Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-01-29 Thursday

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

Democracy Now! Thursday, January 29, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Do you hear them shouting? Can you hear that? They're shouting, let us out. Let us out. The shouts of hundreds of parents and children detained by ICE protesting from behind the walls of the family detention center in Dilley, Texas over the weekend. Prisoners there include five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father,

detained in Minneapolis. and sent to Texas. We'll speak with immigration attorney Eric Lee, who is there. Then to New Jersey, to talk to Congresswoman La Monica McIver, she's facing 17 years in prison for allegedly assaulting a federal officer outside an ICE detention center in Newark as agents were arresting Mayor Ross Baraka. She vehemently denies the charges against her. And finally, we're not going to be.

We'll look at how ICE is using facial recognition technology to track immigrants and protesters in Minnesota and across the country. We'll speak to the ACLU. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, DemocracyNow, DemocracyNow.org, the War and Peace report by Mamie Goodman. The Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday the two agents who killed Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Preti have been placed on administrative leave since Saturday, when they fired a combined 10 rounds at Preti in under five seconds as he lay motionless on the ground. The preliminary internal review by Customs and Border Protection made no mention of Prettie attacking officers or brandishing a gun, directly contradicting Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem's initial claims about Prettie's killing.

It comes as three new videos have been discovered showing a previous confrontation between Alex Prettie and, federal agents 11 days before he was fatally shot by ICE agents. The footage shows Prattie yelling at agents in an unmarked vehicle and kicking the taillight of the car as they drive away. An armed agent is then seen exiting the car, tackling Prati to the ground soon after the officers leave the scene. Meanwhile, ICE and Border Patrol agents have continued carrying out raids across the Twin Cities. On Tuesday, diplomatic staff inside Ecuador's consulate in Minneapolis filmed an ICE agent trying to enter the building, which is considered the sovereign territory of Ecuador under the Vienna Convention.

In response, Ecuador's foreign ministry filed a formal protest with the U.S. Embassy in Quito condemning ICE's actions. This despite the fact that the Ecuadoran president, Danielle Naboa, is an ally of President Trump. On Wednesday, President Trump lashed out Minneapolis's mayor on social media, writing, quote, surprisingly, Mayor Jacob Frye just stated that Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws. Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the law and that he is playing with fire, unquote? Fry responded, quote, the job of our police is to keep people safe, not enforce federal. immigration laws. I want them preventing homicides, not hunting down a working dad who contributes to Minneapolis and is from Ecuador, unquote. Meanwhile, a third round of No King's protests is being

planned for March 28th. Organizers expect it'll be the largest protest in U.S. history. Earlier today, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar launched her bid to run for Governor of Minnesota. It comes after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced earlier this month that he will not seek a third term. President Trump claimed Democratic Congressmember Ilhan Omar staged the attack against herself when a man rushed towards her and sprayed her with a foul-smelling liquid at a town hall in Minneapolis Tuesday night. Speaking to ABC News, Rachel Scott, Trump said he hadn't seen the video of the assault saying, quote, I don't think about her. I think she's a fraud. She probably had herself sprayed knowing her, unquote. This is Congressmember Ilhan Omar, speaking to reporters Wednesday.

Well, I think my presence here should tell you that the fear and intimidation doesn't work on me. And, you know, you and I have talked about this many times, the president's rhetoric, the attacks from him since I've gotten into public. office from the right wing has always been really to stop me from being in public service, to intimidate me, to make me want to quit. And my only message is it hasn't worked thus far and it's not going to work in the future. Democratic Congress member Joaquin Castro met with five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father at the Dilley-Dention Center in Texas on Wednesday. Liam was detained with his dad in Minnesota after the boy came home from preschool last week. Images of Liam went viral after he was picked up by federal agents while still wearing his Spider-Man backpack and a blue hat with bunny ears.

Congress member Castro spoke after the meeting. His dad said that he hasn't been himself, that he's been sleeping a lot because he's been depressed and sad. And so Liam actually was not awake during our visit. He was sleeping. A lot of parents there who talked about their kids experiencing deep depression, anxiety. 80 members of Congress led by Texas Democratic Congress member Greg Kassar and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren are demanding that Annie Lucia Lopez-Biosa be allowed to return to the United States after the Trump administration admitted she was mistakenly deported to Honduras. She's a student at Babson College was detained and deported while traveling home to Austin to visit

her family for a surprise for Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, a federal judge ruled on Monday that DHS can continue to insist that lawmakers provide a week's notice before visiting immigration detention facility. Last week, Democratic Senator Cory Booker introduced a bill to end the use of private for-profit detention facilities to jail immigrants. We'll speak with New Jersey Congress member La Monica McIver later in the broadcast. In Texas, several prisoners at a ICE jail on the Fort Bliss military base have testified they heard Cuban immigrant, Heraldo Linus Campos, pleading for medication, shortly before guards tackled him to the ground. One of the witnesses said in a sworn court declaration, he heard a guard tell Lunas Campos, quote, shut up or we're going to make you faint, unquote.

