The Dictatorship
Stephen Miller seems to be trying to pretend the Laken Riley Act doesn’t exist
Just days into his second presidency, President Donald Trump signed his first piece of legislation: the Laken Riley Actwhich requires the government to seek out and arrest illegal immigrants who commit theft and violent offenses. Named after a college student senselessly killed by an undocumented immigrant after a prior arrest, the president pushed for passage “to prevent senseless tragedies.”
But going after a small number of criminal fugitives will not allow the president’s team to hit its sky-high deportation targets. Whether intentionally or through incompetence, the Trump administration is violating its own law, allowing criminals to re-offend while it terrorizes peaceful immigrants. The result is the administration’s arrest numbers soar.
This past weekend provided the latest evidence. Immigrants who had already racked up a series of arrests were accused of shooting an off-duty customs agent. These are exactly the people the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is required to prioritize under the Laken Riley Act. Yet DHS failed to do so.
The Laken Riley Act is clear: The Department of Homeland Security “shall effectively and expeditiously take custody” of any illegal immigrant arrested for burglary, theft, or any crime that seriously injures anyone. This weekend’s suspects already had arrests for robbery, grand larceny and serious assaults.
They should have been among the first targets for the new administration, but they were not. As a result, they were free to re-offend.
Incredibly, this is the second time in six months that a DHS employee was a victim of a crime alleged to have been committed by a person whom DHS should have arrested under the Laken Riley Act. In April, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s purse was allegedly stolen by an undocumented immigrant in Washington, D.C., according to law enforcement. He, too, had previous arrests for theft in New York City, including this year during the Trump administration.
The administration often does ask local governments to detain people on its behalf, but it even more frequently does not send officers to get those people into custody. During the first month of this administration, DHS was going to get its targets who were in local custody a minority of the time after it asked local governments to notify it of the people’s releases, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data obtained by the TRAC research organization.
DHS is most likely just ignoring the law that Trump and Republicans had demanded.
Noem blames “sanctuary city” policies, which prohibit city police from coordinating with DHS, but that does not clear DHS of its failure to enforce the Laken Riley Act. Local police had not detained Laken Riley’s assailant after his prior theft arrest. Hence, the law states that “if the alien is not otherwise detained by Federal, State, or local officials,” federal agents “shall effectively and expeditiously take custody.”
No local sanctuary policy can stop DHS from sending its agents to make these arrests. Even in sanctuary cities, DHS receives notification when authorities arrest people in the country illegally. Even without being tipped off by local governments, ICE can track their court hearings and arrest them, as sometimes happens. More intensive searches are required for people already released. But under the Laken Riley Act, those intensive and difficult searches take priority over DHS’ arrests of noncriminals.
Given the question of whether DHS is even trying to carry out the law, I made a Freedom of Information Act request for all documents detailing how DHS is implementing the Laken Riley Act. DHS’ response? In June, the department told me“No records responsive to your request were found.”
In other words, DHS is most likely just ignoring the law that Trump and Republicans had demanded — as I predicted it would. Why did I predict that? Because the administration can’t achieve “mass deportation” by targeting criminals. There simply are not “millions and millions” of immigrant criminals, and they are often more difficult to find and arrest than immigrants who play by the rules.
The conservative-leaning Washington Examiner reported in May that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller “eviscerated” DHS officials who said they were prioritizing criminals as required by the Laken Riley Act.
“What do you mean you’re going after criminals?” he reportedly asked DHS officers. Although ICE disputes the Examiner’s reporting, which was based on ICE officials, other outlets have similar reporting. The New York Post quoted ICE officials last month saying the White House wants “quantity over quality,” which, the officials claim, is “leading them to leave some dangerous criminal illegal migrants on the streets.”
More damning is the Wall Street Journal report that Miller denounced DHS’ practice of creating “target lists of immigrants,” a necessary step to identify people who have already committed crimes. Instead, he said they should go out and profile people on the streets and at worksites.
That’s what DHS has been doing. Multiple courts have now found DHS has engaged in illegal street profiling of Latinos. As a result, in June, DHS was arresting 4,000 immigrants per week who had no criminal convictions or charges. Only about a third of the convicted “criminals” whom it brought into custody were violent or property criminals, accounting for just less than 10% of all the immigrants it has detained.
