On Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested an Ecuadorian man at a court at 26 Federal Plaza and a man from the Dominican Republic at another court at 290 Broadway, both in Lower Manhattan. The arrests continued on Monday, when ICE agents detained a third man, originally from Guatemala, at 290 Broadway.

In legal filings challenging the detentions of the men taken Thursday, advocates with the nonprofit Make the Road New York accused ICE of not only violating their clients’ right to due process, but also of brazenly flouting a federal court order.

The judge’s order barred ICE from making arrests at Manhattan immigration courts in all but a narrow handful of exceptions, while a similar ruling issued on June 23 from a federal court in California applies nationwide.

By detaining the men at court on Thursday, ICE appears to be directly contravening the New York order without yet providing a justification, according to Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y.

“ICE continues to flagrantly violate the law by arresting immigrants who are attending their mandatory court hearings, despite a court order mandating an end to courthouse arrests,” Goldman said in a statement to The Intercept, adding that his office was working to get the men released.

ICE appears to be acting outside the law, according to Murad Awawdeh, the head of the advocacy group New York Immigration Coalition.

“We’re witnessing ICE, yet again, operate in a lawless and rogue fashion and not following court orders,” Awawdeh said. “We’re supposedly a nation under the rule of law, and our judicial branch has said that this agency must stop engaging in this lawless behavior, and they continue to do so.”

In its habeas corpus filings, lawyers from Make the Road demanded that the two men arrested Thursday be released and allowed to continue navigating the immigration process.

In a statement to The Intercept, a spokesperson for ICE denied that the agency had violated any court order. The spokesperson did not explain how the arrests fit into the exceptions to the ban on courthouse arrests put in place by the federal judge.

No Exceptions

From May 18 until last week, just two arrests had taken place at Manhattan immigration courts; in both cases, the detainees were swiftly released after lawyers and immigrant rights groups mobilized to invoke the federal judge’s order.

That has not been the case for the men arrested on Thursday and Monday. All three men have since been transferred to detention centers, according to ICE records.

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“Warehousing Human Beings”

The Dominican man arrested Thursday is currently being held at ICE’s Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, while the Ecuadorian man arrested the same day is being held at the D. Ray James ICE Processing Center in Folkston, Georgia. The Guatemalan man arrested on Monday is being held at the Orange County Detention Facility in upstate New York. (The Intercept is withholding the detained men’s names because of the sensitive nature of their cases.)

The arrests appeared to end a brief period of calm at Manhattan immigration courts in the wake of the May 18 ruling by Judge Kevin Castel requiring ICE to revert to a policy put in place in 2021. The Biden-era policy allowed for courthouse arrests with prior authorization in only a handful of instances, including when a person might pose a threat to national security or to public safety — narrowly defined as cases in which agents are in direct pursuit of a subject or if it would not be possible to make the arrest in another location.

In their statement, the ICE spokesperson pointed to a conviction for trespassing on the part of the Dominican man and a 2025 conviction for disorderly conduct on the part of the Ecuadorian man.

One immigration lawyer said the courthouse arrests were part of a growing pattern of increased ICE detentions.

“For whatever reason, that order is essentially being disregarded, and we’ve seen a pretty significant uptick in detentions,” said Benjamin Remy, senior coordinating attorney at the immigration protection unit of the New York Legal Assistance Group.

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In the year and a half since President Trump returned to office and unleashed the agency as part of his mass deportation agenda, ICE has repeatedly been found in violation of orders around the detention of immigrants. The alleged violations have been ramping up in recent months, according to advocates and court records.

“We’ve seen ICE have a fairly flexible and adaptive relationship when it comes to the truth and the facts,” Remy said, “and to complying with court orders and frankly to rule of law as a fundamental concept.”

An Impossible Bind

Beginning in May 2025 and continuing for almost exactly a year, ICE arrests at 26 Federal Plaza, 290 Broadway, and another immigration court at 201 Varick Street were commonplace, with hundreds of people swept up by masked ICE agents when they showed up for scheduled hearings. According to an analysis published last August by The City Reporter, a local news site, more than half of courthouse arrests nationwide were taking place in New York.

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Like the overwhelming majority of people arrested in immigration courts over the past year, the men arrested over the past week were following demands made of them by the immigration system.

Both men arrested last week had fled home due to persecution, entered the U.S., and been detained before obtaining release as their cases proceeded, according to petitions filed on their behalf by Make the Road New York. When summoned to court, both showed up as instructed.

ICE has repeatedly defended the arrests as legitimate. Immigration advocates, however, have warned that it puts immigrants in an impossible bind, forcing them to decide between risking arrest by following the law and showing up to court, or losing any chance of lawfully remaining in the country by skipping a hearing.

“It is not uncommon for me to encounter folks walking into court in the morning already just sobbing,” Remy told The Intercept. “These arrests are discouraging the legal process. It’s discouraging people’s fundamental constitutional right to due process and to be able to have their day in court.”

The post ICE Flouting Federal Judge’s Order to Stop Arresting Immigrants at New York Courts appeared first on The Intercept.

The New Jersey Regional Operations and Intelligence Center, one of the so-called fusion centers that serve as intelligence clearinghouses for cops, warned in a bulletin earlier this year that disaffected Americans were increasingly blaming society’s ills on rich people and corporate bigwigs.

The report specifically cited the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 — allegedly by Luigi Mangione — as an expression of anti-fat-cat rhetoric. To the analysts at the New Jersey fusion center, Thompson’s killing hinted at a larger trend.

“Public discourse increasingly attributes the challenges faced by the middle and lower classes to the actions and influence of wealthy corporate executives,” the fusion center memo says.

By warning corporate security outfits of the danger posed by average Americans who blame their problems on the actions of corporate executives, the report effectively dedicates public resources to securing a private system that has made the few extremely wealthy at the expense of the many.

Michael German, a former FBI agent specializing in domestic terrorism and longtime critic of fusion centers, said that by warning CEOs of threats, the bulletin was effectively taking the side of the rich and powerful over ordinary people who are critical of inequality — a typical dynamic at fusion centers.

“The way it’s written, the report seems to be putting forth the view that that is an extremist viewpoint, rather than something that the state has some responsibility in correcting,” German said. “All the resources of the national network of fusion centers, which includes federal resources along with state and local resources, are devoted toward providing security information to private entities.”

Brian Thompson Murder

The “Quarterly Executive Threat Watch” bulletin warned corporate bodyguards to switch up the daily routines of execs, limit information on public engagements, and remove bosses’ personal information from the web. The report says bosses should “remain vigilant of lone offenders with personal grievances.”

“Following the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the current political climate, there is a heightened threat environment surrounding corporate executives,” the report says. “Online glorification of the murder of Brian Thompson and calls for violence are still apparent and further create a risk for a lone offender attack.”

A spokesperson for New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, the agency that oversees the fusion center, did not respond to a request for comment.

Days after Thompson’s killing in late 2024, Mangione was arrested and charged with the murder, allegedly motivated by injustices in the healthcare system. The then-26-year-old quickly became a cause célèbre for a wide array of supporters and a bête noire of right-wing figures, including those at the Trump administration, who branded him as a violent extremist.

Mangione’s legal team declined to comment on the fusion center report, but has in the past decried attempts to tie him to unrelated acts of violence.

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The report went on to cite a list of seemingly disparate incidents to highlight a possible surge in threats to the wealthy, including a satirical Christmas wishlist that called for sabotaging CEOs; a handful of 4chan posts calling for violence against executives at Netflix and elsewhere; a “far-left forum” calling for a campaign against people tied to a mining project in Michigan; and an act of vandalism by pro-Palestine activists at the home of a New York Times executive.

Another incident that made the list was the federal case against the so-called Turtle Island Liberation Front, a group of left-wing activists arrested last year whose alleged bomb plot appears to have been largely driven by a member of their group who was a longtime paid FBI informant.

“The problem with a lot of these fusion center reports is that they take a handful of incidents, not necessarily related to one another, and use them to justify and amplify these threats without any kind of analysis,” said German. “Rather than actually looking at data, their performance is measured by the number of reports they produce.”

Fusion Centers

Fusion centers, which bring together state and federal law enforcement agencies to share intelligence on potential terror threats, rose to prominence in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The centers operate under state authority, often with grants from federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security.

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While data on any terror plots actually foiled by fusion center operations is scant, they have been roundly criticized for compiling surveillance and data on protest movements, communities of color, student organizers, and, recently, critics of AI data centers.

New Jersey’s only fusion center, officially known as the New Jersey Regional Operations and Intelligence Center, has been criticized for operating outside the typical oversight to which most state agencies are subject.

A 2023 report by Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security, Race, and Rights warns of the potential for abuse in the New Jersey fusion center. The report cited the fusion center’s practice of drafting dossiers on “known troublemakers” and its reliance on so-called “intelligence-led policing,” a practice of surveilling and data collection that the American Civil Liberties Union has cited as a potential violation of the right to due process.

The Quarterly Executive Threat Watch, the bulletin that included the warning for CEOs, appears to be internally categorized as terrorism-related intelligence and was later disseminated by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer to recipients across the country. (CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Then there is the issue of the center’s shadowy public-private partnership. The New Jersey fusion center does not make public which private agencies or organizations it partners with, or to whom it disseminates reports.

The January report drew heavily on the work of SITE Intelligence, a for-profit firm that has come in for criticism because of its labeling Islamic charities as terror fronts and mistakenly identifying video game footage as terror propaganda.

Like its counterparts across the country, the New Jersey fusion center feeds its reports into a national network of public and private agencies dedicated to the gathering and dissemination of information about potential threats — a practice that frequently crosses the line into surveillance of political speech, according to German and other critics of fusion centers.

“There is a lack of public accountability here,” German said. “Because they’re joint enterprises, it’s very ambiguous who is actually in charge and who is responsible for ensuring that the participants within these centers are acting in accordance with the law.”

The post Cops Warn CEO Bodyguards That Luigi Mangione Fever Could Spark Class War appeared first on The Intercept.

After primary election night in New York marked a high-water point for the left, a GOP prankster left a bouquet of flowers at the door of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who was widely seen as one of the night’s biggest losers.

“Three losses in one night is tough,” said Mike Marinella, the spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, in a statement. “We wanted so-called ‘Leader’ Jeffries to know our thoughts are with him, his candidates, and whatever remains of his influence in the Democrat Party.”

He was referring to three House candidates with the backing of Mayor Zohran Mamdani — two of them card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America — who notched victories against more established opponents.

In New York’s 7th Congressional District, state Assembly Member Claire Valdez handily beat Antonio Reynoso, a progressive backed by outgoing Rep. Nydia Velázquez; in NY-10, former City Comptroller Brad Lander swept away Rep. Dan Goldman; and in the closest and perhaps most surprising result of the night, former Columbia University pro-Palestine student organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier narrowly edged out Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a powerful figure in Manhattan Democratic circles and chair of the Democratic Party’s Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

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In the wake of the stunning sweep, Republicans spent Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning gloating at the electoral headache they foresee the insurgent strain of left-wing populism causing for the Democratic Party. Or rubbing salt in the wounds of their enemies: President Donald Trump seemed giddy on Wednesday over the loss by Goldman, a centrist pro-Israel Democrat and an old foe from Trump’s first term who worked as lead counsel in his first impeachment inquiry.

“Weak and pathetic Congressman Dan Goldman just lost, BIG!” Trump wrote on social media. “I guess people didn’t like him illegally targeting President TRUMP. In any event, this jerk is finally GONE!”

Not everyone on the right was laughing, however. Christopher Rufo, the messaging wiz who helped build a comprehensive conservative rebuttal to 2020-era “wokeness,” took to X to mutter darkly about therising threat of socialism, a phenomenon he described as the left moving “from ‘woke’ to Third-Worldism.”

“Third-Worldism is a more serious threat to life, liberty, and property,” Rufo wrote.

Trump, too, took a moment to be serious and call the candidates “communists,” making an impassioned pledge: “America the Beautiful will NEVER be a Communist Country!!!” he wrote Wednesday.

The victories of all three left-wing congressional candidates appeared to confirm a staying power for Mamdani’s popularity and power six months into his term in office, with numerous commentators declaring him a kingmaker. But Republicans predicted his profile is just as high at a national level — and not in a way that some Democrats would like.

“Republicans need a national boogeyman,” said one GOP operative in the House. “I think it’s going to be very difficult for your mainstream Democrat in a toss-up district to separate themselves from Mamdani and those kinds of socialist insurgents who are running in these primaries. And our view is that they are just unelectable in a swing district where you’re trying to win voters in the middle.”