He added, quote, the last thing I heard was Geraldo's speak in a voice that sounded like he couldn't breathe. He said, let go of me. You're asphyxating me, unquote. ICE claimed the 55-year-old father of four died while staff were attempting to save him after he attempted suicide. But an autopsy found Campos died from asphyxiation due to neck and torso compression. And the Associated Press reports, a witness saw Lunas Campos handcuffed as at least five guards held him down while one put an arm around his neck and squeezed until he was unconscious. Homeland security officials have urged FEMA staff to avoid using phrases like, watch out for ice in public messaging about the recent winter storm that hit the United States. A source told CNN, quote, if FEMA says, keep off the roads if you see ice, it would be easy for the public to meme it, unquote.

The DHS directive reportedly instructed FEMA staffers to use terms like freezing rain instead of ice. and their communications. Senate Democrats are threatening to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security if the current government spending bill does not include reforms aimed at ICE agents. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is calling for the DHS funding bill to be rewritten and voted on separately. But Republicans have signaled they won't call for a separate vote on DHS funding. If the Senate fails to pass a federal spending bill, the government will partially shut

down Saturday. The FBI raided the election office in Georgia's Fulton County Wednesday, seeking computers and ballots related to the 2020 election. Reuters confirmed that Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, visited the site of the search. President Trump continues to falsely claim his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voting fraud and has repeatedly targeted Fulton County officials. The FBI raid comes a week after Trump vowed on social media that, quote, people will soon

be prosecuted for what they did, unquote, in reference to the 2020 election. In response to the FBI raid, Georgia Democratic Senator John Ossoff said, quote, after losing Georgia in 2020, Donald Trump demanded state officials find votes to change the outcome, tried to use DOJ to overturn it, and spread conspiracy theories that led to the January 6th sacking of the U.S. Capitol. I suspect today's raid is a continuation of this sore losers' crusade, despite repeated audits and independent reviews confirming that Donald Trump was indeed defeated, Senator Assoff said. In economic news, the U.S. Federal Reserve left interest rates on change Wednesday,

resisting pressure from President Trump to lower them. This comes as the Fed and its chairman, Jerome Powell, are facing a criminal investigation launched by Trump's ally, Janine Piro, the former Fox News host, who's currently the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. On Tuesday, Powell confirmed he attended the Supreme Court's oral arguments over Trump's effort to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook. I wanted to ask that, you know, you attended the Supreme Court hearing last week on the Lisa Cook case. and Treasury Secretary Scott Besson criticized that as political. Can you say why you attended and what you would say in response to the Secretary's criticism? So let me start with. I don't respond to comments by other officials, whoever they may be.

It's just not appropriate to do that. I will tell you why I attended. I would say that that case is perhaps the most important legal case in the Fed's 113-year history. Secretary of State Marco Rubio Wednesday refused to rule out further U.S. attacks on Venezuela. Rubio's threat came during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he told lawmakers, Venezuela's interim government has agreed to submit a monthly budget to the Trump administration, which will release money from an account funded by oil sales and initially managed by Qatar. Rubio's testimony was interrupted by the Venezuelan American activist, Leonardo

Florida with the anti-war group Code Pink. The Sanchez-oneman is a collective punishment of civilians up to war crime. He said they committed at least four war crimes since this operation started in August. Perfect. They disguised a plane, military plane as a civilian craft. They double-tapped a district. Who's all it? They also blockaded Venezuela.

That's not an act of war. President Trump has threatened another U.S. military strike on Iran, unless a in Tehran agree to a new nuclear deal. On Wednesday, Trump wrote on social media, a massive armada is heading to Iran and is prepared to move, quote, with speed and violence, if necessary. Trump added, quote, time is running out. It's truly of the essence, unquote. Iran's foreign minister promised to respond immediately and powerfully to any possible U.S. attack. Following Trump's threats, European Union foreign ministers impose new sanctions on Iran, cited. the government's violent crackdown on recent protests.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has set the doomsday clock to 85 seconds to midnight. The closest the clock has ever been to midnight in its history. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists said that urgent action is needed to address nuclear weapons threats, disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, multiple biological security concerns, and the continuing climate crisis. Russia launched a wave of drone and missile attacks across Ukraine Wednesday, killing a couple in Kiev. It follows a Russian strike on a passenger train which killed five people Tuesday. The attacks come ahead of peace talks that are scheduled for this weekend.

