Latest news with #dehumanization
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Masked ICE officers: The new calling card of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown
When New York City Comptroller Brad Lander returned to a Manhattan immigration courthouse on Friday, days after being arrested while escorting an immigrant whom federal agents detained, he said he again witnessed 'a deeply dehumanizing process.' 'We saw three people removed by the same non-uniformed, masked ICE agents who gave no reason for their removal, ripped them out of the arms of escorts in a proceeding that bears no resemblance to justice,' said Lander, who is running for mayor, according to CNN affiliate WCBS-TV. It has become the new calling card of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown: Federal officers, often masked and not wearing uniforms or displaying badges, arresting people outside courtroom hearings, during traffic stops and in workplace sweeps. 'I never saw anyone wearing a mask,' John Sandweg, an acting director of Immigration Customs and Enforcement under President Barack Obama and a former acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, said of the dozens of ride-alongs he attended during his tenure. 'When you're at ICE and you're at DHS, the first and highest priority is the safety of the workforce, and you have to do what's necessary to protect them, but I think there's no doubt it's gone past what any reasonable policy would allow, and it really has to be a situation where it's the exception, not the rule.' Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has said federal officers are covering up to protect their families after some have been publicly identified and then harassed online, along with relatives. 'I am sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I'm not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, and their family on the line, because people don't like what immigration enforcement is,' Lyons said. Sandweg believes the wearing of masks by agents started around March. That's when federal immigration officers in plainclothes and without visible identification began detaining international students on campuses or near their homes as part of the Trump administration campaign targeting pro-Palestinian student activists and critics of Israel's policies. 'The way that they're carrying on without any visible identification – even that they're law enforcement, much less what agency they're with – it really is pretty unprecedented to see at this scale, and I think it's very dangerous,' said Scott Shuchart, a senior ICE official during the Biden administration. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the practice of officers using neck gaiters, balaclavas and surgical masks during high-profile enforcement actions, or instances of agents not revealing what agency they're with or not displaying credentials or badges. There is no federal policy dictating when officers can or should cover their faces during arrests. Historically, officers have almost always concealed their faces only while performing undercover work to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations, law enforcement experts have told CNN. The experts acknowledge the need to protect agents from future retribution in a climate where technology and social media has made it easier to access and expose officers' personal information. While the doxxing threat is real, they said, many of the controversial enforcement actions have been conducted in places such as residences and courthouses. And critics are quick to point out the irony of the Trump administration demanding bans on masks during protests on college campuses and other locations while allowing immigration officers to wear them to detain immigrants. A week ago, after immigration raids sparked sometimes violent protests and the deployment of US troops in Los Angeles, President Donald Trump vowed to ban the use of masks by demonstrators. 'MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why???' the president posted on Truth Social. On Friday, the New York City Bar Association said it 'views with alarm' the new practice of immigration officers 'wearing masks and otherwise obscuring their identities.' The tactic, it said, 'appears to be an effort to evade accountability, and to decrease transparency in response to increasing allegations of government overreach, abuse of power, and violations of constitutional rights.' The practice also makes it 'nearly impossible to distinguish the conduct of an imposter from that of an authorized agent,' the bar association said in a statement, citing the recent shootings of Minnesota state legislators and their spouses — two fatally — by a suspect masquerading as a police officer. 'There are a lot of guns in this country,' Shuchart said. 'I don't know how we aren't setting ourselves up for a kind of vigilante problem where people either don't know, or at least aren't sure, that these officers who are dressed up like bank robbers are actually law enforcement officers.' In California on Monday, a pair of state legislators proposed a bill making it a misdemeanor for local, state, and federal law enforcement officers to cover their faces while conducting operations in the state. The bill, if approved, would require all law enforcement officers to show their faces and be identifiable by their uniform. