#joycevance There is an enormous amount of misinformation circulating about former Special Counsel Bob Mueller’s investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. election and the effort to obstruct that investigation following his death. Tweets honoring Mueller’s life of service to his country are now knee-deep in trolls and MAGA comments that have no relationship to the well-documented facts.

So, let’s go back to contemporary sources and make sure we have a clear picture of what investigators found and what the Report said about Donald Trump. We’ll also look at why Mueller, nonetheless, didn’t indict Trump or even weigh in on whether he should be indicted. That decision drew a lot of criticism.🧵

From #joycevance #fultoncounty #votingisaright Fulton County did not mince words in its amended response to the government’s motion to quash.

A motion to quash is an attempt to prevent a witness from testifying. Here, the federal government wants to keep the FBI agent who signed the affidavit that persuaded a federal magistrate judge that the government had probable cause to seize Fulton County’s ballots and other election records off the witness stand. Fulton County has requested the agent’s testimony at the hearing on its motion to return those records, a motion we discussed most recently earlier this week.🧵

Civil Discourse – Two Days On The Hill: ICE & Pam Bondi – Joyce Vance

Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

Two Days On The Hill: ICE & Pam Bondi

By Joyce Vance, Feb 11, 2026

Writing this newsletter isn’t always easy. But it feels important to me, every day. If my work resonates with you and you want to support it, subscribing to Civil Discourse makes it possible for me to devote the time and resources it takes. Either way, I’m grateful that you’re here. Democracy is a participatory sport, and none of us can sit on the sidelines right now. Being well educated about what’s transpiring and sharing that knowledge with others is one of the most important things we can do.

Democrats in Congress are trying to get their branch of government to do its constitutional duty. As Congress continues to try and lumber to its feet, with just a few Republicans crossing over to work with Democrats on key issues—that’s how we got the Epstein Files Transparency Act in the first place—there is some good news to report.

Tuesday:

Asked if his agency had hired any pardoned January 6 defendants, ICE’s acting Director Todd Lyons was shockingly unprepared. He said he didn’t have “that information” in front of him but would get it.

Given how obvious it was that the question was coming, the lack of preparation seems deliberate. But Lyons’ follow-on comment was intriguing: He said that ICE takes assaults on law enforcement seriously, and he doubted anyone who did that on Jan 6 could pass a background check. Apparently, ICE takes assaults on law enforcement more seriously than the President, who pardoned the January 6 defendants.

New York Congressman Dan Goldman, a former federal prosecutor and good friend, wasn’t having any of the justifications and efforts to ignore, or at least walk past, what’s been happening on the ground in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

“If you don’t want to be called a fascist regime or secret police, then stop acting like one.”

“It’s long past time that you rein in your out-of-control agency and start following the law and the Constitution.”

Goldman asked Lyons about the guidance agents are given about asking people walking on American streets to show proof of citizenship. Lyons claimed that his agents conduct “targeted intelligence driven operations,” and that they “don’t walk around in the streets asking people about their American citizenship.”

Goldman was skeptical. “Really?” he responded. “So all of those individual American citizens who have been randomly asked are lying? Is that what you’re saying?”

That exchange prompted the Congressman to ask Lyons if he knew what other 20th Century regimes required people to show proof of citizenship in similar circumstances. Lyons responded that he did. “Sir, there has been various nefarious regimes that did that,” He told Goldman.

Goldman: Is Nazi Germany one?

Lyons: Yes. But I—

Goldman: Is the Soviet Union one?

Lyons: I-

Goldman: I’m asking the questions. Is the Soviet Union one?

Lyons: Yes sir, but I’m, I’m totally…this is the wrong type of questioning.

Goldman: I’ll tell you what the wrong type of questioning. Reclaiming my time.

Lyons: It’s not the men and women of ICE that are out there doing it every day. So to say that the men and women of ICE are Gestapos. Wrong.

After more back and forth, Goldman schooled the acting Director of ICE:

“The problem is, you have it backwards sir. People are simply making valid observations about your tactics, which are un-American and outright fascist. So I have a simple suggestion. If you don’t want to be called a fascist regime or secret police, then stop acting like one. People are simply just observing what they are seeing. And that’s why people are making those comments.

…I was a prosecutor for ten years, prosecuted mob bosses, organized crime, violent criminals, the actual “worst of the worst.” Not a single criminal law enforcement agent that I worked with wore a mask to conceal their identity. But your department, which is a civil law enforcement agency, is defending the use of masks by your agents because of a so-called rise in threats and assaults against your officers.”

