,000 times in the occupied West Bank over the past two years.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said on Friday that since October 7, 2023, “the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has also witnessed a sharp escalation in violence”.
“The increasing annexation of the West Bank is happening steadily in a gross violation of international law,” UNRWA said, referring to the expansion and recognition of illegal Israeli settlements.
US lays down law to Israel on annexation
After a vote in the Israeli parliament on Wednesday advancing a bill that would formalise the annexation of the occupied West Bank, senior US officials have been adamant it won’t happen under their watch.
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday, “Israel is not going to do anything with the West Bank” amid growing condemnation of an Israeli parliamentary motion that seeks to formally annex the occupied Palestinian territory.
Earlier in the day, in an interview with Time Magazine, Trump said that the US is firmly against Israeli annexation. “It won’t happen. It won’t happen. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. And you can’t do that now,” Trump told Time.
US Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, while in Israel, also said that Trump’s policy remains that the occupied West Bank won’t be annexed by Israel, calling the parliamentary vote in favour of annexation a “very stupid political stunt” that he “personally” took some insult from.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Israel to shore up the Gaza ceasefire and second-phase plans, has also lined up in the Trump’s administration’s firm opposition to Israeli annexation.
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In Chicago, an immense show of force signals a sharp escalation in White House immigration crackdown
CHICAGO — The music begins low and ominous, with the video showing searchlights skimming along a Chicago apartment building and heavily armed immigration agents storming inside. Guns are drawn. Unmarked cars fill the streets. Agents rappel from a Black Hawk helicopter.
But quickly the soundtrack grows more stirring and the video — edited into a series of dramatic shots and released by the Department of Homeland Security days after the Sept. 30 raid — shows agents leading away shirtless men, their hands zip-tied behind their backs.
Authorities said they were targeting the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, though they also said only two of the 27 immigrants arrested were gang members. They gave few details on the arrests.
But the apartments of dozens of U.S. citizens were targeted, residents said, and at least a half-dozen Americans were held for hours.
The immense show of force signaled a sharp escalation in the White House’s immigration crackdown and amplified tensions in a city already on edge.
“To every criminal illegal alien: Darkness is no longer your ally,” Homeland Security said in a social media post accompanying the video, which racked up more than 6.4 million views. “We will find you.”
But Tony Wilson, a third-floor resident born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, sees only horror in what happened.
“It was like we were under attack,” Wilson said days after the raid, speaking through the hole where his door knob used to be. Agents had used a grinder to cut out the deadbolt, and he still couldn’t close the door properly, let alone lock it. So he had barricaded himself inside, blocking the door with furniture.
“I didn’t even hear them knock or nothing,” said Wilson, a 58-year-old U.S. citizen on disability.
Dreams and decay
The raid was executed in the heart of South Shore, an overwhelmingly Black neighborhood on Lake Michigan that has long been a tangle of middle-class dreams, urban decay and gentrification.
It’s a place where teams of drug dealers troll for customers outside ornate lakeside apartment buildings. It has some of the city’s best vegan restaurants but also takeout places where the catfish fillets are ordered through bullet-proof glass.
It has well-paid professors from the University of Chicago but is also where one-third of households scrape by on less than $25,000 a year.
The apartment building where the raid occurred has long been troubled. Five stories tall and built in the 1950s, residents said it was often strewn with garbage, the elevators rarely worked and crime was a constant worry. Things had grown more chaotic after dozens of Venezuelan migrants arrived in the past few years, residents said. While no residents said they felt threatened by the migrants, many described a rise in noise and hallway trash.
Owned by out-of-state investors, the building hasn’t passed an inspection in three years, with problems ranging from missing smoke detectors to the stench of urine to filthy stairways. Repeated calls to a lead investor in the limited liability company that owns the building, a Wisconsin resident named Trinity Flood, were not returned. Attempts to reach representatives through realtors and lawyers were also unsuccessful.
Crime fears spiked in June when a Venezuelan man was shot in the head “execution-style,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. Another Venezuelan was charged in the death.
Days after the raid, the doors to dozens of the building’s 130 apartments hung open. Nearly all those apartments had been ransacked. Windows were broken, doors smashed, and clothes and diapers littered the floors. In one apartment, a white tuxedo jacket hung in the closet next to a room knee-deep in broken furniture, piles of clothing and plastic bags. In another, water dripping from the ceiling puddled next to a refrigerator lying on its side. Some kitchens swarmed with insects.
Wilson said a trio of men in body armor had zip-tied his hands and forced him outside with dozens of other people, most Latino. After being held for two hours he was told he could leave.
“It was terrible, man,” he said. He’d barely left the apartment in days.
A city under siege?
Chicago, the White House says, is under siege.
Gang members and immigrants in the U.S. illegally swarm the city and crime is rampant, President Trump insists. National Guard soldiers are needed to protect government facilities from raging left-wing protesters.
“Chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the World,” he posted on Truth Social.
The reality is far less dramatic. Violence is rare at protests, though angry confrontations are increasingly common, particularly outside a federal immigration center in suburban Broadview. And while crime is a serious problem, the city’s murder rate has dropped by roughly half since the 1990s.
Those realities have not stopped the Trump administration.
What started in early September with some arrests in Latino neighborhoods, part of a crackdown dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” has surged across Chicago. There are increasing patrols by masked, armed agents; detentions of U.S. citizens and immigrants with legal status; a fatal shooting; a protesting pastor shot in the head with a pepper ball outside the Broadview facility, his arms raised in supplication.
By early October, authorities said more than 1,000 immigrants had been arrested across the area.
The raids have shaken Chicago.
“We have a rogue, reckless group of heavily armed, masked individuals roaming throughout our city,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said after the Sept. 30 raid. “The Trump administration is seeking to destabilize our city and promote chaos.”
To Trump’s critics, the crackdown is a calculated effort to stir anger in a city and state run by some of his most outspoken Democratic opponents. Out-of-control protests would reinforce Trump’s tough-on-crime image, they say, while embarrassing Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, seen as a possible Democratic presidential contender.
So the South Shore raid, ready-made for social media with its displays of military hardware and agents armed for combat, was seen as wildly out of proportion.
“This was a crazy-looking military response they put together for their reality show,” said LaVonte Stewart, who runs a South Shore sports program to steer young people away from violence. “It’s not like there are roving bands of Venezuelan teenagers out there.”
Officials insist it was no reality show.
The operation, led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, was based on months of intelligence gathering, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The building’s landlord told authorities that Venezuelans in about 30 units were squatters and had threatened other tenants, the official said, adding that the building’s size necessitated the show of force. Immigration agencies declined further comment.
Even before the “Midway Blitz,” Trump’s election had whipsawed through Chicago’s Latino communities.
Stewart said Venezuelan children began disappearing from his programs months ago, though it’s often unclear if they moved, returned to Venezuela or are just staying home.
“I had 35 kids in my program from Venezuela,” he said. “Now there’s none.”
A wave of migrant newcomers
The raid echoed through South Shore, pinballing through memories of the surge in violence during the 1990s drug wars as well as economic divides and the sometimes uncomfortable relations between Black residents and the wave of more than 50,000 immigrants, most Latino, who began arriving in 2022, often bused from southern border states.
Chicago spent more than $300 million on housing and other services for the immigrants, fueling widespread resentment in South Shore and other Black neighborhoods where the newcomers were settled.
“They felt like these new arrivals received better treatment than people who were already part of the community,” said Kenneth Phelps, pastor at the Concord Missionary Baptist Church in Woodlawn, a largely Black neighborhood.
It didn’t matter that many migrants were crowded into small apartments, and most simply wanted to work. The message to residents, he said, was that the newcomers mattered more than they did.
Phelps tried to fight that perception, creating programs to help new arrivals and inviting them to his church. But that stirred more anger, including in his own congregation.
“I even had people leave the church,” he said.
In South Shore it’s easy to hear the bitterness, even though the neighborhood’s remaining migrants are a nearly invisible presence.
“They took everyone’s jobs!” said Rita Lopez, who manages neighborhood apartment buildings and recently stopped by the scene of the raid.
“The government gave all the money to them — and not to the Chicagoans,” she said.
Changing demographics and generations of suspicion
Over more than a century, South Shore has drawn waves of Irish, Jewish and then Black arrivals for its lakeside location, affordable bungalows and early 20th-century apartment buildings.
Each wave viewed the next with suspicion, in many ways mirroring how Black South Shore residents saw the migrant influx.
Former first lady Michelle Obama’s parents moved to South Shore when it was still mostly white, and she watched it change. A neighborhood that was 96% white in 1950 was 96% Black by 1980.
“We were doing everything we were supposed to do — and better,” she said in 2019. “But when we moved in, white families moved out.”
But suspicion also came from South Shore’s Black middle-class, which watched nervously as many housing projects began closing in the 1990s, creating an influx of poorer residents.
