Feds Leverage Assistance from Minneapolis Police & Hennepin County Sheriff’s
Office Debut Action of New Task Force Shocks Lake Street Community
Anonymous Federal Police Identify as “The Others” on Nameplate
Minneapolis, MN — Dozens of federal agents in a newly minted federal task force raided a business on East Lake Street in South Minneapolis on Tuesday morning (June 3) and were quickly met with a raucous crowd amid toxic smoke conditions from Canadian wildfires. The crowd of up to 200 people grew through the day under the impression an immigration raid was underway, at times blocking federal vehicles from vacating alleys and streets. Federal agents responded violently by shooting pepper balls and unleashing pepper spray; personnel from the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Response Teams (SRT) were filmed shoving people. Mobilized community members eventually pressured the federal agents out of the neighborhood, while Minneapolis police officers provided crowd control.
ICE Special Response Team badge. Courtesy Brandon Schorch.
Inside the new “Homeland Security Task Force” (HSTF) network, the lead agency is Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), one of two divisions inside ICE. The other division of ICE, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) – which targets immigrants for deportation – was also involved, according to Jamie Holt, HSI’s acting special agent in charge in Minnesota. Holt said this was the debut action of the HSTF in the state. (More about the little-known new HSTF network below.) [Unicorn Riot leaked ICE HSI agent manuals in our #Icebreaker series.]
Pastor Ingrid Rasmussen (Holy Trinity Lutheran Church) confronts Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara. Courtesy Aaron Johnson.
The raid started before noon and federal agents walked out of the neighborhood in groups sometime after 1 p.m. but street activity continued for hours into the afternoon. Authorities said they had a warrant to search Las Cuatro Milpas restaurant on Bloomington Avenue and Lake Street, claiming to be seeking evidence of drug trafficking and money laundering. The restaurant’s suburban location was also raided along with six other locations.
Unidentified ATF agents; one is wearing a tag saying “The Others.” Several ATF agents are wearing shirts with yellow “Sheriff” labels. Courtesy Brandon Schorch.
Badge featuring a Vegsivir design – the agent had ICE markings on the opposite shoulder. Courtesy Brandon Schorch.
Many of the federal agents were masked and did not have visible names or identification numbers, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to file lawsuits against individual agents in court.
Masked ATF agents walking on Lake Street. Garbage bins were placed in the street by community members to deter vehicles. Courtesy Aaron Johnson.
By the end of a full afternoon of confusion, at least five community members had been detained with a few being arrested. Unicorn Riot saw one forceful arrest shortly after 4 p.m. as Minneapolis police tried to practice crowd control.
Overall the incident showed that, similar to an ICE-led immigration raid in San Diego on Friday, May 30, people in local communities are becoming galvanized against the presence of masked and menacing federal law enforcement personnel targeting their neighborhoods.
Protesters gathered outside the site of the former Minneapolis Police Department Third Precinct, at Lake Street and Minnehaha Avenue. Courtesy Aaron Johnson.
Local politicians and officials have weighed in; several were on the site of the raid and during the community gathering after the feds pulled out in the afternoon:
State Senator Omar Fateh (DFL-62) described it as “blatant fascism.” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (DFL) said“it seemed like the point was to inflict terror and fear into the community.” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty posted“ICE is being used to terrorize people” and that local law enforcement should be “transparent about what assistance” they are giving to the Feds. Jazz Hampton posted that they saw someone they know personally knocked unconscious. (Hampton and Fateh are both running for mayor currently, as is incumbent Jacob Frey.)
…we cannot hope that a Federal Task Force led by this DHS or FBI will have any goal in mind other than to create maximum fear and anxiety while accelerating Trump’s agenda of family separation and deportations.
Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt tried to push a message that community actions were triggered by “irresponsible rumors” while Frey attacked Fateh’s statement about “blatant fascism,” claiming this was “stoking panic.” (Frey attempted to distance this raid from immigration enforcement, but targeting immigrants is actually foundational to the Trump’s HSTF task force structure itself. More on that below.) Frey also made the rounds [1, 2] trying to reassure Lake Street business owners that he’s not assisting the Trump administration crackdown.