…Now, why is that a problem Mr. Lyons? It’s a problem because the explanation that your agents are wearing masks because of fear of assaults or doxxing is outright bogus. You and your untrained, unqualified, unvetted, unidentified agents are intentionally terrorizing our cities and communities all over this country to avoid accountability for their excessive force and their lawless actions. That is why you’re wearing masks, so no one can hold you accountable and you know that the FBI is not going to because notwithstanding all the investigations all of you say are going on, the Department of Justice and the FBI has stated they are not investigating those two murders.

This is not the America I know and love. This is not the America my immigrant [family] came to and it’s long past time that you rein in your out-of-control agency and start following the law and the Constitution.”

There are some members of Congress who seem to have the knack for representing all of us, regardless of where we live. Dan Goldman is one of them.

Wednesday:

Today it was Pam Bondi’s turn. This was her first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee for an oversight hearing, which in and of itself tells you a lot about her respect for the Article I branch of government, 13 months into this administration. Bondi adopted a Trumpian persona, polite, sometimes veering into smarmy with Republicans; dismissive, rude, and downright insulting with Democrats.

But politicians signed up for this. Victims and survivors of horrific crimes didn’t. Washington state Representative Pramila Jayapal was first up for Democrats, and she brought the Epstein survivors with her. She joined me for a Substack Live earlier this evening—I’ll post our full conversation where she explains what she did and how she views Bondi’s approach to the hearing later tonight when the video is ready.

One of Bondi’s lowest moments, besides her use of a “burn book” of insults that she hurled at Democratic members of Congress, was the response to questions about why she hasn’t indicted anyone else who was involved in sex trafficking with Jeffrey Epstein. Her response? “The Dow is over 50,000 dollars.”

A judge would strike a response like that during witness testimony in court as non-responsive. And certainly the AG isn’t taking responsibility for the economy? It’s just so classically Trumpian that it would be laughable except that, because of the context, it isn’t. If you listen to her this bit, there’s a moment where she takes a swipe at Maryland’s Jamie Raskin, saying, “I don’t know why you’re laughing, I hear you’re a great stock trader, Raskin,” and then half swallowing a little chortle at her own cleverness, which came off to the room as intentional disrespect.

Early on, Bondi referred to herself as a career prosecutor. She said that she cares about victims and called Epstein “that monster.” Then she urged victims to come forward. But the irony, and as a prosecutor who handled these kinds of cases, she has to know it, is that victims won’t come forward to talk with the FBI, having seen how Epstein victims are being treated. Asked to acknowledge them repeatedly in today’s hearing, Bondi refused to apologize and arrange interviews with DOJ, something the survivors all signaled they’ve requested but have never been granted. She wouldn’t even turn around to look them in the eyes, to acknowledge and respect their presence.

Bondi compounded it by saying, later, that victims whose names weren’t redacted should contact DOJ to fix it. But their names & information shouldn’t have been exposed in the first place. It’s outrageous that Bondi thinks the burden should be on the survivors to let DOJ know it made a mistake and to get it fixed. DOJ is a massive, well-resourced law firm and it had a legal obligation to protect the victims. It was even provided with a list of names that needed to be redacted, and in some cases, they redacted one or a few, but not all of the victims’ names. It’s so careless that it’s hard to attribute it to mere negligence. Repeated errors of this magnitude, over time, take on the appearance of intentionality. And these are the kind of errors that make it clear to victims that if they come forward with information about the wrong people, their personal safety could be compromised.

Bondi’s Justice Department works for one client above all others, Donald Trump.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Two Days On The Hill: ICE & Pam Bondi

We are not Nazis. – Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

We are not Nazis.

Also: No Kings, No Dictators.

By Joyce Vance, Feb 05, 2026

I wrote this piece, titled “Are We The Nazis Now?” back in October last year. There were so many awful things happening, mostly to immigrants, but by then, some Americans had started to protest their treatment. I was reminded of Anne Frank’s words:

“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone.”

For anyone who had ever wondered how the Germans turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, we are living through the answer. We watched it start in real time. “Trump promised he’d deport violent criminals,” I wrote last October. “Instead, ICE is going after legal residents and terrorizing children. The message: if you’re an American citizen, don’t exercise your First Amendment rights unless you want to become a target too.” Unfortunately, those words proved correct.

