Lars Åkerson

Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_ BREAKING: Per four senior DHS & Trump admin sources, a mass removal of ICE leadership around the country is underway, with up to 12 ICE field office chiefs being removed & reassigned in an effort to increase deportation numbers. I'm told the move is spearheaded by Corey Lewandowski, and a handful of the ICE Chiefs will likely be replaced by Border Patrol & CBP officials, some of whom will be hand-picked by aggressive & controversial Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino. I'm told some of the ICE leadership removed from their positions include the ICE Field Office Directors in: - Los Angeles - Phoenix - Philadelphia - Denver - El Paso - San Diego - Seattle/Portland - New Orleans Border Patrol officials taking over ICE leadership positions would be extremely significant, as Border Patrol and ICE do different things, and I've done numerous ride-alongs/embeds with both.

Generally speaking, ICE typically conducts very targeted operations, largely going after criminal illegal aliens or those with deportation orders, but almost always knowing who they are targeting for arrest, often conducting surveillance to learn their schedules before and waiting hours before arresting them if needed. Border Patrol, under Trump 2.0, while sometimes doing their own targeted operations, has been extremely aggressive and has been at the forefront of some of the most controversial immigration enforcement operations we've seen so far, carrying out roving patrols in Los Angeles, Chicago, etc, often at Home Depot, car washes, flea markets etc, leading to a handful of federal judges around the country issuing injunctions against them. A majority of the viral videos you see online are Border Patrol agents, including the use of a Trojan horse style Penske moving truck at a Los Angeles Home Depot, an operation organized by Bovino. ICE often gets blamed for what Border Patrol does, as the media and activists often cannot tell the difference between federal agents, and everyone is called "ICE". I'm told there are growing concerns about the political and PR fallout associated with some of the roving patrols Border Patrol is conducting as lawsuits continue to stack up and mid-terms approach next year.

I'm told there is significant friction within different wings of DHS and the administration, with Border Czar Tom Homan & ICE Director Todd Lyons preferring to prioritize targeting criminal aliens & the "worst of the worst" or those with deportation orders, while DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski, and BP Commander Bovino prefer to use aggressive tactics to arrest anyone in the US illegally, including but not limited to criminals, to ramp up deportation numbers and achieve President Trump's promises of mass deportations. I am hearing from both sides of this friction. One senior DHS official tells me: "ICE started with the worst of the worst, knowing every target they are hitting, but since Border Patrol started in LA in June, we've (DHS) lost our focus, going too hard, too fast, with limited prioritization. It's getting numbers, but at what cost?". Border Patrol agents I've talked to defend their tactics, with one telling me: "What did everyone think mass deportations meant? Only the worst? Tom Homan has said it himself, anyone in the US illegally is on the table."

It's quite a situation, as both sides of this are on the same team, with the same end goals, but different perspectives on how to get there. Another DHS official confirmed the personnel changes to me on deep background, adding that the moves are based on performance and doing what is needed to achieve the best results. Official statement to @FoxNews via @TriciaOhio : "While we have no personnel changes to announce at this time, the Trump Administration remains laser focused on delivering results and removing violent criminal illegal aliens from this country." 7:57 PM · Oct 27, 2025 · 29.6K Views

🚨BIG changes happening -- ICE leadership is being purged tonight. The old guard, which prioritized targeted enforcement operations aimed at people with criminal records, is being replaced with Border Patrol and Gregory Bovino's "Midway Blitz" style.

Think things are bad now? It'll get worse.

Hey look, Israel broke the cease-fire, twice, in two different ways, within 24 hours - again.

This essay is one attempt to ask, with @rwgilmoregirls.bsky.social and @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social, what broader, transformative solidarity might require and how to design worlds that reinforce our collective freedom rather than inscribe isolation and captivity to reactionary models of solidarity

Here’s an angle for a journalist looking for a fresh take on the White House “Antifa” roundtable — most of the people who participated are employed by or have a direct financial connection to Turning Point USA. I think that’s pretty telling, no?

eventually politicians need to start advocating for criminal and civil penalties for people involved in fabricating stories to get citizens incarcerated.

or, put another way: a society that would like to keep functioning has to discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities

Once we are at war with Venezuela the Alien Enemies Act leaves the courts powerless to stop ICE from throwing anyone they want to call a "Venezuelan" into camps and deporting those people end masse to anywhere in the world that will take them. Normalizing this state of exception means we're all next

Chart shows Detention Population, Among Those Arrested by ICE in the Interior, by Criminal Record. The chart shows three lines; Prior conviction, pending criminal charges, and no criminal record. From 2019 through September 2025, the largest group is people with criminal convictions, with much further down people with pending charges. But starting in January, those without criminal records spikes dramatically. In July it crossed pending charges and in the latest data it jumps above criminal convictions.

🚨NEW: For the first time in history, the single largest group of people arrested in the interior and sent to ICE detention is people with NO criminal record.

As of yesterday's data release, 40%(!) of those arrested in the interior and detained by ICE had no prior conviction or pending charges.

As I wrote this, I found myself thinking alongside Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Willie Jennings, and @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social. I hadn’t seen the three of them gather in conversation before and I was curious where the path of thought might go if they were in this place, together with me

Mapping my city’s moral geography When I returned to Harrisonburg, I began to see how the built environment reflects and shapes our values and...

