Bad to worse.

Click here for Heather Cox Richardson's Substack entry for February 13. 

Here's what Democrats want in the way of ICE reforms:

The Democrats want federal agents to enter private homes only with a judicial warrant (as was policy until the administration produced a secret memo saying that DHS officials themselves could sign off on raids, a decision that runs afoul of legal interpretations of the Fourth Amendment). They want agents to stop wearing masks and to have their names, agencies, and unique ID numbers visible on their uniforms, as law enforcement officers do. They want an end to racial profiling—that is, agents detaining individuals on the basis of their skin color, place of employment, or language—and to raids of so-called sensitive sites: medical facilities, schools, childcare facilities, churches, polling places, and courts.

They want agents to be required to have a reasonable policy for use of force and to be removed during an investigation if they violate it. They want federal agents to coordinate with local and state governments and for those governments to have jurisdiction over federal agents who break the law. They want DHS detention facilities to have the same standards as any detention facility and for detainees to have access to their lawyers. They want states to be able to sue if those conditions are not met, and they want Congress members to have unscheduled access to the centers to oversee them.

They want body cameras to be used for accountability but prohibited for gathering and storing information about protesters. And they want federal agents to have standardized uniforms like those of regular law enforcement, not paramilitaries.  

Pretty basic, right? I don't see any problem with any of that; it's not a wingnut lefty bunch of unrealistic demands. And yet none of it is going to get passed.

 Then there's the farce about El Paso airspace. The FAA abruptly closed El Paso airspace to all civilian air traffic below 18,000 feet, including medical helicopters, for ten days. The Defense Department immediately lied and said it was because of drones flown by drug cartels (although such flights are common). It turned out DoD Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the use of a powerful military antidrone laser to shoot down the offending aircraft -- which turned out to be party balloons. The airspace closure was then abruptly rescinded. 

 Here's an interesting tidbit: amilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News reported this week that documents from DHS itself show that fewer than 14% of the nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested in Trump’s first year had either convictions or charges for violent crimes, with fewer than 2% either charged with or convicted of homicide or sexual assault. 

 "The worst of the worst"? Yeah, right. 

DHS is buying or leasing warehouses across the country for detention space. "Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) made an unannounced oversight visit to the ICE field facility in Baltimore, Maryland, yesterday. He saw “60 men packed into a room shoulder-to-shoulder, 24-hours-a-day, with a single toilet in the room and no shower facilities. They sleep like sardines with aluminum foil blankets.” Mike Hixenbaugh at NBC News today narrated the life of a Russian family in the U.S. seeking asylum. For four months, they have been incarcerated at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, where there is little medical care and the food is often spoiled with mold or worms."

Delightful. This is your government, America.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is carrying on an open affair with Trump buddy Corey Lewandowski. They are running the department together --  "using DHS for their own aggrandizement with an eye to elevating Noem to the presidency." They demanded a luxury 737 Max jet, with a private cabin in the back, for their travel; DHS is leasing the $70 million plane but is in the process of buying it. (Apparently after a recent flight that involved a change of planes, Noem's blanket was left on the first plane; she and Lewandowski fired the pilot on the spot for this oversight, only to rehire him when they couldn't immediately find a pilot to fly them on the return flight.)

Trump is taking election matters into his own hands, tweeting as follows:  

“The Democrats refuse to vote for Voter I.D., or Citizenship. The reason is very simple—They want to continue to cheat in Elections. This was not what our Founders desired. I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject, and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future. There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not! Also, the People of our Country are insisting on Citizenship, and No Mail-In Ballots, with exceptions for Military, Disability, Illness, or Travel. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”.

Trouble for the 2026 midterms? You think? 

Good god -- three more years?