Corbin Trent, a former aide to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said he thought that GOP strategy was destined to backfire. 

“These ideas that [democratic socialists are] lifting up again are very divisive, but I think we’re misinterpreting who they’re divisive with,” Trent told The Intercept Wednesday. “They’re divisive with people that are going to D.C. dinners, they’re divisive to people at fundraisers, they’re divisive to people in Beltway, and they’re certainly divisive among the big donor class. But I think what [Republicans are] going to be surprised by is how they’re not divisive among the electorate, among the 80 percent of Americans that have been struggling to understand how it is they live in the richest nation in history — and yet they can barely scrape by.” 

In the attacks, Trent saw a potential for the class-based politics of affordability championed by the Democratic Socialists of America slate in New York, along with other insurgent primary winners like Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner, who was so successful in winning over supporters that his establishment-backed opponent stopped campaigning weeks before the primary.

That sense of hope did not appear to be shared by centrist Democrats, who in the wake of the political upset in New York appeared every bit as gloomy as the GOP was gloating. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., took to Fox News Tuesday night to denounce the pro-Palestine bent of the DSA winners in New York, while Jeffries told Spectrum News NY1 that he was more focused on swing states than on his own backyard.

“We’re not in the business of winning Democratic primaries and state seats that are going to be blue regardless of who wins a primary,” he said. “In order for us to be able to take back control of the House of Representatives, we got to flip seats in tough areas.”

On Wednesday, when The Intercept sought comment from Jeffries, a reporter found him busy, standing shoulder to shoulder in the U.S. Capitol with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., unveiling a giant congressional time capsule for the country’s 250th birthday.

The post The Left Is Unstoppable, According to Republicans appeared first on The Intercept.

On May 29, along with scores of others, Rozendaal responded to calls on social media to gather outside of Delaney Hall, the immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey.

The privately run U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility had, in recent weeks, become the site of daily protests, spurred by a detainee hunger strike against alleged ghastly conditions inside.

When Rozendaal went to Delaney Hall, he took his cello with him. 

“I consider music to be a de-escalatory thing to do,” he told The Intercept. “I sat down on the concrete barricade facing north and started to play.”

That night, however, the scene outside Delaney Hall quickly took a violent turn. New Jersey State Police and ICE agents issued a dispersal order and began to clear protesters from the area by force — with officers deploying chemical weapons and charging protesters on horseback. 

“As I played, I saw this wall of plastic riot shields and cops in tactical gear advancing,” Rozendaal recalled. “There were tear gas canisters flying overhead. I could see horses behind the riot shields, flash-bangs. So it was quite dramatic.”

Moments later, Rozendaal was arrested by the New Jersey State Police and, according to an arrest report viewed by The Intercept, charged with one count of obstructing law enforcement. The charge was minor — but a week later, things took a strange turn when Rozendaal received a call from the FBI. 

“The agent said, ‘We’re calling because you were arrested at Delaney Hall,’” Rozendaal told The Intercept. (The FBI declined to comment.)

In the following minutes, Rozendaal said the agents asked if he would be willing to provide the FBI with information on protesters that they described as “anybody planning to go to Delaney Hall with not the right intentions.”

“So, I mean, they were asking me to inform,” Rozendaal said.

Mainstay FBI Tactic

Rozendaal is not the only Delaney Hall protester to receive a call from the FBI.

In the weeks since arrests began stacking up at the protests — approximately 90 people have been arrested so far — at least half of those taken into custody have received calls from federal agents looking for information, according to Benjamin Van Meter, a deputy public defender with the Essex County Public Defender’s Office who represents a number of protesters facing charges.

Van Meter lodged a complaint with authorities over the matter, claiming the FBI contact with his clients violated their constitutional rights.

The phone number used to contact Rozendaal, according to call history logs reviewed by The Intercept, is registered to the FBI’s New York field office and is posted online as an anonymous tipline.

Rozendaal said he rejected the offer immediately and, when the agent attempted to question him further, invoked his right to remain silent, ending the conversation.

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The FBI has a long track record of trying to turn protesters, political dissidents, and ethnic and religious minorities into informants. The strategy, which is still commonly used today, can serve agents by both collecting information while stoking distrust among members of political movements and religious communities, according to Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s New Jersey chapter.

“With every major protest movement in United States history, there have been attempts at infiltration and attempts to disrupt them and to sow discord,” Sinha said. “The FBI has repeatedly been on the wrong side of history every time they’ve tried these tactics of infiltration.”

Sinha said it was important for anyone approached by federal agents to remember their right to remain silent and to ask for an attorney to be present for any questioning.

“Unless the FBI produces a warrant, you have the right to refuse entry, ” Sinha said. “You certainly have the right to stay silent and to demand a lawyer. You are not under any obligation to speak to them about anything — especially if they are charging you with a crime.”

“The Rights of Our Clients”

Samuel Becker, another protester facing local charges after an arrest outside Delaney Hall, told The Intercept he too got a visit from federal agents in the days following his arrest.

“The FBI would rather intimidate and punish the people protesting outside of Delaney Hall than investigate the physical, sexual, and psychological violence that ICE agents and their auxiliaries are inflicting on detainees across this country every day,” Becker said.

Van Meter, the public defender, wrote a letter to Robert Frazer, the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, and two high-ranking FBI officials in New York and New Jersey, demanding that the FBI stop their attempts to question his clients without an attorney present. (The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.)

“These attempts at contacting our clients at their homes and by phone violate their right to counsel and we ask that you immediately cease and desist from all attempts to question or interrogate our clients without their counsel present,” Van Meter wrote in the letter, dated June 9. “Any further efforts to question our clients are a continued violation of their constitutional right to counsel and our office remains ready to seek all available relief under both state and federal law.”

In a statement to The Intercept, Karen Paff, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender, said Van Meter and his colleagues were simply looking “to ensure that the rights of our clients are respected.”

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“When law-enforcement officers seek to question individuals who are represented by counsel about matters within the scope of that representation, it is our responsibility to notify the appropriate agencies that counsel has been assigned and that any such communications must comply with the law,” Paff said. “This is not a new or case-specific practice. It is a routine part of our responsibility to clients in any matter where represented individuals may be approached for questioning.”

For Rozendaal, the intent of the FBI agents who sought him out seemed to go beyond just fishing for information.

“I think the real intent is to divide us, to make us scared to talk to each other, too scared to talk in general, scared to go to Delaney Hall,” Rozendaal said. “It won’t work.”

The post FBI Tried to Flip Anti-ICE Protesters Into Informants appeared first on The Intercept.

At the June 3 protests outside the detention center sparked by a hunger strike inside, detectives in plainclothes worked alongside uniformed officers to arrest Samuel Becker, a protester alleged to have thrown items into a fire days earlier, according to a criminal complaint. 

The protests had taken place for nearly a month outside Delaney Hall, a privately run ICE facility located on an industrial corridor in Newark, New Jersey, where detainees and their families have complained of poor conditions and retaliation by staff.

The operation was strictly aimed at arresting Becker, 30, who is accused of dragging a tarp into a fire during a raucous protest several days earlier, according to the complaint filed in Newark Municipal Court by police officer Elddy Torres.

“A PLAN WAS DEVISED TO DEPLOY TWO UNDERCOVER NEWARK POLICE DETECTIVES TO MONITOR AND REPORT REAL TIME INFORMATION TO SURVEILLANCE UNITS,” Torres wrote, describing what happened after Becker was identified. “AS THE UNDERCOVER DETECTIVES REMAINED WITHIN THE CROWD, BECKER WAS OBSERVED COORDINATING PROTESTERS PAST THE BARRICADED PROTEST ZONE.”

Law enforcement presence at protests can have a chilling effect, said Amol Sinha, the executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who declined to discuss the specifics of the arrest, with which he was not familiar. The psychological effect of undercover officers — and the fear of undercovers — stands out as especially problematic.

“The use of plainclothes officers presents the concern of people constantly being surveilled when they are engaging in First Amendment-protected activity,” Sinha told The Intercept. “These are moments that should be celebrated as part of democracy and not viewed through the lens of suspicion.”

While the use of undercover officers at protests is not unusual, advocates said the tactic could raise questions about suppression of speech if the aim goes beyond keeping the peace, according to Aedan Neary, a defense attorney in Kearny, who is not involved in the case.

“The concern arises out of the question of, at what point do the actions of these undercover agents become a pressure tactic as opposed to a law enforcement tactic?” Neary told The Intercept. “Is this being used to ensure that things remain peaceful? Or is this more about gathering intelligence?”

ICE Role Unmentioned

The arrest and police report also raise thorny questions about cooperation between ICE and local authorities, which is prohibited for immigration matters by a New Jersey state law passed in March.

According to Becker and two eyewitnesses to the arrest, ICE agents led the ambush that led to Becker’s detention and initially took him into custody.

“An ICE agent chased and grabbed me and quickly handed me over to an NPD officer,” Becker told The Intercept in a written statement. “The NPD officer brought me back over to the other side of the street and sat me down on the side of the ICE minivan that led the ambush.”

While Newark police and Becker’s accounts align on basic details — such as the time and location of the arrest behind Delaney Hall, where protesters had gone to monitor vehicle traffic in and out of the facility — the complaint by Torres, the officer, says the arrest was the work of Newark police with the support of Essex County Police, omitting ICE’s role.

“ONE OF THE NPD UNDERCOVER DETECTIVES ADVISED US THAT THE GROUP WAS PLANNING TO LIGHT THE DUMPSTER ON FIRE AND PUSH IT IN THE REAR FENCE EXIT. A PLAN WAS DEVISED TO INTERRUPT THE GROUPS CONDUCT AND DISPERSE THEM BEFORE THEY COULD HURT ANYONE OR CAUSE ANY DAMAGE,” said Torres’s complaint. “NUMEROUS NPD DETECTIVES AND ESSEX COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE SWAT PERSONNEL RESPONDED TO THE AREA TO MOVE THE GROUP ALONG.”

At least one of the vehicles that arrived in the convoy to make the arrest, Becker told The Intercept, was driven by ICE agents, converging on the group at the rear of Delaney Hall.

According to Becker, his interaction with that initial ICE agent making the arrest indicated some degree of intelligence sharing between federal authorities and local police.

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“As I was surrounded by ICE agents and the arresting officer, one of the ICE agents accused me of [setting a] fire a different night,” Becker told The Intercept in a statement. “The ICE agent’s words matched the language NPD used when it put out a statement about my arrest the next day.”

In a statement made in a Facebook post announcing Becker’s arrest, Newark Public Safety Director Emanuel Miranda said, “He was identified by Newark Police as the individual responsible for setting a dumpster fire during the weekend protest at Delaney Hall and also attempting to start a second fire there on Wednesday night.”

The two eyewitnesses, who asked for anonymity for fear of retribution, confirmed Becker’s account of the arrest in interviews with The Intercept.

No Sanctuary

While no law in New Jersey prohibits local police from cooperating with ICE on non-immigration matters, such collaboration has become a hot button for Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who oversaw a zealous crackdown on protests outside the facility despite publicly opposing President Donald Trump’s deportation blitz.

The recent sanctuary law prohibits New Jersey police from assisting immigration agents in enforcement of federal immigration law, but leaves room for exceptions, including the enforcement of state criminal law.

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The ACLU’s Sinha said that his organization had pushed for a broader version of the law that would have prohibited any collaboration between police and ICE.

“This is why we were advocating for an end to collaboration, period,” said Sinha. “We wanted to make sure that there was no instance of collaboration between immigration enforcement and law enforcement, and the fuller version of the law that did not ultimately make its way through the legislature would have prevented that sort of collaboration.”

Catherine Adams, a spokesperson for Miranda, the public safety director, told The Intercept, “To ensure that public safety is provided to peaceful protesters in accordance with their First Amendment rights, and for the safety of other members of the public, as well as the Officers at Delaney Hall, we deploy plainclothes officers, cameras, drones, etc., to identify those at the protest site who unlawfully damage property, start fires, or commit other crimes.”

Lifeline for ICE Operations

Demonstrations outside Delaney Hall were relatively small but attracted attention due to the ferocious responses from ICE agents and employees of GEO Group, the private prison firm that operates the jail.

Over the course of several weeks, ICE agents repeatedly charged protesters in an effort to clear them from the entrance to allow vehicles to move in and out of the facility, often deploying batons, pepper spray, and pepper balls against demonstrators, as well as taking some into custody.