“This has always been a complex community,” Stewart said of those years.
“You can live on a block here that’s super-clean, with really nice houses, then go one block away and there’s broken glass, trash everywhere and shootings,” he said. “It’s the weirdest thing and it’s been this way for 30 years.”
Sullivan writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Aisha I. Jefferson in Chicago, Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
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Secret prosecutor roster found in Unification Church raid
Unification Church leader Han Hak-ja arrives for an arrest warrant hearing on allegations of bribery and political funding at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul on September 22. Photo by Jeon Heon-kyun/EPA
SEOUL, Oct. 20 (UPI) — South Korea’s special prosecutor has launched an internal probe after investigators found a confidential roster of law enforcement officers inside a Unification Church office during a recent raid — a discovery that has intensified a widening corruption case linking religion, politics and the state.
The list, first reported by The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, contained the names and assignments of police officers temporarily working at the Special Prosecutor’s Office. Such documents are normally restricted even within the agency.
Officials said they are investigating whether a retired police officer, identified only by the initial A, leaked the file to church officials.
An special prosecutor’s spokesperson said the office is “verifying how the document was obtained and whether any ongoing investigations were affected.” If confirmed, prosecutors say, the breach would mark one of the most serious leaks of investigative information in years, potentially allowing suspects to anticipate raids or destroy evidence.
Indictments for embezzlement, political-fund violations
The leak inquiry comes just days after prosecutors indicted Unification Church leader Hak Ja Han and two senior aides, Jung Wonju and Yoon Young-ho, on charges of embezzlement and illegal political donations.
According to charging documents filed Oct. 10, Han and Jung allegedly diverted money from church accounts earmarked for missionary work to finance luxury purchases and covert political activity.
Between May and August 2022, about 500 million won (about $380,000) was allegedly used to buy designer jewelry and handbags for Han, disguised through falsified expense reports. One transaction dated May 9, 2022, shows Jung instructing a finance officer to spend 42 million won on jewelry “for Hak Ja Han.”
Another section of the indictment cites roughly 900 million won ($700,000) moved from the “2027 Project Support Fund” into accounts controlled by Jung without approval from the church’s finance board. Prosecutors believe the funds were used for non-religious or political purposes, violating internal rules.
Donations to ruling party before 2022 election
Investigators also allege that the Unification Church, directed by Yoon Young-ho, its former secretary-general, channeled money to all 17 provincial branches of the ruling People Power Party around the time of the 2022 presidential election.
According to the special prosecutor’s findings, Yoon called regional leaders to a meeting in early March 2022 and instructed them to distribute “missionary support funds.” Roughly 2.1 billion won ($1.5 million) was withdrawn from church accounts, and 144 million won (about $105,000) was later delivered through split donations made under individual members’ names.
Prosecutors say the arrangement violated the Political Funds Act, which bars corporate or religious entities from contributing to political organizations.
A special prosecutor’s official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said the case “shows signs of coordinated funding activity at a national level.”
Church denial
In a written statement, the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification — the church’s official name — denied wrongdoing, asserting that “all expenditures were legitimate and related to global missionary work.” Han’s defense team said she would cooperate fully while seeking to have the charges dismissed as “politically motivated.”
Han was indicted under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes and the Political Funds Act. Jung was indicted without detention. Their first hearings are expected later this month at the Seoul Central District Court.
Broader implications for institutions, trust
The twin controversies — alleged embezzlement and the suspected leak of a classified roster — have raised alarm over the integrity of state institutions, as well as the political reach of major religious movements.
Legal commentators in Korean media have warned that, if verified, the leak could amount to obstruction of justice or a violation of the Public Official Information Protection Act, both of which carry heavy prison terms.
Local editorial writers have described it as a test of transparency — whether the rule of law can withstand influence from powerful organizations that straddle the line between religious authority and political power.
The Special Prosecutor’s Office said it has strengthened internal data-security protocols and restricted access to sensitive records.
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Yemen’s Houthis detain 20 UN staff in latest raid | Conflict News
United Nations demands the release of its employees after Houthi forces raided a facility and detained staff in Sanaa.
Published On 19 Oct 202519 Oct 2025
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Yemen’s Houthi authorities have detained about two dozen United Nations employees after raiding another UN-run facility in the capital Sanaa, the UN has confirmed.
Jean Alam, spokesperson for the UN’s resident coordinator in Yemen, said staff were detained inside the compound in the city’s Hada district on Sunday.
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Those held include at least five Yemeni employees and 15 international personnel. A further 11 UN staff were briefly questioned and later released.
Alam said the UN is in direct contact with the Houthis and other relevant actors “to resolve this serious situation as swiftly as possible, end the detention of all personnel, and restore full control over its facilities in Sanaa”.
A separate UN official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said Houthi forces confiscated all communication equipment inside the facility, including computers, phones and servers.
The staff reportedly belong to several UN agencies, among them the World Food Programme (WFP), the children’s agency UNICEF and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The incident follows a sustained crackdown by the Houthis on the UN and other international aid organisations operating in territory under their control, including Sanaa, the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, and Saada province in the north.
According to UN figures, more than 50 staff members have now been detained.
Houthis claim UN staff are spying for Israel
The Houthis have repeatedly accused detained UN staff and employees of foreign NGOs and embassies of espionage on behalf of the United States and Israel, allegations that the UN has denied.
In reaction to previous detentions, the UN suspended operations in Saada earlier this year and relocated its top humanitarian coordinator in Yemen from Sanaa to Aden, the seat of the internationally recognised government.
In a statement on Saturday, UN Secretary-General spokesperson Stephane Dujarric warned: “We will continue to call for an end to the arbitrary detention of 53 of our colleagues.”
Dujarric was responding to a televised address by Houthi leader Abdelmalek al-Houthi, who claimed his group had dismantled “one of the most dangerous spy cells”, alleging it was “linked to humanitarian organisations such as the World Food Programme and UNICEF”. Dujarric said the accusations were “dangerous and unacceptable”.
Saturday’s raid comes amid a sharp escalation in detentions. Since August 31, 2025, alone, at least 21 UN personnel have been arrested, alongside 23 current and former employees of international NGOs, the UN said.
Ten years of conflict have left Yemen, already one of the poorest countries in the Arab world, facing what the UN describes as one of the gravest humanitarian crises globally, with millions reliant on aid for survival.
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Thieves snatch Bronze Age gold in four-minute St Fagans raid
Thieves have stolen “significant” gold Bronze Age artefacts from a popular Welsh museum in a targeted “four-minute” heist, fleeing as a police helicopter swooped in overhead.
CCTV captured the pair smashing their way into St Fagans National Museum of History on the edge of Cardiff early on Monday, with police alerted at 00:30 BST.
“We believe they entirely knew what they were after, they were so focused,” said Jane Richardson, chief executive of National Museum Wales, describing footage of the break-in as “emotional to watch”.
“It feels like someone has stolen from the family of Wales,” said Ms Richardson. Neither the police or the museum can currently confirm details of the stolen items.
Police helicopter
South Wales Police said a helicopter was at the scene five minutes after they were called by onsite security staff.
“They knew exactly where they were going,” Ms Richardson told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.
“They didn’t look left or right,” she said.
“It looks like they’ve been scoping out in advance and that they had come for specific items.
The authorities have so far not specified which items were taken, or their value. The museum’s Bronze age collection includes gold ingots, bracelets, and a lunula necklace.
“These items they took are very special and they didn’t bother trying to take anything else,” said Ms Richardson.
“Unfortunately, they were so organised that they got away before the police were able to apprehend them.”
Det Insp Chambers urged members of the public to come forward with any information, stressing “no matter how small, [it] may be relevant to the investigation”.
Founded in 1948, St Fagans is one of Wales’ most popular heritage attractions – and is one of seven national museums under the curation of Amgueddfa Cymru.
“It’s been very upsetting for us all. We’re absolutely devastated,” said Ms Richardson.
“These items don’t belong to us at the museum, they belong to the people of Wales. The Amgueddfa is a family which everyone in Wales belongs to, and it feels like the family of Wales has been attacked.
“People love the items, they’ve cared for them – and it felt like a bereavement yesterday.”
Bronze Age treasures
Ms Richardson expressed relief that security guards at the museum were safe and unharmed.
“It could have been very, very dangerous.
“We always take security and safety very seriously – we have very strong protocols in place,” she said, adding the museum robbery was part of an unwelcome trend “around the world”.
“These are very significant items for the stories of Wales,” said Ms Richardson, of the stolen Bronze Age gold.
“Any value would be meaningless because you can’t recreate that level of history. You can’t put a price on it. They cannot be replaced they are so special.
“But ultimately – these items – we want people to share them, to see them, to learn from them, and to do that you have to put them on display.
“Even with the top-notch specially designed cases we have at St Fagans, nothing can ever be totally secure.”
