When Power Is the Priority — Not People

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Last weekend, the administration directed immigration enforcement authorities to pause making arrests at certain businesses out of concerns about economic fallout. But within days, the threat of raids at farms, hotels, and restaurants was back on the table.

On Thursday, White House border czar Tom Homan said, “The message is clear now that we’re going to continue doing worksite enforcement operations, even on farms and hotels, but based on a prioritized basis. Criminals come first.”

Of course, there are major reasons to question the administration’s rhetoric about “violent” criminals as well as the accuracy of its targeting.
Meanwhile, immigration raids at schools, places of worship, and even baseball games — along with alarming instances of racial profiling against Latino Americans — have plunged immigrant communities in fear.
The recent surge in immigration enforcement actions, especially in Los Angeles, reportedly came after the White House became increasingly frustrated that the pace of arrests was not matching President Trump’s promised scale of mass deportations.

It’s clear that the Trump administration’s draconian and abusive anti-immigration actions are driven more by a quest for political power rather than any legitimate public safety concerns. And many of those actions continue to be initiated behind a wall of secrecy.

On Friday, we sued the administration — including the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor — for information that could shed further light on these shifting immigration enforcement priorities.
The lawsuit seeks internal communications and policy directives related to enforcement actions at sensitive locations like schools and hospitals, as well as the use of I-9 audits, “collateral” arrests, and other tactics affecting citizens and immigrants alike.
As the administration weaponizes government power against those it perceives as enemies, the American people need to see how its political agenda is pushing actions that disproportionately target the most vulnerable and weaken our democracy by making members of immigrant communities fearful of taking part in society.

The Latest in Our Fight to Expose the Work of DOGE

The Trump administration continues to try to weaken the public’s right to know more about the Department of Government Efficiency — despite Elon Musk’s previous assurance the shadowy entity would be “the most transparent organization in government ever.”

This week, the administration filed a brief opposing our request for discovery into DOGE’s actions.
Our discovery motion asked the court to order DOGE to answer a series of targeted questions and produce documents to determine whether the entity is subject to FOIA.

The resistance to allowing the public to learn more about DOGE’s wide-ranging and destructive actions raises an obvious question: What are they trying to hide?

If DOGE is merely advising the president and not — as mounting evidence suggests — independently issuing directives, firing civil servants, and shutting down agencies, then discovery should, in theory, make that clear. Of course, we know DOGE is doing much more than advising and assisting Trump.
No president should be allowed to construct a shadow government that evades the laws and shields its actions from oversight. We asked the court to reject this latest attempt to conceal the truth from the public.

When Power Is the Priority — Not People

The Latest in Our Fight to Expose the Work of DOGE

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