A new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies finds nearly two million Russian and Ukrainian troops have been killed, wounded, or missing during nearly four years. of war. Spain's announced it's offering legal amnesty to nearly half a million undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers in Spain. Immigrants will be granted up to one year of legal residency as well as permission to work. Foreign nationals who arrived in Spain before December 31st, 2025 must prove they've been living in the country for at least five months to be eligible and prove that they have no criminal record. Dozens of people have died. National wide due to extreme cold weather conditions. CBS News confirmed at least 60 deaths due to the winter storm that swept large parts of the U.S. Here in New York City, at least 10 people were found dead outside during dangerously cold temperatures.

According to New York City police, eight men and two women were found in front of homes near busy intersections outside a hospital and next to a supermarket. And Bruce Springsteen has released a new song called Streets of Minneapolis, directly criticizing President Trump's immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. The lyrics cast ICE agents as, quote, King Trump's Private Army. This is a part of streets of Minneapolis. Trump's federal thugs, peace and his chest. Then we heard the gunshot. And Alex pretty lay in the snow dead. Their claim was self-defensive.

Just don't believe your eyes. It's our blood and bones and these whistles and phones against Miller and norms. Well, hear more of Bruce Springsteen's new song throughout the broadcast. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. In Delhi, Texas, two protesters were arrested Wednesday as demonstrators rallied outside ISIS, South Texas family residential center where the Trump administration is detaining children, including Liam Ramos, the five-year-old from Minnesota, who is detained last week

after coming home from preschool. Images of Liam went viral after he was picked up while still wearing a Spider-Man backpack and a blue hat with bunny ears. He's being detained with his father. According to the family's lawyer, Liam's father is a legal asylum seeker who's followed proper protocols and has no criminal record. On Wednesday, Texas Democratic Congress member Joaquin Castro met with Liam and his father. Castro spoke after their meeting. Liam Ramos should be released to me.

I would first like to describe to you our meeting we met with he and his father for about 30 minutes how that meeting went we sat in what was the courtroom you can see from the picture that I posted that he was lying in his father's arms his father said that Liam has been very depressed since he's been at Dilly

that he hasn't been eating well I was concerned with you see how he appears in that photo with his energy. He seemed lethargic. He said, his father said that Liam has been sleeping a lot, that he's been asking about his family,

his mom, and his classmates, and saying that he wants to go be back in school with his classmates. He's asked about his backpack and his cap that he was wearing when they picked him up in Minnesota. I let him know. know that his school and his community, his family, and our country love him, and we're praying for him.

Texas Democratic Congressmember Joaquin Castro visited the ICE jail in Delhi just days after hundreds of detained immigrant families held a protest inside demanding the release of Liam and other detained children. Protesters held signs reading Libertad for Los Ninos or Libertests. for the kids. The immigration attorney, Eric Lee, was attempting to meet with clients inside Dilley when the protests broke out. He posted this video from just outside. I'm outside. I'm outside. It doesn't say out here. And I've just been ordered to leave the premises. I've just been ordered to leave the premises. And she's yelling at me right now. So I'm outside of the Dilley facility here in

South Texas. There's a demonstration of detainees taking place inside right now. We were all asked to leave. There's a drone flying up ahead right now. It's an extremely bizarre situation. You can hear them shouting. Can you hear that? They're shouting, let us out. Let us out. A video from immigration attorney Eric Lee recorded Saturday outside ISIS, South Texas. family jail in Dilley. He's joining us now from San Antonio, along with Javier Idaugo, legal director at AIS, an organization that provides legal support for immigrant families in Texas. Eric, let's begin with you. We just saw you outside this jail, the detention center. Can you explain who's inside and also talk about this visit yesterday? You were there as well yesterday, I understand, outside, of Joachim Castro, who's with,

With Liam's dad and Liam, who is the dad holding Liam, he says he is very depressed and is just laying there. Well, I represent a family of six. It's a mother and her five children, two five-year-old twins who have been there for over eight months. That's almost a fifth of their young lives. Their last name is El Gamal. There's also a nine-year-old, a 16-year-old, an 18-year-old. The conditions in this facility are abysmal. But I think there's another point to be made about the overall situation because, yes, the Democrats are holding their press conferences. It's a midterm election year. We all know that they do this.

Every time there is some horrific crime perpetrated against immigrants, whether it's family separation in 2018 and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's teary-eyed photo op. And then they go away and nothing changes. Dilley was opened by the Obama administration in 2014. It's been filled up with hundreds of children and their parents. The Biden administration kept it open for three and a half, I believe three and a half years of his term. Obviously, Trump is making everything worse. The conditions are deplorable. They're getting worse and worse. But it's very important as this protest movement develops across this country, as the calls for more demonstrations, grow and grow as calls for a general strike grow. The Democratic Party is as equally responsible as Trump for creating the infrastructure of mass, family, and adult detention in this country, and it is necessary that this protest movement stay 100 miles away from the Democratic Party and develop its orientation to the working class. That's the only way that Dilley is going to be

shut down, that the families inside, like my clients, are going to be freed. And that is got that has got to be rule number one with these protests as they develop going forward. I'm wondering, Avery Adalgo, if you can describe the conditions inside as we hear this painful cry of children and parents, let us out, let us out. Yeah. The conditions are, imagine you were in a jail. And imagine it was a jail that was probably conditions worse than any jail that our criminal justice system will put someone in. Now, imagine you're in there with your child, watching your child deteriorate day after day. And it's a jail that no one else, no one in there has actually done anything wrong, right?