I hope you’ll go back and reread the entire piece from October, because it traces what the administration and ICE were doing back then, and although it seems impossible we could ever forget any of it, so much has happened that some of the details get lost. That recent history is essential, because it gives us such a clear picture of the trajectory that has brought us to this moment. In October, ICE had just raided a Chicago apartment building, taking people including kids, outside, some zip tied, in the middle of the night. Immigrants were treated in dehumanizing ways. The administration’s gamble was that not enough Americans would care. It was just “illegals.”

But Americans were already under fire too. There was the ambulance driver who ICE agents threatened to arrest and to kill, claiming he tried to weaponize his vehicle against them, when he was just there to do his job. The administration was already warming up the engines. There was a long runway before ICE shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

In my piece, I asked, “We aren’t even better off in the ways Trump promised. Deporting school kids doesn’t make us safer. Americans don’t want the jobs that aren’t being done in immigrants’ absence. The Labor Department warned in ‘an obscure document filed with the Federal Register last week that the near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens’ is threatening ‘the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers.’

But beyond the absence of benefits from this administration’s mass deportations, it’s the absence of humanity we see around us that threatens us the most. People who aren’t criminals are thrown to the ground. People are treated with a lack of respect for their basic human dignity. Many of them are hard-working folks who want to be able to love this country and give back because of the opportunity it gives them and their families. Instead, a president who is the son of immigrants and has been married twice to immigrants has become the face of nationalism, using hate and horror to expand his control over people, both American citizens and immigrants, on American soil. Are we the Nazis now?”

There’s an answer to that question. We are not the Nazis. Definitely not. We’re proud of that. We want people to know.

From the massive rallies in freezing temperatures in Minneapolis to smaller ones across the country, like the below one in Maine, Americans are giving their answer to that question. We will not turn a blind eye, we will not acquiesce. We will not be Nazis.

Last Saturday, ABC reported, “Intensive care nurses immediately doubted the word of federal immigration officers when they arrived at a Minneapolis hospital with a Mexican immigrant who had broken bones in his face and skull.” Agents told hospital personnel the man, Alberto Castañeda Mondragón, had tried to flee and had run into a brick wall on purpose. But hospital personnel said his injuries were inconsistent with what ICE claimed.

Prior to his arrest, the man was fine. Four hours later, he was taken to a hospital emergency room. He had “swelling and bruising around his right eye and bleeding. A CT scan revealed at least eight skull fractures and life-threatening hemorrhages in at least five areas of his brain.” The reporter asked a board-certified forensic pathologist who worked as a medical examiner in Minnesota for more than 30 years whether she agreed with hospital employees’ conclusions the injuries weren’t the result of an intentional run at a wall. She responded, “one doesn’t have to be a physician to conclude that a person can’t get skull fractures on both the right and left sides of their head and from front to back by running themselves into a wall.”

One agent subsequently admitted to hospital employees that Castañeda Mondragón, who was arrested the day after Renee Good was killed, “got his (expletive) rocked” after they arrested him.

When he was first admitted to the hospital, Castañeda Mondragón was reportedly “alert and speaking, telling staff he was ‘dragged and mistreated by federal agents.’” But his condition deteriorated rapidly. By the following week, his condition was described as “minimally responsive and communicative, disoriented and heavily sedated.” Nonetheless, ICE agents insisted on shackling Castañeda Mondragón’s ankles to his bed with handcuffs to keep him from escaping. That despite the fact that he “was so disoriented he did not know what year it was and could not recall how he was injured.”

Castañeda Mondragón entered the country legally in 2022. He has no criminal history and started a company in Minnesota. Agents only became aware after they arrested him that he had overstayed his visa. A judge ordered his release and he is no longer in ICE custody, but his friends told the reporter he could no longer work and was at, perhaps, 20% of what he had been before. Hospital employees were surprised he was no longer receiving care.

Federal prosecutors declined to comment on his injuries.

That’s one more human being, damaged by this administration’s insistence of pursuing quotas and treating people like cattle. What started as a slow trickle is now a gusher, too many people impacted to tell all of their stories. But we should still share the ones we know and counter what the administration is trying to do: Normalize treating people as less than human just because they don’t have legal immigration status in the U.S.

We are not the Nazis. That means we have an obligation to say watchful and keep protesting. We have to loudly reject the people who are trying to take us there.