Becker suffered an injury during a charge by ICE agents, when one agent swung a baton so hard that it fractured Becker’s shoulder, according to his account. On the night of his arrest, Becker’s arm was in a sling.

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After initially keeping a wide berth from the clashes, state and local police operating under orders from Baraka and New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill — both of whom are Democrats who have spoken out against ICE crackdowns — involved themselves in policing the protesters in late May. The scene immediately became even more volatile, with police firing tear-gas canisters, charging protesters on horseback, and kettling dozens of protesters for mass arrest. 

On May 31, Baraka instituted a curfew in the vicinity of Delaney Hall, and Newark police set up barricades to keep protesters more than half a mile away from the facility for several days. In the weeks since the curfew ended, protests have continued sporadically, but with less intensity or energy as in the initial weeks.

Baraka has repeatedly sought to minimize the city’s role in policing the protests, claiming he was trying to “bring down the temperature,” not bring an end to protests. That posture eventually shifted.

“It is not the responsibility of the Newark Police Division to secure a private facility,” Baraka said in a June 4 statement. “Our intention was never to protect Delaney Hall or HSI” — ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division — “but to bring calm. It is a clear contradiction to the city’s position with GEO group to remain there.” 

For Becker and many other protesters, the presence of police from various agencies in New Jersey were a godsend to ICE and GEO Group — not to public safety.

“State and local police ramped up their repression of the protestors because ICE agents were having an increasingly difficult time carrying out their daily operations at Delaney Hall by themselves,” Becker said. “Without the ramped-up support of the state and local police, ICE and GEO would have continued to encounter growing difficulty suppressing the strike and operating the concentration camp.”

The post Undercover Cops Infiltrated Delaney Hall ICE Protest to Spy and Make Arrest appeared first on The Intercept.

Plainspoken populism won the oyster farmer and Marine Corps veteran support among fed-up Mainers, who nominated him in a landslide that The Associated Press called with just 8 percent of the vote in.

“Over the last nine months I have seen Mainers come together behind a vision to take back our power from corporations and billionaires,” Platner said in his acceptance speech Tuesday. “I love every single one of you. Everyone who has shown up at a town hall, who has knocked on a door, who cast their vote — not for me but for a vision of a life in Maine that you can afford; a life of dignity and a government that actually serves its people.”

Platner’s appeal seemed unshaken amid months of negative press stemming from his inflammatory comments on Reddit and an ill-advised tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol. But a recent series of damaging stories in national media, including revelations in the Wall Street Journal about extramarital sexting and allegations in the New York Times of abusive behavior in past relationships, have given some voters and political observers pause. Others say that in Maine, a fiercely independent state where residents nurse a healthy suspicion of influence “from away,” Platner supporters have dismissed those stories as meddling from an establishment fearful of a political maverick.

“From what I can tell, I don’t think the Times piece moved the needle much,” said Shay Stewart-Bouley, a longtime Maine resident who has written both critically and supportively of Platner on her blog, Black Girl in Maine. “I heard some women say it made them uneasy, but I haven’t heard anyone say it changed how they’re going to vote.”

In other cases, the coverage appears to have cemented Platner’s status as an outsider to an establishment embodied by Collins, who has represented Maine in the Senate since 1997. Like many incumbents nationwide, the Republican senator will have to run amid a shrinking job market and rising costs, points that Platner has seized on throughout his campaign. And Collins’s association with the establishment could prove a major liability, even among onetime supporters of President Donald Trump, according to Charles Pray, a former state senator and veteran figure in Maine Democratic politics.

“Part of Trump’s rise was a total frustration with incumbents and people in power, and a lot of people who were Trump supporters who hoped he was going to address rising grocery prices and stuff now see him saying that affordability is not an issue,” said Pray. “Well, affordability is a big issue in Maine, and I think that hurts Collins.”

Platner faced a nominal challenge in Tuesday’s primary from Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign in April but remained on the ballot, and from David Costello, a former Democratic nominee in the 2024 Senate race who was little more than an afterthought in the latest contest.

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Just days before the primary, the Times reported disturbing allegations about Platner, including that an ex-girlfriend accused him of drunkenly locking her in a room during a fight and physically restraining her at times. (Platner has acknowledged the relationship with the accuser, a longtime Republican operative in Washington, but denies he engaged in violent behavior.)

Pray said that among people he’s spoken with, the allegations, while concerning, are undercut by Collins’s support for the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh despite the sexual assault accusations against him, and by her support of Trump despite the many accusations against him and his consistently hostile behavior toward women interviewers.

“I think people aren’t buying the double standard. She confirmed Kavanaugh, she supports Trump despite his behavior,” Pray said, pointing to the president’s recent outburst on NBC News. “I spoke to three women, including Republicans, who were very upset by that and who said ‘Susan just goes along with that.’”

To Platner’s most ardent supporters, the revelations look like meddling by an establishment that never wanted him to be the candidate, said Andy O’Brien, a former state senator who writes about politics in the state and supports Platner. (O’Brien works for the AFL-CIO of Maine, which has endorsed Platner, but did not speak to The Intercept on behalf of his employer).

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“So many people know Graham, and they listen to what he says, they don’t listen to all the crap coming from Washington and New York and California,” said O’Brien. “They like Graham because he speaks to them, and they believe him and trust him. They know he had a messy personal life. I think that there’s a lot of grace that they’re showing him, partly because of his post-traumatic stress from combat and also because there’s this sense that Trump has already lowered the bar so much.”

Mostly, however, Mainers are weary of the national attention the primary brought to their state — with little hope in sight of a let-up, Stewart-Bouley said.

“The general mood is people are really tired of this primary,” she said before Platner’s Tuesday night victory. “But if Platner wins, I suspect we’re not going to be out of the woods.”

In his remarks Tuesday, Platner acknowledged errors in his past and thanked the people of Maine for putting their trust in him despite them.

“Redemption is not just some simple or easy destination. It’s a journey. I’ve made mistakes in my life. Mistakes that I regret, that I live with and that I continue to learn from. And I’m still far from perfect. But every day I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than I was before,” Platner said. “And if you give me the chance, I will be a senator for the people who cannot afford to buy a senator.”

Update: June 9, 2026, 9:39 p.m. ET
This story has been updated with news of Platner’s victory in the Maine primary.

The post Graham Platner Wins in Maine, Turning Anti-Establishment Fight on Susan Collins appeared first on The Intercept.

In addition to passionate debates about the Olympics themselves — the geopolitics of the Games and their effect on local hosts — Wasserman has come in for criticism over his ties to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, his support for Israel, and the potential that the Games might bring him profits through his role as a talent manager for entertainment stars.

The controversies, especially revelations about his relationship with a member of Epstein’s inner circle, nearly led to Wasserman’s ouster from his role atop LA28, the Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee.

Now, another personal wrinkle is coming to light: Wasserman’s daughter, Stella, is training to compete for the Israeli equestrian team at the 2028 Games.

Stella Wasserman, 21, is training to compete with the Israeli team in the show jumping competition, according to a recent profile in World of Show Jumping, a trade publication covering the sport. Instagram accounts for Stella Wasserman and her mother, Laura Ziffren Wasserman, posted in the wake of the article to celebrate Stella’s plans to compete with the Israeli team.

There’s a very real possibility that the man responsible for orchestrating an American Olympic games will have a child competing for another country that has become an international pariah due to its genocide in Gaza and wars with Lebanon and Iran — a team that is likely to face protests in LA. (Casey Wasserman, Stella Wasserman, LA28, and the Israeli Olympic committee did not respond to requests for comment.)

Casey Wasserman is himself an outspoken supporter of Israel. In December, he took a trip to Israel during which he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pledged that the safety of athletes, and particularly Israeli athletes, was his “number one concern,” according to Algemeiner, a right-wing, New York-based newspaper covering Jewish issues.

“If you’re claiming that this thing that you’re promoting so heavily is going to bring all these benefits to Los Angeles, but you’re also promoting the interests of a foreign genocidal state — and on top of that your daughter is representing that state in the Games — that’s a conflict,” said Miguel Camnitzer, an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace Los Angeles. “Somebody else, without those very personal connections to Israel, might be able to make a different call, but he’s unable to.”

Wasserman, a longtime local powerbroker and grandson of Hollywood Golden Age tycoon Lew Wasserman, has been central to bringing the Games to Los Angeles, a role that has come under increased scrutiny due to his ties to Epstein and the late pedophile’s former companion, convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

While his connections to the Epstein world were known to some degree for years  — he rode with Bill Clinton on Epstein’s private jet for a humanitarian mission to Africa — the release of the so-called Epstein files earlier this year revealed graphic sexual emails between Wasserman and Maxwell. The revelations sparked a backlash from some of the artists represented by his eponymous talent agency, which in March changed its name to The Team; Wasserman also announced he would be selling the company.

This week, Wasserman reaffirmed that he has no plans to step down as the chair of LA28.

Olympian Hypocrisies

Despite her young age, Stella Wasserman is an accomplished show jumper and owns at least four competition horses, according to a report in the Chronicle of the Horse.

It is common for athletes from one country to compete for a country in which they hold dual citizenship; the International Olympic Committee requires that competitors be nationals of the countries on whose behalf they are competing.

Amid the genocide in Gaza, the Israel connection underscores arguments from critics of the Olympics who say that the Games whitewash human rights abuses by nations taking part — and that international approaches to the Games foster a global double standard that penalizes some nations while allowing others to compete. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian teams were barred from competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics; Israel has faced no such sanction.

The yearslong campaign by Wasserman and others — including former Mayor Eric Garcetti — to host the Olympics in Los Angeles has met with stiff opposition from local activists. Forming a coalition, dubbed NOlympics, the activists sought to call attention to the ways in which they say the Games would exacerbate issues of affordability, surveillance, and anti-immigrant policing by federal law enforcement.

“When we started organizing against the Olympics 10 years ago, LA was already reeling from homelessness, housing shortages, brutal policing, and ICE. And 10 years later these issues are all worse,” said Jonny Coleman, an organizer with NOlympics LA. “Mega-events like the Olympics or the World Cup don’t necessarily create problems from whole cloth, but they accelerate them.”

In December, LA28 announced it had raised more than $2 billion in sponsorship revenue, according to Reuters. If the costs of the Games exceed what the Olympic committee is able to fundraise, however, Los Angeles would be on the hook for the first $270 million of over-cost expenses, with the next $270 million to be covered by the state of California.

The Games, activists said, could be a boon for Wasserman. Wasserman chaired a host committee to bring the Super Bowl to LA in 2022; his client Kendrick Lamar was featured in the halftime show — a coveted slot not least for the millions the exposure can bring.

For Coleman, Casey Wasserman’s relationship to Ghislaine Maxwell and Stella Wasserman’s potential competition on behalf of Israel only further highlights the corrupt nature of the Olympics.

“We know these mega-events are a way to legitimize awful regimes,” said Coleman. “It’s disgusting, but I don’t really care about the supposed integrity of the sports, personally. So yeah, let her play — why not?”

The post Daughter of 2028 Olympics Chair Dreams of Competing in LA — for Israel appeared first on The Intercept.

The revelation comes amid renewed scrutiny of DiNapoli’s spending spree on Israel Bonds, a financial instrument that directly funds the state of Israel. DiNapoli, the administrator of New York pension funds, is facing his first primary fight in 18 years as comptroller, and the branded, non-tradeable assets have become an issue in the race.

The trip was paid for by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, which has a financial relationship to Israel Bonds, the organization that issues Israeli government debt securities in the U.S.

In a February 2, 2024, letter to the comptroller, the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government approved reimbursement for DiNapoli by the JCRC, but raised concerns that the sponsored trip could create an appearance of potential improper influence.

The ethics commission informed DiNapoli that several commissioners raised concerns “the proposed reimbursement could give reasonable basis for the impression that a person could improperly influence you,” according to the letter, which was obtained through a public records request and shared exclusively with The Intercept.

DiNapoli has been an enthusiastic backer of investing New York pension and investment funds in Israel Bonds. Amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza, efforts by the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel have gained steam — including campaigns urging divestment from Israeli bonds. DiNapoli tilted in the opposite direction, including a $20 million New York pension fund investment in Israel bonds in the wake of the October 7 attacks.

