Bartiromo: "Have you been backing away from [deportations]? Recently you said let's ease up on…farms and hotels."
Trump: "I don't back away. What I do, I cherish our farmers…Let the farmers sort of be in charge. The farmer knows. He's not going to hire a murderer."— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) June 29, 2025 at 11:14 AM
What the Felon-in-Office ‘cherishes’ is the thought of indentured servants, with no rights that a Big Important Employer (like Mr. Trump at Mar-A-Lago) needs to respect. Per the Washington Post, ICE is arresting migrants in worksite raids. Employers are largely escaping charges. [gift link]:
Trump administration officials have vowed to hold companies accountable for employing people who are in the country illegally — no matter which industry they are in or how big or small they might be.
But the Department of Homeland Security’s enforcement operations have overwhelmingly focused on arresting workers rather than punishing employers.
Since the start of the year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has posted news releases regarding approximately two dozen raids on the “Worksite Enforcement” section of its website. Local news outlets have documented dozens more. The Washington Post was able to identify only one employer charged after the raids ICE has publicized. The Post reviewed court filings and searched for records involving individuals named in corporate records of businesses DHS has raided.
Charging company owners for employing undocumented workers has historically been rare because the government needs to demonstrate that the employer knew of the worker’s illegal status. That is a high burden of proof, and investigations can take months. Neither Democratic nor Republican administrations have made worksite raids as much of a priority in the past. The Biden administration halted large-scale immigration arrests at worksites and focused enforcement on employers.
The raids immigration officers are conducting have largely targeted small businesses such as car washes. Some are carried out in a span of minutes. Two business owners said officers did not show a warrant, even when asked for one, raising questions about whether immigration agents are violating constitutional rights in their effort to drive up migrant arrests.
“The difference about these raids of the last six weeks is that this is not principally an action against employers,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “This is principally an action in pursuit of mass deportations. When they could not produce the number of arrests that they had been hoping for, they suddenly said, ‘Let’s raid employers.’ It was not, ‘Let’s penalize employers.’”
Though the recent raids in Los Angeles outside Home Depots and at a garment factory drew much attention, immigration authorities have conducted enforcement operations in states throughout the country. They arrested 33 workers at construction sites near Ocala, Florida, and 11 at Outlook Dairy Farms near Lovington, New Mexico. The first raid ICE publicized took place at Complete Autowash in Philadelphia eight days after President Donald Trump took office…
Small businesses with limited resources are easier targets than deep-pocketed corporations, immigration experts say. That’s because they’re less willing to challenge government actions or stir up a public commotion. Though immigration officers need a judicial warrant to enter private areas within a business, they can go into any areas considered publicly accessible, such as the space where customers eat at a restaurant. Nonetheless, two business owners whose companies were raided said armed DHS agents had entered areas restricted from the public….
DHS did not respond to questions about how many workplace raids have led to charges against employers. In April, ICE announced it had arrested more than 1,000 workers who were in the country illegally during Trump’s first 100 days and proposed more than $1 million in fines “against businesses that exploit and hire illegal workers.”…
The administration has claimed it is going after the “worst of the worst” and prioritizing the arrest and deportation of people who are a threat to public safety. But former ICE officials said raiding car washes and taco trucks is not an effective strategy for reaching that goal.
“This is the exact opposite,” said John Sandweg, acting ICE director under President Barack Obama. Under the second Trump administration’s approach to worksite raids, “you are much more likely to find non-criminals because professional criminals don’t work at car washes, typically.”
Rules Are Made To Be Broken?
Hunter Gathers
MAGA gonna get a real shock when they can’t get any fresh fruit or vegetables at the local food repository because white people do not pick crops.
piratedan
we’ll all pay more for this incessant stupidity…
maybe we’ll find a way thru, have to have faith and hope that we do… just have to remember that the media is bought by the GOP, who has bought the SCOTUS, so people will have to educate themselves and it is tough to expect people who didn’t even learn the lessons from Schoolhouse Rock to suddenly become civics students.
mrmoshpotato
Someone get me an oxygen tank!
BWHAhHaHHahHahahahHhzhh!!!! *wheeze!
Jay
In several cases, the public has managed to drive off “ICE” Agents by demanding names and badges.
In quite a few cases, “Bounty Hunters” have been trying to seize and disappeared people. Apparently ICE is paying them $1,000 to $1500 per hostage.
Then of course, there are criminals cosplaying ICE to murder, kidnap, rape, rob.
And of course, just because, ICE is sending SRT “swat teams” in full combat loads to kidnap day laborer’s at Home Depot.
