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ICE Instigated ‘Chaos’ Before Arresting NJ Mayor – The Monday AM Quickie 5/12/25

By Whitney Curry Wimbish —

The alchemists of old were right all along: you really can turn base metal into gold. - Whitney

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THE BIG NEWS

Trump’s Immigration Goons Instigated ‘Chaos’ Before Arresting Newark, NJ Mayor 


Trump’s immigration thugs initiated the mayhem on Friday that gave them an excuse to arrest Newark’s mayor and threaten to detain three New Jersey representatives, the Congress members said yesterday, according to The Guardian. “They created that confrontation, they created that chaos,” said New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver, adding that federal agents lied when they claimed she bodyslammed them. “I honestly do not know how to bodyslam anyone,” she said. “There’s no video that supports me bodyslamming anyone.”

McIver had gathered in Newark on Friday with fellow Democratic Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez to conduct an inspection of Delaney Hall, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center that a lawsuit claims is operating in the state illegally. When Newark Mayor Ras Baraka arrived, federal agents barred him from entering the building with the representatives. He complied and walked away. But a swarm of Trump’s masked thugs in military fatigues retaliated anyway, circling him, putting him in handcuffs, and throwing him in an unmarked car. They also shoved around and “manhandled” the representatives. Baraka was charged with trespassing and released five hours later. His first court appearance is set for this Thursday, court documents show. 

Trump reopened the 1,000-bed Delaney Hall earlier this year and awarded Geo Group a $1 billion contract to operate it for 15 years. Geo Group is a $3.6 billion publicly traded prison company whose stock prices have hit 5-year highs since Trump’s reelection. But even with all that money sloshing around, executives can’t be bothered to get the right permits, so the facility is operating illegally, according to the lawsuit that Newark’s municipal government recently filed. There’s another lawsuit over private immigration detention in New Jersey, too – CoreCivic, Geo Group’s main competitor, sued over a 2021 law forbidding immigration detention in the state. That case is now in federal appellate court. 

Thinking of Taking a Trip? Think Again 

Air traffic control systems blacked out again at Newark Liberty International Airport yesterday – the third time in two weeks its systems have gone down, according to The NYT and the AP. The Sunday air traffic outage caused a 45-minute ground stop for flights coming into Newark, which is one of the nation’s busiest airports. On Friday, the radar system went out for 90 seconds, just like it did at the end of last month. The system failures have been so stressful that several Newark air traffic controllers have gone on “trauma leave,” according to The Guardian. Also on Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that the problems at Newark could spread to airports nationwide, just in time for summer travel. He’s scheduled to meet with airline executives on Wednesday to talk about reducing the number of flights into Newark, he said, but didn’t say by how much. He also didn’t address how the Trump-Musk administration’s decision to cut 400 Federal Aviation Administration workers will do anything but make the crumbling FAA fall apart even faster.

Judge Releases Student from ICE, Says Her Detention May Chill Speech of ‘Millions and Millions’

A federal judge on Friday ordered the release of Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, who masked federal agents snatched off the street in March for co-authoring an opinion column in a student newspaper that was critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, according to The AP, Politico, and The Washington Post. As in other, similar illegal detentions, immigration thugs accosted Öztürk in one place and then shuffled her around the country for maximum confusion – in this instance they grabbed her in Massachusetts, drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont, and then forced her onto a plane bound for Louisiana. Her student visa had been revoked prior to her abduction, Öztürk’s lawyers said, but nobody told her so. US District Court Judge William Sessions said her detention “constitutes a continued infringement on Ms. Öztürk’s First Amendment and due process rights” and “potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens.” He also noted that the government failed to present any evidence for Öztürk’s detention other than the column she helped write, and demanded she be released on her own recognizance, with no travel restrictions or the unnecessary and cruel electronic monitoring that immigration goons tried to force through at the last minute.

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • Judge Tells Trump Admin to Halt Agency Demolition, Work With Congress A federal judge ordered Trump and Co. to pause their social services demolition derby for two weeks in a ruling that “is poised to have the broadest effect” of all the lawsuits challenging the administration. via The NYT. 
  • Mexico Sues Google for Changing Name of Gulf Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum is suing the tech giant for changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” for Google Maps users in the US, after the House of Representatives approved the change last week. via The Guardian. 
  • New Nuclear Power Plants for AI Slop Trump wants to quadruple the size of America’s nuclear power plants and is considering various executive orders to speed up their construction, all in the service of supporting artificial intelligence slop to enrich his “friends” and make the rest of us miserable. via The NYT. 
  • Border Agents Planning Massive Database of Faces Customs and Border Protection agents are planning to photograph every person leaving the US to match faces with travel documents. via Wired.

SOME NUMBER

54

That’s how many white South African “refugees” the Trump administration is forcing American taxpayers to resettle in the United States because they have “faced racial persecution,” according to Trump’s flack. “The government there has vowed to take away their farmland that they own.” Wah. The group is set to arrive via charter flight today and will receive “housing … basic home furnishings, essential household items … groceries, weather-appropriate clothing, diapers, formula, hygiene products and prepaid phones,” the NYT reported. Trump is prioritizing Elon Musk’s fellow white colonizers, a group that violently oppressed the Black South African majority during the 50-year crime of apartheid, above others who truly need it and whose lives are in real danger. Trump suspended the US refugee settlement program on his first day in office, betraying and stranding more than 100,000 people who had already been approved for resettlement, including those fleeing persecution and violence in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

ON THE SHOW TODAY

5/12: Happy Monday!

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

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We can all see this for what it is: fascist state violence.

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Great news for fans of bloodletting and leeches.

PARTING WORDS

“It’s the first time in 24 years where I don’t know when or if we’ll be going back to work or if I have to find another job or what we’re going to do.”

-- Joshua George, a Suquamish tribal member in Washington state whose job harvesting geoducks is under attack thanks to Trump’s self-harm tariff campaign. Geoducks are the world’s largest burrowing clam and a highly prized delicacy in China, which imports virtually all its geoducks from Washington state. The clams already cost $100 a pound in restaurants before Trump’s unforced trade war; that cost stands to be so much higher for Chinese buyers that they’re cancelling their orders.

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