According to an itinerary of the trip drafted by JCRC and obtained by the group Jewish Voice for Peace New York, DiNapoli was slated to meet with Israel Bonds staffers. In 2024, according to its website, JCRC received financial backing from Israel Bonds — which Jewish Voice for Peace organizers said could hint at a potential improper influence. The Israel Bonds donation was for a float in the 2024 Israel Day parade organized by the JCRC, a spokesperson for the group said. DiNapoli regularly attends the rally, including in 2024.

On Sunday, DiNapoli and other state and local electeds marched in the parade again, joined by an array of extremist Israeli political figures including Bezalel Smotrich, the current finance minister and a far-right champion of illegal settlements.

“By participating in trips organized and paid for by an organization that receives institutional donations and is closely and publicly aligned with Israel Bonds, while simultaneously promoting his office’s ongoing investments in Israel Bonds, Comptroller DiNapoli engaged in a foreign policy function far outside his statutory mandate as a fiduciary to millions of pensioners and public employees,” Lisa Mulleneaux, a researcher with JVP’s “Break the Bonds” campaign, wrote in an October complaint to the ethics commission.

“This represents a serious violation of his ethical obligation under §74(3)(f) to avoid any impression that his official duties can be swayed by outside groups,” Mulleneaux wrote. “At minimum, it undermines public trust in the independence of the Comptroller’s office and the integrity of the state’s investment decisions.”

In a statement to The Intercept, a spokesperson for DiNapoli pointed to the ethics commission’s ultimate approval of the JCRC reimbursement and said his office was unaware of any ethics complaint filed in relation to the trip. (The New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government declined to comment.)

In his 18 years as comptroller — and particularly in the months and years following October 7 and the launch of Israel’s genocide in Gaza — DiNapoli has turned the state’s pension fund into one of the largest holders of Israel Bonds nationwide. Since the February 2024 trip, Dinapoli has invested $120 million of the state’s common retirement fund in the instruments, bringing the total investment of state pension funds in Israel Bonds to $332.5 million.

“Officials like Comptroller DiNapoli are responsible for the safeguarding of pension funds through strategic investing that prioritizes the needs of public sector workers and retirees,” said Dani Noble, an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace. “Instead, Comptroller DiNapoli is investing the NY pension in Israel Bonds — unrestricted loans to the Israeli military and government used for every aspect of violence against Palestinians.”

Israel Bonds in Primary

DiNapoli’s fervent support for Israel Bonds have become a talking point in his primary race, with challengers Raj Goyle and Drew Warshaw both pledging to divest from investments in Israel should they take office.

Running from DiNapoli’s left, Goyle’s and Warshaw’s positions are in line with former New York City comptroller and current House candidate Brad Lander, who chose not to buy new Israel Bonds while overseeing the city’s pension fund.

For the most vocal critics, the moral argument against public investment in Israel Bonds is paramount. Becky Silber, a New York state employee and member of Jewish Voice for Peace told The Intercept that she was horrified to learn in 2024 that her hard-earned retirement funds were being used to send money to the state of Israel.

“When I became aware that my pension fund was being used to fund Israel, I was gutted, honestly,” Silber told The Intercept. “I was horrified watching the news coming out of Gaza. I was checking every purchase in the grocery store to make sure that my money wasn’t funding it. And so to learn that hundreds of millions of dollars of my pension fund were being sent to Israel with no guardrails on how it was spent, that was devastating.”

Critics of the investments also point to a fiscally responsible argument against the bonds. Unlike traditional foreign-debt assets, Israel Bonds cannot be sold on a secondary market and instead must be held until they mature. That makes them a potentially unsound bet, especially considering the rapid decline of Israel’s credit rating in recent years.

“It is hard to justify this as financial prudence or an effective strategy for diversification, especially when many other comparable investments are less risky; more transparent; and more liquid,” said Kaycee Wimbish, a Kingston, New York, resident active with the Mid-Hudson Valley chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. “These utterly disproportionate investments reveal a hidden political agenda.”

The post New York Comptroller’s Trip to Israel Raised Ethical Concerns, State Commission Said appeared first on The Intercept.

Staff at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Delaney Hall Detention Facility — a Newark immigration jail operated by the private prison giant GEO Group — took steps to crack down on the strikes, including attacking immigration detainees with pepper spray and batons, transferring protest leaders to other facilities, and shutting down family visitation, advocates and relatives of detainees told The Intercept.

One woman who spoke with her nephew inside Delaney Hall told The Intercept that she was told negotiations were set to take place between guards and striking inmates — but instead, her nephew reported, guards attacked the detainees with pepper spray.

“My nephew can’t see right now because he was hit on the head with a baton,” said the woman, who requested anonymity for fear of further retaliation against her nephew. “Prison operators told my nephew and the others on the hunger strike that ICE was going to negotiate on Thursday. They got hit instead.”

Members of Congress from New Jersey and New York made repeated visits to inspect the facility this week. On Wednesday, New York Democratic Reps. Dan Goldman and Jerry Nadler emerged from Delaney Hall looking deeply shaken and spoke of hearing about miserable conditions inside with no doctor onsite.

“Detainees told me about scalding hot showers that have led to burns and blisters; worms in food; and being denied medical care, visitation rights, and time outdoors,” Goldman told The Intercept. “Many of them believed that this treatment is in retribution for the ongoing hunger strike, which they have initiated to bring attention to the horrific conditions they are enduring despite having committed no serious crimes.”

The alleged retaliation against detainees matches a long-standing pattern, according to a 2021 report from the American Civil Liberties Union, which detailed systematic abuses carried out against hunger strikers at dozens of facilities across 24 states.

In a post to X on Thursday, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said he was barred from visiting the unit on which the physical abuses were alleged to have taken place, but said he spoke with detainees on another unit who reported several of their fellows being taken to the hospital for injuries sustained in attacks by guards.

In a statement to The Intercept, GEO Group spokesperson Christopher Ferreira confirmed the use of chemical agents against detainees on Thursday as part of a “physical altercation involving detainees at Delaney Hall,” but did not address questions about the attacks on detainees coming as retaliation.

“In accordance with established policies and protocols approved by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Ferreira said, “staff implemented appropriate response and control measures to safely resolve the situation, including the limited use of chemical agents.”

The accusations came amid ongoing protests outside the facility, at which federal agents have repeatedly attacked demonstrators, including family members of those inside, with pepper spray and batons. (ICE referred a request for comment its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond.)

For nearly a week, family members have been denied visitation, and protesters have set up a tent outside Delaney Hall to provide support for those who had hoped to visit their loved ones inside.

“Relatives of detainees haven’t been let in since Saturday,” said Ana Paola Pazmino, the director of Resistencia en Acción NJ, a local grassroots group. “This is despite the fact that DHS has said there has been no hunger strike. They are liars.”

Protesting Poor Conditions

The hunger and labor strikes began last week when detainees began refusing food and stopped showing up for their jobs to protest their poor conditions inside the facility. Among their demands are the release of elderly and very young detainees and those with serious medical conditions.

In response to a call from one detainee leader’s wife for solidarity demonstrations, protests began gathering outside the facility on May 21, with demonstrators showing up virtually around the clock every day since, despite attacks by armed ICE agents.

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Andre Beresford Burger, an organizer with the group Movimiento Cosecha, told The Intercept on Thursday that he had been pepper-sprayed by ICE agents but remained undeterred.

“If ICE agents are willing to storm into a crowd and brutalize people on camera and in front of the press,” he said, “what does this say about what they’re doing to people inside immigration detention, away from the cameras?”

Deploring the conditions, members of Congress called for Delaney Hall to be closed.

“The situation here just gets worse every day,” Pallone, the House member from New Jersey, said in a video after visiting the facility. “This place needs to be closed down. The conditions are horrible. You can’t get due process, you can’t see a doctor on any kind of regular basis. The reality is that ICE and the Department of Homeland Security … are trying to ship people out that are trying to tell the stories.”

Ferreira, the GEO Group spokesperson, denied reports of poor conditions at the facility, which he labeled a “coordinated, politically motivated campaign by outside groups to dismantle ICE and federal immigration detention.”

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On Thursday evening, New Jersey state troopers and Newark police shut down traffic on Doremus Avenue, the industrial thoroughfare on which Delaney Hall sits, but protests continued well into the night. Long standoffs between demonstrators and ICE agents were punctuated by bursts of violent aggression from federal officers, who swung at protesters with batons, doused them in pepper spray, and fired pepper balls into the crowd.

From outside Delaney Hall, detainees could be seen in windows raising their fists and lights could be seen flickering periodically, a signal from those inside that they heard their supporters on the outside.

The post ICE Pepper-Sprayed, Beat Detainees for Protesting “Horrific Conditions” in Delaney Hall Jail appeared first on The Intercept.

The 192-page report, authored by a Democratic strategist and first published by CNN on Thursday morning, goes in-depth on several factors found to be detrimental to Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign in its ultimate loss to Donald Trump. Despite the contention within the party over then-President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, however, the war doesn’t get a single mention.

Also missing from the document are the words “Israel,” “Palestine,” “Arab American,” and “Muslim.”

A spokesperson for the DNC declined to comment on the omission of anything having to do with Gaza, instead pointing The Intercept to a Substack written by party chair Ken Martin in which he acknowledged what the committee found to be several shortcomings by the report’s author, Democratic strategist Paul Rivera.

One policymaker who spoke with Rivera in July 2025 for the qualitative, fact-finding portion of the autopsy research told The Intercept that he was surprised when the report emerged with no mention of Gaza or the resulting conflicts within the Democratic coalition. He said that his group had discussed the impact of Gaza policy with Rivera at length. 

“Paul was very clear with us in our conversation that they had done the quantitative review,” said the politico, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue, “and that the data clearly showed that Gaza had hurt Biden and Harris.”

In recent weeks, pressure mounted to release the report in full — a move Martin said he was reluctant to take due to major flaws in the report, which he dubbed “not ready for primetime.”

“I am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards,” Martin wrote Thursday in a post on the DNC’s Substack. “I don’t endorse what’s in this report, or what’s left out of it. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on it.”

Martin also fails to mention Gaza, Israel, or any other terms related to the genocide in his post.

The policymaker said he had found Rivera to be thorough and professional, and he believes Martin is shifting the blame.

“My strong suspicion is that Paul was being thrown under the bus,” he said. “It’s very convenient to a lot of people that a lot seems to be missing, and it would be very convenient if the reason it’s missing is ‘oh, Paul’s really bad at his job.’”

Others defended Martin’s conduct. James Zogby, a founder of the Arab American Institute and a candidate for vice-chair of the DNC in 2024, praised Martin’s leadership but called his pledge to release the report an “unforced error” that was being seized upon by a consultant class hostile to his on focus rebuilding state party infrastructure.

“We know what the mistakes were,” Zogby said. “The question now is how do we not make them again, and we didn’t need to make a fuss over a report that wasn’t going to tell us anything we didn’t know.”

The Intercept attempted to reach Rivera via The Capacity Shop, a firm that lists him as an advisor, but the group did not respond to a request for comment.

“Nothing about this surprises me,” said Linda Sarsour, an organizer from Brooklyn who was active in organizing a campaign to pressure Harris to take a stance against the war. “If they don’t change course quickly to center Palestine, foreign policy and recognize the influence of Arab/Palestinian/Muslim/young/progressive American voters, they will likely have to write another autopsy report post 2028 presidential elections.”

In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza became a key point of contention between the Democratic establishment, on one side, and progressive Democrats, including Arab Americans, on the other. The progressives argued that the failure to take a stance against unflinching support for the genocide was tamping down excitement among the party’s base, especially young voters.

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A group of delegates that dubbed themselves the “Uncommitted Movement” fought to get push the party left on Gaza. The activists put forward a slate of suggested speakers at the party convention in Chicago, including Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian-American state representative in Georgia, but none of the speakers were accepted.

Romman, who is currently running for Georgia’s state Senate, said she was deeply disappointed to see the lack of mention of Gaza in the report.

While the Gaza war was a key issue for many Arab American and Muslim voters, particularly in a swing state like Michigan, Romman acknowledged that most voters nationwide and in her home state of Georgia were not listing Gaza as their top concern. Still, she said, the issue emerged as something of a smell test for the integrity of Democratic politicians hoping to sell their message to an electorate beset by financial insecurity and healthcare woes.

“For most voters, if you look at what was their top issue, it’s the economy — of course,” Romman said. “But if you want politicians that are going to put you first and implement the kind of economic issues that you need to have a better life, those are going to be the politicians that are not beholden to special interests. And so Gaza became a way to look for that.”

