KatherineHawkins
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krhawkins.bsky.social
KatherineHawkins
@krhawkins.bsky.social
6.2K followers 1.2K following 4.3K posts
Senior Legal Analyst for the Constitution Project at @pogowatchdog. Trying to annoy CBP for rights violations as badly as I used to annoy the CIA. Personal account; views are my own, etc.
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krhawkins.bsky.social
KatherineHawkins @krhawkins.bsky.social · Sep 30
A new writing project--please check it out. Subscriptions are welcome but not necessary and all content will be free. un-disappearing.ghost.io
Un-Disappearing
Research, Research, analysis and documentation of rights abuses in the name of immigration policing
un-disappearing.ghost.io
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
bachynski.bsky.social
“With immigration agents under intense pressure to deport thousands of people each day, Ms. Lopez was pushed through the system swiftly and was deported within four days of the factory raid.
As a result, Jorge is now cared for by two siblings who are barely adults themselves.”
She Was Deported in Error. Her Child Was Left Behind.
www.nytimes.com
November 14, 2025 at 11:43 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
dell.bsky.social
New: The FBI is quietly urging ICE agents to properly ID themselves in the field.

In a bulletin to law enforcement last month, it warned of criminals posing as ICE to rob, rape, kidnap—a problem it says now demands national coordination to confront.

By me & @carolinehaskins.bsky.social:
FBI Warns of Criminals Posing as ICE, Urges Agents to ID Themselves
In a bulletin to law enforcement agencies, the FBI said criminal impersonators are exploiting ICE’s image and urged nationwide coordination to distinguish real operations from fakes.
www.wired.com
November 4, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
Basically saying "if you do crime for me, I won't only pardon you--I'll give you millions of dollars of public money." Truly unprecedented level of corruption

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Michael Flynn, DOJ in Settlement Talks Over $50 Million Claim
The Justice Department has been discussing settlements with two former officials from Donald Trump’s first term who — like the president — claim they’re owed major payouts from the US government as vi...
www.bloomberg.com
November 14, 2025 at 7:04 PM
krhawkins.bsky.social
In union station about to get a train to NY and there’s a lone pigeon in the pizzeria a fair bit away from any exterior door
November 14, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
afrodip.bsky.social
Ald Greg Mitchell declined to answer Qs about the immigration raid and living conditions at 7500 S Shore Dr at council today.

He said the raid was "over with," and suggested I already knew about his prior work to address the building's problems. When I said I do not, hence me asking, he walked away
November 14, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
propublica.org
NEW: DHS invoked the “national emergency” at the border to skirt competitive bidding rules for a $220 million taxpayer-funded ad campaign.

We found that a firm with deep ties to Kristi Noem secretly benefited from the deal.
Kristi Noem-Tied Firm Secretly Got Piece of $220 Million DHS Campaign
The company is run by the husband of Noem’s chief DHS spokesperson and has personal and business ties to Noem and her aides. DHS invoked the “emergency” at the border to skirt competitive bidding rules for the taxpayer-funded campaign.
www.propublica.org
November 14, 2025 at 1:00 PM
krhawkins.bsky.social
RIP to someone who improved my life, who I’d never heard of. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/h...
Sharon Camp, Mother of the ‘Plan B’ Contraceptive Pill, Dies at 81
www.nytimes.com
November 14, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
aclu.org
CBP is one of the most lawless agencies in the country and has a track record of violating people's rights, even those of U.S. citizens.

Putting them in charge of immigration enforcement is an alarming escalation, but our communities are prepared to defend our neighbors.
Border Patrol Agents Replace Top Leadership at ICE
As immigration enforcement expands nationwide, Trump assigns top leadership to Border Patrol staff despite agency’s track record of abuse.
www.aclu.org
November 14, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
schuba.bsky.social
Trump's Chicago deportation blitz has hinged on aggressive and forceful policing tactics: Shootings, takedowns, chokeholds, car chases, chemical munitions, etc.