How can we use what we have, where we are, to create conditions so all can thrive?

Read the essay at www.christiancentury.org/features/map...

As we make our way, I’m looking for clearings, places we can gather and discern together the creative possibilities of our common freedom. This ongoing labor of gathering, discerning together, and building with care is at the urgent heart of our unfinished reconstruction.

I follow water and contours of land to trace the governing power of three construction projects that shape freedom and captivity on the modern American landscape: the suburb, the interstate highway system, and the carceral archipelago. These projects reflect distorted creativity and racial design.

Who is that freedom for? Whose is the public good? What—and who—counts as property? What would change if we were willing to be honest about ourselves and see what’s already in plain sight?

I often think about this as I move about town. In this essay, I try to bring you along.

American infrastructure is a creative and moral project from the ground up. Our built environment is the material form of tradition. Its creative signature underwrites the conditions of our common freedom.

I wrote this essay about a year ago now, but it feels as timely a moment as ever to think and feel our way through the brambles of land, politics, Christianity, and the designs of white supremacy. What can we make of this place where we find ourselves?

The Shenandoah Valley has been a home to me for many years, so I was excited to share about it in the October issue of the @christiancentury.bsky.social

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Notices Temporary Protected Status: Designation of Honduras; Termination Filed on: 07/07/2025 at 8:45 am Scheduled Pub. Date: 07/08/2025 FR Document: 2025-12621 PDF 11 Pages (120 KB) Permalink Termination of the Designation of Nicaragua Filed on: 07/07/2025 at 8:45 am Scheduled Pub. Date: 07/08/2025 FR Document: 2025-12688 PDE 10 Pages (114 KB) Permalink

NEW: the Trump admin has moved to terminate TPS for Honduras and Nicaragua, covering over 50,000 people

Both of these designations date back to 1999, meaning Trump wants to strip legal status from people here legally who have had a background check every 18 months for the last 26 years.

Are We About to Have Labor Camps in the United States of America? If you think that’s far-fetched, then you really haven’t been paying attention to what the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have been up to lately.

An astonishing figure in this piece:

Last year, the U.S. budgeted $12.8B for new affordable housing.

This country is now poised to spend $45B on immigrant detention centers.

That's nearly *four times* as much on cages as on homes—in the middle of a devastating housing and homelessness crisis.

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

How Trump Upended 60 Years of Civil Rights in Two Months

I've covered race for two decades. I knew the 2nd Trump Admin would be dangerous for civil rights. Yet the collapse of the federal civil rights architecture and national will to address racial inequality and work on integration is stunning. Here's my latest. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/m...

50 Reasons Why Everyone Should Want More Walkable Streets From making you live longer to making cities more resilient: If you want a reason to make your city more walkable, it's in here.

“Someone with a 1-hr car commute needs to earn 40% more to be as happy as someone with a short walk to work. On the other hand, if someone shifts from a long commute to a walk, their happiness increases as much as if they’d fallen in love.” #CityMakingMath

50 reasons to want more walkable cities.

The Truth About Black Freedom This year’s Juneteenth commemorations must take a deeper look at the history of Black self-liberation to understand what emancipation really means—and how far the country still has to go.

"Enslaved people received, took, filed, fled, reclaimed, and sued for their freedom," writes Daina Ramey Berry. "What we acknowledge this Juneteenth must be about more than what was given. It must be about what had already been claimed."

just saying, this is a campaign slogan I could get behind

bsky.app/profile/broo...

ICE Taps into Nationwide AI-Enabled Camera Network, Data Shows Flock's automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are in more than 5,000 communities around the U.S. Local police are doing lookups in the nationwide system for ICE.

SCOOP: ICE, HSI, and DHS are getting side-door access to the nationwide system of Flock license plate cameras by asking local police to perform lookups for them, new public records show.

ICE does *not* have a contract to use this surveillance tool itself.

www.404media.co/ice-taps-int...

thinking about her on mother’s day.

In largely programmatic talk, Leo doesn’t waste time, states “complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council,” which “Pope Francis masterfully and concretely set forth in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.”

Meet Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Team Trump Is Gaming Out How to Ship U.S. Citizens to El Salvador Donald Trump’s administration is talking internally about denaturalizing American citizens — and potentially sending some to El Salvador.

They’ll do it in a few high profile cases to set examples. People will say, “No way this holds up in court.” Maybe. But we now know the plan: they’ll do it first, then dare the courts to stop them. And this too will be very difficult for courts to undo. This is end of democracy stuff.

Cars are a protected class i guess

It is fascinating what is happening in Paris, I was there last year for the first time in a few years and I was very aware of the changes. They are very visible and the improvement for people who actually live in Paris is palpable and clearly very popular.

AOC and Bernie in front of the rally crowd in Denver

Zoomed out crowd shot of 34,000 people in downtown Denver with Colorado mountains in the background

Tonight an unbelievable **34,000 people** gathered for our Denver rally to take on billionaires and win our country back.

This was the largest political gathering in Denver since Obama in 2008.

Also bigger than the 2024 DNC.

And the largest ever rally in Bernie’s career (and obviously, mine too).