The Democratic Party, meanwhile, has sought to thoroughly distance itself from the report, going so far as to release an annotated version highlighting missing data and unsubstantiated claims.

The document contains a disclaimer at the top of every page: “This document reflects the views of the author, not the DNC. The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented.”

Update: May 21, 2026, 2:35 p.m. ET
This story has been updated with comments from a policymaker who spoke with Paul Rivera for the DNC autopsy report.

The post DNC Autopsy of 2024 Loss Doesn’t Mention Gaza or Israel at all appeared first on The Intercept.

The woman, a dual citizen of New Zealand and the United States with residences in Manhattan and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was one of 30 passengers who left the MV Hondius expedition cruise ship while it docked at Saint Helena island, in the South Atlantic, in late April after one passenger had already died of a lethal strain of hantavirus. A second and third passenger died days later, one on board and one in a hospital in South Africa, but by the time the ship had become a focus of headlines worldwide, the woman was well on her way on a globe-hopping itinerary.

The CDC informed health officials in various states of other Americans potentially exposed to the virus, but failed to alert New York health officials about the Manhattan woman.

There is no indication that the woman intended to come back to the United States or to New York any time soon. Instead, she continued on a multi-continental trip around the world. Her ability to continue traveling — and the lack of notice issued to authorities in the location to which she might eventually return — raise worrying questions about the potential spread of the disease, said Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford University.

“If she’s on the loose, then we need to be aware of where she might come back to,” Karan said. “So the New York Department of Health, and officials at the port of entry, they need to make sure this person is flagged when they return.”

The traveler, a 75-year-old former pharmaceutical executive, matches the description of a former ship passenger who is now in quarantine in Taiwan, according to local news reports there. Her peregrinations first came to light in reporting by Intercept contributor Jacqueline Sweet, who published a report on the traveler on her personal Substack.

The woman’s dual nationality and connection to addresses in multiple states appears to have muddied the lines of communication.

A spokesperson for the New York State Department of Health told The Intercept that after raising the issue with the CDC, they learned that the agency had notified a different state of the woman’s possible exposure to the virus. The spokesperson did not identify the state in question, but public records show the woman is registered to vote at an apartment in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Despite her voter registration in Florida, she has referred in social media posts to the co-op she owns in Manhattan as her home.

Representatives of the CDC and the Florida Department of Health did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment. Florida has not reported that it is monitoring any residents for possible exposure to hantavirus.

New York and other states — including California, Arizona, Washington, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina — have reported residents with possible exposures, with some states indicating they received notice from the CDC and others saying cruise passengers self-reported. All 18 U.S. citizens who returned to the country directly from the cruise are currently in quarantine in Omaha, Nebraska, and Atlanta, Georgia, while another 16 citizens who shared a plane with a woman evacuated to Johannesburg are being monitored.

From the South Atlantic to a Global Conference

The outbreak took place aboard the MV Hondius, an “expedition” cruise ship that takes adventurous passengers on a monthlong specialized polar tour, stopping at hard-to-reach islands in the South Atlantic. The cruise attracted wildlife enthusiasts, biologists, and extreme travelers attempting to visit as many countries and territories as possible, willing to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for the trip.

On April 6, one of those travelers, a 70-year-old Dutch man who prior to the sea voyage had spent more than three months traveling in South America, became ill. He died onboard on April 11, and on April 24, the victim’s 69-year-old wife disembarked at Saint Helena; the next day, she flew to Johannesburg, South Africa, where she died soon after. A third passenger died on May 2 — the same day that the World Health Organization declared an outbreak of hantavirus as the culprit.

The CDC has been accused of a slow response to the outbreak, holding its first briefing on the crisis on May 9, a week after WHO announced that the deaths were caused by the rare Andes strain of hantavirus, which is spread in South America by the pygmy rice rat and which can be transmitted among humans via close physical contact with someone already showing signs of infection. Because the early symptoms of the virus, including fever, fatigue, and muscle aches, are common in many other viral infections, the disease can be hard to identify before the rapid onset of more serious symptoms like pneumonia and respiratory distress.

In the case of the hantavirus outbreak, as with other public health crises, officials need to walk a careful line between ensuring safety and avoiding panic, Karan said. And the key to keeping a lid on the outbreak is ensuring proper quarantine for anyone with a potential exposure.

“Because this took place on a cruise ship, it actually helped us detect this quickly, and for now it appears to be decently contained,” Karan said. “But the problem is that, it’s not like you have a camera on these people to know if they’re not going out or seeing other people. So you don’t definitely know unless they’re quarantining at a monitored center.”

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Compounding the trouble, however, is that many of the passengers on the cruise are part of an “extreme travel” subculture whose lifestyle centers around relentless jetsetting. Even with the international attention being paid to the ship and its passengers, a number of people have been found to have trekked globe-spanning itineraries since the outbreak was revealed. 

The itinerary of the Manhattan woman after she left the MV Hondius showed a complexity typical of such “extreme travelers.” In a social media post on April 28, the traveler said she had flown from Saint Helena to Johannesburg, where she stayed in a hotel before flying on to Hong Kong and then to Bangkok, Thailand. In Bangkok, she wrote that she took a shuttle across the city to its second airport and flew to Trang, in southern Thailand, where she stayed in a hotel overnight before taking a boat to the island of Ko Ngai. Her most recent social media post was from Hanoi, Vietnam, several days before reports surfaced of the former ship passenger matching her description under quarantine in Taiwan.

She was just one of 30 travelers who left the ship while it docked at Saint Helena, prior to the declaration of an outbreak — setting off a scramble by global public health officials to identify everyone who might have been exposed.

The profile of the passengers themselves complicated the picture, according to Alina Chan, a molecular biologist and co-author of “VIRAL: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19” who advocated for more scrutiny of a possible lab origin for the virus that caused the Covid pandemic.

“The cruise selected for these extreme travelers, and you cannot ask for a potentially better superspreader,” Chan said. “And if one of the passengers presented to an international hospital with symptoms without the hospital being aware of their exposure on the ship, by the time the hospital would know, healthcare workers could have already been exposed.”

Most public health officials agree the hantavirus outbreak is unlikely to transform into a pandemic. But the incubation period for the Andes virus is anywhere from four to 42 days, raising concerns that the traveler and others who left the ship prior to the outbreak becoming known could transmit the virus to others if they become sick. That’s led global health officials to scramble to identify passengers and notify their home countries. But the timing of these communications, and how they unfolded, are unclear, as the case of this woman reveals.

While the CDC alerted a number of states, including New York, to the fact that residents with potential exposures could be coming home, the Manhattan-based traveler appears to have slipped through the cracks, and state health officials there only learned of her connection to the state after receiving inquiries from Sweet.

It appears that the MV Hondius’s parent company first reported that this passenger was a New Zealand national to New Zealand health authorities. After The Intercept began making inquiries with the New Zealand Ministry of Health in conjunction with reporters from news outlet Radio New Zealand, as well as to the woman and other conference attendees, the Ministry of Health told Radio New Zealand that although the woman had ignored their previous attempts to contact and assist her, on Tuesday she suddenly contacted them. The Ministry of Health said they had alerted the United States last week that she was in fact a resident of the U.S., and not New Zealand, and on Tuesday, they also alerted health officials in the country she is in currently, which is unknown.

On Monday, news from New Zealand broke that an American woman, since reported as being from California, had turned up in remote Pitcairn Island, a tiny South Pacific island with less than 50 residents. She had flown from Saint Helena after departing the MV Hondius early to San Francisco, before flying to Tahiti and then taking a boat voyage to Pitcairn. It’s unknown if any health authorities contacted her before her travels. She is now being quarantined on the island.

Reached by The Intercept, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health pointed to an existing press release about monitoring hantavirus exposures and added: “When we have new information to share, we will do so.”

Chan advised that “the WHO should make a list of all passengers available to all countries so they can be aware of visitors with exposure, rather than rely on each country.” Communication between the WHO and the United States was delayed in the days of the MV Hondius outbreak, since the Trump administration left the global health alliance, but the CDC and the WHO have reportedly been working together for the past week. 

“In a best-case scenario there are no more waves, but this shows the WHO and the CDC are not prepared. This was the best-case scenario, with the passengers all known from the cruise,” Chan said. “When you can mess up with this controlled of a scenario, what will happen next time?”

The post CDC Didn’t Tell New York About Resident on Hantavirus-Plagued Cruise appeared first on The Intercept.

David Suarez, a city commissioner for Miami Beach, is accused of hiring the trucks to drive past a Jewish Voice for Peace demonstration outside the Art Basel festival in Miami Beach in December. The trucks accused JVP of being an “extremist group” and singled out members Alan Levine and his wife, Donna Nevel, with the label “Jew Hater,” according to court documents that Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida filed on Wednesday.

The trucks arrived while JVP and other Palestine solidarity organizations were protesting Art Basel in what has become an annual tradition since 2023. Activists have picketed each year outside the annual art fair, calling for a boycott over financial ties between Art Basel sponsor UBS and Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer.

Nevel, a native of Miami Beach who described her early education in Jewish ethics as a driving force behind her activism, accused Suarez of targeting her and her husband over their clashing views of Judaism and Israel’s assault on Gaza.

“The Commissioner has targeted me and called me a Jew hater because I differ with his views on Israel,” Nevel said. “When we saw the billboards, we didn’t know Commissioner Suarez was the one who created and paid for them, but having watched his destructive, taunting behavior in City Commission meetings over and over again, I can’t say I was shocked to learn it was him — though, even for him, it was extreme.”

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StopAntisemitism Takes Credit for Getting Hundreds Fired. A Music Teacher Is Suing.

Supporting exhibits filed alongside the motion include an invoice from Mobile Billboards of Miami dated December 6, 2025, charging Suarez $4,000 for the rental of three trucks, and an email from the company to a Gmail account that JVP claims is the commissioner’s personal email address.

After publication, Suarez sent The Intercept an email doubling down on his accusation. “You can use this response, only in its entirety,” Suarez wrote, “as a jew, I can spot a jew hater a mile away.”

The motion, filed in the Southern District of Florida on Wednesday, requests that the court compel Suarez, Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner, and others to produce documents related to a larger court case brought by JVP over a city ordinance that the group claims was passed to stifle its protests against the genocide in Gaza.

“In the months since October 2023, the Mayor and the Miami Beach City Commission have become active supporters of Israel’s campaign of relentless destruction in Gaza,” the group wrote in its broader complaint filed in September of last year. “At the same time, the Defendants have aggressively sought to silence critics of the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, first by adopting a resolution that prohibited the City from hiring contractors who refused to do business with Israel, then by publicly castigating Israel’s critics for their views, and finally by passing an unconstitutional anti-protest Ordinance explicitly designed to silence criticism of Israel.”

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The city government of Miami Beach has come under fire recently for allegations that it targeted pro-Palestine residents, including Raquel Pacheco, a local artist who in January received a visit to her home by police after writing a Facebook post criticizing Meiner for his pro-Israel views. In March, Pacheco sued the city, Meiner, and police chief Wayne Jones in federal court alleging that the visit to her home violated her First Amendment rights.

A spokesperson for Meiner told The Intercept that the police visit was motivated by legitimate security concerns and denied that it took place due to disagreement with Pacheco’s political speech.

Similar stunts to the Miami Beach billboard trucks have become a hallmark of pro-Israel groups seeking to discredit and attack pro-Palestine activists. Accuracy in Media, a pro-Israel pressure group focusing on allegations of antisemitic media bias, has hired so-called “doxxing trucks” on multiple occasions to personally call out members of the pro-Palestine movement at Columbia University and other college campuses. In January, a state court in New York ruled that a defamation lawsuit over the tactic could proceed.

Update: May 13, 2026, 6:11 p.m. ET
This story has been updated with a statement from the Miami Beach mayor’s office.

Update: May 14, 2026
This story has been updated with a statement from city commissioner David Suarez.

The post Miami Beach Official Hired Billboard Truck to Call Pro-Palestine Activists “Jew Hater,” Lawsuit Alleges appeared first on The Intercept.

The “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” took place Monday evening at Young Israel of Midwood, an Orthodox synagogue in southern Brooklyn. Event organizers confirmed the location in an automated response to The Intercept’s request for comment, but they did not comment on the event itself.

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The roving expo is co-sponsored by several real estate companies with ties to Israel, and it is typically held at synagogues and other centers of Jewish life. At the event held last week at Park East Synagogue, The Intercept saw at least one table advertising land sales in Kfar Eldad, Karnei Shomron, and other Israeli settlements in the occupied territories — sales considered illegal under international law.