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat who represents San Francisco, and state Sen. Jesse Arreguín, a Democrat representing Berkeley and Oakland, said the proposal aims to boost transparency and public trust in law enforcement in the face of what they called the Trump administration's 'use of secret police tactics.' US Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, speaking at the House Oversight Committee hearing on June 12 where Democratic elected officials were grilled about immigration policies in their states, likened the actions of masked and un-uniformed immigration officers to the Gestapo, the political police of Nazi Germany. 'When you compare the old films of the Gestapo grabbing people off the streets of Poland, and you compare them to those nondescript thugs… it does look like a Gestapo operation,' said Lynch, according to video from C-Span. Since Trump took office, ICE – which had previously been operating with a set of guidelines focused on public safety and national security threats – has become the agency at the core of the president's campaign promise to carry out mass deportations, CNN has reported. Publicly, the administration has touted its immigration crackdown. Privately, however, officials have come under fire for failing to meet White House arrest quotas, according to multiple sources. Some ICE officers welcomed the greater latitude because it allowed them to have more discretion on who they arrest. But the agents have continued to come under pressure from senior Trump officials to arrest more people, including those with no criminal records. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, architect of the administration's hardline immigration policies, communicated that urgency in a May meeting with senior ICE officials, urging that agents search anywhere and everywhere for undocumented immigrants, according to multiple sources. 'I will tell you, if these agents had their druthers, the majority of them, especially the (Homeland Security Investigations) ones, they wouldn't be doing this work at all,' Sandweg said. 'They'd be focused on criminal investigations, working the stuff they've always done, working wiretaps to apprehend 'Chapo' Guzman in Mexico, not grabbing migrants, you know, day laborers at Home Depot parking lots.' Internal government documents obtained by CNN show that only a fraction of migrants booked into ICE custody since October have been convicted of serious violent or sexual crimes. More than 75% of people booked into ICE custody in fiscal year 2025 had no criminal conviction other than an immigration or traffic-related offense, according to ICE records from October through the end of May. And less than 10% were convicted of serious crimes like murder, assault, robbery or rape. 'Immigration enforcement officers at ICE are caught in a constant pendulum,' said Kevin Landy, a former ICE official during the Obama administration. 'Under liberal administrations, they've been told to concentrate on priority cases like criminals and avoid all other arrests. Then the Republicans take over, and suddenly they're swinging in the opposite direction. They're being harangued to meet impossible daily quotas and arrest everybody.' Referring to the more aggressive enforcement tactics, including the use of masks, Landy added: 'It creates this feeling that we're living in a lawless country. Soldiers and police in some other countries wear masks either to avoid accountability for their actions or because they're afraid of retaliation from criminal organizations.' On Tuesday afternoon, Lander, the New York City comptroller, was released from federal custody, hours after he was arrested by officers at immigration court in Manhattan while escorting an immigrant whom officers detained. On Friday morning, the mayoral candidate returned to the downtown courthouse, along with state Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Democrat, WCBS-TV reported. Ramos' team took video of a couple being separated, the station reported. The woman's husband was detained by a strapping immigration agent wearing a baseball cap and a mask. His pregnant wife, whose immigration case is still pending, cried as he was taken away. CNN's Emma Tucker, Priscilla Alvarez, Casey Tolan, Curt Devine, Majilie de Puy Kamp, Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Gloria Pazmino contributed to this report.
CNN
12 hours ago
- Politics
- CNN
Masked ICE officers: The new calling card of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown
Immigration Federal agencies Donald TrumpFacebookTweetLink Follow When New York City Comptroller Brad Lander returned to a Manhattan immigration courthouse on Friday, days after being arrested while escorting an immigrant whom federal agents detained, he said he again witnessed 'a deeply dehumanizing process.' 'We saw three people removed by the same non-uniformed, masked ICE agents who gave no reason for their removal, ripped them out of the arms of escorts in a proceeding that bears no resemblance to justice,' said Lander, who is running for mayor, according to CNN affiliate WCBS-TV. It has become the new calling card of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown: Federal officers, often masked and not wearing uniforms or displaying badges, arresting people outside courtroom hearings, during traffic stops and in workplace sweeps. 'I never saw anyone wearing a mask,' John Sandweg, an acting director of Immigration Customs and Enforcement under President Barack Obama and a former acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, said of the dozens of ride-alongs he attended during his tenure. 'When you're at ICE and you're at DHS, the first and highest priority is the safety of the workforce, and you have to do what's necessary to protect them, but I think there's no doubt it's gone past what any reasonable policy would allow, and it really has to be a situation where it's the exception, not the rule.' Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has said federal officers are covering up to protect their families after some have been publicly identified and then harassed online, along with relatives. 'I am sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I'm not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, and their family on the line, because people don't like what immigration enforcement is,' Lyons said. Sandweg believes the wearing of masks by agents started around March. That's when federal immigration officers in plainclothes and without visible identification began detaining international students on campuses or near their homes as part of the Trump administration campaign targeting pro-Palestinian student activists and critics of Israel's policies. 'The way that they're carrying on without any visible identification – even that they're law enforcement, much less what agency they're with – it really is pretty unprecedented to see at this scale, and I think it's very dangerous,' said Scott Shuchart, a senior ICE official during the Biden administration. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the practice of officers using neck gaiters, balaclavas and surgical masks during high-profile enforcement actions, or instances of agents not revealing what agency they're with or not displaying credentials or badges. There is no federal policy dictating when officers can or should cover their faces during arrests. Historically, officers have almost always concealed their faces only while performing undercover work to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations, law enforcement experts have told CNN. The experts acknowledge the need to protect agents from future retribution in a climate where technology and social media has made it easier to access and expose officers' personal information. While the doxxing threat is real, they said, many of the controversial enforcement actions have been conducted in places such as residences and courthouses. And critics are quick to point out the irony of the Trump administration demanding bans on masks during protests on college campuses and other locations while allowing immigration officers to wear them to detain immigrants. A week ago, after immigration raids sparked sometimes violent protests and the deployment of US troops in Los Angeles, President Donald Trump vowed to ban the use of masks by demonstrators. 'MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why???' the president posted on Truth Social. On Friday, the New York City Bar Association said it 'views with alarm' the new practice of immigration officers 'wearing masks and otherwise obscuring their identities.' The tactic, it said, 'appears to be an effort to evade accountability, and to decrease transparency in response to increasing allegations of government overreach, abuse of power, and violations of constitutional rights.' The practice also makes it 'nearly impossible to distinguish the conduct of an imposter from that of an authorized agent,' the bar association said in a statement, citing the recent shootings of Minnesota state legislators and their spouses — two fatally — by a suspect masquerading as a police officer. 'There are a lot of guns in this country,' Shuchart said. 'I don't know how we aren't setting ourselves up for a kind of vigilante problem where people either don't know, or at least aren't sure, that these officers who are dressed up like bank robbers are actually law enforcement officers.' In California on Monday, a pair of state legislators proposed a bill making it a misdemeanor for local, state, and federal law enforcement officers to cover their faces while conducting operations in the state. The bill, if approved, would require all law enforcement officers to show their faces and be identifiable by their uniform. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat who represents San Francisco, and state Sen. Jesse Arreguín, a Democrat representing Berkeley and Oakland, said the proposal aims to boost transparency and public trust in law enforcement in the face of what they called the Trump administration's 'use of secret police tactics.' US Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, speaking at the House Oversight Committee hearing on June 12 where Democratic elected officials were grilled about immigration policies in their states, likened the actions of masked and un-uniformed immigration officers to the Gestapo, the political police of Nazi Germany. 'When you compare the old films of the Gestapo grabbing people off the streets of Poland, and you compare them to those nondescript thugs… it does look like a Gestapo operation,' said Lynch, according to video from C-Span. Since Trump took office, ICE – which had previously been operating with a set of guidelines focused on public safety and national security threats – has become the agency at the core of the president's campaign promise to carry out mass deportations, CNN has reported. Publicly, the administration has touted its immigration crackdown. Privately, however, officials have come under fire for failing to meet White House arrest quotas, according to multiple sources. Some ICE officers welcomed the greater latitude because it allowed them to have more discretion on who they arrest. But the agents have continued to come under pressure from senior Trump officials to arrest more people, including those with no criminal records. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, architect of the administration's hardline immigration policies, communicated that urgency in a May meeting with senior ICE officials, urging that agents search anywhere and everywhere for undocumented immigrants, according to multiple sources. 'I will tell you, if these agents had their druthers, the majority of them, especially the (Homeland Security Investigations) ones, they wouldn't be doing this work at all,' Sandweg said. 'They'd be focused on criminal investigations, working the stuff they've always done, working wiretaps to apprehend 'Chapo' Guzman in Mexico, not grabbing migrants, you know, day laborers at Home Depot parking lots.' Internal government documents obtained by CNN show that only a fraction of migrants booked into ICE custody since October have been convicted of serious violent or sexual crimes. More than 75% of people booked into ICE custody in fiscal year 2025 had no criminal conviction other than an immigration or traffic-related offense, according to ICE records from October through the end of May. And less than 10% were convicted of serious crimes like murder, assault, robbery or rape. 'Immigration enforcement officers at ICE are caught in a constant pendulum,' said Kevin Landy, a former ICE official during the Obama administration. 'Under liberal administrations, they've been told to concentrate on priority cases like criminals and avoid all other arrests. Then the Republicans take over, and suddenly they're swinging in the opposite direction. They're being harangued to meet impossible daily quotas and arrest everybody.' Referring to the more aggressive enforcement tactics, including the use of masks, Landy added: 'It creates this feeling that we're living in a lawless country. Soldiers and police in some other countries wear masks either to avoid accountability for their actions or because they're afraid of retaliation from criminal organizations.' On Tuesday afternoon, Lander, the New York City comptroller, was released from federal custody, hours after he was arrested by officers at immigration court in Manhattan while escorting an immigrant whom officers detained. On Friday morning, the mayoral candidate returned to the downtown courthouse, along with state Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Democrat, WCBS-TV reported. Ramos' team took video of a couple being separated, the station reported. The woman's husband was detained by a strapping immigration agent wearing a baseball cap and a mask. His pregnant wife, whose immigration case is still pending, cried as he was taken away. CNN's Emma Tucker, Priscilla Alvarez, Casey Tolan, Curt Devine, Majilie de Puy Kamp, Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Gloria Pazmino contributed to this report.
The Guardian
10-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Sydney cleric used ‘dehumanising' generalisations designed to intimidate Jewish people, federal court hears
A Sydney Muslim cleric being sued for alleged racial discrimination gave a series of speeches calculated to 'dehumanise' and 'denigrate all Jewish people', the federal court has heard. But ahead of the Tuesday hearing, Wissam Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, took to social media to say he rejected the court's authority. Posting a video of Sydney's federal court online, he told followers: 'We disbelieve in these courts, these are the houses of the Taghut,' Haddad said, using an Islamic concept that describes the worship of anyone or anything other than Allah. In modern contexts, the term is used to dismiss, diminish or insult a non-Muslim power as anti-Islamic. Haddad is being sued by two senior members of Australia's peak Jewish body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), over a series of lectures he gave in Bankstown in November 2023 and subsequently broadcast online, in which he is alleged to have maligned Jewish people as 'vile', 'treacherous' and cowardly. The claim alleges Haddad breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which prohibits offensive behaviour based on race or ethnic origin. Peter Wertheim, one of the applicants in this case and ECAJ co-chief executive, told the federal court on Tuesday that Haddad's speeches used 'overtly dehumanising' language. 'Making derogatory generalisations, calling Jews a vile and treacherous people, calling them rats and cowards … are things which I think would be experienced by most Jews as dehumanising,' Wertheim said. His barrister, Peter Braham SC, told the court Haddad's speeches repeated a range of offensive tropes and were designed to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate Jewish people. The court heard Haddad had sound recording and camera equipment installed to record his speeches, for the purpose of disseminating his message far beyond his congregants. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Braham told the court the intent of the five speeches was to 'persuade an audience that the Jewish people have certain immutable and eternal characteristics that cause them to … be the objects of contempt and hatred'. Braham argued Haddad's inflammatory rhetoric was an 'exercise that's so dangerous'. 'It's threatening, it's humiliating and it's offensive. It's calculated to denigrate all Jewish people, including the Australian Jews for whom we appear. 'It involved repeating a large range of offensive tropes about Jews: they're mischievous, they're a vile people, that they're treacherous, and that they control the media and banks et cetera.' But Haddad's barrister, Andrew Boe, argued the cleric's speeches were addressed to, and intended only for, a private Muslim congregation of 40 people and that Haddad was not responsible for them being published online. Boe said it was unlikely a Jewish person would have discovered the speeches, to then be offended by them, if the recordings had not been covered and thus amplified by mainstream media. 