Fascism watch thread/news and discussions

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Rubio argues US cannot return Venezuelans despite court order

https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... rs-return/

Here we fucking go again

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After 911 call led to deportation, Austin police clarify ICE policy

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/after ... r-AA1Uh6yJ

[weatheriscool]

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US drops appeal of order blocking Trump plan to tie state transportation funds to immigration enforcement

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-dr ... r-AA1U9Li5

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Trump administration wins appeal of ruling releasing pro-Palestinian activist Khalil

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-AA1UhJfI

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They Were Ordinary Germans. We Are Ordinary Americans.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/opin ... =url-share

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US apologizes for mistake in deporting Massachusetts college student, but defends her removal

https://apnews.com/article/college-stud ... 1bcd71b09b

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"who cares about nazism lol"

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https://www.threads.com/@karentangmd/post/DThALLujja3

Physician here, reiterating that no medical professional would say he had "internal bleeding in the torso." Hemothorax, or pericardial tamponade are what "internal bleeding in the torso" are, and those are *life-threatening emergencies* that wouldn't have just been sent home the same day.
Those also require actual severe blunt force or penetrating trauma to the chest, which we all used our eyeballs to confirm didn't occur.

CBS News report on ICE officer’s injuries drew ‘huge internal concern’

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/ ... r-injuries

Yeah, CBS is dead to me.

[caltrek]

I Worked for ICE and CBP. Our Current System Makes Everyone Less Safe.
By Jason Houser
January 14, 2026

Introduction:

(USA Today) Immigration enforcement in the United States has drifted away from its core purpose. What began as a public safety function – focused on serious threats and guided by professional judgment – has become something far more volatile: politicized, disconnected from local realities and increasingly dangerous for everyone involved.

The recent tragedy in Minnesota should force a reckoning. Not because it is unique, but because it is the inevitable outcome of where we are – and where we are headed – if we refuse to change course.

I’ve spent two decades inside the national security and homeland security system. I’ve worked alongside agents who take their oath seriously and understand the weight of the authority they carry. We also all know how fragile public trust is, and how quickly it can be shattered when enforcement loses its grounding in common sense and accountability.

Conclusion:

Minnesota should be understood in that context – not as a single failure, but as a warning about what path we are on as a nation. When enforcement is driven by messaging instead of mission, when optics outweigh judgment and when leadership substitutes spectacle for strategy, the risk to officers, civilians and public safety increases exponentially.

This is not inevitable. But reversing it requires leadership willing to reject the performance model and recommit to targeted, disciplined and grounded enforcement. It requires acknowledging that immigration enforcement cannot substitute for a functioning immigration system – and that no amount of theater can compensate for the absence of law, accountability and reform.

Read more here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion ... 6795007/

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ICE’s Violence Is “By Design” Under Trump
By Isabela Dias
January 14, 2026

Extract:

(Mother Jones) The second Trump presidency has taken ICE off the leash. The agency is now the highest-funded law enforcement body in the United States, with a budget that eclipses that of some countries’ militaries. With its near-unlimited resources and aggressive directions from the White House, ICE is sending federal immigration agents not trained in community policing to make at-large arrests in cities across the country. (Days after the shooting, Noem announced DHS would deploy hundreds more agents to Minneapolis.)

Two ex-ICE workers I spoke with described an agency that, in pursuit of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation mandate, is engaging in reckless and risky behavior.

“They’re essentially operating now in a resource constraint-free environment and doing very dangerous things,” said Scott Shuchart, who previously worked at the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within DHS and more recently as ICE’s assistant director for regulatory affairs and policy under the Biden administration. Violent interactions with the public aren’t surprising, he added. “That’s sort of by design.”

Dan Gividen, an immigration lawyer who acted as deputy chief counsel for ICE’s Dallas field office between 2016 and 2019, compared what the agency is doing as akin to running into a crowded movie theater and yelling “fire.” “You’ve got these ICE officers that are pouring out of these vehicles, pointing guns at US citizens—people who’ve done absolutely nothing wrong—and causing chaos.

ICE removal agents charged with doing administrative arrests, he said, lack the tactical training to safely do operations out in communities. “It’s not at all surprising that this is happening with these ICE ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) officers being sent out to basically treat people terribly,” he said, anticipating more escalation of violence.

Read more here: [url] [https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... enee-good/ /url]

[caltrek]

Hell No, It’s Not Over
By Monika Bauerlein
January - February 2026 Issue of Mother Jones

Introduction:

“We already live in a fascist state.” I’ve been hearing that so often these last few months, from friends, pundits, Mother Jones readers. And who can blame them? People have been disappeared to torture prisons overseas and ICE is shooting Americans in the streets. The federal workforce is being gutted, the economy is on a razor’s edge, America’s global credibility is in tatters, and kids go hungry while billionaires cash in. A conspiracy theorist is in charge of our health agencies. Universities, law firms, and nonprofits live in fear of the Eye of Sauron fixing on them. Midterm elections? Will we even have them?

To feel grim in the face of all this is to be realistic. But to throw in the towel and declare game over—that’s something else. Call it anticipatory defeat, the cousin of anticipatory obedience: settling into the worst-case scenario, because it seems hard to imagine getting to somewhere better. But we need to be able to imagine getting to somewhere better.

Conclusion

So keep in mind that all the grim stuff is true—but here is some of what’s also true: Countless judges have held fast against lawlessness (and many important cases never reach the far too complicit Supreme Court). Some universities caved to the administration, but many more have resisted. Some law firms folded, but others committed themselves to fighting for the rule of law. Media corporations have bent the knee, but independent newsrooms are standing up. And most of all, millions of people have been marching, voting, and creatively organizing to protect their neighbors. It’s going to be hard to shut all that down.

Indeed, we have plenty of historical precedent for the government trying, and failing, to shut down dissent. A century ago, Woodrow Wilson’s administration censored newspapers and imprisoned dissenters. Lynch mobs ran rampant. Many Americans were unable to exercise their right to vote. Within the lifetime of some folks reading this column, civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi, student protesters at Kent State and Jackson State were gunned down, peaceful marchers were beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Yet in the end, the goons and guns did not prevail.

None of us chose to be in a moment that calls on us to defend freedom, yet here we are. If we lose, we’ll find out soon enough. But there’s only one way to find out if we can win.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... mendment/

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