Minneapolis Police and the Hennepin County Sheriffs Department claim they were unaware of the raid until it occurred. In a press conference on June 4, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the raid was “tone-deaf.”
Groups in the Twin Cities including the Minnesota Immigrant Movement (MIM), Asamblea de los Derechos Civiles and Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) held a press conference outside Mayor Frey’s office on June 5, demanding “accountability from the mayor and MPD after local law enforcement helped federal authorities terrorize the immigrant community on Lake Street. […] [T]he mayor is unable to uphold this promise of safety for the city’s residents. […] This is what the Trump administration’s war on immigrants looks like.” Other groups including SEIU Local 26, Communities United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB), Indigenous Protector Movement (IPM), Twin Cities Coalition for Justice (TCC4J) and Wrongfully Incarcerated and Over-Sentenced Families Council-MN (WIAOCF-MN) are also supporting this press conference event.
‘Homeland Security Task Force’ Led by ICE-HSI Makes its Minnesota Debut
Mayor Frey claimed on Wednesday “our police officers will not work to enforce federal immigration law, we will not be involved in federal immigration actions.” However, Unicorn Riot obtained a memo showing all HSTF teams are built directly on “Border Enforcement Security Task Forces” — that entire document is transcribed below.
Very little is known about the new HSTF system. A new report from NBC News discusses HSTF alongside “Operation at Large.” A new estimate of 21,000 National Guard personnel are sought for this currently active White House-directed operation, along with 5,000 federal law enforcement personnel.
The text of this Homeland Security Investigations diagram is dated 2/21/2025. Agency badges include the departments of Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, State, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Here’s the full text of the document transcribed from the diagram image above:
ESTABLISHMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY TASK FORCES (HSTF)
In accordance with the President’s Executive Order (EO) 14159 section 6: “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” the National Security Council is directing the creation of a Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) network. The Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General are directed to take all appropriate action to jointly establish HSTFs in all states nationwide — to include the establishment of a national command center to coordinate law enforcement activities of the HSTFs, provide support as required, and direct national-level priorities aligned with the EO. This whole-of government approach will include representatives from federal law enforcement agencies, federal prosecutors and other U.S. Government agencies with the ability to provide logistics, intelligence and operational support to the HSTFs. The approach will include representation from relevant state, territorial and local law enforcement agencies in the fight against transnational organized crime (TOC).
HSTF STRUCTURE
The HSTF will leverage the existing structure and capabilities of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)-led Border Enforcement Security Task Forces (BESTs) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) National Targeting Center (NTC), which together provide a strong foundation to meet the requirements for an HSTF network. There will be a minimum of one HSTF per U.S. state with interagency support staff provided by the executive steering committees.
HSTFs will be immediately deployed nationwide leveraging 112 BESTs operating in every state and U.S. territory. At the discretion of the HSI Special Agent in Charge, additional HSTFs can be established augmenting other existing law enforcement task forces with interagency personnel.
GOVERNANCE
The HSTF has a three-tiered governance structure with Interagency Support Staff (ISS):
1: Principals. Cabinet-level officials, chaired by the Secretary of Homeland Security and co-chaired by the Attorney General, with additional participation from the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Treasury, and the Secretary of State.
2: Executive Steering Committee (ESC): Deputy Director-level official designated by the HSTF Principals to represent their respective Department and/or Agency Heads. The ESC will be chaired by HSI and co-chaired with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
3. Executive Steering Sub-Committees (ESSC): Established in all 30 HSI SAC (special agent in charge) offices, the ESSCs will report directly to the ESC. Each ESSC will be chaired by an HSI Special Agent in Charge (SAC) and co-chaired by an FBI SAC.
The HSTF National Command Center (NCC), located at ICE Headquarters (HQs) is staffed with ISS representatives from federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies with the ability to provide funding resources, logistics, criminal network analysis and operational support to nationwide HSTFs in the fight against TOC [transnational organized crime].
NCC chart includes three groupings. Intelligence Operations: Strategic, Data Integration, Targeting & Analysis. Global Operations: Immigration Enforcement, Human Trafficking, Transnational Gangs, Weapons Trafficking, Narcotics & Contraband Smuggling, Illicit Proceeds & Financial Crimes, Human Smuggling. Mission Support: Staffing & Personnel Security Unit, Legal, Policy & Planning, Budget & Performance, Training & Development.