'It would be analogous to a person of a prudish sensitivity seeking out pornography on the web and then complaining about being offended by it,' Boe told the court. Boe argued there must be room, in a democratic society, for 'the confronting, the challenging, even the shocking'. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion He said the court should take a 'rigorous and detached approach' in applying the Racial Discrimination Act, and remain careful to uphold the 'intended balance between … proscribing racially motivated behaviour that may be harmful in the Australian community, and … preserving the freedoms of speech and religion that are so essential to the continued existence of a free democracy'. Haddad's defence case argues that his sermons were delivered in 'good faith' as religious and historical instruction. If his sermons are found to breach 18C, then, his defence submission argues, the law is unconstitutional because it restricts the free exercise of religion. The long-running dispute, which failed to find resolution at conciliation, came before the federal court Tuesday, with the case set to test the limits of religious expression and hate speech under Australian law. A directions hearing last week heard expert witnesses would be called to assess whether Haddad's sermons were accurate representations of Islamic scripture, with the court likely to be asked to adjudicate whether Haddad's sermons, in which he quotes the Qur'an and offers interpretation of it, amount to incitement or are protected religious expression. The applicants are seeking an injunction that Haddad's five offending sermons be removed from the internet, and an order that he refrain from publishing similar speeches in future. Wertheim and his co-applicant, Robert Goot, are also seeking publication of a 'corrective notice' on Haddad's prayer centre's social media pages, and to be awarded the legal costs of bringing their action. They have not sought damages or compensation. In his social media posts ahead of the court hearing on Tuesday morning, Haddad said he rejected the court's authority, telling online followers that 'the Jewish lobby' was 'dragging us into [a] court', whose jurisdiction he did not recognise. 'But we're not going to come unarmed, we are going to fight them with everything we have. 'Isn't it about time that somebody stands up to these bullies.' The hearing, before Justice Angus Stewart, is expected to run until the end of the week.
CBC
30-05-2025
- General
- CBC
CBC IDEAS explores the rise of hate and how to dismantle it, free conversation June 12
On June 12, Join CBC IDEAS producer Mary Lynk in conversation with a prestigious panel at a free discussion entitled "10 Reasons to Hate Others—And what to do about it". The event takes place at 7 p.m. at Neptune Theatre's Scotiabank Stage. Around the world today, we are witnessing a troubling rise in hatred of the other. Scholars have come up with 10 key reasons why one group may hate members of another group. If left unchecked, this hatred only intensifies, dehumanizing our perceived enemies and allowing us to justify mistreatment and even violence. The conversation is a co-production between CIFAR and CBC IDEAS and includes: The conversation will be recorded for CBC IDEAS and is scheduled to air in June.
The Independent
27-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
‘Misogynistic' Reform activists depict female cabinet ministers as cows in abattoir
Labour has called on Nigel Farage to take action after an image emerged from a Reform local election stunt depicting female cabinet ministers as cows in an abattoir. The roadside set-up in Hertsmere, Hertfordshire, shows deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, chancellor Rachel Reeves and education secretary Bridget Phillipson are all depicted as cows waiting to be slaughtered. The stunt, pictured by a passerby and passed to The Independent, was damned as 'dehumanising' and 'misogynistic.' It has shocked political parties in Westminster, where MPs, including Mr Farage, are having to take extra security measures to protect themselves from potential attacks. The imagery of a slaughter house has brought back memories of attacks on MPs, including the deaths of Labour's Jo Cox and the later Tory MP Sir David Amess. Other MPs have been attacked, including Labour minister Stephen Timms, who was stabbed. And the danger faced by politicians was underlined last week when homes linked to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer were set on fire. A Labour spokesperson said: 'This is a dehumanising and misogynistic portrayal of hardworking female Cabinet members who are delivering change for our country on behalf of the British people. 'If Nigel Farage wants his party to be in any way seen as remotely professional, he should start by condemning this 'stunt' and confirming nothing like this will happen again." A Lib Dem spokesperson added: 'This is horrifically misogynistic and after seeing politicians murdered in recent years, inferring that some should also be sent to an abattoir cannot be dressed up as anything other than an attack on democracy. 'Nigel Farage needs to step in and launch a full investigation and anyone associated with this vile stunt must be expelled from Reform.' The stunt was bedecked with Reform posters during a hard-fought campaign where the party gained 677 council seats and two mayoralties across the country. There is no evidence to link it to any national campaign.