The museum remains open the public and will be hosting a museums’ conference over the next two days, although the main building, the café and the indoor galleries are currently closed.
What is St Fagans museum?
St Fagans National Museum of History, located in a village in the leafy outskirts of Cardiff, is one the city’s most-visited attractions.
It has re-erected more than 40 buildings representing different eras of Welsh history.
The most recent addition is the Vulcan Hotel pub, which previously stood on Adam Street in Cardiff for 170 years before being moved, brick by brick, and reassembled at St Fagans.
The museum’s main building houses exhibits and artefacts from the past.
This building, where the robbery took place, was redeveloped in a £30m overhaul in 2018, adding three new galleries and helping the museum clinch the prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year award in 2019.
Speaking at the time, the chair of the judges, called the museum “a truly democratic museum” that “lives and breathes the culture, history and identity of Wales”.
‘Draw attention’
Frank Olding, archaeologist and a former museum curator at Abergavenny Museum, called the burglary “puzzling” as he said there was “no way that the objects could be passed on or sold to anyone.”
“Any dealer or anyone with any interest in history or the Bronze Age would know immediately what these objects were, and that would of course draw attention to the thieves as well,” he told BBC Wales.
“It’s very difficult to see how they could be passed on, and how could they be of any value to the people who have stolen them.
“The worst thing that could happen is that they were melted down for the value of the gold. Then they are lost forever to us, and the information they give us about our past would be destroyed forever. That really would be a tragedy.”
What do local people and visitors think?
Adam Ackerman, 34, manages a pub in the village. He said it as an unusual event for the area.
“I could hear the police helicopter at night, it was very concerning.
“We are being more vigilant at the moment, just sticking to the basics.
“It’s unlikely that they’ll target a pub, but who knows,” he said.
“There are so many visitors from all over the world, and so many entrances and low walls.
“It’s easy to scout around.”
The museum remains open the public and will be hosting a museums conference over the next two days, although the main building, the café and the indoor galleries are currently closed.
One visitor Mourag Law, 75, from the Cyncoed area of the city, suggested the burglary was a sign of wider problems.
“This is a reflection of a broken country and it seems to have been stolen to order,” she said.
“St Fagans works hard to preserve the past, and this very much deserves to be protected.”
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Rising Star Tarnished in Raid : GOP’s Nolan in Struggle for His Political Survival
SACRAMENTO — Until the FBI raided his Capitol office last August, Assemblyman Pat Nolan of Glendale was a blazing young star of Republican politics.
Leader of the Assembly GOP, with a reputation for relentless pursuit of his goals and boundless ambition, he hoped to pick up enough seats over the next few elections to win a majority and become Speaker. He talked about running for governor one day.
None of it seemed beyond his reach.
Now, at age 38, stripped of his leadership post, Nolan is struggling for political survival.
Last June 29, Nolan and an aide were videotaped at a meeting in a hotel room where FBI agents posing as businessmen handed him two $5,000 checks for his campaign committees, sources familiar with the three-year FBI probe have told The Times.
Nolan failed to report one of those checks until after the Capitol raid, a full month after it should have been disclosed; just a mistake, according to those close to him.
The lawmaker has not been accused of a crime, but federal sources say he is a target of the investigation.
Nolan’s attorney has told him not to talk to the press beyond a brief statement, issued the day after the raid, saying that “when the investigation is completed, my office will be completely cleared.”
Friends and enemies alike describe Nolan as a driven soul, someone who has devoted himself unflaggingly to conservative politics since adolescence and who, once he attained power, could be ruthless in his exercise of it.
A review of public records as well as his daily calendar shows his preoccupation with raising money for political campaigns. During one hard-charging stretch last August, he was scheduled to attend five fund-raising events in a day as he hustled to keep pace with the money-raising of Assembly Democrats.
Spoils of High Office
The same records illustrate that with power came the spoils of high office. Special-interest groups paid him for speeches, sent him gifts and provided him with trips.
In his 10 years in the Legislature, the documents show, he has collected more than $60,000 in honorariums–about $55,000 of it in the four years that he was Republican leader.
Other legislators have collected far larger amounts for speaking, but some of the specifics about Nolan’s honorariums raise questions.
Nolan was one of several legislative leaders, for example, to receive sizable speaking fees–in his case, $5,000–from the California Retailers Assn. during the 1987-88 legislative session. Last year, the lobbying group won approval of its bill to eliminate an 18% cap on interest rates that department stores may charge customers, a limit in place since the early 1960s.
Arranged Meeting
One payment of $2,500 in 1988 came from Glaxo Inc., which was lobbying to have its anti-ulcer drug Zantac added to the list of medications covered by Medi-Cal. After a bill to add the drug to the list died in the Legislature, Nolan arranged a meeting between Glaxo representatives and top Administration health officials. The money, payment for a speech that Nolan never delivered, was deposited into his personal account by his secretary. But the payment was returned in late September, three months after it was received and one month after the FBI raid.
Other special-interest groups–the Seafood Institute and Ralphs Grocery Co.–in 1986 provided a total of $6,612 in food and beverages at Nolan’s wedding reception. And businessman Del Doye, whose firm, TSD Systems of Bakersfield, was trying to win a toxic disposal permit from the state, provided the newlyweds with a honeymoon condominium in Hawaii. (Doye has left the company and the permit still is pending.)
As leader of the Assembly GOP, Nolan met regularly with Gov. George Deukmejian and his top aides, according to his calendar, which was obtained by The Times from a Republican source.
Wife Hired
Through his contacts, Nolan learned that there was an unadvertised Administration job available that might be suitable for his wife, Gail, a marketing specialist. In February, she was appointed by the governor to the $3,323-a-month public relations post at the Department of Food and Agriculture. Part of her job was to win a spot for the Dancing Raisins on the “Today Show” on National Agriculture Day, department officials said. The raisins did not make the show and Gail Nolan left her job in June to have a baby.
While a legislator, Nolan has continued to receive a $6,000-a-year-retainer from Kinkle, Rodiger & Spriggs, a Southern California law firm he joined after law school. The firm specializes in defending individuals and insurance companies in personal injury cases. Nolan’s duties include meeting with attorneys and clients to discuss legislative procedures, according to managing partner John V. Hager.
Nolan’s friends defend him as a committed idealist, an honest man who has not profited personally from his office.
“There is not a more honest guy in the whole world, with more integrity and just good character than Pat Nolan,” said Assemblyman Dennis Brown (R-Los Alamitos), a close friend of Nolan’s for 20 years.
‘Decent, Caring Person’
“Pat is really a very decent, caring person, who has very strong political beliefs and has spent 10 years trying to advance them,” said his former chief of staff, Bill Saracino, who like Brown has known Nolan since their student days at USC. “He’s not one of those legislators who have enriched themselves.”
Saracino, now a deputy director at the state Department of Commerce, also defended Nolan’s acceptance of speaking fees from various interest groups: “No. 1, it’s legal. And look who Pat’s getting honorariums from–people who agree with him on the natural anyway.”
One of his chief Republican opponents, Assemblyman Stan Statham of Oak Run, in a bitter speech before the Assembly, accused Nolan of being a liar–harsh language for one legislator to use against another on a house floor, and especially so in this case because the attack came during normally festive opening-day ceremonies with Nolan’s family in attendance.
Personal Dealings Told
“I can’t be charitable because I’ve had too many personal dealings with him (Nolan),” Statham said in an interview. Nolan broke a promise not to become involved in 1986 Republican primaries and opposed a candidate supported by Statham, the lawmaker said.
“Nothing in politics is any more important than a person’s word,” Statham said.
He also pointed out that Nolan is a central figure in an investigation of forged letters sent out on White House stationery under a phony signature of then-President Ronald Reagan in support of Republican Assembly candidates in 1986.
Although Sacramento County Dist. Atty. John Dougherty decided not to press criminal charges in the case last fall, he asserted that both Nolan and Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) “asked staff members to give false explanations to White House staff” on how the forgery took place.
State Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, who conducted the initial investigation and referred it to Dougherty, is now deciding whether to drop the matter or move ahead on his own.
Several Maladies
Nolan is a large man, hefty but not obese, someone whose size can be intimidating in a head-to-head confrontation.
Recently his usually florid skin has had an orange cast from medication he takes for a chronic yeast infection, one of several maladies that he has complained of over the years, according to those close to him.
“He’s a bit of a hypochondriac,” observed Republican Assemblyman Gil Ferguson of Newport Beach, who acknowledges that Nolan does have some real health problems.
Ferguson, a Nolan ally, was one of several people interviewed who commented on Nolan’s hot temperament–something Ferguson attributed to hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. “He’d explode because of a lack of sugar content,” Ferguson said.
‘Jekyll and Hyde’
Others describe him as having a “Jekyll and Hyde” personality–a charming teller of jokes and stories one minute, an ogre growling out his displeasure the next.