Because no criminals are in immigrant detention. They can't be. They would be in our criminal justice system, right? And every day, the guards there are saying, well, if you want this to end, just give up your case. Right. And so imagine that condition. imagine being there with a breastfeeding child under the age of one, and the water that they give you to mix with formula

smells so bad that your child won't take it down, right? That's the type of conditions. Lack of medical care is constant. And let me just say my context for this, right, is our organization has been working, providing legal services to families and family attention since Obama opened them in 2014 in some form, right? we've been documenting these harms.

These harms aren't new. It's almost as, it's a tool that just keeps getting recycled and used, but the conditions are just horrific, and it's unimaginable. And you almost have to go and see it. I can describe it in and out, right? Lack of adequate food. We often hear about food with bugs or worms in it, have frozen food being given,

guards yelling at parents if their kids are making too much noise or if they're asking for an extra apple. Yesterday when the Congress folks tried to meet, you know, we understood from the clients that we were meeting with that same day, right? That they were pretty much locked in their rooms except to be escorted to meet with us in legal visitation. And they were locked in their rooms and the guards just tossed crayons on the floor for the kids to play with to keep them busy. There's no educational resources. What they are given is laughable.

And some of the things that are new are a lot of these families, which this hasn't happened all that often in the recent years that they've used families. Wishing a lot of families that have been here in our communities for a long time, taken into detention centers while they're still trying to process the case. So you're talking about kids who have been going to school, understand the difference between a rigorous academic curriculum, and they're giving coloring packets, right? And so that's the level of conditions. And despite all the protections that exist,

and let me say there's very few protections that exist, ICE has taken a position that they don't actually apply because they don't want them to anymore. And they're just ignoring them and flattering them. So you have families in there that are in there towards 100 days, upwards of 100 days, as high as Eric's client, who has been there unimaginable amount of time, right?

And so let me ask, I'm sorry. Let me ask Eric Lee about this family that they have been there for many months. What about the Flores decision where children aren't supposed to be detained longer than 20 days? Well, this family has been persecuted by Stephen Miller and Donald Trump and the White House. They are the wife and child of the individual who carried out the attack on a peaceful demonstration in Boulder, Colorado in June. The White House Twitter and the fascists who run their Twitter page called for the family to be illegally deported using cynical emojis. A federal judge shut that down.

But they have not been released because this government is persecuting them, not for anything that they did, but for something that somebody else did. And in this country, that is not supposed to happen in a democracy. That's what happens in police state dictatorships. That's what Vidala did in Argentina, punish opponents of the perceived opponents of the regime or criminals, etc., etc. The Flores settlement essentially presents families with a sort of Sophie's choice. What is a five-year-old supposed to do? They're supposed to agree to leave their mother, especially under conditions where they've essentially just lost their father for all intents and purposes. That is not a choice that these kids are really going to make.

And in my client's situation, given the level of vitriol with which the government has pursued them, they cannot go back to their home country of Egypt. They will be killed or arrested if they go there. One final point I would make about this family, an immigration judge ruled that they are significant flight risk and denied them bond on that basis, citing, among other reasons, a quote, lack of property and assets. That immigration judge made that ruling independently about each of these children. A child, a five-year-old child is in detention in this country because of a lack of property and assets.

That's how the immigration system works in this country. Eric, we're showing the picture of the five-year-old. What's the five-year-old's name? It's a drawing of stick figures in a cage. Yes. So for privacy reasons, I'm not going to reveal the children's name. but this is a drawing that the five-year-old girl gave me in person over the weekend in Dilley, and it's expressive of the feelings.

She told me that she has nightmares every night where she is being chased by an animal, and she cannot get away because she's in a cage. This is a deliberate policy to ruin these children's lives. They will never fully recover. The 18-year-old child, the 18-year-old child, She's separated from the others? That's right. Habiba Soleiman is her name since she's now turned 18. She turned 18. All of these children had a birthday in this detention center.

Imagine that wonderful celebration. She has been separated from her family, and not only that denied visitation rights and denied religious accommodations as a practicing Muslim based on retribution for her decision to speak out to the media last week. That's correct. Also being held at Dilley at this immigration jail is a seven-year-old named Diana Crespo. She and her parents were detained in the parking lot of a hospital in Portland, Oregon two weeks ago. Her parents were trying to get help for the second grader who had a long-lasting nosebleed, but they never made it inside the hospital.