Funny thing, instead of collecting $2890 a years in taxes and SS, etc that undocumented contribute that they can never collect on,
The US Taxpayer is spending $198,760 per kidnapped person.
No wonder ICE is out of money this week.
RaflW
Trump doesn’t give a shit bout farmers. He ‘cherishes’ that they’re a reliable voting bloc. But he & the GOP’s Medicaid attack will hurt farmers. A lot.
danielx
Easy solution: start arresting citizens for the crime of not worshipping at the altar of Orange Jesus (the Supremes says it’s okay!) and sentence them to hard labor harvesting crops. Win-win!
cain
@Jay:
Swat style raids are going to be very expensive. It’s not scalable. It’s going to be very expensive.
The bill will come in soon enough.
Bupalos
I’m not sure that we have a single politician on our side that knows that saying “You know…I’m on both sides of the thing… I’m the strongest immigration guy, but I’m also the strongest farmer guy” is a legit political message. A message that for all the incredible incoherence, for all the underlying lies there, for all the conflicting committments above all to the oligarchs…. PEOPLE CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT HE’S SAYING. They can actually hear it. I mean, it’s actually pretty coherent when you boil it down: “If a farmer has a good slave… I mean… that’s a good slave, I’m not trying to get in the way…. even if I do!”
AOC mostly talks this way. I mean, largely without the lying and the retrograde trash.
Chuck Schumer can respond to this and it comes out in Charley Brown’s Teacher tones. WAAAH WAHHH, WAH WAH WA WAHHHH.
Bupalos
@cain: Wouldn’t count on that.
Bupalos
@Jay: This thing where hardworking people are paying citizen seniors in retirement homes, for the right to be less than half citizens, working and paying harder and more than anyone…. Man….this was the ultimate “free lunch” from a national perspective.
this is what Trump is selling off at five cents on the dollar.
OlFroth
ICE raided a local Mexican restaurant in Pittsburgh recently. Arrested 14 people. The restaurant put out this appeal at the time: “ICE is currently raiding our Cranberry location. If you are in the area and would like to support our people, please stop by to stand outside and witness. Gracias.” Because as we all know, cooks, dishwashers, and busboys are a threat to the Republic /s. ICE detained 14 people at Tepache’s Pittsburgh-area location
Jay
@cain:
It wasn’t even a SWAT style raid, it was just sending a fully combat loaded/ geared ICE SWAT team to kidnap day laborers.
They are supposed to exist for the purpose of “active shooters, hostage taking, and raids against terrorism suspects”. Turns out they are the Hostage takers.
It’s akin to sending Seal Team Six in against somebody who didn’t signal a lane change.
SpaceUnit
Fuck you, Washington Post. Seriously, fuck you.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@cain: Yes. The BBB. Moving through congress as we speak, unfortunately. What’s a few trillion added to the national debt, when there are concentration camps to build?
no body no name
@Jay:
I could be wrong but the videos I’ve seen of the abductions were mostly plain clothes agents with face masks, ballistic vests for pistol fire, side arms, and face masks. SRT is a very small portion of ICE. It takes a long time to make one and you can’t just whip up units willy nilly.
ICE actually does some good work on human trafficking, busting up crime banks, and other stuff you never hear about and that’s what their intelligence and other units were focused on. Trump fucked that all up as he fucks everything up.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@OlFroth: So fucked up…
Viva BrisVegas
Trump is now going to revoke citizenship from citizens who lied during the naturalisation process.
Elon he’s coming for you! (I kid, Musk of course is too rich to be subject to the law).
RevRick
@piratedan: The Stupid Party doesn’t realize the danger of getting what you want, like a teenager getting drunk at a party and then plowing into a tree.
Cutting a $trillion from our health care system over ten years might not seem like much when we spend about $5 trillion annually. It’s only 2% of the total. Except. Except. That 2% doesn’t take into account all the secondary effects.
For one thing, Medicaid pays for a lot of the expenses associated with labor and delivery, and that department is often a money-loser for most hospitals. To make up the difference they will have to jack up rates they charge private insurers… which will cause small employers to drop coverage or demand cost-sharing from their employees. Uninsured people don’t cease needing healthcare. Those costs just get pushed elsewhere, including by becoming less productive workers due to untreated chronic illnesses.
What I’m saying is that the GOP may start a vicious cycle in the healthcare industry, which by the way is 19% of our economy. A sickness in that sector will inevitably infect others as well. Like the financial system.
Seneca’s cliff comes to mind where collapse begins slowly, but then suddenly.
Yes, this will cause widespread suffering, but what the wealthy knuckleheads don’t realize is that their wealth can evaporate with astonishing speed. When the Roman Empire collapsed, the peasants kept going, but the wealthy landowners disappeared.