In October I wrote, “What’s certain is this: No matter where Donald Trump wants to take this country, you and I are not going along for the ride. On Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the No Kings rally on Saturday was a “hate-America” rally. He said the people attending would be “the pro-Hamas wing” and “the antifa people.” He’s wrong. We are, in the best tradition of America’s Greatest Generation, truly anti-fascist. And in 2025, anti-fascism begins at home, because we love this country and we believe in democracy. We’re ready.”

On March 28, the third No Kings rally will happen. You can sign up for updates here. Until then, we will continue to let Donald Trump know that we have no intention of letting him turn us into Nazis, that we will block his efforts to take the country there. That’s our job.

Editor’s Note: Here’s Joyce Vance’s October column, embedded below. –DrWeb

Are We the Nazis Now? by Joyce Vance

How do we meet this moment?

Continue/Read Original Article Here: We are not Nazis. – Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

We are not Nazis. – Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

We are not Nazis.

Also: No Kings, No Dictators.

By Joyce Vance, Feb 05, 2026

I wrote this piece, titled “Are We The Nazis Now?” back in October last year. There were so many awful things happening, mostly to immigrants, but by then, some Americans had started to protest their treatment. I was reminded of Anne Frank’s words:

“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone.”

For anyone who had ever wondered how the Germans turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, we are living through the answer. We watched it start in real time. “Trump promised he’d deport violent criminals,” I wrote last October. “Instead, ICE is going after legal residents and terrorizing children. The message: if you’re an American citizen, don’t exercise your First Amendment rights unless you want to become a target too.” Unfortunately, those words proved correct.

I hope you’ll go back and reread the entire piece from October, because it traces what the administration and ICE were doing back then, and although it seems impossible we could ever forget any of it, so much has happened that some of the details get lost. That recent history is essential, because it gives us such a clear picture of the trajectory that has brought us to this moment. In October, ICE had just raided a Chicago apartment building, taking people including kids, outside, some zip tied, in the middle of the night. Immigrants were treated in dehumanizing ways. The administration’s gamble was that not enough Americans would care. It was just “illegals.”

But Americans were already under fire too. There was the ambulance driver who ICE agents threatened to arrest and to kill, claiming he tried to weaponize his vehicle against them, when he was just there to do his job. The administration was already warming up the engines. There was a long runway before ICE shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

In my piece, I asked, “We aren’t even better off in the ways Trump promised. Deporting school kids doesn’t make us safer. Americans don’t want the jobs that aren’t being done in immigrants’ absence. The Labor Department warned in ‘an obscure document filed with the Federal Register last week that the near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens’ is threatening ‘the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers.’

But beyond the absence of benefits from this administration’s mass deportations, it’s the absence of humanity we see around us that threatens us the most. People who aren’t criminals are thrown to the ground. People are treated with a lack of respect for their basic human dignity. Many of them are hard-working folks who want to be able to love this country and give back because of the opportunity it gives them and their families. Instead, a president who is the son of immigrants and has been married twice to immigrants has become the face of nationalism, using hate and horror to expand his control over people, both American citizens and immigrants, on American soil. Are we the Nazis now?”

There’s an answer to that question. We are not the Nazis. Definitely not. We’re proud of that. We want people to know.

From the massive rallies in freezing temperatures in Minneapolis to smaller ones across the country, like the below one in Maine, Americans are giving their answer to that question. We will not turn a blind eye, we will not acquiesce. We will not be Nazis.

Last Saturday, ABC reported, “Intensive care nurses immediately doubted the word of federal immigration officers when they arrived at a Minneapolis hospital with a Mexican immigrant who had broken bones in his face and skull.” Agents told hospital personnel the man, Alberto Castañeda Mondragón, had tried to flee and had run into a brick wall on purpose. But hospital personnel said his injuries were inconsistent with what ICE claimed.

Prior to his arrest, the man was fine. Four hours later, he was taken to a hospital emergency room. He had “swelling and bruising around his right eye and bleeding. A CT scan revealed at least eight skull fractures and life-threatening hemorrhages in at least five areas of his brain.” The reporter asked a board-certified forensic pathologist who worked as a medical examiner in Minnesota for more than 30 years whether she agreed with hospital employees’ conclusions the injuries weren’t the result of an intentional run at a wall. She responded, “one doesn’t have to be a physician to conclude that a person can’t get skull fractures on both the right and left sides of their head and from front to back by running themselves into a wall.”

One agent subsequently admitted to hospital employees that Castañeda Mondragón, who was arrested the day after Renee Good was killed, “got his (expletive) rocked” after they arrested him.