The event presented a test for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has caught flak from the pro-Israel side for condemning the illegal land sales, and from pro-Palestine groups and free speech advocates for allowing the NYPD to maintain “buffer zones” that keep protesters away from houses of worship.

Compounding the mayor’s entanglement is the fact that Young Israel of Midwood, the synagogue where Monday’s event took place, is home to a city-funded senior center called Young Israel Senior Services. The senior center received more than $800,000 from the Department for the Aging in 2024, according to a city budget document.

A spokesperson for Mamdani, who campaigned on his pro-Palestine bona fides, declined to comment on the latest real estate event, pointing instead to comments about last week’s expo.

“Mayor Mamdani is deeply opposed to the real estate expo this evening that includes the promotion of the sale of land in settlements in the Occupied West Bank,” spokesperson Sam Raskin told The Intercept last week.

The mayor has also affirmed attendees’ rights to go to and from synagogues without interference, in line with a controversial “buffer zone” bill the New York City Council passed last month. The new law, sponsored by the council’s moderate speaker, requires the New York Police Department to address physical obstructions and interference at houses of worship — which opponents see as a means to crack down on protests.

By late afternoon on Monday, the NYPD had blocked off the street for a block in each direction from the synagogue, but allowed protesters to congregate within sight of the building.

Groups of pro-Palestine demonstrators marched through the neighborhood on side streets, followed by a swarm of pro-Israel counter-protesters. Among the pro-Israel demonstrators, a large number of young men on scooters hurled slurs at the pro-Palestine protesters and at times almost came to blows as police struggled to keep them apart. Members of the pro-Israel crowd threw eggs, and one protester told The Intercept a pro-Israel counter-protester had pepper-sprayed him.

Police appeared to make at least one arrest. A spokesperson for the NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Mamdani Condemns NYC Expo Promoting Property Sales in Israeli West Bank Settlements

Last week’s event, held Tuesday at Park East Synagogue on the Upper East Side, prompted heated protests from Pal-Awda and other pro-Palestine activists, which in turn drew a counter-protest from pro-Israel groups including members of the extremist group Betar U.S. The NYPD kept the groups separate and kept protesters, members of the media, and members of the public alike away from the synagogue with a tight cordon of security barriers that impeded movement along numerous city blocks in the vicinity of the synagogue.

After last week’s event, Mamdani praised the NYPD’s handling of the crowd at an unrelated press conference on Wednesday.

“We in this city believe in the sacrosanct nature of the right to protest and also are committed to ensuring that any New Yorker can safely enter or exit from a house of worship and that access never be in question while we also protect the First Amendment, and I do believe that the police ensured that yesterday,” he said. “I think that critique of the policies of a government is very much separate from bigotry toward the people of a specific religious faith. And there is no tolerance for antisemitism.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union, by contrast, offered a rebuke for the police force, calling the NYPD’s barricaded area a “no-speech zone.”

“When politicians use Freedom of Religion as a pretext to impose severe restrictions on speech, they undermine all New Yorkers’ rights,” said Donna Lieberman, the NYCLU’s executive director, in a statement released Wednesday. “The subject of last [week’s] protests was not a religious service but a private, politically-charged real estate event held at a synagogue.”

Correction: May 11, 2026, 4:59 p.m. ET
Due to an editing error, this story previously stated that Mamdani signed the City Council’s new “buffer zone” law. The bill passed with a veto-proof majority, and Mamdani allowed it to become law without his signature.

Update: May 11, 9:31 p.m. ET
This story has been updated with details about the protest outside Monday’s event.

The post Israeli Real Estate Expo Advertising West Bank Settlements Returns to NYC appeared first on The Intercept.

On Monday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee issued a coveted endorsement of state Sen. Joe Baldacci in the primary race, prompting angry protests from the three other candidates in the race to replace outgoing Democratic Rep. Jared Golden.

In response to the endorsement, the Penobscot County Democratic Committee — in Baldacci’s home county, which includes the city of Bangor — will vote Saturday on a measure to condemn the endorsement. The language of the proposal, which was put forward by former Maine state Senate President Charles Pray, denounces the endorsement as being in “total disregard and willfully ignoring” local party rules that bar the Democratic state and county chapters from backing a candidate in a primary.

“With the DCCC deciding to throw itself into the mix here, truthfully that just kind of aggravated me,” Pray told The Intercept. “I’m going to support whoever wins the Democratic nomination, but I just think it was an unfair position on their part of trying to dictate or trying to boost up a candidate. Point is, let the people decide. Let the voters in the primary make that determination.”

Pray, who previously worked in the Clinton and Obama administrations and described himself as “a progressive moderate with liberal tendencies but conservative perspectives,” has personally backed State Auditor Matt Dunlap in the race, but said his pique at the DCCC’s endorsement isn’t about any one candidate.

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“This has nothing to do with Joe — I think all four of them have an equal chance,” Pray said. “It’s a primary, and, by the way, our state party rules and our county rules are that the party organization cannot endorse or support a candidate.”

A spokesperson for the DCCC said the group was focused on winning in the general elections and beating back President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“It’s imperative that Democrats must take back the House to hold Trump accountable and deliver on what truly matters to voters,” said the spokesperson, Viet Shelton. “That’s why we are proud to announce our latest round of Red to Blue candidates who span the ideological spectrum, are authentic voices in their districts, and are best positioned to win in November.”

Four-Way Race

The race to replace Golden — who announced in November that he would not seek reelection — is being closely watched nationwide ahead of the midterm elections. Whoever takes the Democratic primary will square off against Paul LePage, a brash, plainspoken businessman and Republican former governor whose time running Maine was marked by proto-MAGA far-right populism.

Baldacci is facing off against Dunlap, who is also a former Maine secretary of state; Jordan Wood, a longtime Democratic fundraiser and political operative; and Paige Loud, a social worker and first-time candidate. In the wake of the DCCC endorsement of Baldacci, the other candidates in the race took aim at D.C. Democrats for picking a side.

“It’s undemocratic for national establishment Democrats to put their thumb on the scale in any primary,” Dunlap said. “Just like in certain other races across Maine this year, they won’t decide this one — the people of Maine will.”

With Dunlap picking up endorsements from Our Revolution, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and other progressives, Baldacci — who enjoys name recognition as the brother of former Gov. John Baldacci — is widely seen as the establishment candidate in the race. Reached by phone Thursday, Baldacci declined to comment on the Penobscot County party proposal condemning the endorsement, but said he was glad to have the backing of Democrats in Washington.

“I’m pleased that they did it,” Baldacci said, referring to the endorsement. “My understanding is they based it on polling to determine who is the best candidate to run against LePage.”

Wood said the DCCC move demonstrated the problems with Washington party politics.

“The fact that the national Democratic Party would come in and try to decide this primary literally weeks before we vote is just another example of how broken our Democratic leadership is,” he said.

A Pan Atlantic Omnibus poll in March put Baldacci well ahead of his opponents, but there is little in the way of recent polling to indicate a current popular favorite in the race. Following the stunning collapse of Gov. Janet Mills’s bid for the U.S. Senate — despite the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — against populist insurgent Graham Platner, not everyone in Maine sees the DCCC as the best political oracle to follow.

“It’s annoying that the DCCC thinks they know better than Mainers,” said Loud, the left-leaning social worker. “We just saw the DSCC’s endorsement of Janet Mills, and we all saw how that turned out. I don’t think they have the finger on the pulse.”

Update: May 7, 2026, 5:12 p.m. ET
This story has been updated to include Jordan Wood’s experience as a political operative.

The post Maine Dems to Vote on Condemning DCCC Interference in House Primary appeared first on The Intercept.

The Great Israeli Real Estate Event — a showcase that advertises its services in helping people in the United States, Canada, and the U.K. purchase land in Israel and the West Bank — hosted the event at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan’s Upper East Side on Tuesday. The expo helps potential buyers navigate taxes, education concerns, and other issues that arise during relocation to Israel.

Ahead of the event, Mamdani spoke out against the possibility of potentially illegal land sales being facilitated within the city.

“Mayor Mamdani is deeply opposed to the real estate expo this evening that includes the promotion of the sale of land in settlements in the Occupied West Bank,” said Sam Raskin, a spokesperson for Mamdani, in a statement to The Intercept. “These settlements are illegal under international law and deeply tied to the ongoing displacement of Palestinians.”

The website for the expo includes a reference to Gush Etzion, a cluster of some 20 settlements in the West Bank, southeast of Jerusalem, that are considered illegal under international law. Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said the inclusion of Gush Etzion was a telling reminder of the claim made on all of the Occupied Territories by the pro-settlement movement.

“Gush Etzion is the Israeli term for an area of the West Bank located south of Jerusalem on which, under international law, all Israeli construction, all Israeli communities are considered illegal under international law,” Friedman said. “The pro-settlement movement around the world, and most Israelis, do not make any distinction between Israel and the West Bank. The idea is that all of this is Eretz Yisrael” — Hebrew for “the land of Israel” — “and it belongs to the Jews because God gave it to them.”

The Intercept attended the event Tuesday. Just inside the synagogue, a large welcome sign specified that the event was for “information purposes only.” More than a dozen tables advertised the services of real estate companies, most of which promoted glitzy luxury buildings in Tel Aviv, Netanya, and other cities inside Israel’s internationally recognized borders.

At least one company, Harey Zahav, displayed a map of properties in Kfar Eldad, Karnei Shomron, and other Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Brochures at the Harey Zahav table offered detailed looks at properties in these settlements.

Past Discrimination Allegations

The expo is being sponsored by a group called Home in Israel, but it isn’t the only organization putting on events of this sort. In recent years, real estate fairs put on by similar groups have popped up in New York and other North American cities, including Baltimore, Montreal, and others, including at synagogues.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are widely considered to be open only to Jewish residents. At one real estate event in suburban New Jersey in 2024, protesters said they were explicitly asked about their religious affiliations when they tried to register for the fair, potentially implicating anti-discrimination laws. The New Jersey Civil Rights Division reportedly questioned realtors about their practices. (The New Jersey Civil Rights Division not immediately respond to requests for comment.)

Pal-Awda, a pro-Palestine group, announced plans on social media for a protest on Tuesday outside the Park East Synagogue.

“We will not be silent as ethnic cleansing is being actively promoted in our neighborhoods,” the group wrote.

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Self-proclaimed supporters of the synagogue have circulated a flyer on social media announcing a counter-protest. “All members of the Jewish community need to come out and protect the synagogue,” says the flyer. Though it includes the social media handles of the synagogue, the call for a counter-protest did not appear to come from Park East Synagogue itself. (A spokesperson for the synagogue declined to comment.)

Past events have led to sometimes violent confrontations between protesters and counter-demonstrators.

In light of the dueling protests planned outside Park East Synagogue, Raskin, the mayoral spokesperson, called for both the safety of eventgoers and respect for the free-speech rights of the protesters.

“Our administration has also been clear that we are committed to ensuring safe entry and exit from any house of worship,” he said, “and that such access never be in question while all protesters are able to exercise their First Amendment rights.”

Protests at Park East

Park East Synagogue has already been the site of one anti-Zionist protest that raised hackles in New York.

In November, Pal-Awda organized a demonstration against an event hosted by Nefesh B’Nefesh, a group that facilitates migration to Israel, sparking howls of protest from then-Mayor Eric Adams and other political leaders in the city.

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That protest, along with others across New York City, were part of the impetus behind a bill introduced this year in the City Council aimed at creating a so-called buffer zone to keep demonstrators at a distance from any house of worship.

Despite the opposition of free-speech advocates, a version of that bill — requiring the New York Police Department to provide a plan for protecting houses of worship but without the buffer zone provision — passed in March and became law on April 25 after Mamdani declined to sign or veto it. The bill gave the New York Police Department 45 days to provide a proposed plan of action and 90 days to give a final plan, meaning it is not yet in full effect.

A related bill proposing buffer zones for universities and other educational institutions passed the City Council but was vetoed by Mamdani, who criticized the bill as overbroad and a threat to free speech.

Update: May 5, 2026, 6:45 p.m. ET
This story has been updated to include reporting from inside the Great Israeli Real Estate Event on the promotion of property for sale in Israeli settlements that are considered illegal under international law.

The post Mamdani Condemns NYC Expo Promoting Property Sales in Israeli West Bank Settlements appeared first on The Intercept.