From the White House’s perspective, it appears to believe there’s little difference between an illegal immigrant mom who is supporting her U.S. citizen children and the serial criminals who shot the customs agent this week, because both might go on to commit serious crimes. But the Trump-backed Laken Riley Act’s logic is the opposite: Focusing on known threats is more likely to protect Americans from future harm.
How many crimes will it take for the Trump administration to learn that lesson?
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Eight protesters accused by the Justice Department of having ties to antifawere sentenced Tuesday to decades in federal prison over a shooting outside a Texas immigration detention center that wounded a police officer. Prosecutors have called the shooting an act of terrorism.
One of the defendants, a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist convicted of opening fire during the July 4 demonstration outside the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas, was sentenced to 100 years in prison, the maximum punishment.
The lengthy sentences were condemned by family members and supporters in a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Fort Worth. Hope Song, whose son Benjamin Songreceived the heftiest sentence, disputed prosecutors’ claims that her son shot the officer and said he didn’t intend to hurt anyone.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, one of two judges overseeing the proceedings, said what happened wasn’t a protest but “an assault on democracy.”
“The need to deter this type of conduct is high,” O’Connor said.
The seven other protesters received prison terms ranging from 30 to 70 years.
Prosecutors said the eight are members of antifa, a decentralized anti-fascist organization and a targetof the Trump administration. Antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.
President Donald Trump last fall signed an executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization, even though there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations.
The defendants deny any affiliation with antifa and maintain they attended the demonstration in support of detained immigrants.
Prosecutor Frank Gatto urged the judge to impose stiff penalties.
“People with that kind of extremist beliefs need extra time in prison,” Gatto said. “They believe violence is justified.”
Phillip Hayes, Song’s attorney, said outside the courthouse that he takes issue with the idea that the protesters are extremists.
“This is a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a really big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard,” Hayes said. “It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired.”
Prosecutors said in court that Song had yelled “get to the rifles” and opened fire, striking a police officer who had just pulled up to the center.
Hayes argued that Song’s shots were “suppressive fire” and that a ricochet bullet hit the officer after he arrived on the scene and “aggressively” pulled out his firearm. He said his client will appeal the 100-year sentence.
“Song, aside from this day, has had an impeccable life. A former Marine. A good student,” Hayes said. “He had a lot of good qualities that were just ignored. The judge went ahead and gave as much as he could.”
Other defendants and their family members pleaded for leniency in court.
Autumn Hill said the gathering “seemed more like a party to me than anything else” and that she and others who participated “didn’t expect or want any violence or destruction of property to occur.”
Amber Lowrey told the judge that her sister, Savanna Batten, is a compassionate person with dreams of opening a bakery. She said Batten’s activism started with animal rights and evolved into anti-war and human rights advocacy.
“She’s the best person I know,” Lowrey said.
Hill and Batten both received 50-year sentences.
Other defendants previously pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists rather than take their case to trial.
Critics warn the case could have a wide-reaching impact on protests given that organizations operating within the U.S. are supposed to be protected by First Amendment free-speech rights.
Last week, federal prosecutors charged 15 peoplewith impeding the Trump administration’s immigration crackdownin Minnesota. They claimed the demonstrators were members of antifa who conspired against the federal government to block arrests and deportations by setting up blockades around government buildings and throwing chunks of ice at federal vehicles, among other actions.
The Dictatorship
Tulsi Gabbard and Senate GOP face difficult new questions over influence of her ‘guru’
About a month into Donald Trump’s second term, Senate Republicans weighed whether to confirm one of the president’s worst nominees. Indeed, the list of reasons to reject Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence was not short.
The former congresswoman lacked the requisite experience in intelligence matters. She had an indefensible habit of echoing Russian propaganda. She struggled to explain her record of defending Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime. Senators heard from former national security officials who issued unsubtle warnings about elevating Gabbard to an important and influential position.