As a young man, his storytelling got him booted from a group of conservative students attending free enterprise seminars sponsored by Coast Federal Savings, when a woman in the group complained that he was telling dirty jokes.
“People thought conservatives were humorless, stuffy and boring,” said another member of the group, Bilenda Harris. “Pat is a wonderful teller of jokes.”
He also sprinkles his conversations with quotations–from Shakespeare and Marcus Aurelius, Sophocles and Machiavelli–a practice that dates back to his days at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks.
“He’s like the renaissance man, a very well-read, very rounded individual,” Harris said.
But Harris, who also was a classmate of Nolan’s at USC and later an aide in his Glendale office, knows what it’s like to fall into Nolan’s disfavor. In 1983, Nolan fired her only six weeks after she moved with her son to Sacramento to take a new job in the lawmaker’s Capitol office.
Nolan is the boy’s godfather.
Others say that in 1987 Nolan fired another USC classmate, then-chief of staff Saracino, who had been the best man at his wedding.
“Pat just cut his head off,” Assemblyman Ferguson said.
Saracino denied that he was fired, saying that he and Nolan had agreed to go their separate ways because of “differences of style.”
But he agreed that Nolan was a tough boss. “ ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ is a bit of hyperbole,” Saracino said. “But he is a very demanding person, as you have to be if you want to get anything done.”
“Pat gets torn in this stuff,” Harris said. “The need to get elected overrides the friendship that used to be there.”
Focus on Goals
Ruthless is an adjective that Ferguson ascribes to Nolan.
“Few people have the ability or the willingness to focus on their objectives at the cost of almost everything else–friends, family life,” Ferguson said.
The sixth of nine children, Nolan showed a precocious interest in politics. He got his first taste in 1960 when he hung brochures on doorknobs for Richard M. Nixon’s unsuccessful first campaign for President.
In 1964, he walked precincts for Barry Goldwater.
Two years later, at the age of 16, he threw himself into Ronald Reagan’s first campaign for governor.
Nolan’s large family was solidly middle class. His father was an accountant, his mother a homemaker with wide interests, a constant reader. Nolan’s official biographies point out that he is a fifth-generation Californian, a direct descendant of the ranching family that founded the town of Agoura.
Nine Dancing Nolans
As children, he and his brothers and sisters celebrated their Irish roots as the Nine Dancing Nolans, a group that performed at festivals and at Disneyland.
The clan, dressed in kilts, has continued to dance together for Nolan’s political events–a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Glendale and a campaign fund-raiser in Sacramento.
Nolan’s passion for politics came to dominate his life.
While a student at USC, he helped found the campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, a right-wing youth group that spawned a generation of conservative politicians. Among the members of the USC chapter were Assemblymen Dennis Brown and John Lewis, who remain two of Nolan’s closest friends and political confidants.
With the campus bitterly divided over the Vietnam War, the group staged a mock treason trial of Jane Fonda and hanged her in effigy. (A few years ago, however, Nolan found himself working hand in hand with Fonda’s husband, Democratic Assemblyman Tom Hayden of Santa Monica, on a bill to study the effects of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange on Vietnam veterans. The measure was vetoed by Deukmejian.)
Variety of Jobs
To make ends meet while at USC, Nolan worked at a variety of part-time jobs, waiting tables at the faculty center, serving in dormitory food lines and passing out towels in the gym. Later, he found a job with Los Angeles City Councilman John Ferraro.
He managed to find the time to learn to ride horseback, became a riding instructor and rode as Tommy Trojan in the 1974 Rose Parade.
An average student in college, Nolan scored well enough on qualifying tests to enter USC Law School. Graduating in 1975, he passed the Bar exam on his second try and started practicing law.
In 1978, he upset more seasoned politicians in his first bid for an Assembly seat by conducting an old-fashioned, door-to-door campaign that stressed his support for Proposition 13, California’s trend-setting property tax-cutting initiative.
At first, he was an outsider in his own caucus–so conservative that he and his closest allies were dubbed “the cavemen.”
Succeeded on Second Try
But by 1983, he came within one vote of being elected Republican leader. He succeeded on his second try a year later with the backing of two new GOP assemblymen he had recruited to run for office–Ferguson and Wayne Grisham of Norwalk.
Nolan’s goal was to win enough seats for Republicans to gain a 41-vote majority in the Assembly in time for the GOP to play a central role in drawing up new legislative and congressional districts after the 1990 Census.
To get the legislative staff he wanted, the new Republican leader worked out a compromise with Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown–”the devil incarnate” to many of the Republicans, according to Ferguson.
In return for staff appointments and the ability to decide which Republicans would serve on which committees, Nolan agreed not to challenge Brown’s position as Speaker as long as the Democrats held a majority.
Solid Voting Bloc
With control over his own members, Nolan was able to whip a divided Republican Assembly membership into a solid voting bloc. The GOP members could stop any measure requiring a two-thirds vote, including the annual state budget and attempts to override a Deukmejian veto.
To plot Republican strategy, Nolan drew on a tight group of colleagues, which called itself “the board” and met secretly every Monday night at the offices of Heron, Burchette, Ruckert & Rockert, a lobbying firm, according to Ferguson, a charter member. Other lawmakers in the group included Nolan’s USC friends, Dennis Brown and John Lewis, along with Frank Hill of Whittier, Ross Johnson of La Habra, William P. Baker of Danville, Bev Hansen of Santa Rosa, William P. Duplissea of San Marcos and a few others.
In 1986, despite a divisive Republican primary in which several Nolan-backed candidates were defeated, the GOP picked up three Assembly seats.
Within Reach
With 36 Republican members, five short of a majority, Nolan’s goal suddenly seemed within reach, if not in 1988, then perhaps by 1990–in time to redistrict the state.
In preparing for the 1988 elections, Nolan stepped up his fund-raising in a continuing effort to compete with Speaker Brown.
“You’re there to make a difference,” Saracino explained. “The way to do that is to compete with the Democrats on an equal footing. The way to do that is to raise political contributions. Legally.”
Another former Nolan employee believed that his boss had become too eager to collect money. “Willie Brown would never have walked across the street to pick up a check at the Hyatt Hotel,” where Nolan met with FBI agents posing as businessmen, the ex-staffer said. “Pat apparently did.”
By 1988, Nolan’s life had changed. He was married and his wife was expecting a baby. On June 28, the night he was originally scheduled to meet with “businessmen” who later proved to be FBI agents, he also planned to attend a natural childbirth class with his wife, his calendar shows. (He postponed his meeting with representatives of the bogus company to June 29, when he and an aide picked up the checks that have caused Nolan so much trouble.)
Nolan’s daughter was born a month later.
On the surface at least, Nolan had everything he wanted, according to Bilenda Harris. A family. A promising career.
But on Aug. 24, 30 FBI agents armed with search warrants raided the Capitol offices of Nolan, aide Karin Watson, and Assemblyman Hill. The FBI searched offices of Democrats as well–Assemblywoman Gwen Moore of Los Angeles, her aide Tyrone Netters, and Sen. Joseph B. Montoya of Whittier. Former Democratic Sen. Paul Carpenter, now a member of the State Board of Equalization, was questioned by the FBI.
While the federal investigation bruised the Democrats, it struck at the heart of the Assembly Republican leadership.
Many are convinced that the sting hurt Republicans at the polls last November.
“The Pat Nolan name was for the first time as negative as Willie Brown,” said one GOP lawmaker, who asked not to be identified. The contributions raised by Nolan for other Republicans suddenly became “tainted money, dirty money,” a liability for members in close races, the assemblyman said. “The Democrats beat them to death.”
Instead of picking up additional seats in the November election, the Assembly Republicans lost three. The losses finished whatever hopes Nolan might have had of remaining GOP leader.
Now his prospects for the future are uncertain.
Even if he is exonerated, his connection to the FBI sting could hamper his hope of ever running for an office outside his own heavily Republican district, according to two Republican assemblymen, who asked not to be identified.
His friends, however, believe that he will in the end be vindicated and that his career can recover.
“This is an ethical cloud, even if nothing comes of it,” said his former top aide, Saracino.
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Air Raid Kills Four, Leaves Nine Wounded in CAR
Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Security Group have been accused of shooting at farmers from the air in the Central African Republic (CAR). The air raid happened on Monday, Sept. 29, in Lakata, a village 69 kilometres from Bouar in the Djotoua Banguerem council area.
Sources privy to details of the attack told HumAngle that the Russian mercenaries hovering in two helicopters opened fire on defenceless civilians, killing four and seriously wounding nine others. The sources asked not to be named in this report over fear of retribution, but reiterated that the air raiders unleashed heavy weapons on local farms and artisanal mining sites, shooting sporadically at the civilian population.