The Oregon Nurses Association condemned what happened saying, quote, no parent should ever be forced to weigh their child's health against the risk of detention. Can you describe her situation, Eric, and then Javier to talk about the examples of this? But start with Eric. I can't speak to another minor's situation just for privacy reasons. But I will say that this is happening all over the country. This administration is going around. It's basically private army of state assassins, and that's what they are, that they're killing American citizens point-blank range in Minneapolis, almost on a weekly basis, and separating families.

And again, there's nothing new about a federal policy of family separation. The Obama administration did that to millions of families. The Biden administration did so, too. but this is this is a deliberate policy as Stephen Miller calls it, remigration with its root in all of the sort of fascist doctrines of the late 19th and 20th centuries coming back again. And the population of this country on the anniversary of our revolution, where the declaration says there's a right of revolution. When the government violates the rights of the population,

we have a right to alter or abolish it. And that, I think, is the way forward in these next weeks and months. Javier Adago, if you could talk about this particular place, Dilley, also Karns in Texas, home to the only immigrant detention centers in the country that hold children and their parents. So virtually any family that's arrested anywhere, and maybe you could address the Oregon family, are deported and sent to Texas. Is that right? Yes, but let me make a point. Very recently, there were three family detention centers in the country. There was also one in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania's got that close. It's possible to get these clothes, right? And so I just want to make that point. So now there's two. We hear rumors that there's intent to open another. You know, it takes an appetite from the community to get them shut down, among other things. Carnes and Dilley right now are the only detention.

that we understand are able to detain children. And that really just comes from the contracts that ICE has with the private prison companies that run these places, right? And the local municipalities, right? And so there's really nothing else that stops them from doing that other than money and the contracts and how they set that up. Right now, they're not detaining families and Carnes this year, last year when they did start, restart detaining families.

They started detaining them at Carnes. and then they had to reopen Dilley because Dilley had functionally been shut down. And even really before they were fully reopened, but open enough. In April, they shifted because they can, in theory, hold more families into Dilley detention jail, right? I keep saying the detention center, it's a jail. The families that you see there, the example from Oregon, you know, we're not working directly with her, to my knowledge. Her story is exactly the same of so many families.

We want as a country, our community members, to participate in our institutions, go to hospitals when they're sick, go to their immigration court hearings, go to any other appointments that they have. And so many families that we're working with get arrested at those things. They walk into essentially a trap.

They've done nothing wrong other than showing up where they're supposed to show up when they're supposed to be there. And they're here now, right? And they come here. What's scary about this situation is they're not going to get to adequate medical care. We would just contacted by a horrified doctor, right? Where, and this is not new. I've had this happen multiple times.

When an actual medical professional sees the condition of the children that are coming out of there, they're horrified because it's just medical neglect on the inside, right? and I fear for any child that needs that kind of medical attention, and there are many. And I just a point on the Flores protections, you know, that is a settlement from the 1980s that was never intended to be the everlasting source of protections. It's written into that settlement that these protections, you know, the settlement is good until they're codified into rulemaking. That's never happened, regardless of who's been, you know, whatever administration has been here.

And so what we have is this settlement that just sits there that's the only source and it's inadequate. And reform is inadequate. It just needs to get shut down. There's no purpose other than to punish and harm families. And that's not, it's not okay. Javier Adago, I want to thank you so much for being with us, legal director at Raiasas and Eric Lee, immigration attorney representing a mother and her five kids as well as other immigrants jailed at ISIS, South Texas. ICE jail in Dilley, Texas. They were speaking to us from San Antonio.

Coming up, we go to Newark, New Jersey. We'll be joined by Congresswoman La Monica McIver, facing 17 years in prison, allegedly for assaulting a federal life officer outside an ICE jail, the Lainee Hall and Newark. As ICE agents were arresting Mayor Ross Baraka, she is vehemently denied the charges against her. with us. Through the winter's ice and cold down Nicolid Avenue, a city of flame fought fire and ice beneath an occupier's boots, King Trump's private army from the DHS, guns belted belted to their coats

Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law Or so their story goes Against smoke and rubber bullets In the dawn's early light Citizens stood for justice Their voices ringing through the night I stood Left to die on snowfish

Streets of Minneapolis, an excerpt from the news song by Bruce Springsteen. He said Wednesday, I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday, and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. We'll hear more of the song later in the broadcast. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. We go now from New Jersey's most famous musician to New Jersey. Jersey Democratic Congresswoman La Monica McIver. She's facing up to 17 years in prison,

stemming from an incident last May when she and two other Democratic Congress members went to inspect Delaney Hall, the private immigration prison run by Geo Corporation under contract with ICE. The federal government claims McIver assaulted an immigration officer as federal agents were arresting Newark Mayor Ross Baraka, who'd accompanied the congressional delegation to Delaney Hall. Congressmember McIver has vehemently denied the charges. This is a brief clip of the scene outside the ICE jail that day. Now, circle the mayor. What? What the hell? Circle the mayor. Circle the mayor. Circle the mayor.