Sightline Intelligence, a firm focused on AI video processing, has made at least 10 shipments of hardware to the Israeli weapons giant Elbit Systems since 2024, according to investigators with the Movement Research Unit, the group that originally obtained the documents.

The revelation that a local company has been doing business with Israel has led to protests by activists in Portland.

“We really want our city councilors to help us follow up and look into what Sightline is doing,” said Olivia Katbi, a member of Portland Democratic Socialists of America and an organizer with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. “Are they producing these items here in our city? What is their relationship with Elbit Systems in Israel?”

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Drones have become a crucial part of Israel’s military strategy, allowing it to mount deadly attacks without endangering its own troops, said Movement Research Unit’s Abdullah F., who asked to omit his last name due to the sensitivity of his work.

“They’ve been connected to the death of many civilians,” he said, “and they’re a critical part also of the surveillance architecture.”

10 Shipments

Researchers with the Movement Research Unit, which gathers information for left-wing organizations and causes, said they pinpointed 10 shipments from Sightline to Elbit Systems in Israel. Four of the shipments went to an Elbit facility in the city of Karmiel, Israel; four to Rehovot; one to Holon; and one to Haifa.

The Intercept was able to independently verify the dates and corresponding cargo weights of those shipments from Portland to Israel.

Six of the shipments passed through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and four went through Newark International Airport in New Jersey. (Sightline, its parent company Acron Technologies, and Elbit Systems did not respond to requests for comment.)

Using commercial data drawn from cargo manifests, the researchers found that the shipments included SLA-3000-OEM embedded video processing boards and associated components that are part of a surveillance system that can be used for target recognition.

In marketing materials, the company says the tech can quickly identify people and vehicles on the ground and classify them as civilians, military targets, armed targets, or people willing or unwilling to surrender. It assigns a percentage to the confidence of these classifications.

“Sightline provides an application that allows unmanned vehicles to autonomously classify targets, and these video processing boards are a crucial part of that,” Abdullah said. “They enable low-latency — AKA very fast — video processing so that a drone operator can, in real time, see like, ‘This person is 94 percent unarmed’ or ‘75 percent military.’ And so we can all imagine how decisions might be made based on that algorithm.”

Abdullah declined to detail research techniques for fear that companies could take steps to evade identification of future shipments. Research using these techniques has, however, been borne out in the past. Shipments identified by the group’s methods were confirmed through parliamentary questioning in the United Kingdom and are, in part, the basis for an ongoing court case in Belgium against FedEx for the undeclared transport of weapons components, in both cases with regards to the shipment to Israel of parts for F-35 fighter planes.

Similar methods were also used to expose a shipment of nitrocellulose — an explosive component used in ammunition — from JFK Airport to Israel in May 2025, as first reported by The Intercept and the Irish investigative website The Ditch.

Israeli Targeting

Originally founded in 2007 as Sightline Applications, Sightline Intelligence is based in Portland, with offices in Hood River, Oregon, and Brisbane, Australia. Until Friday, the company was owned by Artemis, a Boston-based private equity firm that announced last week it had sold the company for an undisclosed sum to Acron Technologies.

Sightline specializes in target recognition and touts its low-latency video processing as an essential tool in the modern military arsenal. The firm has not publicized business dealings with Elbit Systems, a prominent target of the global BDS movement. On its website, however, Sightline lists FMS Aerospace — a company that works with weapons contractors in the country — as an “international partner.” FMS Aerospace, in turn, lists Israel’s air force as a partner, along with Elbit Systems and other companies in the Israeli military–industrial complex.

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Israel’s use of military drones and commercial quadcopter drones has been documented extensively by journalists and human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. There is no publicly available information as to whether the hardware or software developed by Sightline Intelligence has seen use in the field by Israeli forces, but a recent photo included in a dossier of information hacked from the phone of a high-ranking general appears to indicate that, at the very least, Israel has tested the technology, Abdullah said.

The photo, published online by the Handala hacking team, an outfit believed to be operating out of Iran, shows Israeli Gen. Herzi Halevi with half a dozen other men in military garb and a laptop screen in view that appears to shows a software user interface that places a map with markings on the left of the screen and informational and toggle displays in a column on the right side. (Abdullah, who pointed The Intercept to the image, cautioned that he could not independently verify it.) The display is similar to the user interface for Sightline targeting program that the company posted online.

“On the laptop you can see what looks very, very similar to Sightline’s geospatial intelligence planning tool,” Abdullah said. “You can see the long blue lines that are on the front of the screen, which appear to match up with the planning tool. You can also see a couple of blue toggles on the side that also seem to match up, and then a goal distance bar in the bottom right of the screen that appears very similar.”

“While we cannot say conclusively that this is the same platform,” he added, “this is highly suggestive of this software being deployed or trialed in an Israeli military environment.”

Portland Protests

In Portland, protesters organizing against Sightline’s business relationship with Israel spoke last week at a City Council meeting and later gathered several dozen people to rally outside the company’s headquarters. (A spokesperson for Portland Mayor Keith Wilson declined to comment.)

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One item in particular from Sightline’s promotional materials caught the eye of local activists. The company’s website shows what appears to be a surveillance image taken from above the aerial tram stop at Oregon Health & Science University, a public research university in the city.

The image appeared in a video originally posted online by the company last June. The video, however, has since been updated with several seconds cut to exclude the images of the tram stop.

Katbi, the BDS organizer, said, “I think people will be mad if they find out that this company is potentially training this technology to identify us as civilians here in Portland, without our consent, and then using that technology to kill people in Gaza.”

Correction: May 5, 2026, 9:39 a.m. ET
This story has been updated to correct the destination cities in Israel where Elbit Systems received shipments from Sightline Intelligence, according to shipping data. They are Karmiel, Rehovot, Holon, and Haifa.

The post Portland AI Company Ships Targeting Tech to Israeli Drone Maker appeared first on The Intercept.

“It’s simultaneously infuriating and laughable that they’re charging the SPLC with funding hate groups,” said Mary Wynne Kling, an Alabama native and longtime supporter of the group. Pointing to the SPLC’s long-standing work battling extremist groups, which included bankrupting the United Klans of America, she added, “We knew they were paying informants.”

The indictment, filed Tuesday in the SPLC’s home state of Alabama, charged the group with fraud for funding hate groups and with money laundering for setting up fictitious business entities to route payments to informants. SPLC leadership has denied the allegations.

Kling and over a dozen other donors to the group told The Intercept that by using its money to root out information on hate groups, the SPLC was doing exactly what they hoped it would with their dollars.

Originally founded in 1971 as a civil rights-focused legal clinic, the SPLC struck on a lasting strategy of direct confrontation with hate groups in 1979. It soon shifted its focus entirely toward combating the far right and documenting extremism in its “Hatewatch” project, which identifies hate groups and their leaders — a practice that has drawn the ire of right-wing figures enraged at being labeled as purveyors of hate.

The Trump administration is taking aim at SPLC’s image by accusing the group of lying to its donor base and propping up the very groups it claims to fight in order to stay in business.

“The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a statement released on Tuesday. “Using donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked. This Department of Justice will hold the SPLC and every other fraudulent organization operating with the same deceptive playbook accountable. No entity is above the law.”

FBI Director Kash Patel accused the group of taking advantage of the esteem in which its donors held the SPLC.

“They raised money by lying to their donor network — thousands of Americans — to go ahead and pay the leadership of these supposed violent extremist groups,” Patel said the same day at a press conference.

The Intercept put out a call for responses and sent a survey seeking reactions to the indictment, verifying that 20 respondents were SPLC contributors with proof of donation. Seven of them spoke to The Intercept in interviews; 13 others submitted responses to the survey. All 20 verified SPLC donors said they continued to support the organization and felt their money had been put to good use — including when used to pay informants inside groups like the Klan.

Far from feeling defrauded, Ellie Wilson, a donor from Texas, said the indictment prompted her to make a new contribution to the group.

“I read up on the story this morning, before I made my donation, and to me, it doesn’t sound unusual,” Wilson told The Intercept on Wednesday. “There’s overhead costs associated with either joining these groups or doing their proper research and due diligence. If my donation was used to pay for the people who are infiltrating these groups to, you know, cover their expenses to join, to add to their cover, I see no problem with it.”

According to the indictment against the group, some of the funds used to pay informants went to existing members of hate groups, including people who were already on the SPLC’s list of extremists. One such individual, identified in court documents as a former chair of the National Alliance with the code name “F-42,” allegedly received more than $140,000 from the SPLC while being featured on its “Extremist File” page, according to prosecutors.

But according to Maya Lenox, a donor based in Texas, it’s only by working with such individuals that the SPLC is able to get the granular and encyclopedic information on the groups in its “Hatewatch” and “Hate Map” projects.

“This is an organization that has been providing very detailed information about how these hate groups have been moving, and of course, in order to have that information, you essentially are going to need spies,” said Lenox. “In order to obtain this information, you’re going to have to make it worth their time.”

In addition to the 20 verified donors, dozens of other self-identified donors to the SPLC, whose contributions were not independently verified, responded to The Intercept’s survey and expressed their support for the group and their skepticism of the indictment against it. Some respondents expressed mild criticisms of the group, pointing to controversy over its labor practices or accusations that its work chills free speech, but no respondent reported feeling deceived or defrauded by its use of paid informants in extremist groups.

All seven people who spoke with The Intercept for this story rejected outright the claim that the actions outlined in the indictment amounted to fraud. Multiple donors added that they found the current Department of Justice difficult to trust given the agency’s documented history over the past year of politically motivated indictments against the perceived foes of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

“Anything that comes out of this administration, this FBI, or this Department of Justice, I have to take it with a level of incredulity that I find really unfortunate,” said donor Joe O’Donnell of Buffalo. “We’ve seen this administration truly pick and choose where they want to be and how they want to enforce.”

The SPLC did not respond to a request for comment from The Intercept, but the group is receiving support from fellow civil rights organizations and other organizations on the left. In an open letter published Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO, and more than 100 other civil rights groups, labor unions, and religious coalitions agreed to a mutual defense pact and committed to defend one another against attacks by the Trump administration.

“We have the right to assemble—and we will continue to do just that, and we will encourage and support people and allied organizations to do the same, uniting across communities, sectors, issue areas and identities,” the pact declared. “We will not be silenced. We will continue to do the work that puts people over power.”

Tuesday’s indictment against the SPLC is just the latest shot in a long-running war between elements of the MAGA right and the civil rights group. In 2019, the Center for Immigration Studies — a hard-line anti-immigration group whose platform mirrors many of the Trump administration’s platform — sued unsuccessfully to get their group removed from the SPLC’s list of hate groups. In October, Patel and the FBI cut ties with the SPLC, which had been a longtime FBI partner, pointing to the work of his agency’s “Anti-Christian Bias Panel” and calling the SPLC a “partisan smear machine.”

Many of the donors who spoke with The Intercept cited this long history of animosity between the MAGA movement and the SPLC as a reason to be suspicious of the indictment.

“They’re in bed with groups that the SPLC has, in my opinion, rightly identified as hate groups,” said Kling, the donor from Alabama. “The SPLC has spent their entire existence fighting a lot of the things that it appears this administration supports.”

The post “We Knew They Were Paying Informants”: SPLC Donors Reject Trump DOJ Fraud Claims appeared first on The Intercept.

ICE put out a call for information from parties interested in securing a contract with the agency for up to 150 parking spaces, according to a government procurement document posted online on April 16. The infamous immigration enforcement agency is looking for a lot in the vicinity of its Varick Street field office in Hudson Square, just south of downtown New York City’s tony West Village.

The need for parking of ICE vehicles set off alarms for immigrant advocates like Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, who called on garage owners to resist the temptation of “a quick buck” in exchange for making ICE’s job easier.

“The Trump administration continues to expand its war on immigrants, and in this moment it’s incumbent on private parking facilities to not collude with immigration enforcement that separates families and guts our communities,” Awawdeh said. “New Yorkers are outraged by what we’re seeing day in and day out, and we should all be ensuring that we’re not complicit.”

ICE operates a fleet of vehicles to use in its deportation operations, including unmarked vehicles that agents use to get around and take people into custody. At a downtown lot near its Varick Street office, ICE has stored compact cargo vans with internal cages — the sort used to transport immigrant detainees — according to local news site The City. The contract for that lot is set to expire.

The new request for information about potential contracts says, “The ICE NYC Field Office is seeking no more than 150 exclusive secure, reserved indoor parking spaces to accommodate a mix of SUVs, mid-sized vans, and mini-buses.”