The sudden assault plunged the village into chaos. Farmers abandoned their tools mid-harvest, and miners fled their sites in terror. Survivors described the attack as “death from heaven,” a chilling escalation in Wagner’s operational tactics, which have previously relied on ground patrols and motorbike raids.
“The question we are asking now is why? What military objective justifies shooting at farmers and local miners? What ‘rebels’ were neutralised by Wagner and how many ‘terrorists’ were eliminated?” a local witness queried, insisting that the Russians have no tangible answers to these questions because there were neither rebels nor terrorists in Lakata on that day. “Those who were there were just poor Central Africans working to survive. The lives lost were those of Central Africans, which the Wagner mercenaries consider are of no value.”
The local also stressed that this aerial attack against civilians constitutes a war crime, according to international humanitarian law. The utilisation of combat helicopters against unarmed civilian populations violates the Geneva Conventions and all the fundamental principles of war law.
These killings mark a terrifying escalation in the methods of the Wagner operatives. The mercenaries have only been operating on the ground from village to village, and most of the time, on motorbikes. The Central African Republic government has made no statement about the attack, but the disquieting silence by the Bangui authorities has caused concerns.
“The nine wounded in Lakata will probably not benefit from medical attention paid by the government. If they survive, they will do so with their wounds, trauma, and injuries while abandoned by a state that has chosen to work to the advantage of Russian mercenaries rather than for their own people,” said Severin Dougouguele, who identified himself as an activist.
He is also concerned by the international community’s silence over the matter.
“The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), which is present in the country, seems overwhelmed to the point it hardly investigates reports of such killings, while international human rights organisations find it difficult to access the areas where such killings take place. The international media is also handicapped by a lack of the necessary means and resolve to penetrate the hinterlands where these atrocities take place,” Severin claimed.
He also believes that the distance of these communities from civilisation makes news of these atrocities late reaching the authorities and international agencies that can intervene to curb their constant repetition.
The incident shows a broader pattern of abuse documented by Human Rights Watch (HRW). A 2022 report by the HRW details summary executions, torture, and arbitrary detentions by Russian-linked forces in CAR. Wagner operatives have been accused of targeting civilians under the guise of counterinsurgency, often with no accountability. As the crisis deepens, calls for independent investigations, medical aid, and international oversight grow louder.
Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Security Group have been accused of attacking farmers from helicopters in Lakata, Central African Republic, killing four and injuring nine.
The attack, described as an aerial onslaught on civilian targets, marks a shift from Wagner’s previous ground operations and raises questions about the absence of rebels or terrorists in the area to justify such violence. Witnesses classify the assault as a war crime under international law since it violates the Geneva Conventions.
The lack of response from the Central African Republic government has raised concerns over their ties with Russian mercenaries, while international observers and media struggle to access pertinent areas.
The incident aligns with a documented pattern of abuses by Russian-linked forces, as reported by Human Rights Watch, urging calls for independent investigations and more substantial international oversight and humanitarian aid.
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U.S. attorney fired after telling Border Patrol to follow court order
The acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento has said she was fired after telling the Border Patrol chief in charge of immigration raids in California that his agents were not allowed to arrest people without probable cause in the Central Valley.
Michele Beckwith, a career prosecutor who was made the acting U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of California earlier this year, told the New York Times that she was let go after she warned Gregory Bovino, chief of the Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector, that a court injunction blocked him from carrying out indiscriminate immigration raids in Sacramento.
Beckwith did not respond to a request for comment from the L.A. Times, but told the New York Times that “we have to stand up and insist the laws be followed.”
The U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento declined to comment. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment Friday evening.
Bovino presided over a series of raids in Los Angeles starting in June in which agents spent weeks pursuing Latino-looking workers outside of Home Depots, car washes, bus stops and other areas. The agents often wore masks and used unmarked vehicles.
But such indiscriminate tactics were not allowed in California’s Eastern District after the American Civil Liberties Union and United Farm Workers filed suit against the Border Patrol earlier in the year and won an injunction.
The suit followed a January operation in Kern County called “Operation Return to Sender,” in which agents swarmed a Home Depot and Latino market, among other areas frequented by laborers. In April, a federal district court judge ruled that the Border Patrol likely violated the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
As Beckwith described it to New York Times reporters, she received a phone call from Bovino on July 14 in which he said he was bringing agents to Sacramento.
She said she told him that the injunction filed after the Kern County raid meant he could not stop people indiscriminately in the Eastern District. The next day, she wrote him an email in which, as quoted in the New York Times, she stressed the need for “compliance with court orders and the Constitution.”
Shortly thereafter her work cell phone and her work computer stopped working. A bit before 5 p.m. she received an email informing her that her employment was being terminated effective immediately.
It was the end of a 15-year career in in the Department of Justice in which she had served as the office’s Criminal Division Chief and First Assistant and prosecuted members of the Aryan Brotherhood, suspected terrorists, and fentanyl traffickers.
Two days later on July 17, Bovino and his agents moved into Sacramento, conducting a raid at a Home Depot south of downtown.
In an interview with Fox News that day, Bovino said the raids were targeted and based on intelligence. “Everything we do is targeted,” he said. “We did have prior intelligence that there were targets that we were interested in and around that Home Depot, as well as other targeted enforcement packages in and around the Sacramento area.”
He also said that his operations would not slow down. “There is no sanctuary anywhere,” he said. “We’re here to stay. We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to affect this mission and secure the homeland.”
Beckwith is one of a number of top prosecutors who have quit or been fired as the Trump administration pushes the Department of Justice to aggressively carry out his policies, including investigating people who have been the president’s political targets.
In March, a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles was fired after lawyers for a fast-food executive he was prosecuting pushed officials in Washington to drop all charges against him, according to multiple sources.
In July, Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, was fired by the Trump administration, according to the New York Times.
And just last week, a U. S. attorney in Virginia was pushed out after he had determined there was insufficient evidence to prosecute James B. Comey. A new prosecutor this week won a grand jury indictment against Comey on one count of making a false statement and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding.
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South African police raid meth lab, net $20M of drugs
1 of 3 | Police in South Africa have seized crystal methamphetamine worth around $20 million at a lab on a rural property. Photo courtesy of the South African Police Service
Sept. 20 (UPI) — Police in South Africa have seized crystal methamphetamine worth around $20 million at a lab on a rural property, according to law enforcement officials.
Authorities also collected weapons and cash while dismantling the clandestine drug manufacturing operation, located on a farm in the eastern part of the country.
Six people were arrested, five of which are from a “North American country,” police said in a statement. Two other suspects were able to elude police.
“Preliminary investigations revealed that the five foreign nationals in custody were in the country illegally. They are facing possible charges related to contravening the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act as well as the Immigration Act,” police said in the statement.
Authorities said they were led to the laboratory by an anonymous tip.
Two Mexican nationals were arrested last year at a meth operation at an unrelated farm in a rural area in separarte part of the country.
“This massive success demonstrates that cooperation between police in Mpumalanga and other entities, both government and private, is bearing expected results. Police are working hard to rid the streets of Mpumalanga of all types of drugs, and dismantling a clandestine drug lab, which is the source of these drugs, is a step in the right direction,” South African Police Service Maj. Gen. Zeph Mkhwanazi said in the agency’s statement.
“We applaud the community members who continue to work with police and provide valuable tip-offs. Intelligence-driven operations are ongoing, and we, as police, will stop at nothing in our quest to collapse the illicit drug trade.”
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As raids stifle economy, Trump proves case for immigration reform
When I wrote last week about how immigration raids are targeting far more laborers than criminals, and whacking the California economy at a cost to all of us, I was surprised by the number of readers who wrote to say it’s high time for immigration reform.
The cynic in me had an immediate response, which essentially was, yeah, sure.
Bipartisan attempts failed in 2006 and 2014, so there’s a fat chance of getting anywhere in this political climate.
But the more I thought about it, nobody has done more to make clear how badly we need to rewrite federal immigration law than guess who.
President Trump.
Raids, the threat of more raids, and the promise to deport 3,000 people a day, are sabotaging Trump’s economic agenda and eroding his support among Latinos. Restaurants have suffered, construction has slowed and fruit has rotted on vines as the promised crackdown on violent offenders — which would have had much more public support — instead turned into a heartless, destructive and costly eradication.
I wouldn’t bet a nickel on Trump or his congressional lackeys to publicly admit to any of that. But there have been signs that the emperor is beginning to soften hard-line positions on deportations of working immigrants and student visas, sending his MAGA posse into convulsions.
“His heart isn’t in the nativist purge the way the rest of his administration’s heart is into it,” the Cato Institute’s director of immigration studies, David J. Bier, told the New York Times. Despite the tough talk, Bier said, Trump has “always had a soft spot for the economic needs from a business perspective.”
So too, apparently, do some California GOP legislators.
In June, six Republican lawmakers led by state Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares (R-Santa Clarita) sent Trump a letter urging him to ease up on the raids and get to work on immigration reform.