You're not closed who crime. Connoissewoman. Is she really good? Ten days later, later, then acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Alina Haba, dropped the charges against Newark Mayor Ross Baraka, but at the same time, she announced three felony charges against Congressmember McIver, including assaulting, resisting, impeding, and interfering with federal officers. Not since 1799 have such charges been brought against a House member. Alina Haba is the former personal attorney for Donald Trump. In December, she resigned after a panel

of federal judges ruled she's serving in her position unlawfully. Members of Congress have the oversight authority to visit DHS facilities without prior notice. But the Trump administration is repeatedly attempted to restrict or thwart that access. We go now to Newark, where we're joined by the Democratic, Congresswoman La Monica McIver. Welcome to Democracy Now. It's great to have you with us. We have spoken with Mayor Ross Baraka several times. This is our first time talking to you. explain the state of the case against you. I mean, the judges already ruled that the U.S. attorney, Elena Hubba, the former private attorney of President Trump, was serving illegally, but you still have these charges against you that she brought? Yes, well, first of all, thank you so much

for having me, Amy. It's great to be on with you. Yes, you're absolutely correct. These charges are still pushing forward. I'm still fighting it. I'm in the second stretch of that fight as we filed in appeal to the Third Circuit of court to basically have these charges dismissed based off legislative immunity. As you so clearly laid out, you know, I was there to do my job to conduct oversight along with two of my other colleagues when ICE and DHS created that whole fiasco that happened out there. And so we're looking forward to taking the case, you know, to getting these charges thrown

out and looking forward to being in front of a judge at the Third Circuit in a couple of months. And so we're just waiting on that process right now. So, but explain what you were doing. It relates certainly today, as some judges have ruled that the Trump administration can delay Congress members or legislators from inspecting these facilities. In May, talk exactly about what happened, about why you were at Delaney Hall, what it is for a global audience, you and two other Congress members. And then what happened to Ross Baraka and what happened to you? So, of course, so we went there for an oversight visit, which is something that Congress, you know, statutorily have the right to do.

We can show up to any ICE facility and have an inspection unannounced, announced. That's, you know, in statute for us to do that. And so me, two of my colleagues from New Jersey, which we have done in the past before, we showed up to ICE, ice facility in New Jersey other than Delaney Hall and conducted an oversight visit. And just that day, we were going to Delaney Hall. We had gotten a lot of calls about Delaney Hall. We had no idea that this facility had opened up. The mayor of the city had said that this place was not cooperating with city guidelines.

And so we're like, hey, we need to go here and check this place out. Mayor Baraka did not accompany us to the facility for the oversight visit. It was literally just members of Congress. Mayor Baraka showed up later because he was coming there for the press conference that we were having after our tour. But he was not there to come with us on a visit. I mean, he had been showing up there at this facility every day prior to us coming because once again, this facility has basically, you know, just refused to adhere to city guidelines as it relates to inspections and fire code inspections. They claim they're a federal facility, but they're not. It's a private prison that has a contract with the federal government.

They're not a federal facility. And so we showed up there to have our oversight visit, and we were met with an army of ICE agents, folks from D.H. I mean, I had never experienced anything like that, nor had we when we went to another facility to inspect that facility. And so they created a whole fiasco, you know, unlawfully arrested the mayor for trespassing after they let him into the gate. I mean, it was just a whole complete nightmare there that day with them basically trying to restrict us from having oversight of this facility. Just days later, I mean, they put out this whole new protocol from DHS that said Congress members had to. give seven days notice for them to show up to have oversight, just constantly trying to stop Congress from having oversight and holding the administration accountable. And we continue to see

that this from last May and now continuing on each and every day with the different scenarios from this administration. And so I continue to show up to do oversight, continue to hold this agency, but also these facilities accountable. I've been back to Delaney Hall since then. I had a detainee who died there, a 42-year-old Haitian immigrant who was completely healthy before going to this facility died within 24 hours of being at this facility. And so I went back there to have an inspection a couple of weeks after we went last May. There was an entire riot at the same detention center because detainees were not getting food. They were starving. And detainees were upset about that.

and they had a whole riot and they had about four detainees who escaped through a makeshift wall there. So that just goes to show you why oversight is so important and why we have to continue to apply pressure and do our jobs as members of Congress and, you know, go to these facilities. You know, the government has said, hey, I went there. We were there to protest. We were there to do all of these things. But we didn't go there for anything. I go there for protest. We went there for one reason.