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There are at least a dozen parking garages within a quarter mile of the office operated by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations at Varick and West Houston streets, the distance specified in the request for information. Among the other requirements listed are 24/7 security monitoring, a single designated space within the facility for ICE vehicles, key-card access controlled by ICE, and a minimum height clearance of 7 feet and 6 inches. (ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

The posting of the procurement document comes as one of the agency’s go-to parking spots in the area is set to become unavailable to ICE vehicles. In January, the Hudson River Park Trust, a publicly owned corporation overseen by the state and the city which administers the garage at Pier 40, announced it would allow its contract for ICE parking at a waterfront garage to expire.

A New York-based ICE observer, who asked for anonymity to avoid retaliation, told The Intercept they had seen unmarked ICE vehicles used for deportation operations using the Pier 40 garage as recently as last week.

The Trust had maintained the contract with ICE dating back to 2004, but, amid the mounting criticism of ICE for its instrumental role in President Donald Trump’s hyper-aggressive immigration crackdown, the corporation said it was no longer interested in providing space or taking ICE money.

“The Trust is currently in the last year of a five-year parking contract that commenced during the previous federal administration and does not intend to renew the contract,” a spokesperson for the organization told The City. News of the group’s continued business with ICE was first reported by Sludge, and its intent to let the contract expire was first reported by Hell Gate, another local news site.

It was unclear from the new request for information if the need for parking spaces is meant to address existing demand for ICE parking or whether it would be intended to accommodate any increased presence of ICE vehicles in Manhattan. In the 15 months since Trump returned to power, immigrant advocates in the city have waited in uneasy anticipation for a surge of Department of Homeland Security agents like those seen in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis. 

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Thus far, it hasn’t arrived. But amid periodic threats from the Trump administration to target so-called sanctuary cities like New York, the threat of a large-scale surge remains on the minds of immigrants and their supporters.

For ICE observers in the city, monitoring ICE parking facilities is a key part of keeping tabs on the agency and trying to divine its upcoming moves.

“Agents are important to this process, but the vehicles they move in are of almost equal importance, and many of these vehicles begin and end their days at these contract lots,” said the New York-based ICE observer. “They have aggressive abduction quotas that they’re pursuing, and when you think about what they need to reach those quotas, people often think about detention capacity, but that’s the post-abduction side. The pre-abduction side is where you put all the goddamn cars.”

The post ICE Is Looking for Parking in New York City — For a 150-Vehicle Deportation Fleet appeared first on The Intercept.

Dusten Mullen, a sergeant with the Phoenix Police Department, has been suspended with pay pending an internal review of his conduct at a protest at Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona, on January 30, according to Phoenix Police Chief Matthew Giordano.

“As law enforcement professionals, we are held to higher standards of conduct — both in and out of uniform,” Giordano said. “When we fall short, we must be accountable, and we will not tolerate actions which undermine the trust the community has placed in the Department.”

Fox 10 Phoenix, the outlet to first identify Mullen, reported that Mullen told Chandler Police Department officers on the scene that he was there in the hopes of getting a rise out of the kids that would then allow the local cops to cuff them.

“My plan is legitimately to just let them all assault me and you guys arrest them all and I’ll keep it on film,” Mullen said, according to a police report obtained by the local TV news site. “I also have other people filming from a distance.”

The protest at Hamilton High School was one of dozens of student-led walkouts that took place across the greater Phoenix area that day, coming just over a week after the killing of Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Protection officers in Minneapolis. At Hamilton High, several hundred students walked out and rallied along a thoroughfare, chanting and holding signs decrying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mullen, who in 2025 drew a salary of $336,518, is suspended with pay and was required to surrender his badge and gun pending the outcome of the investigation, according to a spokesperson for the department.

Steve Serbalik, an attorney representing Mullen, said his client was within his rights as a member of the public to voice his disagreement with the students.

“Placing Sgt. Mullen on administrative leave and issuing a media advisory that suggests misconduct based solely on his lawful, off-duty expressive activity appears to chill the exercise of constitutionally protected speech and risks violating both federal and state constitutional guarantees,” Serbalik wrote in a letter sent Monday to Giordano and shared with The Intercept. “I respectfully urge you to immediately reconsider and lift the administrative leave, withdraw or correct the media advisory, and ensure that any ongoing review fully respects Sgt. Mullen’s constitutional rights.”

Gun at Teenagers’ Protest

Mullen’s appearance at the protest sent a wave of fear through some attendees. Megan Craghead, whose 18-year-old son attends Hamilton High School, showed up that day because her 13-year-old daughter wanted to take part in the protest. Craghead told The Intercept it was a peaceful, upbeat scene, and most passersby honked in support of the rally.

That changed suddenly when a pair of girls came running toward her yelling about a man with a gun.

“He was just walking up and down the sidewalk, talking kind of smugly and yelling at the kids,” Craghead recalled. “It felt like something that could easily escalate into something that’s going to be traumatic for all of these teenagers.”

As soon as she heard about an armed man on the scene, Craghead sent her daughter away with Craghead’s sister.

“We had no idea why he was there, he’s wearing a mask, and even if he did not plan to use his gun, we still don’t know what’s going to happen, right?” Craghead said. “We had all just witnessed the shooting of Alex Pretti, where he was at a protest with a gun and he ended up getting shot and killed. And so even if this armed person did not touch his gun, we still don’t know what’s going to happen.”

In a TikTok video from the scene, Mullen was seen in a T-shirt emblazoned with an American flag and the words “Trump 2024” and “We took the country back.” He concealed his face with a neck gaiter and wore a handgun, along with several extra magazines on his hip.

Surrounded by young people jeering at him, he told a Chandler Police Department that he had been assaulted as he appeared to record the scene on a cellphone.

“Nobody assaulted you,” one person told Mullen.

“Grown-ass man, out here with a gun crying about a little kid,” another person said.

In the wake of the incident, the Chandler Police Department told reporters that a girl was arrested for throwing a water bottle at Mullen, but video of the incident published by Fox 10 appears to show just water — no bottle — hitting him. The charges against the girl were later dropped by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

A spokesperson for the Chandler Police Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Department With a History

Chandler, a city of about 275,000 people, lies in an area known as the East Valley, and its deep-purple electorate is not particularly known for progressive activism. Amid the deadly immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and heightened border tensions in Arizona, however, many students could see a direct impact on their own lives or those of their friends, according to Craghead.

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“They’re seeing a lot of their friends that are immigrants or have immigrant families feeling really scared right now,” she said. “There’s a lot of things happening in politics that are not directly affecting the lives of teenagers, but this is one of those things that they can see has a direct impact on their own lives.”

Bill Moore, a defense attorney in Phoenix, said he was pleased to see Mullen placed on administrative leave, citing the department’s history of frequently failing to hold its personnel accountable — part of a pattern of misconduct and impunity severe enough to trigger a civil-rights probe by the Justice Department in 2024.

“The ‘blue line’ thing is still very much a thing here,” Moore said, referring to an unwritten code where police look out for one another instead of pursuing complaints about misconduct. “That they took this action tells me that their internal investigation must be fairly damning.”

The revelation that the armed man who showed up to the protest in January was actually a cop sent ripples of anger through the community, according to Brandy Reese, a co-leader of the local Indivisible chapter for Chandler and the neighboring city of Gilbert.

“I find it especially upsetting that he went there armed,” said Reese, who was observing the protest that day from the sidelines. “Why did he feel he needed to do that? I think the whole situation is unfortunate and upsetting.”

Craghead, the mother of the protest attendees, said her opinion of what should happen to Mullen has gone back and forth in the days since she learned that a police sergeant was the masked, armed man who she had seen trying to pick a fight with the kids at the rally. After an initial reaction of wanting his immediate termination, she wondered if he wasn’t within his First and Second Amendment rights to show up, off-duty and armed.

The more she’s thought about it, she said, the more she’s felt anger at his conduct.

“We have a duty to hold our public safety officers to a higher standard. If this was a regular person that had come to counter-protest and they happened to bring their gun, that would be one thing,” she said. “The issue is that he went there with the purpose of agitating children to get them to break the law so that they could be arrested, or worse. So now I’m back to thinking he should be fired.”

The post Armed Off-Duty Cop Tried to Incite Violence at a High School Anti-ICE Protest appeared first on The Intercept.

Prosecutors have until May 1 to provide a slew of records, including Ross’s personnel file, to a magistrate judge to review and determine which files should be released. The materials could shine light on the killing of Good, an observer who died after Ross shot her during a January 7 confrontation amid a monthslong immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. 

The order came in response to a motion from the defense attorneys for Roberto Carlos Muñoz-Guatemala, a man who Ross attempted to apprehend in a separate confrontation in June. After Ross broke a window in Muñoz-Guatemala’s car and fired his Taser, Muñoz-Guatemala drove away and was later convicted of dragging Ross with his car.

Muñoz-Guatemala’s defense attorney Eric Newmark praised the ruling as key to defending the rights of his client, but also important for public understanding of what transpired in the shooting of Good.

“My client is entitled to a full hearing and to review these documents to determine whether there’s any basis for a new trial,” Newmark told The Intercept. “Ultimately, we’re seeking dismissal of the charges against my client. This information is important because it will help me provide a full and complete defense.”

Beyond mounting an argument for a new trial or a reduced sentence, Newmark said the information could provide crucial information on Good’s death to Minnesotans hungry for answers.

“As Minnesotans, we’re frustrated with the apparent lack of a full investigation, the lack of prosecution, and the lack of federal cooperation with local authorities,” Newmark said.

In addition to Ross’s personnel and training file, the order issued Thursday in Minnesota federal court by Judge Jeffrey M. Bryan commands prosecutors to turn over records of statements Ross made in the 60 minutes before and during his shooting of Good; records of statements by Ross and other federal officials; witness statements regarding the Good killing; medical records pertaining to Ross’s fitness for duty; cell data that might have been extracted from Ross’s phone; body-worn camera footage of the incident; and more.

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Muñoz-Guatemala’s case rose to prominence in January when Ross’s identity as the shooter of Renee Good came to light, in part because both incidents involved Ross confronting a civilian in a car. Ross, a deportation officer based in the ICE field office in St. Paul, was attempting to detain Muñoz-Guatemala during a traffic stop on June 17, when Muñoz-Guatemala attempted to drive away. In the process, he dragged Ross, who had his arm thrust into the window, according to court records.

On December 12, a jury found Muñoz-Guatemala guilty of one count of assault on a federal officer. After Ross’s killing of Good was revealed, Newmark, Muñoz-Guatemala’s attorney, submitted a request for post-conviction discovery, arguing that the facts of the Good case could be grounds for a new trial or support a lesser sentence for his client.

“Even if this Court ultimately determines that Defendant is not entitled to a new trial based on newly discovered evidence, he must still be sentenced,” Newmark wrote. “Given the recklessness of Ross’ decision to step in front of Good’s vehicle, the violence he showed by continuing to shoot at a vehicle that was passing harmlessly by, and the extreme callousness he displayed after it should have been clear that he either killed Good or injured her terribly, it would be reasonable to assume he presented similar danger to Defendant in June of 2025. However, without the full investigative file, Defendant cannot make that conclusion.”

If prosecutors comply with the order, the materials will not immediately be made public. The materials will go first to a magistrate judge who will determine their relevance to the defense team’s case and perform any necessary redactions before handing it over to the defense. At that point, Muñoz-Guatemala’s team would be able to review the material and use it as needed to mount a bid for a new trial or to present as mitigating factors warranting a reduced sentence. Barring a protective order sealing the information, whatever materials submitted as mitigation by the defense could then become a matter of public record.

“This judge is effectively doing the investigation that the United States has turned its back on,” said Shauna Kieffer, a defense attorney in Minneapolis. 

But Kieffer, who is not party to the case, expressed reservations about premature celebration of the transparency the order could provide. 

“I think because this order is so thoughtful and it’s legally sound, that I think there’s a strong chance that the government will dismiss this case if they’re forced to go forward with complying with the order,” she said.

In a statement to The Intercept, Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., joined the calls for transparency.

“I am glad to see this case finally moving into discovery, but let’s be honest — it should never have taken this long to get here,” said Balint. “Renee Good’s family has been forced to wait for answers while DHS and ICE closed ranks. That’s not how justice works in a healthy democracy. Her family deserves full transparency and accountability, and Americans need to see our government protect them and not just those in power.”

Spokespersons for the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s office and the Hennepin County District Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The post Government Ordered to Turn Over Files on ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good appeared first on The Intercept.