“Focus deportations on criminals,” Martinez Valladares wrote, “and support legal immigration and visa policies that will build a strong economy, secure our borders and protect our communities.”
Then in July, a bipartisan group of California lawmakers led by State Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa), followed suit.
Ochoa Bogh urged “immediate federal action … to issue expedited work permits to the millions of undocumented immigrants who are considered essential workers, such as farmworkers who provide critical services. These workers support many industries that keep our country afloat and, regardless of immigration status, we must not overlook the value of their economic, academic, and cultural contributions to the United States.”
State Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares (R-Santa Clarita) sent President Trump a letter urging him to ease up on raids and focus on immigration reform.
(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
Ochoa Bogh told me she heard from constituents in agriculture and hospitality who complained about the impact of raids. She said her aunt, a citizen, “is afraid to go out and carries a passport with her now because she’s afraid they might stop her.”
The senator said she blames both Democrats and Republicans for the failure to deliver sensible immigration reform over the years, and she told me her own family experience guides her thinking on what could be a way forward.
Her grandfather was a Mexican guest worker in the Bracero Program of the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s, ended up being sponsored for legal status, and eventually moved his entire family north. Since then, children and grandchildren have gone to school, worked, prospered and contributed.
If Trump were to respond to her letter and visit her district, Ochoa Bogh said, “I would absolutely have him visit my family.”
Her relatives include restaurateurs, the owners of a tailoring business, a county employee and a priest.
“We don’t want undocumented people in our country. … But we need a work permit process” that serves the needs of employers and workers, Ochoa Bogh said.
Public opinion polls reflect similar attitudes. Views are mixed, largely along party lines, but a Pew study in June found 42% approval and 47% disapproval of Trump’s overall approach on immigration.
A July Gallup poll found increasing support for immigration in general, with 85% in favor of a pathway to citizenship for immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors, and 60% support among Republicans for legal status of all undocumented people if certain requirements are met.
State Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, shown with Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk in 2022, says constituents in agriculture and hospitality have complained about the impact of raids.
(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
So it’s not entirely surprising that a bipartisan congressional immigration reform bill, the Dignity Act of 2025, was introduced in July by a Florida Republican and a Texas Democrat. It would allow legal status for those who have lived in the U.S. for five years, are working and paying taxes, and have no criminal record.
Victor Narro, project director at the UCLA Labor Center, isn’t optimistic, given political realities. But he’s been advocating for immigration reform for decades and said “we need to continue the fight because there will be a time of reckoning” in which the U.S. will “have to rely on immigrant workers to assure economic survival.”
“Germany had to resort to guest worker programs when birth rates declined,” said Kevin Johnson, a former UC Davis law school dean. “We may be begging for workers from other nations in the not too distant future.”
“No side wants to give the other a victory, but there have got to be ways to close that gap,” said Hiroshi Motomura, a UCLA immigration scholar whose new book, “Borders and Belonging: Toward A Fair Immigration Policy,” examines the history and causes of immigration, as well as the complexities of arguments for and against.
“Practically and politically, there’s potential” for reform, Motomura said, and he sees a better chance for rational conversations at the local level than in the heat of national debate. “You’re more likely to hear stories of mixed families … and that kind of thing humanizes the situation instead of turning it into a lot of abstract statistics.”
Ochoa Bogh told me that when she wrote her letter to Trump, the feedback from constituents included both support and criticism. She said she met with her critics, who told her she should be focused on jobs for citizens rather than for undocumented immigrants.
She said she told them she is all for “American people doing American jobs.” But “we have a workforce shortage in the state in various industries,” and a U.S.-born population that is not stepping up to do certain kinds of work.
“I said to them, ‘You can’t keep your eyes closed and say this is what it should be, when there are certain realities we have to navigate.”
So what are the chances of progress on immigration reform?
Not great at the moment.
But as readers suggested, a better question is this:
Why not?
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Senior diplomat expresses regret over raid at Hyundai plant
A charter plane is expected to repatriate about 300 South Korean workers who were among 475 arrested during a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at a construction site for an electric vehicle battery plant being built in Ellabell, Georgia. Photo by Erik S. Lesser/EPA
Sept. 14 (UPI) — The United States’ second-most senior diplomat expressed regret Sunday over the recent immigration raid at a Hyundai car battery plant in Georgia.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau met Sunday with First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Park Yoon-joo to discuss cooperation in the continued efforts to resolve the diplomatic spat stemming from the raid, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
During the meeting, Park highlighted the “uncomfortable treatment” faced by hundreds of South Korean nationals who were detained and deported after the raid and the shock felt across the country at the incident.
“Deputy Secretary Landau expressed deep regret over the incident and proposed using it as a turning point to improve the [visa] system and strengthen the [Republic of Korea-United States] relationship,” the foreign ministry said. Landau was also said to have recognized the significant contributions and investments made by Korean companies for the “revitalization of the U.S. economy and manufacturing industry.”
He added that President Donald Trump is also “highly concerned” about this issue, and that he will ensure that Korean workers who return to the United States will not difficulty with reentering, South Korean officials said.
“The United States welcomes and encourages foreign investment in our country and therefore logically welcomes and encourages the personnel necessary to get those investments up and running,” Landau said in a post to social media after the meeting.
“These are the kind of visitors we want, who are creating American jobs and prosperity right here at home. Korean companies are poised to make massive new investments in our country in shipbuilding among other industries.”
More than 300 workers from South Korea were arrested earlier this month during the raid at the factory, which Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution operate. More than 150 other workers were also detained.
The raid was announced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and included officers from other agencies, such as Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It marked one of the largest immigrant raids in modern American history.
Last Sunday, a senior South Korean official said that the country will charter a plane for the return of hundreds of workers who were detained.
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After massive raid at Hyundai plant in Georgia, non-Korean families in crisis
Ever since a massive immigration raid on a Hyundai manufacturing site swept up nearly 500 workers in southeast Georgia this month, Rosie Harrison said her organization’s phones have been ringing nonstop with panicked families in need of help.
“We have individuals returning calls every day, but the list doesn’t end,” Harrison said. She runs a nonprofit called Grow Initiative that connects low-income families — immigrant and nonimmigrant alike — with food, housing and educational resources.
Since the raid, Harrison said, “families are experiencing a new level of crisis.”
A majority of the 475 people who were detained in the workplace raid — which U.S. officials have called the largest in two decades — were Korean and have returned to South Korea. But lawyers and social workers say many of the non-Korean immigrants ensnared in the crackdown remain in legal limbo or are otherwise unaccounted for.
As the raid began the morning of Sept. 4, workers almost immediately started calling Migrant Equity Southeast, a local nonprofit that connects immigrants with legal and financial resources. The small organization of approximately 15 employees fielded calls regarding people from Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela, spokesperson Vanessa Contreras said.
Throughout the day, people described federal agents taking cellphones from workers and putting them in long lines, Contreras said. Some workers hid for hours to avoid capture in air ducts or remote areas of the sprawling property. The Department of Justice said some hid in a nearby sewage pond.
People off-site called the organization frantically seeking the whereabouts of loved ones who worked at the plant and were suddenly unreachable.
Like many of the Koreans who were working there, advocates and lawyers representing the non-Korean workers caught up in the raid say that some who were detained had legal authorization to work in the United States.
Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement responded to emailed requests for comment Friday. It is not clear how many people detained during the raid remain in custody.
Atlanta-based attorney Charles Kuck, who represents both Korean and non-Korean workers who were detained, said two of his clients were legally working under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, which was created under President Obama. One had been released and “should have never been arrested,” he said, while the other was still being held because he was recently charged with driving under the influence.
Another of Kuck’s clients was in the process of seeking asylum, he said, and had the same documents and job as her husband, who was not arrested.
Some even had valid Georgia driver’s licenses, which aren’t available to people in the country illegally, said Rosario Palacios, who has been assisting Migrant Equity Southeast. Some families who called the organization were left without access to transportation because the person who had been detained was the only one who could drive.
“It’s hard to say how they chose who they were going to release and who they were going to take into custody,” Palacios said, adding that some who were arrested didn’t have a so-called alien identification number and were still unaccounted for.
Kuck said the raid is an indication of how far reaching the Trump administration crackdown is, which officials claim is targeting only criminals.
“The redefinition of the word ‘criminal’ to include everybody who is not a citizen, and even some that are, is the problem here,” Kuck said.
Many of the families who called Harrison’s initiative said their detained relatives were the sole breadwinners in the household, leaving them desperate for basics like baby formula and food.
The financial impact of the raid at the construction site for a battery factory that will be operated by HL-GA Battery Co. was compounded by the fact that another large employer in the area — International Paper Co. — is closing at the end of the month, laying off 800 more workers, Harrison said.