And that one reason was to go there to protect the people who were there to fight. find out what was going on to make sure that things were going running okay inside this facility, which we have the right to. And that is our job to do so. And so, you know, I'm not going to stop doing what I'm supposed to be doing and what the people of the 10th congressional district here in New Jersey have elected me to do. And that is to protect them and hold this administration accountable. You were there with New Jersey Congress members Rob Menendez and Bonnie Watson Coleman. Now what is your legal situation? So often. in these cases of political persecution, the process is the punishment. The New Yorker notes in

December, you'd already racked up close to a million dollars in legal fees. What do you think this message sends to Congress members, legislators all over the country? If they stand up for their constituents, as you say you were doing, you'll be personally bankrupted. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. The process is the punishment. This is what they're doing. They're doing this with your taxpayer dollars, prosecuting a member of Congress for doing their job. It doesn't cost them anything because they're using taxpayer dollars to do so. But I think what it does is it inserts fear and other leaders to step up and hold the administration accountable.

It's intimidation. It's bullying. And they're just using me as a tool and a prop to do so. And that's why I continue to stress how urgent like my case is, not because it's about me, but it's about the broader picture of how they are trying to stop Congress members from doing their job. I mean, and it's awful. But at the same time, that's why I continue to push forward, continue to work for the people of the 10th congressional district, and protect them from this administration, specifically ICE,

because I'm not going to let them bully me out of doing my job. I'm just not. They're not going to bully me from stopping my work, and they're not going to take away my joy while I do it. Congress member, McIver, as we're broadcasting, The White House so-called border czar, Tom Holman, just finished speaking. He held a news conference around 7 a.m. Minnesota time. He said ICE and CBP are working to, quote, draw down the number of federal agents in Minneapolis. This is some of what he said.

State and local law enforcement, again, I appreciate they all acknowledge that we do have federal immigration laws in this country, that have been passed by Congress, and that ICE is, in fact, a legitimate. law enforcement agency charged with enforcing those laws. We're not making this up, folks. ICE is enforcing the laws enacted by Congress. They're a federal statute. That said, I'm not here because the federal government has carried its mission out perfectly. First thing I said to senior staff and I walked in here,

is what I told you earlier. I didn't come here looking for photo ops or headlines. I come here looking for solutions. I do not want to hear that everything has been done here been perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. Anything can be improved on. And what we've been working on is making this operation safer, more efficient by the book. The mission is going to improve because of the changes we're making it. So that is the so-called border czar, who seems to have been sent to Minneapolis to replace Greg Bevino, the head.

of CBP. I'm used to saying CPB, the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, but President Trump ended that. So it's all about CBP now, Customs and Border Patrol. And he's been sent off to California. But there is Tom Holman, the man who is being investigated by the FBI until a few weeks ago for taking a Kava bag filled with $50,000 of cash from two undercover FBI agents. That investigation has been Welch, though some of your fellow Congress members are calling for the video of him accepting that cash, people like Congressmember Raskin. But I'd like to end by asking you about whether you think the government is going to be partially shut down this weekend.

And to respond to, you were really the precursor to Minneapolis, but to respond to what the Senate is threatening to do, as they say, they want to separate DHS. from the rest of the budget. And if the Republicans don't agree to, they won't vote for the bill. Yeah. Well, I truly believe we're heading to a shutdown because at the end of the day, look, who can even approve or give this agency, this rogue agency that we see murdered two people in broad daylight in the last couple of weeks? How could we give them more money? Like, why would the Senate give them more money to operate? Obviously, there are some big issues with a in this department that is not operating, you know, effectively.

And so they should not be given more money to cause more problems and more hurt and to terrorize American citizens. And so I do truly believe we're going to go to a shutdown. It's shameful that Republicans in charge in the Senate won't separate out the DHS funding and deal with the rest of the funding. But they want to continue to, you know, be scared of Donald Trump. And they, you know, keeping this package deal together instead of separating it. knowing that they have issues. So I truly believe we're definitely going to be heading to a

shutdown. Democratic Congress member, LaMonica McGuiver, speaking to us from Newark, New Jersey. Thank you so much for joining us. Coming up, we look at how ICE is using facial recognition technology to track immigrants and protesters, or as the government calls them, agitators in Minnesota and across the country. But first, more Bruce Springsteen. Trump's federal thugs, base and his chest. Then we heard the gunshots. And Alex pretty lay in the snow team

was self-defense soon. Just don't be homes And these whistles and phones Against Miller and norms dirty Who are the names of those who die On the streets of Minneapolis. Breaks of Minneapolis, just released by Bruce Springsteen, who definitely doesn't need facial recognition technology to recognize him or his voice. This is Democracy Now.comocracy.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

We turn now to the facial recognition technology widely being used by ICE and CBP agents to facilitate President Trump's mass deportation campaign. The smartphone app is called Mobile Fortify. Its existence was first reported by 404 media last summer. With the app, immigration officers can scan faces of people they encounter and quickly search those faces against 200 million images stored in several government databases. According to a lawsuit brought by Illinois and Chicago earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security has used the mobile Fortify app, in the field more than 100,000 times since it was launched. But is the app even accurate?