To get a better sense of the scope and the impact, we mapped incidents, spoke to those affected and analyzed policy.
tinyurl.com/3nrkaw55
Tear gas, car crashes, rubber bullets: Risky tactics have driven Trump’s Chicago deportation ‘blitz’
Law enforcement experts say federal agents have displayed a lack of training and restraint. “They’re out of control,” ex-police Supt. Garry McCarthy says.
tinyurl.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:22 PM
krhawkins.bsky.social
Is it always the same emotional support tear gas cannister that he keeps and throws others at protesters/press/cpetty? or does he rotate? bsky.app/profile/cnn....
cnn.com CNN @cnn.com · 1d
Gregory Bovino, the top Border Patrol official leading the charge on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in cities, and his officers are heading to Charlotte, according to a source familiar with the planning. That was news to city officials. https://cnn.it/49crpZT
November 14, 2025 at 3:26 AM
krhawkins.bsky.social
First evening performance at the Kennedy Center in this new era. WHY ON EARTH DID THEY CHOP DOWN THE WILLOW TREES?
November 14, 2025 at 2:27 AM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
djbyrnes1.bsky.social
New: Diana Santillana Galeano, whom federal immigration agents dragged out of a Rayito del Sol daycare on Chicago's north side last week, has been released from federal custody, the law firm HSPRD announced Thursday.

The release states she will meet with Rayito del Sol parents on Friday.
Image text: Diana Santillana Galeano released from ICE detention, will return to greet community Friday CHICAGO (Thursday, November 13, 2025)--Diana Santillana Galeano was released from ICE detention in Clay County, Indiana on Wednesday night. She had been taken by federal agents at the daycare center where she worked earlier this month. “We are thrilled that Ms. Santillana was released, and has been able to return home to Chicago where she belongs,” said attorney Charlie Wysong, who represents Santillana Galeano along with Ms. Naiara Testai at Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd. “We will continue to pursue her immigration claims to stay in the United States. We are grateful to her community for the outpouring of support over these difficult days, and ask that her privacy be respected while she rests and recovers from this ordeal.” Image text: “I am so grateful to everyone who has advocated on my behalf, and on behalf of the countless others who have experienced similar trauma over recent months in the Chicago area,” said Santillana Galeano. “I love our community and the children I teach, and I can’t wait to see them again.”
November 13, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
In Bovino's upside down world, there is no difference between an armed gang member preying on others in his community and a guy working 12 hours a day washing cars, flipping burgers, or installing sheetrock to feed his family — and he wants you to hate and fear both men equally.
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d
Bovino: "Whether they were criminals or individuals that were taking jobs from Americans -- you name it, that's what they were doing. And I'll tell you what's gonna happen. We're gonna go even harder on the streets. If he releases those 650, we're gonna apprehend 1,650 on the streets of Chicago."
November 13, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
juliedicaro.bsky.social
BREAKING:

Here we go with the first allegations of violations of the preliminary injunction Judge Ellis issued on November 6 in Chicago Headline Club v. Noem:

"As this Court was issuing the Preliminary Injunction on November 6, federal agents shot pepper balls at a moving car"
As this Court was issuing the Preliminary Injunction on Thursday, November 6, 2025, federal agents shot pepper balls at a moving car; then at the driver of that car, who posed no threat to them, as he was getting out of his car; then at other people who were exercising their constitutional right to protest by honking their car horns and recording the agents’ conduct. See:
November 13, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
djbyrnes1.bsky.social
Some excerpts that stood out to me from District Judge Jeff Cummings' order today, compelling the release of at least some people found to have been detained in violation of a prior consent decree limiting how and when federal immigration agents can carry out warrantless arrests.
Image text: ORDER Motion hearing held on plaintiffs’ motion for placement of potential class members on alternatives to detention, (Dckt. #219). For the reasons stated on the record in open court, and summarized in part below, the Court grants plaintiffs’ cross-motion in part and orders as follows. To begin, in the parties’ joint status reports filed on November 7, 2025, the parties report that they have agreed—after an examination of the pertinent arrest records—that 46 class members were arrested in violation of the terms of the Consent Decree and are thus entitled to relief under the Decree. (Dckt. #244 at 3–4). However, the majority of these class members have already been removed from the United States, either involuntarily or voluntarily, and only 13 of these class members remain in detention. After meeting and conferring as to the identity of these individuals, by 12:00 p.m. on November 14, 2025, defendants shall release these 13 individuals whom the parties agree were arrested in violation of the Consent Decree, remain in custody, and who are therefore subject to release “on their own recognizance without bond or conditions of release” pursuant to Section V(E)(2) of the Consent Decree. The Court stays the involuntary removal and removal for voluntary departure for these individuals until the nextbusiness day after their release from custody. This will ensure that the class members can obtain the benefit of the relief provided by the Consent Decree before they are potentially removed from the United States. Highlighted image text: More broadly, in their October 29, 2025 submission, (Dckt. #232), defendants represented that they were able to provide plaintiffs with the name, A-number, country of origin, and date of arrest for the approximately 3,000 individuals arrested from approximately June 11, 2025 through approximately October 7, 2025 (including those arrested in connection with Operation Midway Blitz). After a review of the pertinent records, defendants determined that approximately 615 of these individuals “are not subject to mandatory detention and do not have final orders of removal.” Highlighted Image text: And, overall, an estimated 60% of those who have been arrested under Operation Midway Blitz have been removed from the United States. Plaintiffs assert that many class members are choosing to voluntarily depart to escape the unsafe and unsanitary conditions that they have been subjected to while in ICE detention. Their argument is supported by a ruling in another case in this District in which the plaintiff detainees have been granted injunctive relief to avoid the irreparable harm that they have suffered and will be likely to suffer on account of the abominable conditions that they were subjected to in the ICE facility in Broadview Illinois. Highlighted image text: For these reasons, the Court will exercise its discretion to grant equitable relief under the Consent Decree. To this end, by 12:00 p.m. CST on November 14, 2025, with respect to the subset of 615 individuals discussed on the record, defendants shall provide the Court with their names and specify which of the individuals in this group have been identified by defendants as posing a “high public safety risk” if they were released. The Court further orders each individual within this group who is still detained and who does not have a “high public safety risk” designation to be released from detention upon payment of the $1,500 bond specified by 8 U.S.C. §1226(a)(2)(1) and their enrollment in ICE’s ATD program. To reiterate, as stated on the record in open court, the Court will not release from detention any foreign national who has been designated by the government as a “high public safety risk.” The Court stays its order releasing these individuals from detention until 12:00 p.m. CST on November 21, 2025. The Court also stays the involuntary removal and removal for voluntary departure for these individuals until the next business day after their release from custody
November 13, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
abuseofpowerwatch.bsky.social
📍 𝐃𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐄, 𝐈𝐎𝐖𝐀:

A Native American woman was nearly deported after a jail mistakenly placed an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer on her file — despite her clear tribal identity and legal status. #AbuseofPowerWatch
Native American nearly deported after Polk County jail issues ICE detainer by mistake
A Native American woman born in Phoenix was wrongly flagged for deportation at an Iowa jail after an ICE detainer mix-up, sparking outrage and calls for accountability.
www.kcci.com
November 13, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
This is both A) incredibly suspicious, and B) within what I would accept as normal levels of government incompetence.

So, you know, we'll see how the judge takes it.
juliedicaro.bsky.social Julie DiCaro @juliedicaro.bsky.social · 1d
An interesting tidbit in the joint status report filed in the Broadview ICE facility case today:

ICE says video from inside the facility "between October 19, 2025, and October 31, 2025, has been irretrievably destroyed" and can't be produced in discovery.