Editor’s Note: For the full report published in Unicorn Riot on May 29, 2025, go to The New ‘ICE ARMY” Also available on WingsofChange.me under the same title.
Interview with reporter Dan Feidt on KFAI Radio, June 4, 2024 [Vimeo / YouTube]:
Niko Georgiades and Dingane Xaba contributed to this report.Cover image composition by Dan Feidt. Images courtesy Aaron Johnson and Brandon Schorsch.
New Federal Task Forces Under 287(g) Could Form ‘ICE Army’ From National Guard, State, Local & College Police
Demonstrators clash with officers as ICE, other federal officers, Minneapolis police, and other state officers raid Las Cuatro Milpas in Minneapolis, Minnesota Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer) Link to MN Reformer article here.
The Trump Administration has dramatically ramped up arrests and sweeps of people residing in the U.S., with new highly visible incidents and court cases unfolding every week and reaching new heights by mid-May. A new development could spell much larger scales of activity on American streets under 287(g) agreements between state and local law enforcement agencies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While 287(g) is mostly known for changing how arrestees are processed in county jails by sheriffs’ departments, there is a mode of agreement called the “task force model” which would make police available from local or state agencies to work as extensions of federal immigration police. This would make it vastly more likely for immigrants to get detained during routine law enforcement encounters, and massively expand how many local police could participate in federally-managed “sweep” operations.
One such sweep recently netted around 196 arrests of undocumented residents in Nashville. It was carried out by the Tennessee Highway Patrol and ICE using the 287(g) program. The operation “quickly emptied the pews of several Spanish-speaking parishes in the Diocese of Nashville,” according to the Catholic OSV News Service: “Tennessee Highway Patrol officers have been conducting traffic stops to identify and detain persons in predominantly Latino neighborhoods.” This is the pattern of activity that the 287(g) program is intended to intensify, because there aren’t enough federal agents to screen traffic at this scale.
In our experience covering high-level police structures and programs, personnel, manpower and coordination are usually quite constrained. Various state and local governments work around this by creating key documents like “memoranda of understanding” (MOU) and “memoranda of agreement” (MOA).
The controversial agreement between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and ICE which surfaced on May 13 in American Oversight’s court case, is a great example of how these MOUs work. (A section on ICE and the IRS is below.)
The FBI is also possibly allocating one-third of its agents’ time in some field offices to civil immigration enforcement. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), U.S Marshals Service (USMS) and Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) are similarly getting tasked this way. (We have heard additional reports about other federal agents getting pulled from normal work and put onto this kind of activity but the full picture remains murky.)
Similar to the post-9/11 era, when the FBI fixated on ‘counterterrorism,’ a lot of other types of investigations these agencies are charged with, like weapons trafficking, white collar crime and human trafficking rings, will have to wait until the Trump Administration has sated itself or until other branches of the federal government intervene.
Arpaio’s overall model, which included spectacular mass confinement for the media and detainee exposure to desert conditions, was a forerunner of the Trump mass detention style. The American Immigration Council warned at the time, “the practice of allowing local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law increases the likelihood of racial profiling and pretextual arrests which leads to disastrous results for entire communities.”
As of May 28, there are 628 MOAs in 40 states. 99 agencies in 25 states have “jail enforcement model” agreements, 223 agencies in 30 states have “warrant service officer” agreements, and 306 agencies in 30 states have “task force model” agreements (Excel file). An additional 72 applications are pending: 8 jail enforcement models, 23 warrant service officers, and 41 pending task force model agreements (Excel file).
The interface to 287(g) could also include local regulations and policies about policing, immigration sweeps, joint operations, checklists for arrest encounters, and similar processes that should be available to the public and local policymakers. It has proven difficult for county boards and civil society groups to obtain policies about immigration sweeps.
The Miami Herald outlined 287(g) task force structures in detail: it “allows officers to challenge people on the street about their immigration status — and possibly arrest them… State and local officers are trained and deputized by ICE so they can question, detain and arrest individuals they suspect of violating civil immigration laws while officers are out policing the communities they are sworn to protect.”