Jay
@no body no name:
Photo at link
https://bsky.app/profile/jacobsoboroff.bsky.social/post/3lstvdlktmk2d
Jay
@Viva BrisVegas: And Melanoma is too connected, and all his “birthright kids” are safe too.
Unless they piss Temu Nosforatu again.
Just like Cancun Cruze and Vivek Ramaswamy
Parfigliano
@Viva BrisVegas:
@Viva BrisVegas: Arresting people who lied during the naturalization process is probably a cheaper way to ditch his Slovenian slut wife then a divorce.
Jay
@RevRick:
Well worth reading, the collapse will be fast, very fast.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/06/30/making-america-gross-again-big-fugly-bill-hits-the-senate-floor/
The first point of collapse will be the ER’s.
Jay
@Parfigliano:
She has a prenup.
Jay
https://bsky.app/profile/klasfeldreports.com/post/3lsudhquwaq2u
Sister Golden Bear
@Hunter Gathers:
Crops are already rotting in the fields here in CA.
Jay
Vid at link. Batons, choke holds, the usual.
https://bsky.app/profile/iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social/post/3lsupzqlxws2m
no body no name
@Parfigliano:
Isn’t slut shaming off limits?
West of the Rockies
2nd Quarter economic numbers will drop in the next few days, and they won’t be good. Pig Man’s poll numbers will drop soon thereafter and will not make him happy.
Eolirin
@West of the Rockies: The response will be to have the agencies responsible for collecting and providing that data be either muzzled or start fabricating data outright.
Bad economic data will be effectively scribbled over with a sharpie.
NaijaGal
From NPR – the move to denaturalize US citizens has begun, with the first citizen denaturalized on June 13th, 2025 by this administration.
Note how von Spakovsky refers to naturalized citizens as aliens.
I worked on my linked short story collection off and on for 15 years, because I have a full time job. Completed the last story in 2018. It initially had a nonpolitical focus when I started writing it in 2014. I was so alarmed at where the US was headed by 2018 that I turned it into a story about the consequences, 30 years after the fact, of a neo-fascist US admin being reelected in 2020. Book was published by Amistad/HarperCollins in 2022 and people said “why’d you write this depressing, unrealistic story?” Glad I kept my day job because I had a considerable failure of imagination about how bad such an admin would be. Some things I got right though, like a push for denaturalization.
Citizen Alan
@no body no name: Honestly, I’m nearly at the point of thinking the C-word is acceptable when it’s used against conservatives. There just aren’t any socially acceptable words that articulate the depths of my hatred for these garbage humans.
Jay
@NaijaGal:
Their test case, is a Brit, who lied on his forms about his criminal record. He had convictions for Child Porn back in Britain
The Biden denaturalized about 100 people during his term, but not through Civil Cases, instead, Criminal Cases, which have much higher bar.
jonas
@RaflW: He knows he can knee them in the nuts until the end of time, destroy their lives and livelihoods and still won’t lose their vote. It’s nice that way when you’re a cult leader and not an accountable politician.
As for MAGA consumers having to pay $10 for a basket of strawberries? “Well, he’s a sharp businessman who knows what he’s doing, I’m sure…”
jonas
@NaijaGal:
Now *there’s* a real, blue-blooded American name for you. Has anyone looked into where *he’s* from?
KithKanan
@Citizen Alan: Republi-[C-word]s has a very nice flow to it. If the C-word only had the connotations here that it does elsewhere in the anglosphere, we could actually use it.
Jay
@jonas:
Like between the trade wars and no Ag workers, you are going to have strawberries?
Jay
@jonas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_von_Spakovsky
He’s a real piece of work,………………………………………….
NaijaGal
@Jay: They picked a case designed to elicit very little sympathy but are setting a precedent through civil litigation that will be hard to fight when someone in the administration decides that they just don’t care for a particular naturalized immigrant.
That’s why I was shocked when Steve Doocy and Karoline Leavitt talked about denaturalizing Zohran Mamdani essentially for the “crime” of winning the Democratic primary for New York mayor. The Dems piling on him and doing Republicans’ work for them have no idea what door they’re opening.
Jay
@NaijaGal:
Taco Don’s legal teams and the current DOJ aren’t all that good or all that bright. In one of the DOJ cases first hearings that started yesterday, at the end of the hearing, the Judge instructed the DOJ Lawyers, and I am paraphrasing “don’t you go dragging any of that bull shit you have been trying to pull in other court cases. I have contempt charges written up and ready to go”.