www.courtlistener.com/docket/71832...
Defendants have indicated that some video between October 19, 2025, and October 31, 2025, has been irretrievably destroyed and therefore cannot be produced on an expedited basis or at all. Plaintiffs are in the process of hiring an IT contractor. Plaintiffs’ contractor will meet with the government’s ESI Liaison (with attorneys on the phone) to attempt to work through issues concerning the missing video, including whether any content is able to be retrieved. While Plaintiffs intend to explore the issue of missing footage,
November 13, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
blockclubchi.bsky.social
A Chicago daycare teacher taken by federal agents has been released. blockclubchi.co/4hYKy3F
November 13, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
krhawkins.bsky.social
This is why it’s crucial that DHS text messages be preserved and why we need a real archivist www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
Border Patrol Agent Charlie Exum Text Messages
www.documentcloud.org
November 13, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
schwellenbach.bsky.social
More here on Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who's led the operation in Chicago:

bsky.app/profile/schw...
schwellenbach.bsky.social Nick Schwellenbach @schwellenbach.bsky.social · 4d
Border Patrol agents led by Greg Bovino have used force far more often relative to assaults they've faced than anywhere else in that agency, according to a new @pogo.org & Amer. Uni. Investigative Reporting Workshop analysis of four ys of federal data

www.pogo.org/investigatio...
Greg Bovino’s Border Patrol Agents Use Disproportionate Force, Data…
Border Patrol agents in the El Centro Sector have reported using force on other people more than three times as many times as they have faced assaults – a ratio higher than anywhere else in the agency...
www.pogo.org
November 13, 2025 at 2:51 PM
krhawkins.bsky.social
This is why it’s crucial that DHS text messages be preserved and why we need a real archivist www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
Border Patrol Agent Charlie Exum Text Messages
www.documentcloud.org
November 13, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
schwellenbach.bsky.social
There were lots of stories late last week on the text messages by Border Patrol agent Charlie Exum who shot a woman five times in Chicago last month

I haven't seen anyone post the text messages themselves

Here they are:

www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
November 13, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
josephcox.bsky.social
New: Google has chosen a side in Trump's mass deportation campaign. Google is hosting a CBP facial recognition app to hunt immigrants; no indication Google will remove. At same time Google takes down apps for reporting ICE sightings

“Big tech has made their choice”

www.404media.co/google-has-c...
Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort
Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable gr...
www.404media.co
November 13, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
NEW: @propublica.org investigated the Chicago apartment raid where kids were zip-tied and citizens detained for hours. They find:

- NONE of the arrested were criminally charged
- NO evidence the building was "filled with TdA terrorists."
- ZERO legitimate reason for DHS to rappel from a Blackhawk.
As a Black Hawk helicopter roared overhead, the slender, 28-year-old immigrant from Venezuela answered softly, his eyes darting to a television crew invited to film the raid. Next to Caicedo, masked Border Patrol agents inspected another man’s tattoos and asked him if he belonged to Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration has designated a terrorist group. Until that moment, Caicedo’s only interaction with law enforcement in his two-and-a-half years in the United States had been a traffic stop two weeks earlier for driving without a license or insurance, according to the records we reviewed. Chicago police had run a background check on him and found no prior arrests, no warrants and no evidence that he was in a gang. Caicedo said he had a pending asylum application, a steady job at a taco joint and a girlfriend whose daughter attended elementary school across the street. None of that mattered. The U.S. government paraded him and his neighbors in front of the cameras and called their arrests a spectacular victory against terrorism. But later, after the cameras had gone, prosecutors didn’t charge Caicedo with a crime. They didn’t accuse him of being a terrorist. And after a brief hearing in immigration court, the government sent him back to the country he had fled nine years earlier. “I lost everything,” he said in a phone interview from his mother’s home in the Venezuelan city of Valencia. “For those fools, everyone from Venezuela is a criminal.”
November 13, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by KatherineHawkins
melissa-sanchez.bsky.social
You probably saw videos of a nighttime raid in Chicago. Agents rappelling from a helicopter, bursting down doors, questioning brown-skinned immigrants.

We investigated -- and found little evidence to support the government’s claims about Tren de Aragua.

www.propublica.org/article/chic...
“I Lost Everything”: Venezuelans Were Rounded Up in a Dramatic Midnight Raid but Never Charged With a Crime
Authorities said Tren de Aragua “terrorists” had taken over the building. A ProPublica investigation found little evidence to back up the government’s claims. For the first time, the Venezuelans arres...
www.propublica.org
November 13, 2025 at 1:28 PM