Till Eckert

Trump officials discussed sending elite Army division to Portland, text messages show A high-ranking White House official was indiscreetly texting about the Portland, Ore., planning last weekend, according to messages shared with the Minnesota Star Tribune.

"Salisbury’s messages with a close-knit circle of security officials discussed (…) the need to reinstate an ICE agent who had been fired for throwing a woman to the ground in New York City (…)."
www.startribune.com/trump-offici...

“We’ll Smash the Fucking Window Out and Drag Him Out” We’ve documented nearly 50 incidents of immigration officers shattering car windows to make arrests — a tactic experts say was rarely used before Trump took office. ICE claims its officers use a “mini...

In July, we documented nearly 50 incidents of immigration officers shattering car windows to make arrests — a tactic experts say was rarely used before Trump took office.

ICE claims its officers use a “minimum amount of force.”

You can judge for yourself.

Trump administration offers migrant children $2,500 to voluntarily return to home countries The Trump administration is offering migrant children $2,500 to voluntarily return to their home countries, dangling a new incentive in efforts to persuade people to self-deport.

JUST IN: ICE didn’t say how much migrants would get or when the offer would take effect, but The AP obtained an email to migrant shelters saying children 14 years of age and older would get $2,500 each. Children were given 24 hours to respond.

apnews.com/article/ice-...

Scenes from immigration court in New York’s Federal Plaza. Till Eckert spent two weeks reporting from the twelfth-floor hallways, where ICE agents have had charged encounters with immigrants and reporters.

Scenes from Immigration Court in New York’s Federal Plaza: @tilleckert.com spent two weeks reporting from the twelfth-floor hallways, where ICE agents have had charged encounters with immigrants and reporters. Interview with @riddhisetty.bsky.social www.cjr.org/getting-the-...

ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day Documents show that ICE has gone back on its decision to not use location data remotely harvested from peoples' phones. The database is updated every day with billions of pieces of location data.

BREAKING: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has bought access to a surveillance tool that is updated every day with billions of pieces of location data from hundreds of millions of mobile phones, according to ICE documents reviewed by 404 Media.

🔗 www.404media.co/ice-to-buy-t...

Masked ICE agents shoved and injured journalists today at Federal Plaza. One reporter left on a stretcher. This abuse of law-abiding immigrants and the reporters telling their stories must end. What the hell are we doing here?

8/ Governor Kathy Hochul just posted this statement on X.

7/ That officer appears to be reinstated, but assigned to “another floor or site,” security personnel told me. I did not see him at the courthouse Friday, yesterday or today.

DHS did not respond to our requests for comment.

6/ The new incident happened just days after an ICE agent shoved Monica Moreta-Galarza to the ground at the same courthouse last Thursday. In a rare move, DHS had reprimanded the officer, calling his behaviour “unacceptable.” bsky.app/profile/till...

5/ This appeared to be a case of an “elevator detention,” as court observers call it—a rare tactic in which ICE agents follow individuals into the elevator and arrest them there, rather than taking them to the stairwell as usual.

4/ Some ICE officers on the scene reacted emotionally to the incident. One said: “What the fuck?” Another told me: “This is a real problem.“

3/ An agent then appeared to shove people away from the elevator entrance, which led to Elibol falling to the ground, as footage captured by photographer Stephanie Keith shows.

2/ Journalist L. Vural Elibol and other photographers apparently wanted to understand why ICE agents were following a woman into a public elevator. As they tried to enter the elevator, a supervisor from the ICE team at the New York Field Office shouted, “Get out the fucking elevator!”

1/ DEVELOPING: A journalist was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital following another incident with an ICE agent at 26 Federal Plaza, an immigration court in NYC. The last I heard, he was getting X-rays for his lower back.

New: four million people could be forced to leave public housing and other federally assisted housing under new plans from the Trump administration, according to experts who reviewed drafts of two unpublished rules obtained by @propublica.org.

How Eric Adams Has Backed a Secretive NYPD Unit Ridden With Abuses After NYPD officials warned about a unit’s aggressive policing, the mayor boosted the team led by his allies. “The unit effectively reported directly to City Hall,” a former police official said.

Ya know, I'm reminded today of a story I did re Eric Adams controlling a secretive, abusive NYPD unit

The connex was so tight, the mayor had access to a *live-feed* of the unit's body-cams

“The unit effectively reported directly to City Hall," a source told me

www.propublica.org/article/eric...

Till, an investigative reporter from Germany, arrived in the U.S. just eight weeks ago for a fellowship with @propublica.org.