Growth Initiative doesn’t check immigration status, Harrison said, but almost all families who have reached out to her have said that their detained loved ones had legal authorization to work in the United States, leaving many confused about why their relative was taken into custody.
“The worst phone calls are the ones where you have children crying, screaming, ‘Where is my mom?’” Harrison said.
Riddle writes for the Associated Press. R
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Israeli forces arrest young Palestinian woman during raid in Hebron | Occupied West Bank
Israeli forces arrested a Palestinian student, Baraa Jamal Karama, during a raid on her home in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. In the footage, a soldier shushes her as she calls out, while another points his gun at the person filming.
Published On 14 Sep 202514 Sep 2025
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South Korean workers detained in immigration raid leave Atlanta and head home
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s president said Thursday that Korean companies probably will hesitate to make further investments in the United States unless Washington improves its visa system for their employees, as U.S. authorities released hundreds of workers who were detained at a Georgia factory site last week.
In a news conference marking 100 days in office, Lee Jae Myung called for improvements in the U.S. visa system as he spoke about the Sept. 4 immigration raid that resulted in the arrest of more than 300 South Korean workers at a battery factory under construction at Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant west of Savannah.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry later confirmed that U.S. authorities had released the 330 detainees — 316 of them South Koreans — and that they were being transported by buses to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport, where they will board a charter flight scheduled to arrive in South Korea on Friday afternoon. The group also includes 10 Chinese nationals, three Japanese nationals and one Indonesian.
The massive roundup and U.S. authorities’ release of video showing some workers being chained and taken away sparked widespread anger and a sense of betrayal in South Korea. The raid came less than two weeks after a summit between President Trump and Lee, and just weeks after the countries reached a July agreement that spared South Korea from the Trump administration’s highest tariffs — but only after Seoul pledged $350 billion in new U.S. investments, against the backdrop of a decaying job market at home.
Lawmakers from both Lee’s Liberal Democratic Party and the conservative opposition decried the detentions as outrageous and heavy-handed, while South Korea’s biggest newspaper compared the raid to a “rabbit hunt” executed by U.S. immigration authorities in a zeal to meet an alleged White House goal of 3,000 arrests a day.
During the news conference, Lee said South Korean and U.S. officials are discussing a possible improvement to the U.S. visa system, adding that under the current system South Korean companies “can’t help hesitating a lot” about making direct investments in the U.S.
Lee: ‘It’s not like these are long-term workers’
U.S. authorities said some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others entered legally but had expired visas or entered on visa waivers that prohibited them from working.
But South Korean officials expressed frustration that Washington has yet to act on Seoul’s years-long demand to ensure a visa system to accommodate skilled Korean workers, though it has been pressing South Korea to expand U.S. industrial investments.
South Korean companies have been mostly relying on short-term visitor visas or Electronic System for Travel Authorization to send workers who are needed to launch manufacturing sites and handle other setup tasks, a practice that had been largely tolerated for years.
Lee said that whether Washington establishes a visa system allowing South Korean companies to send skilled workers to industrial sites will have a “major impact” on future South Korean investments in America.
“It’s not like these are long-term workers. When you build a factory or install equipment at a factory, you need technicians, but the United States doesn’t have that workforce and yet they won’t issue visas to let our people stay and do the work,” he said.
“If that’s not possible, then establishing a local factory in the United States will either come with severe disadvantages or become very difficult for our companies. They will wonder whether they should even do it,” Lee added.
Lee said the raid showed a “cultural difference” between the two countries in how they handle immigration issues.
“In South Korea, we see Americans coming on tourist visas to teach English at private cram schools — they do it all the time, and we don’t think much of it, it’s just something you accept,” Lee said.
“But the United States clearly doesn’t see things that way. On top of that, U.S. immigration authorities pledge to strictly forbid illegal immigration and employment and carry out deportations in various aggressive ways, and our people happened to be caught in one of those cases,” he added.
South Korea, U.S. agree on working group to settle visa issues
After a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Wednesday that U.S. officials have agreed to allow the workers detained in Georgia to later return to finish their work at the site. He added that the countries agreed to set up a joint working group for discussions on creating a new visa category to make it easier for South Korean companies to send their staff to work in the United States.
Before leaving for the U.S. on Monday, Cho said more South Korean workers in the U.S. could be vulnerable to future crackdowns if the visa issue isn’t resolved, but said Seoul does not yet have an estimate of how many might be at risk.
The State Department announced Thursday that Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau would visit Seoul this weekend as part of a three-nation Asia-Pacific trip that will also include Papua New Guinea and the Marshall Islands.
The Georgia battery plant is one of more than 20 major industrial sites that South Korean companies are building in the United States. They include other battery factories in Georgia and several other states, a semiconductor plant in Texas and a shipbuilding project in Philadelphia, a sector that Trump has frequently highlighted in relation to South Korea.
Min Jeonghun, a professor at South Korea’s National Diplomatic Academy, said it’s chiefly up to the United States to resolve the issue, either through legislation or by taking administrative steps to expand short-term work visas for training purposes.
Without an update in U.S. visa policies, Min said, “Korean companies will no longer be able to send their workers to the United States, causing inevitable delays in the expansion of facilities and other production activities, and the harm will boomerang back to the U.S. economy.”
Hyung-jin and Tong-Hyung write for the Associated Press. Tong-Hyung reported from Seoul.
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South Korea’s Lee says immigration raid may deter U.S. investment
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung takes questions during a news conference to mark 100 days in office at the Blue House in Seoul Thursday. Pool Photo by Kim Hong-ji/Reuters/EPA
SEOUL, Sept. 11 (UPI) — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said Thursday that last week’s “perplexing” immigration raid at a Hyundai electric battery plant in Georgia, which led to the detention of more than 300 South Korean workers, could prevent firms from making future investments in the United States.
“Companies will have to worry about whether establishing a local factory in the United States will be subject to all sorts of disadvantages or difficulties,” Lee said at a press conference in Seoul marking his 100th day in office.
“That could have a significant impact on future direct investment,” he said.
Multiple agencies led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 475 people, most of whom are South Korean nationals, at a Hyundai-LG Energy Solutions battery plant near Savannah, Ga., last Thursday.
ICE and Homeland Security Investigations officials said those who were detained are not authorized to work in the United States. The raid was the largest single-site operation so far under U.S. President Donald Trump‘s mass deportation agenda.
The roundup, which came less than two weeks after Lee met with Trump in the White House, has sparked widespread public shock and anger in South Korea. In July, Seoul and Washington reached a trade deal to lower Trump’s threatened tariffs from 25% to 15%, while South Korea pledged to invest $350 billion in the United States.
“The situation is extremely perplexing,” Lee said, noting that South Korean firms regularly send skilled workers for short stays to help establish overseas factories.
“These are not long-term workers,” he said. “When setting up facilities and equipment, you need skilled technicians. You need to install the machinery and the U.S. doesn’t have the workforce locally.”
Lee added that Seoul is currently negotiating with Washington to address the visa situation through potential waivers, additional quotas or new visa categories for Korean workers.
“If the United States sees a practical need, I think the issue will be resolved,” he said. “Under the current circumstances, Korean companies will be very hesitant to make direct investments in the United States.”
Some 316 South Korean nationals and 14 foreigners will return to Seoul on a charter plane departing at 1 a.m. local time on Friday, Lee said.
The flight, initially planned for Wednesday, was delayed due to U.S. officials insisting on transporting the workers in handcuffs, Lee added. He said Seoul protested and Washington reversed its stance, citing an “instruction from the White House.”
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Firms will hesitate to invest in US after raid – South Korea president
South Korean companies will be “very hesitant” about investing in the US following a massive immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in the state of Georgia last week, President Lee Jae-myung said.
More than 300 South Koreans who were arrested in the raid are due to return home on Friday, after their departure was delayed “due to circumstances on the US side”, officials said.
“The situation is extremely bewildering,” said Lee, noting that it is common practice for Korean firms to send workers to help set up overseas factories.
“If that’s no longer allowed, establishing manufacturing facilities in the US will only become more difficult… making companies question whether it’s worth doing at all.”
Last week, US officials detained 475 people – more than 300 of them South Korean nationals – who they said were working illegally at the battery facility, one of the largest foreign investment projects in the state.
A worker at the plant spoke to the BBC about the panic and confusion during the raid. The employee said the vast majority of the workers detained were mechanics installing production lines at the site, and were employed by a contractor.
South Korea, a close US ally in Asia, has pledged to invest tens of billions of dollars in America, partly to offset tariffs.
The timing of the raid, as the two governments engage in sensitive trade talks, has raised concern in Seoul.
The White House has defended the operation at the Hyundai plant, dismissing concerns that the raid could deter foreign investment.
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump referenced the raid in a social media post and called for foreign companies to hire Americans.
The US government would make it “quickly and legally possible” for foreign firms to bring workers into the country if they respected its immigration laws, Trump said.