One of the BlueSky Lawyers, pointed out that Civil Courts, can only impose Civil Penalties, and stripping someone of their citizenship is not a civil penalty.
You also can’t really Judge Shop or Court shop much.
Matt McIrvin
@Viva BrisVegas: where “lied during the naturalization process” is determined entirely on their say-so, I suppose. Of course this already happens (albeit rarely), so I suppose saying they will start means there’s going to be a fishing expedition. Democratic Party registration, maybe?
Stephen Miller has a huge boner for this.
Rusty
Tomorrow is the monthly prayer vigil outside the local ICE offices. The police showed up last month, only two and very friendly, but they weren’t there when I’ve been previously. Prayer, singing and a symbolic seven circuits around the building to reflect the seven times around Jericho that brought down the walls. It all strengthens the heart and soul.
Matt McIrvin
@NaijaGal: The first target was a British immigrant convicted for child porn who “uses they/them pronouns”, so highlighting the case works as a propaganda hit on nonbinary people too.
Matt McIrvin
(It’s that typical argument that they’re protecting us from criminals. That’s what the *criminal* justice system is supposed to be about! As usual, criminals are so bad that they don’t deserve the courtesy of the system we use to figure out whether or not they are actually criminals.)
Jay
The Divorce is not final,
UnTruth Social screen shot at link,
https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3lsuwhr6koc2o
Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
As far as I am aware, (IANL) the only “rights” a Civil Court can take away is the “right of free association” via Restraining Orders, and the right to use Civil Courts for vexatious litigation.
I don’t think Timu Gobbels thought this one through.
Matt McIrvin
@Jay: They can take away any right a majority of the Supreme Court says they can, and now, we can’t even use nationwide injunctions in the meantime.
I think they’re trying to work toward a situation where they can do mass citizenship revocations and dissapearances of Democratic voters and politicians. Start with the least sympathetic naturalized citizens and expand from there. Remember, Trump got his *start* by promoting the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not really a citizen.
Shalimar
@no body no name: My observation is that men use the words “slut” or “whore” almost exclusively to describe women who won’t fuck them.
No shame of Parfigliano, who I am guessing has no interest in Mrs. Trump, intended.
Shalimar
@NaijaGal: Hans von Spakovsky was born in post-WWII Huntsville, Alabama, home of scores of former Nazi rocket scientists. How does he not have a job in this administration already?
sab
@Jay: That is what I thought. Historically, nursing homes were invented and developed to take care of the elderly infirm who were too infirm to be sent home alone, but not sick or infirm enough to keep in hospitals.
Interesting times ahead for American middle class, which mostly voted for this.
In Ohio, nursing home operators have been a major political force. I am amazed that the Trump machine managed to roll over them.
sab
@Shalimar: He has the most hilariously inappropriate name for an anti-immigrant activist.
Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
From what I understand, is the Supreme Court can only review Civil Cases on appeal if they involve Federal or Constitutional law issue.
Lying on a Visa application is a violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1546.
But they have to prove that you knowingly lied, the penalties are revocation of the visa, fines, jail time. However, that is a crime, under a Criminal Statute.
How ever, Timu Gobbels is trying to use Civil Suits, to get a Civil Suit, to some how turn, (underpants gnome?) into a Criminal case, under which there can be denaturalization.
In the past, the DOJ had success using Criminal Charges under the statute, to strip old Nazi’s, War Criminals, Terrorists of citizenship and then deport them, but most of those cases took decades to wind through the Court system*. All of those people did not have trial or punishment for their crimes, other than in absentia. That’s not the “fast” system Timu Gobbels is looking for.
*during the early Cold War, the process was faster, but only for Communists with permanent residency, it did not work for citizens.
The only Civil Case I can see is using the Statute to sue for fraud against the US Government, but in civil cases for fraud, the only penalties are fines, fiscal penalties and a bar from engaging in certain conducts.
If the Lower Court kicks the case, Timu Gobbels and Puppy Killer can appeal to a higher court, but that’s a long road of Judges saying “fuck off” before they can try to get it before the Supremes, and that is the only US Court that might say, although it is not in the 18 as a penalty, yes you can strip him of citizenship and deport him.
And given Timu Gobbels, Puppy Killer and their sad sack of DOJ Lawyers, I don’t think this is going to work. It sounds like in a strategy meeting the Parking lot Lawyer had a brain fart.
Jay
@Shalimar:
Because he’s too smart to leave the comfort of the Heritage Society, the 2005 Project and Federalist Society. If Taco Don and his Admin go down in flames, he isn’t tarred with the same brush.
sab
@Jay: ” They have to prove…” means absolutely nothing if you don’t get due process in the meantime. They don’t have to prove anything if you don’t get due process. They just have to do… whatever they want to do.