“I’d been alarmed by videos of masked ICE agents sweeping immigrants off the street, scenes I never thought I’d see in the United States.”

I Filmed the ICE Officer Who Shoved a Woman to the Floor Inside a New York Courthouse I arrived in the U.S. eight weeks ago to report on how the administration’s immigration crackdown was playing out from the front lines. What I saw Thursday was the culmination of ICE’s aggressive beha...

My @propublica.org colleague @tilleckert.com filmed the ICE officer who shoved a distraught mother to the floor inside a New York courthouse.

ICE says the officer has been “relieved of current duties as we conduct a full investigation.”

Here's what happened after we reported on the incident. bsky.app/profile/till...

I Filmed the ICE Officer Who Shoved a Woman to the Floor Inside a New York Courthouse I arrived in the U.S. eight weeks ago to report on how the administration’s immigration crackdown was playing out from the front lines. What I saw Thursday was the culmination of ICE’s aggressive beha...

New: The video I filmed of an ICE agent shoving a woman to the ground at 26 Federal Plaza, a New York City immigration courthouse, went viral. Then, in a rare move, the government publicly reprimanded the officer, calling his actions “unacceptable.”
www.propublica.org/article/ice-...

NEW: Rep. Dan Goldman and Brad Lander, the city comptroller, have referred the ICE officer to the Department of Justice for "felony prosecution."

The two-page referral accused the officer of using "excessive force" that deprived the victim of her Fourth Amendment rights.

I Filmed the ICE Officer Who Shoved a Woman. It Felt Like the New Normal. I arrived in the U.S. eight weeks ago to report on how the administration’s immigration crackdown was playing out from the front lines. What I saw Thursday was the culmination of ICE’s aggressive behavior.

NEW: I arrived in the U.S. eight weeks ago to report on how the administration’s immigration crackdown was playing out from the front lines.

What I saw Thursday was the culmination of ICE’s aggressive behavior.

By @tilleckert.com

Kristi Noem Fast-Tracked Millions in Disaster Aid to Florida Tourist Attraction After Campaign Donor Intervened The DHS chief has been widely criticized for slowing down FEMA’s response after natural disasters. Texts and emails obtained by ProPublica point to an effective way to get help faster: have one of Noe...

NEW: Kristi Noem has been widely criticized for slowing down FEMA's response to natural disasters.

But she fast-tracked $11 million+ to fix a Florida tourist attraction — after one of her big donors reached out. www.propublica.org/article/kris...

can‘t wait to read it!

How to Contact ProPublica or Send a Tip Securely — ProPublica Our job is to hold people and institutions accountable. To do that, we need evidence.

8/ If you have tips about new ICE enforcement tactics in courts, my colleagues and I want to hear from you. Reach out to me on Signal (tilleckert.90) or via
propublica.org/tips.

7/ ICE has previously said its officers “use only the level of force that is objectively reasonable.” But across America, what’s “reasonable” has changed.

“We’ll Smash the Fucking Window Out and Drag Him Out” We’ve documented nearly 50 incidents of immigration officers shattering car windows to make arrests — a tactic experts say was rarely used before Trump took office. ICE claims its officers use a “mini...

6/ This isn’t the first time ProPublica has reported on ICE under Trump 2.0 acting in unprecedented ways. In July, my colleagues @mckenziefunk.com and @nicolefoy.bsky.social documented ~50 incidents of officers shattering car windows to make arrests.
projects.propublica.org/trump-ice-sm...

“They Don’t Care About Civil Rights”: Trump’s Shuttering of DHS Oversight Arm Freezes 600 Cases, Imperils Human Rights The closure of the 150-person office, which protected the civil rights of both immigrants and U.S. citizens, strips Homeland Security of its internal guardrails as the Trump administration turns DHS i...

5/ The Trump administration has continually escalated its immigration crackdown. And oversight groups that would typically keep them in check, such as the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, have been dismantled in DOGE’s sweep:
www.propublica.org/article/home...

4/ Congressman Dan Goldman promised to follow up on the incident, which he called another example of “secret police officers who are attacking our communities with excessive violence…and they just think that they can do it with impunity, because nobody is holding them accountable.”

3/ To be clear, these sorts of actions were outside the norm historically for ICE agents. Yet under Trump’s second term, immigration courts have shifted from being seen as relatively safe venues into places where immigrants face the risk of surveillance, arrest and sometimes even violence.

2/ I stayed by Monica Moreta-Galarza, who was seeking asylum with her family, until she was discharged from the hospital.

“Over [in Ecuador], they beat us there too. I didn’t think I’d come here to the United States and the same thing would happen to me,” she said in Spanish.