In Florida, many police and state agencies have joined up in “task force” mode, which means they can try to enforce administrative warrants from executive branch immigration officials. There was a flashy sweep a few weeks ago to promote this. Even college campus police have been getting in on these task forces, bringing federal immigration enforcement down to the student dormitory level.
With little direct oversight from any bloc of public voters, college police departments will likely to be a tempting target for expanding immigration crackdown powers nationwide through systems like the 287(g) task force model.
According to ICE records, Florida higher ed policing for federal civil immigration now includes task force model agreements at Florida A&M University Board of Trustees, Florida Southwestern State College Police Department, Northwest Florida State College Police Department, and New College of Florida (a high profile takeover target of conservative education policy crusaders).
The Texas Observer reported on this “ICE Army” concept with Kristin Etter at the Texas Immigration Law Council warning it’s a “force multiplier of federal immigration agencies” with “officers in the streets stopping, detaining, questioning, interrogating, arresting” people. Law enforcement agencies have been joining 287(g) task forces as well, including the Texas National Guard and Attorney General’s Office. (Texas also has a separate MOU between the Texas National Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection under 8 USC section 1103(a)(10), 1357, 28 CFR section 65.80-85 and DHS Delegation 7010.3.2, as well as the Texas governor executive order GA-54; it says they use “State Active Duty” status and authority under Title 8 to “exercise the functions and duties of an immigration officer” under “supervision and direction of CBP [Customs and Border Protection] officials.”)
Immigration rights advocates in Maryland pushed to get a moratorium on 287(g) enrollments by state and local police, for at least the third year since 2020. However, as the legislative session wound down they came up empty-handed. Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia has become an international symbol this year after getting dumped into El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” returning Abrego Garcia to this country but it has not done so.
Maryland sheriffs’ departments are joining 287(g) en masse, particularly along the northern side of the state. According to a Bolts report, the Democratic Party-controlled Maryland Legislature may not have realized the aggressive nature of 287(g) until it was too late in the policy cycle, despite the pleas of immigration rights advocates.
State Senator Karen Lewis Young told Bolts, “I think if [Abrego Garcia’s detention] had happened earlier in session, the 287(g) bill might have moved, because I think it gave everybody a much more realistic awareness of how dangerous that program can be.” However, Abrego Garcia was not detained under 287(g).
The ACLU of Maryland outlined how Intergovernmental Services Agreements (IGSA) are another avenue for the feds to get money to local police, as ICE rents jail beds to function as immigration detention centers. This allows Frederick, Howard and Worcester counties to generate revenue. The State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) is another similar revenue system.
The Maryland public defender’s office released a report (pdf) saying 287(g) agreements “undermine due process and make innocence irrelevant by requiring local law enforcement officials to screen, interrogate and detain without judicial authorization any arrestee suspected of being removable under civil immigration law. There is no exception for someone arrested based on mistaken identity.”
In Pennsylvania, the suburban political bellwether of Bucks County, outside Philadelphia, is the latest 287(g) flashpoint. Sheriff Fred Harran has been trying to enter into 287(g) without approval of the county commissioners, which the ACLU of Pennsylvania claims is illegal. In April, Harran confirmed he applied to get a “task force” model 287(g) program for about a dozen of his deputy sheriffs to act as ICE officers — not the more limited program that only applies to detention screening at the jail. On May 21 the Board of Commissioners voted 2-1 to oppose this enrollment.
Harran called the ACLU “lunatics” and his local critics “liars” in a “crabby rant” on a right-wing podcast. On May 13, ICE approved Harran’s 287(g) “Task force model” application.
According to the Bucks County Beacon, which uncovered the policy, Harran has not provided any written policy even though he claims his practices “would not include sweeps or raids, stating he has a ‘policy’ in place to prevent round ups.” On May 7, a number of civil society groups held a press conference in Doylestown before a county commissioners meeting (YouTube).
California, Illinois, and New Jersey ban 287(g) agreements statewide. In Minnesota, Cass, Crow Wing and Itasca counties have “task force model” agreements. Crow Wing, Freeborn, and Jackson counties have “warrant service officer” agreements. Jackson is the only Minnesota county with a “jail enforcement model” agreement.