When he was first admitted to the hospital, Castañeda Mondragón was reportedly “alert and speaking, telling staff he was ‘dragged and mistreated by federal agents.’” But his condition deteriorated rapidly. By the following week, his condition was described as “minimally responsive and communicative, disoriented and heavily sedated.” Nonetheless, ICE agents insisted on shackling Castañeda Mondragón’s ankles to his bed with handcuffs to keep him from escaping. That despite the fact that he “was so disoriented he did not know what year it was and could not recall how he was injured.”

Castañeda Mondragón entered the country legally in 2022. He has no criminal history and started a company in Minnesota. Agents only became aware after they arrested him that he had overstayed his visa. A judge ordered his release and he is no longer in ICE custody, but his friends told the reporter he could no longer work and was at, perhaps, 20% of what he had been before. Hospital employees were surprised he was no longer receiving care.

Federal prosecutors declined to comment on his injuries.

That’s one more human being, damaged by this administration’s insistence of pursuing quotas and treating people like cattle. What started as a slow trickle is now a gusher, too many people impacted to tell all of their stories. But we should still share the ones we know and counter what the administration is trying to do: Normalize treating people as less than human just because they don’t have legal immigration status in the U.S.

We are not the Nazis. That means we have an obligation to say watchful and keep protesting. We have to loudly reject the people who are trying to take us there.

In October I wrote, “What’s certain is this: No matter where Donald Trump wants to take this country, you and I are not going along for the ride. On Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the No Kings rally on Saturday was a “hate-America” rally. He said the people attending would be “the pro-Hamas wing” and “the antifa people.” He’s wrong. We are, in the best tradition of America’s Greatest Generation, truly anti-fascist. And in 2025, anti-fascism begins at home, because we love this country and we believe in democracy. We’re ready.”

On March 28, the third No Kings rally will happen. You can sign up for updates here. Until then, we will continue to let Donald Trump know that we have no intention of letting him turn us into Nazis, that we will block his efforts to take the country there. That’s our job.

Editor’s Note: Here’s Joyce Vance’s October column, embedded below. –DrWeb

Are We the Nazis Now? by Joyce Vance

How do we meet this moment?

Continue/Read Original Article Here: We are not Nazis. – Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

#joycevance This morning, Judge Schiltz … savaged ICE, justifiably, for how the agency has conducted itself, just in the last month and just in his court….:

“Attached to this order is an appendix that identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases. The extent of ICE’s noncompliance is almost certainly substantially understated. This list is confined to orders issued since January 1, 2026, and the list was hurriedly compiled by extraordinarily busy judges. Undoubtedly, mistakes were made, and orders that should have appeared on this list were omitted. This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law. ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence…ICE is not a law unto itself. ICE has every right to challenge the orders of this Court, but, like any litigant, ICE must follow those orders unless and until they are overturned or vacated.”

Civil Discourse – Alex Pretti – Joyce Vance

Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

Alex Pretti

Add his name to Renee Good’s.

By Joyce Vance, Jan 26, 2026

After a long, difficult weekend, following the murder of Alex Pretti on Saturday in Minneapolis, which followed the murder of Renee Good earlier in the month, there is more evidence that when we protest against this administration and stay the course, we prevail. We cannot give up, and Americans don’t look like they intend to. Instead, with a lot of grit, they are staying the course.

There is more I want to write about the death of Alex Pretti once I finish processing everything that happened this weekend. I think we’re all still processing, but also, it’s a moment that demands action, so we have to be able to do both of those things at once. We saw the shameless, untrue, demeaning propaganda DHS spouted about Pretti. There is the failure to acknowledge a tragic mistake, to show empathy for his family, to take steps to take the temperature down—all things this administration must be held accountable for at the highest levels. But today, I want to write about the little bit of light shining through the dark.

Trump is backing down.

His Attorney General Pam Bondi’s offensive offer—give us your voter files, she said to Minnesota, and ICE will leave—was called into question by Judges in Oregon and Minnesota. It was clear the judges had questions, but they weren’t alone.

In the wake of the administration’s lies about Pretti, protests erupted across the country. Americans called for an unbiased investigation after reporting emerged that ICE refused to let state and local investigators onto the scene at first, and then abandoned it without securing it, which compromised other agencies’ ability to gather evidence. With protests ongoing across the country, the administration is slowly backing away.