And is it constitutional for government agents to scan people's faces without consent? Senate Democrats last month requested more information about the app from DHS, saying in part, quote, even when accurate, this type of on-demand surveillance threatens the privacy and free speech of everyone in the United States. For more, we're joined here in studio by Nathan Fried Wessler, deputy director with the speech privacy and technology project focuses on litigation and advocacy around surveillance and privacy issues. Nate, welcome to Democracy Now. It's great to have you with us. Explain what this technology, what this app is. This is a facial recognition app that's loaded onto the smartphones that DHS agents, ICE and CBP

agents, are carrying with them. It links into a giant database of photos of people, as you said, more than 200 million photos, and into voluminous federal databases that include immigration-related records, border crossing records, purported criminal records. Some of these databases are notoriously error-filled. And it's being used on the street in ways that are dangerous, that are totally unprecedented in this country, and that are frankly blatantly illegal. It's being used on U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residence. It's being used indiscriminately by massed federal agents without people's consent, without a way to say no in ways that are really harming people every day. You know, I'm thinking about the recent arrest of the attorney and minister Levy Armstrong,

who, when she was arrested and they admitted that they changed her face, made her cry as she was being taken away, though she wasn't. Her lawyer said there was one, I say, and just filming her face. Yeah, you know, we see a few different things happening in parallel here, and they're all related. We see during the so-called immigration stops and detentions, ICE and CBP agents, using this face recognition app, even to the exclusion of people trying to show documentary evidence of citizenship. We also see these federal agents filming and harassing protesters, filming and harassing people who are just trying to record what's going on in their neighborhoods.

We don't know the degree to which they're using face recognition technology there, but they are certainly going way beyond the bounds of what people's protected rights are. This is Ken Klippenstein, the journalist, sharing a video on social media last week of an exchange between a legal observer in Maine and an immigration agent she's recording. The video begins with the agent photographing the observer's license plate. Here's the exchange. It's not illegal to record. Exactly.

Yeah. That's what we're doing. Yeah. Why are you taking my information down? Because we have a nice little database. Oh, good. And now you're considered domestic terrorists. We're videotaping you?

Are you crazy? Your response, Nate, Fried, Whistler. I want to be very clear here because the law is completely clear. The first amendment to our Constitution protects your right to record law enforcement and government agents doing their jobs in public. that's a core protection for accountability so that we can know what the government is doing and when it is violating the law. Retribution against people for doing that violates the Constitution. It's illegal.

And we at the ACLU and as a nation won't stand for it. So what can you do about it? Apparently that this app, they're keeping photos up to 15 years? That's right. It's totally unprecedented. You know, police around the country have been using face recognition in a different way, right, in investigations, there's an image of a suspect, and we know of numerous wrongful arrests from that use, because this technology is glitchy. It gets it wrong a lot, and it gets it wrong particularly

often when used on people of color, darker skin people. Of course, who are these masked federal agents grabbing off the street? People of color. They're racial profiling. They're taking people based only in the color of their skin, and then using this very glitchy app to try to identify them and match them to immigration records, and we know it makes errors. We've actually seen that. Tell us about the 20-year-old Somali American U.S. citizen name Mubeshire Khalif Hussin. This is a client of the ACLU in a lawsuit that we've brought on his behalf and a class of residents in Minnesota who have been subjected to unconstitutional and illegal stops and detentions by ICE. There are a number of violations that he and our other clients have suffered.

But one of them is that our client, a U.S. citizen, was grabbed for no reason other than we think the color of his skin by federal agents. he repeatedly insisted that he was a U.S. citizen, repeatedly asked to be able to show them his U.S. passport card, right, which would show his status. They refused to look at any documentary evidence. They shoved him in a car. They drove him to a facility. They insisted after he tried to resist over and over on scanning his face with this dangerous technology, and only after he finally had his face scanned and finally convinced them to look at his passport card that they let him go. Now, mind you, they'd driven him seven miles to the outskirts of Minneapolis, let him go in a Minnesota winter, told him to walk back to his office. Luckily, his family was desperately trying to find him and was on their way already to this federal office to see if he was there and he got a ride home. But it was completely terrifying, complete violation of his rights.

And this is happening every day to people in Minneapolis and around the country. Well, I want to thank you for being with us. And people can go to our website at DemocracyNow.org to see that video as he was pushed into the know as he was brutalized and then just released far away from where he was. Nathan Fried Wessler, deputy director with the ACU's Speech Privacy and Technology Project. Tonight I'll be speaking in Fort Lee, New Jersey at the Baramore Film Center in Fort Lee. After a screening of the new film, steal this story, please. I'll be there with the director, T.L.S. and producer, Karen Renucci.

Check our website at DemocracyNow.org. There are a few tickets available. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.