How Task Forces and Multi-Agency Groups Get Constructed by Officials
We can compare 287(g) to other task force systems around the government, which are not often discussed.
Back on January 20, 2025, a White House “Presidential Action” statement, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” declared that “Homeland Security Task Forces” (HSTF) should be created in all 50 states, although groups with that kind of name already existed in some areas. (Org charts for these kind of task forces are attached to the Florida plan linked below.) A DHS “finding of a mass influx of aliens” was signed on January 23, 2025 (pdf) to further justify these measures.
Unicorn Riot found that the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) is commonly used to assemble and pay for counter-protest riot squads across state lines, including for the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and large crackdowns via Morton County at Standing Rock in 2016-2017 (using state troopers from Nebraska and Wisconsin, and police officers from various other states). The National Sheriffs Association was also an important actor in supporting EMAC activities, an adjunct effort to their “information war” against #NoDAPL protesters in the water protector movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The period around the police killing of Daunte Wright and Derek Chauvin’s trial in Minnesota also saw a massive EMAC pull from Ohio and Nebraska. This also includes temporarily deputizing law enforcement officers, insurance provisions, and arrangements for paid services, off a menu-like arrangement, including munitions, travel, and wages. (Typically, a local sheriff or police chief, and someone in the state Department of Public Safety would sign off on EMAC requests from other states.)
Earlier, we also found that the High-Intensity Drug Task Force (HIDTA) in Minnesota is doing biometrics for the Minneapolis police without a listed nexus to drug cases at all. HIDTA units can also include staff from state National Guard offices and advanced technologies to cross-index people and run investigations. HIDTA are usually not considered to be “fusion centers” although their capabilities are similar, if not more robust. The Washington/Baltimore HIDTA was established in 1994 by the Office of National Drug Control Policy and covers 26 counties and 11 cities, including DC and parts of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.
Besides HIDTA there are also Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) in most metro areas. JTTF often has deputized local law enforcement with federal authorities attached, making oversight over such specially empowered local police a puzzling matter.
In recent days, an FBI social media account posted a photo, apparently with one of their agents wearing a Safe Streets Task Force during some kind of activity at a residence, in reference to immigration. Here is an SSTF MOU between Fort Myers and the FBI (pdf) and the 2021 agenda item (pdf).
There is also some option for deputizing U.S. Marshals although the details are unclear. On May 12, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) claimed that 100 Florida Highway Patrol officers are now “special deputy U.S. Marshals” that can enforce immigration laws themselves. This is connected to a 37-page Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan (pdf) although the role of deputization isn’t specified within.
It’s worth considering how open conflicts between local governments and aggressive federal agencies will affect joint task forces like HIDTA, JTTF and UASI groups. For example, San Francisco police pulled out of JTTF for a time in 2017.
ImmigrationOS: Where is the Data Stored for an “ICE Army”?
Many in the U.S. government have tried to make large databases cross-connected from disparate departments for political ends. These type of super-databases have been considered political hot potatoes since the Watergate era; the Privacy Act was passed in 1974 to force the executive branch to outline the nature of these data systems as well as privacy protection measures. These policies were intended to prevent various abuses, like, say, Richard Nixon using the IRS to go after his enemies list.
Additional ICE RFIs in recent years showed that ICE is interested in “release and reporting management,”which includes tracking devices and “monitoring technology” for people who are not being held in detention centers.
The IRS-ICE Agreement that Shook Tax Agency Leadership
This IRS-ICE agreement obtained by American Oversight was produced after the acting commissioner Melanie Krause in resigned in April in objection to this agreement. Acting chief counsel William Paul was removed and replaced with Andrew De Mello to force this through as well. Why so much resistance from the top levels?
After Watergate, the Privacy Act was passed to constrain the use of “systems of records” for law enforcement and other purposes. This MoU tries to give assurances that everything will be handled by trained personnel. American Oversight says“the MOU fails to include any meaningful independent oversight of when and how the information is to be shared, relying on internal compliance and self-reporting and raising questions about how the public can ensure the government is following its own rules.” It showed the government redacted that the IRS would disclose “address information” of taxpayers to ICE, but the court forced these passages to be released.