And our Supreme Court seems to be okay with that. Undercutting the lower courts at every opportunity. Lower courts no longer know what the rules are because Supreme Court changes 100 year old unanimous decisions on the fly with no explanation in the shadow docket.
Jay
@sab:
I don’t think that Taco Don “rolled them over”. I think they tried to sway him and lesser ReThugs, realized they were talking to a brick wall, looked at the situation and realized they were screwed either way. Publicly come out against the cuts in even a moderate way, face the wrath of Diaper Don. Do nothing, and there is a couple of years more income and maybe we can figure out some way to screw the Public harder to make up for the losses.
Jay
@sab:
Timu Gobbles and Puppy Killer are claiming they will use the Civil Courts. The Civil Courts have never seen a case like this. And while Civil Courts can rule on fraud cases, child custody, divorce, etc, well, it’s never been tried before, and if the Civil Court rules in their favour, they get to collect a fine and maybe punitive damages.
To get to the Supremes, they have to drag the same case through 7 different Courts with all the courts telling them to F/O, before they can appeal to the White Supremacy Court.
And then, the White Supremacy Court has to apply a punishment not in the statute
If the defendant has a half assed lawyer, Parking Lot Grade, that can take years.
If one of the White Shoe Firms decides to show up as a screw you to Diaper Don, well,………………………….
I think the “one neat trick” they think is brilliant is that the defendant isn’t provided with a Public Defender, and so they think they will be facing people representing themselves.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Professor Bigfoot
@Jay: Only because Mrs. B has a pot of strawberries growing on the deck. And so far, they’ve been watery disappointments.
JWR
@cain:
I’m wondering if the young woman in SoCal, (I forget the municipality), whose home was violated by an early morning no-knock raid, during which a front bedroom’s window was broken out, a drone sent in and finally some sort of explosive device to blow off the front door, has been contacted by anyone seeking to represent her or her landlord in any legal matter? (ICE was after her boyfriend, who doesn’t even live there.)
But then, this assault being an executive branch decision, I remember that John Roberts has already given the president plenty of cover-his-ass room for T***p to operate as only he sees fit.
Professor Bigfoot
Americans have consumed literally decades worth of police dramas where the cops KNOW who the bad guy is but they can’t PROVE it so they are excused by the script for doing shit that’s plainly illegal and unconstitutional. It’s how you get the bad guys! /s
Americans* will see this as Trump and MAGA going all the way to “protect them.”
gene108
To Trump, Miller, and the rest of the Republican Party they are all escapees from insane asylums dumped in the U.S., rapists, murders, thieves, and worse.
Trump’s whole political career is built on the belief everyone here illegally is a rapist, drug dealer, and hardened criminal.
There’s a sick twisted internal consistency to the ICE raids, and harsh treatment of undocumented immigrants, because of their belief they’re all criminals.
Professor Bigfoot
@Shalimar: When I refer to that “fatuous, ferret-headed son of a whore,” I assure you I have no interest in its mother.😉
catclub
@Hunter Gathers:
John McCain’s ghost will do it.
lowtechcyclist
@gene108:
That world view definitely has an internal consistency to it. The problem is reality. Where’s the crime wave? If we’ve got 20,000,000 dangerous criminals out there, people should be scared to leave their homes. And yet life goes on pretty much like normal.
Truth is, in terms of public safety, it’s essentially 1962 out there. The main difference between then and now in that regard is that now there’s a lot more white guys with gun obsessions out there than there were in 1962.
catclub
When will they prosecute Melania?
evodevo
@catclub: Yep..that was my first thought lol
Anyway
This was Jolloff Rice and other stories, right? Or do I have my Nigerian authors mixed up? Anyway I remember that last story; it made a powerful impression. At the time I read it the events in the book seemed long in the dystopian future and now I recognize elements of it in the news.
Are you still writing fiction ?
TONYG
So … “The farmers will be in charge” but other small businesses that hire a lot of undocumented immigrants will NOT be “in charge”? Hmm. Translated from Trump-ese to English, this means that any businesses that Trump likes (because of their political support or cash bribes) will be allowed to hire undocumented immigrants with impunity. For non-favored businesses, the masked goons will come in and round up the untermenschen , and ship them to some gulag.
NaijaGal
@Anyway: Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions. I’m working on my second book.
ETtheLibrarian
If they really wanted to make some money they would send the bills for deportations and fines to the employers.
dnfree
@NaijaGal: I remember reading about your book when it came out, and these comments reminded me to order it. Congratulations!