On the Sunday shows, in addition to Democrats, Oklahoma’s Republican Kevin Stitt said Trump needed to answer questions about pulling ICE out of Minnesota and opined “He’s getting bad advice right now.” On Monday, Texas Governor Greg Abbot said on a local radio show that “They, being the White House, need to recalibrate on what needs to be done to make sure that respect is going to be reinstilled,” and that they had a plan to do that. Congressional Republicans, including Representative Michael McCaul of Texas and Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, called, in varying degrees, for more investigation. That’s about as much backbone as we’ve seen from Republicans in the past year.

It was clear to Republicans that Americans had no intention of letting this go.

Tonight, it appears that the days of Gregory Bovino strutting around Minneapolis streets in his greatcoat may be over. The Atlantic reported earlier tonight, “Greg Bovino Loses His Job.” They wrote that he had “been removed from his role as Border Patrol ‘commander at large’ and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change.”

DHS is denying that the report is true.

But as Adam Klasfeld of All Rise News posted, “Nothing in this carefully worded statement by DHS denies the crux of the reporting that Bovino was demoted to his previous job, lost social media access, will leave Minnesota and may retire soon.”

Of course, removing Bovino alone is not the answer, but it’s a start. And we the people did that. We cannot let up, we have to keep going. As I wrote to you last week on Martin Luther King Day, peaceful protest is the answer. “Bull Connor’s ghost is walking the streets of America in the guise of Donald Trump and others around him, Kristi Noem and Thomas Homan, people who reject country and Constitution. People who have no appreciation for our system of government or our rule of law, but who think only of themselves. We don’t talk enough about how not-normal this is. We all know it, it’s become an accepted truth. Let’s honor the legacy of peaceful protest by speaking that truth to power. Because we love our country. And we intend to take it back in this election year.”

This week, Americans did just that: we spoke truth to power.

In the immediate wake of Pretti’s death, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and others, including the President, tried to demean his character and call him a terrorist. But it quickly became apparent that Pretti was holding a phone, not a gun, and was trying to save another protestor, a woman, who was being attacked by an agent. He wasn’t there to massacre law enforcement. He was a VA ICU nurse. He was there to help. As Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy tweeted, “It should freak the American people out that Trump, Noem and Bovino lie so enthusiastically. He wasn’t ‘brandishing a weapon’. He wasn’t attending a ‘riot’ or ‘interfering in a crime scene’. He was an ICU nurse exercising his constitutional rights.”

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Alex Pretti – Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

Civil Discoure – ICE Says It Doesn’t Need A Judicial Warrant – Joyce Vance

Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

ICE Says It Doesn’t Need A Judicial Warrant

By Joyce Vance, Jan 21, 2026

It’s been a long time since we took a night off. I honestly can’t remember the last time. But tonight I’m going to turn in early, after a long day. Before I do that, I wanted to flag one development with ICE for you.

I also want to leave you with some reason for optimism. You may have seen the news that ICE has now surged agents to Maine, predominantly to the cities of Portland and Lewiston, where there are large Somali immigrant communities. This is an echo of the focus on the Somali community in Minnesota.

Tonight, close to 1,000 people joined the mighty Maine ACLU for training on their legal rights and non-violent protest. It was an honor to get to participate in it. When we talk about community building and supporting democracy, this is what it’s all about: people committed to standing up for their rights and for their neighbors’ rights. There is training across the country that you can participate in to better educate yourself about your right to protest peacefully.

Now, the development: The Associated Press is reporting that it has seen a memo ICE is using for internal agent training that asserts “sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant.” The Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable search and seizure, has always been understood to require a warrant signed by a judge, not an administrative warrant signed by a DHS employee to enter a private residence or private areas of a business.

This new policy stance might explain some of the incidents that have been reported in Minnesota, where agents have made forcible entry into homes to remove people and put them into deportation proceedings without a judicial warrant. This sounds like what might have been at work when agents forcibly entered the home of a Hmong man in Minnesota who has been an American citizen for decades, and according to his statement, declined to produce a warrant and claimed he was subject to removal before forcing him out into the freezing cold in his underwear. It turned out that they got it wrong and were forced to release him a few hours later.

The AP reported that they witnessed ICE officers ramming through the front door of the home of a Liberian man in Minneapolis on Jan. 11 with only an administrative warrant, wearing heavy tactical gear and with their rifles drawn, which could also be a result of the new policy.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: ICE Says It Doesn’t Need A Judicial Warrant