“Project Homecoming” and Expanding Domestic National Guard Activity, via 287(g)
In a May 9 “proclamation” from the White House entitled “Establishing Project Homecoming,” buried at the end is yet another expansion of armed force in the works.
“[…]the Secretary of Homeland Security shall supplement existing enforcement and removal operations by deputizing and contracting with State and local law enforcement officers, former Federal officers, officers and personnel within other Federal agencies, and other individuals to increase the enforcement and removal operations force of the Department of Homeland Security by no less than 20,000 officers in order to conduct an intensive campaign to remove illegal aliens who have failed to depart voluntarily.”
In our research we found that the National Guard state agencies in Florida and Texas are already approved by ICE for the 287(g) task force model. Thus, the National Guard would not have to be “federalized” to do more operations for the feds, it could just use 287(g). Likewise, CNN reported the Guard units could be under state authority, not federal Title 32 mobilization. As the Brennan Center explains, National Guard personnel managed by their governor and adjutant general are not subject to the limitations of the Posse Comitatus Act.
It appears some of the militarized machinery here involves the concept of “force protection” as a way to coerce state and local governments to cooperate with the immigration crackdown, as liberal news site Talking Points Memo noted. An ominous release from the U.S. Army on April 15, “Joint Task Force Southern Guard protection cell secures the mission” describes how military “force protection” assets “address every possible security and safety scenario in support of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS)-led illegal alien holding operation (IAHO).” Southern Guard has been a very expensive operation to dump migrant detainees in the Pentagon’s offshore base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; it is led by U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).
Soldiers in engineering units install concertina wire on Nov. 5, 2018, at the Anzalduas International Bridge, Texas, part of a “military support” effort of U.S. Northern Command for DHS & Customs and Border Protection (CBP). (US Air Force photo by Airman First Class Daniel A. Hernandez)
Tension in Newark; Additional Detention Centers Sought for ICE Operations
On May 1, a federal lawsuit was heard in which New Jersey is trying to block all privately operated immigration prisons, with the state arguing it can control the private prison market, overriding the federal government’s hope to run a large facility in the region that it desperately needs to scale its mass detention and deportation agenda.
Report: Project 2025 Working Group Proposed Huge Police Command Network Under White House Control
A new report by Beau Hodai for Phoenix New Times/Cochise Regional News introduces elements of a major plan by the previously unreported Project 2025 Border Security Work Group, which offers some vision for a vast expansion and centralization of policing in the United States. Project 2025, a “900-page policy ‘wish list’,” was developed by several conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation to guide Trump Administration policies in a more focused fashion than the first term. The plans, developed by September 2024, include both a security policy and a propagandistic “strategic communications plan” to convince the American public that dreaded “terrorists” are loose in the land and only their extreme policies can save the day.
Hodai writes, “several of the policy proposals contained in the documents have already been executed,” including the IRS policy, dumping immigrants in Guantanamo, militarizing the U.S. border, and widespread revocation of immigrant parole programs and other legal status cancellations. Many “lines of operation” are proposed in the documents, and four new tiers of command controlled ultimately by the White House: Regional Command, State Command, District Command and one Headquarters Command.
In addition, Hodai found that “documents contemplate waiving 287(g) training requirements for sheriff’s deputies and municipal police working in ‘regional command’ units,” because watching 40 hours of training videos is apparently too high a bar to cross. Not surprisingly, the documents also “contemplated invoking the Insurrection Act” and “mobilization of up to one million troops to aid in proposed domestic security operations.”
Plugging leaks in this apparatus would be a serious program as well: “An active counter-intelligence effort must be organized, integrated across all levels, and actively conducted to identify and prosecute any individuals working for and providing classified or operationally sensitive information on border security plans and activities.” More details about these documents are expected to be released in the coming weeks.
All of these subjects can seem a bit overwhelming, but it is worth keeping in mind that the building blocks of this political situation were put in place more than two decades ago, after the September 11 attacks.
Many groups are working on opposing different aspects of the immigration crackdown, including by obtaining evidence of the policies, filing lawsuits, seeking injunctions, and challenging the vast levels of spending pouring out of the executive branch.
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