Politics
DHS watchdog investigating use of force by ICE
The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is investigating use of force by ICE agents, according to a letter sent to the watchdog by congressional Democrats.
The probe comes as the Trump administration faces intense scrutiny over its nationwide immigration crackdown, which has at times turned violent in recent weeks, sparking concern from a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
The letter, sent Monday to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, cites the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis last month. The letter says the inspector general launched a review on Jan. 8 of the tactics undertaken by ICE and Customs and Border Protection, urging the watchdog to speed up the timeline of the probe.
“Given the urgency of this situation — with communities facing severe, and sometimes fatal, harm from ICE’s tactics on American streets every day — we request that your office conduct this review expeditiously and share any preliminary findings with Congress and the public on an expedited basis,” the Democrats wrote, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by Blue Light News.
Democratic Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey — who led the letter along with Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Lou Correa (D-Calif.) — first requested the probe in June.
Thirty-six of their colleagues across the House and Senate signed on to the letter, which was first reported by The New York Times.
The inspector general’s office is conducting an “audit of ICE’s Processes for Investigating and Addressing Allegations of Excessive Use of Force,” per the office’s list of ongoing projects.
The probe seeks to “determine whether ICE investigates allegations of excessive use of force and holds personnel accountable in accordance with applicable Federal laws, DHS policies, and ICE directives.”
Spokespeople for the inspector general’s office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the probe.
The lawmakers asked the watchdog to prioritize its review in light of the fact that the office routinely misses its own goal of completing audits within 397 days, according to a January report from the Government Accountability Office.
The Trump administration has signaled a willingness to soften its approach to immigration enforcement in recent weeks, with Democrats threatening to impeach DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and withhold funding for the department over its aggressive tactics.
In a move seen widely as an attempt to tamp down tensions in Minnesota, the White House pulled Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino from the state and dispatched border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis last week.
Following meetings between Homan and Democratic leaders in the state, Noem announced on Monday that ICE and CBP officers in the city will begin wearing body cameras during immigration enforcement operations there — a key demand from congressional Democrats in their push for reforms of the agencies.
And White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller — a central figure in the administration’s immigration enforcement campaign — conceded that CBP agents may not have been following protocol during the fatal shooting of Pretti, which is under review by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and DHS.
Still, President Donald Trump has aimed to downplay the shift in strategy, rebuffing suggestions that his administration is retreating from its aggressive deportation operation last week and continuing to disparage Pretti.
SEATTLE — FIFA has not endorsed the Seattle host-city committee’s “Pride Match” designation, which will not be part of the official branding when Iran and Egypt meet tonight at Lumen Field.
“I think they’ve always been aware of what we’re doing,” said Louise Chernin, who as chair of the organizing committee’s Pride Match Impact Council began planning for the day nearly a year and a half ago.
Chernin began her match day at Rough & Tumble, a women’s sports bar in Ballard, a historically Scandinavian neighborhood where a crowd had gathered to cheer on Norway against France. The bar was notably free of FIFA’s commercial imprint: The World Cup posters on the walls and the merchandise for sale were all drawn by local artists without any official logos.
It all reflected the extent to which the “Pride Match” has become a gentle challenge not only to FIFA’s record of clamping down on some expressions of LGBTQ+ rights but also the corporate monoculture it creates in host cities through its restrictive sponsorship rules.
“If there’s going to be revenue spent, let us bring it to LGBTQ-owned businesses,” said Chernin, a longtime head of the Greater Seattle Business Association, an LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce.
Just down the street, fans had gathered at a “regnbue” street festival — the word is Danish and Norwegian for “rainbow” — organized by a local Ballard business association. The Norway-France match was being shown on an oversized screen, but when halftime hit attendees did not listen to any of the ads on the Fox broadcast.
Instead DJ SummerSoft took the stage as Sativa the Queen, a local drag performer, vamped through the break.
America’s stint hosting the World Cup is drawing mostly positive reviews to date — and it couldn’t come at a better time.
According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, views of America across the world are worsening and confidence in President Donald Trump’s leadership is dropping.
Pew surveyed 42,000 people across 36 countries between February and May, and found that America has a largely negative impression on the global theater. Only 23 percent of surveyed adults expressed confidence in Trump’s leadership — eliciting less confidence than Chinese leader Xi Jinping (34 percent) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (31 percent).
Foreign policy is the biggest pain point for Trump’s international critics, who take issue with his handling of tariffs, Gaza, Iran, Greenland and the Russia-Ukraine war, according to Pew’s findings.
Meanwhile, fewer countries — and longtime allies — believe the U.S. is a reliable partner. In Canada, where 83 percent of respondents described the U.S. as reliable in 2022, that number is now down to 35 percent.
In 2023, 60 percent of Germans said the U.S. considers international interests in its foreign policy decisions. That share has now dwindled to 23 percent — Germany’s public opinion of the U.S. is “now similar to or more negative than what was measured during George W. Bush’s presidency, when many people in Europe and elsewhere strongly opposed the war in Iraq and other major elements of U.S. foreign policy,” writes Pew.
There are only seven nations where a majority rate the U.S. well — Israel leads the pack, with 81 percent of respondents viewing America favorably. Some of the country’s lowest ratings come from predominantly Muslim publics, “such as Malaysians, Pakistanis, Turks, and Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”
Over the past decade, Pew’s polling has found growing concerns about the health of American democracy. A 2013 Pew survey, just as Barack Obama entered his second term, an all-time high of 75 percent of respondents in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, the Philippines, South Korea and the U.K. said the U.S. respects its citizens’ personal freedoms.
Since then, declining shares of world respondents believe the U.S. respects its citizens’ personal liberties — and this year, 56 percent of respondents said the U.S. does not.
Egyptian Ambassador Motaz Zahran and wife are hosting an informal farewell party tonight for close friends and family at his Washington, D.C. residence tonight, according to an attendee, hours before Egypt faces off against Iran in a closely watched game in Seattle. Ambassador Mohamed Hamdy Mohamed Mokhtar El-Molla will replace Zahran as the new Egyptian envoy to the U.S.
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