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South Korea sends plane to U.S. to bring back workers detained in immigration raid
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean charter plane left for the U.S. on Wednesday to bring back Korean workers detained in an immigration raid in Georgia last week, though officials said the return of the plane with the workers onboard will not happen as quickly as they had hoped.
A total of 475 workers, more than 300 of them South Koreans, were rounded up in the Sept. 4 raid at the battery factory under construction at Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant. U.S. authorities released video showing some being shackled with chains around their hands, ankles and waists, causing shock and a sense of betrayal among many in South Korea, a key U.S. ally.
South Korea’s government later said it reached an agreement with the U.S. for the release of the workers.
Korean workers expected to be brought back home after days of detention
South Korean TV footage showed the charter plane, a Boeing 747-8i from Korean Air, taking off at Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it was talking with U.S. officials about letting the plane return home with the released workers as soon as possible. But it said the plane cannot depart from the U.S. on Wednesday as South Korea earlier wished due to an unspecified reason involving the U.S. side.
The Korean workers are currently being held at an immigration detention center in Folkston in southeast Georgia. South Korean media reported they will be freed and driven 285 miles by bus to Atlanta to take the charter plane.
South Korean officials said they’ve been negotiating with the U.S. to win “voluntary” departures of the workers, rather than deportations that could result in making them ineligible to return to the U.S. for up to 10 years.
The workplace raid by the U.S. Homeland Security agency was its largest yet as it pursues its mass deportation agenda. The Georgia battery plant, a joint venture between Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, is one of more than 20 major industrial sites that South Korean companies are currently building in the United States.
Many South Koreans view the Georgia raid as a source of national disgrace and remain stunned over it. Only 10 days earlier, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and President Trump held their first summit in Washington on Aug. 25. In late July, South Korea also promised hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. investments to reach a tariff deal.
Experts say South Korea won’t likely take any major retaliatory steps against the U.S., but the Georgia raid could become a source of tensions between the allies as the Trump administration intensifies immigration raids.
South Korea calls for improvement in U.S. visa systems
U.S. authorities said some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others had entered the country legally but had expired visas or entered on a visa waiver that prohibited them from working. But South Korean experts and officials said Washington has yet to act on Seoul’s yearslong demand to ensure a visa system to accommodate skilled Korean workers needed to build facilities, though it has been pressing South Korea to expand industrial investments in the U.S.
South Korean companies have been relying on short-term visitor visas or Electronic System for Travel Authorization to send workers needed to launch manufacturing sites and handle other setup tasks, a practice that had been largely tolerated for years.
LG Energy Solution, which employed most of the detained workers, instructed its South Korean employees in the U.S. on B-1 or B-2 short-term visit visas not to report to work until further notice, and told those with ESTAs to return home immediately.
During his visit to Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun met representatives of major Korean companies operating in the U.S. including Hyundai, LG and Samsung on Tuesday. Cho told them that South Korean officials are in active discussions with U.S. officials and lawmakers about possible legislation to create a separate visa quota for South Korean professionals operating in the U.S., according to Cho’s ministry.
Trump said this week the workers “were here illegally,” and that the U.S. needs to work with other countries to have their experts train U.S. citizens to do specialized work such as battery and computer manufacturing.
Atlanta immigration attorney Charles Kuck, who represents several of the detained South Korean nationals, told the Associated Press on Monday that no company in the U.S. makes the machines used in the Georgia battery plant. So they had to come from abroad to install or repair equipment on-site — work that would take about three to five years to train someone in the U.S. to do, he said.
The South Korea-U.S. military alliance, forged in blood during the 1950-53 Korean War, has experienced ups and downs over the decades. But surveys have shown a majority of South Koreans support the two countries’ alliance, as the U.S. deployment of 28,500 troops in South Korea and 50,000 others in Japan has served as the backbone of the American military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
During a Cabinet Council meeting on Tuesday, Lee said he felt “big responsibility” over the raid and expressed hopes that the operations of South Korean businesses won’t be infringed upon unfairly again. He said his government will push to improve systems to prevent recurrences of similar incidents in close consultations with the U.S.
Kim and Tong-Hyung write for the Associated Press.
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Hyundai ICE raid in Georgia leaves Asian executives shaken by Trump’s mixed signals
SEOUL — The immigration raid that snatched up hundreds of South Koreans last week sent a disconcerting message to companies in South Korea and elsewhere: America wants your investment, but don’t expect special treatment.
Images of employees being shackled and detained like criminals have outraged many South Koreans. The fallout is already being felt in delays to some big investment projects, auto industry executives and analysts said. Some predicted that it could also make some companies think twice about investing in the U.S. at all.
“Companies cannot afford to not be more cautious about investing in the U.S. in the future,” said Lee Ho-guen, an auto industry expert at Daeduk University, “In the long run, especially if things get worse, this could make car companies turn away from the U.S. market and more toward other places like Latin America, Europe or the Middle East.”
The raid last week, in which more than 300 South Korean nationals were detained, targeted a factory site in Ellabell, Ga,. owned by HL-GA Battery Company, a joint venture between Hyundai and South Korean battery-maker LG Energy Solutions to supply batteries for EVs. The Georgia factory is also expected to supply batteries for Kia, which is part of the Hyundai Motor Group. Kia has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its factory in West Point, Ga.
“This situation highlights the competing policy priorities of the Trump administration and has many in Asia scratching their heads, asking, ‘Which is more important to America? Immigration raids or attracting high-quality foreign investment?” said Tami Overby, former president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea. “Images of hundreds of Korean workers being treated like criminals are playing all over Asia and don’t match President Trump’s vision to bring high-quality, advanced manufacturing back to America.”
A protester wears a mask of President Trump at a rally Tuesday in Seoul protesting the detention of South Korean workers in Georgia. The signs call for “immediate releases and Trump apology.”
(Ahn Young-joon / Associated Press)
South Korea is one of the U.S.’ biggest trading partners, with the two countries exchanging $242.5 billion in goods and services last year. The U.S. is the leading destination for South Korea’s overseas investments, receiving $26 billion last year, according to South Korea’s Finance Ministry.
Trump is banking on ambitious projects like the one raided in Georgia to revive American manufacturing.
Hyundai is one of the South Korean companies with the largest commitments to the U.S. It has invested around $20 billion since entering the market in the 1980s. It sold 836,802 cars in the U.S. last year.
California is one of its largest markets, with more than 70 dealerships.
Earlier this year, the company announced an additional $26 billion to build a new steel mill in Louisiana and upgrade its existing auto plants.
Hyundai’s expansion plans were part of the $150-billion pledge South Korea made last month to help convince President Trump to set tariffs on Korean products at 15% instead of the 25% he had earlier announced.
Samsung Electronics announced that it would invest $37 billion to construct a semiconductor factory in Texas. Similarly large sums are expected from South Korean shipbuilders.
Analysts and executives say the recent raid is making companies feel exposed, all the more so because U.S. officials have indicated that more crackdowns are coming.
“We’re going to do more worksite enforcement operations,” White House border advisor Tom Homan said on Sunday. “No one hires an illegal alien out of the goodness of their heart. They hire them because they can work them harder, pay them less, undercut the competition that hires U.S. citizen employees.”
Many South Korean companies have banned all work-related travel to the U.S. or are recalling personnel already there, according to local media reports. Construction work on at least 22 U.S. factory sites has reportedly been halted.
The newspaper Korea Economic Daily reported on Monday that 10 out of the 14 companies it contacted said they were considering adjusting their projects in the U.S. due to the Georgia raids.
It is a significant problem for the big planned projects, analysts say. South Korean companies involved in U.S. manufacturing projects say they need to bring their own engineering teams to get the factories up and running, but obtaining proper work visas for them is difficult and time-consuming. The option often used to get around this problem is an illegal shortcut like using the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, a non-work permit that allows tourists to stay in the country for up to 90 days.
Unlike countries such as Singapore or Mexico, South Korea doesn’t have a deal with Washington that guarantees work visas for specialized workers.
“The U.S. keeps calling for more investments into the country. But no matter how many people we end up hiring locally later, there is no way around bringing in South Korean experts to get things off the ground,” said a manager at a subcontractor for LG Energy Solution, who asked not to be named. “But now we can no longer use ESTAs like we did in the past.”
Trump pointed to the problem on Truth Social, posting that he will try to make it easier for South Korean companies to bring in the people they need, but reminding them to “please respect our Nation’s Immigration Laws.”
“Your Investments are welcome, and we encourage you to LEGALLY bring your very smart people … and we will make it quickly and legally possible for you to do so,” the post said.
Sydney Seiler, senior advisor and Korea chair at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the timing of the raids was an “irritant” but that South Korean companies would eventually adjust.
“Rectifying that is a challenge for all involved, the companies, the embassies who issue visas, etc.,” Seiler said, adding that the raids will make other companies be more careful in the future.
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