But in case that weren’t quite enough, let’s also not overlook the fact that Gabbard was a member of a secretive Hare Krishna offshoot religious sect that is considered by many of its former members to be an abusive cult.
Gabbard, who wrapped up her tenure as DNI last week, has long insisted that any suggestion that she was somehow enthralled to or controlled by this sect or its leader, whom she has referred to as her “guru,” is just bigotry against her faith.
But it’s against this backdrop that The Washington Post obtained hundreds of secret memos prepared for Gabbard during her congressional tenure, which were put together by members of the alleged cult and which included thousands of pages of specific directives to her on policy and politics.
After careful analysis of thousands of these documents, which have not been independently verified by MS NOW, the Post determined that they likely came from Gabbard’s secretive guru, a man named Chris Butler.
The memos, starting in 2013, when the Hawaiian first arrived on Capitol Hill, reflect a dynamic in which Gabbard didn’t just take direction from the materials, but essentially took dictation from the alleged cult leader: Memos told Gabbard what she should do as a member of Congress, and she often did exactly that, sometimes word for word.
The Post’s Jon Swaine spent months trying to get Gabbard to respond to questions, but to no avail. Her spokeswoman reportedly encouraged Swaine to drop the story, saying, “I cannot imagine WaPo’s readers would be interested in yet another uncredible, bigoted attack on the DNI’s faith.”
On May 20, Swaine nevertheless alerted the DNI and top members of her staff to the fact that the Post was prepared to publish his reporting anyway on her association with Butler.
On May 22, Fox News reported that Gabbard was leaving the administration, ostensibly because of a health issue involving her husband.
This week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor and commented on the reporting:
There are reports that Tulsi Gabbard was receiving instructions from a so-called guru and repeating them word for word. That ought to concern all of us if it’s true. No one knows who this guru really is, what his connections are, and where the instructions came from. … We need answers.
The New York Democrat’s comments made sense, though it’s worth considering who, exactly, “we need answers” from.
It stands to reason, for example, that Gabbard has some explaining to do, but I’m also interested in the answers from those who elevated her to an influential intelligence office in the first place.
In February 2025, confronted with an avalanche of reasons to reject Gabbard’s nomination, 52 Senate Republicans — every GOP member except Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell — shrugged off every red flag and voted to confirm her as the nation’s DNI, including so-called “moderates” such as Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.
The question for these 52 senators seems obvious: Do you regret that confirmation vote and now recognize it as a mistake? Or do you still think it was a good idea to put Gabbard in this influential intelligence position?
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
In the lead-up to the Iran war, President Donald Trump dismissed the possibility that Tehran would close the Strait of Hormuz despite warnings from his top military adviser, authors of a new book told MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday.
In their first televised interview about “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan said Trump also disregarded warnings from Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the potential effects on American weaponry and about casualties.
The initial closure of the strait, a narrow passageway through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes, led to a spike in gas and oil prices. According to Swan, Trump thought Iran would have limited time to take action because the war would be over quickly — a claim he has made repeatedly during the nearly four-month-long war.
“He felt that this regime was a paper tiger, that this was going to be a fast war,” Swan said on “The Last Word.” “He just said he felt that that was going to be the case, that they were going to collapse very quickly.”
“It’s a form of magical thinking, actually, is what it all boils down to,” he added.
The revelation is just one of several in the book — which is based on more than 1,000 interviews — that illustrate how Trump repeatedly bases geopolitical decisions on his own whims rather than experts’ assessments.
Another example of such thinking was when Trump floated a plan to expel 2 million Palestinians from Gaza so he could turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Haberman and Swan wrote in the book that one senior aide characterized the idea as “legitimately nutso … but very on-brand.”
Haberman also spoke about “how scared” people were inside the White House ahead of last year’s so-called Liberation Daywhen Trump unveiled sweeping global tariffs. (The Supreme Court struck down those tariffs in February.)
“They were scared at how close the bond markets came to just completely melting down seven days later, which was finally what got him [Trump] off of it, but again, it was the willingness to just go straight to the brink” that was jarring, Haberman said.
Despite such fear among Trump’s staff, Haberman added, the White House makes up “a group of people who genuinely want to see him succeed.”
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.
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