Alien Musk. The trillionaire. The con man is no longer a trillionaire. Tom Boggioni (Raw Story) reports:
The glow is off Elon Musk's SpaceX stock offering as its value crashes back to earth and investors begin to take a closer look at future profitability.
Musk's meteoric rise to trillionaire status lasted barely a month.SpaceX's record-breaking IPO propelled the rocket company to an all-time high of $225 per share, but the stock has been sliced roughly in half.
Musk has shed hundreds of billions in wealth, erasing his trillionaire status. Meanwhile, his electric vehicle company Tesla has hemorrhaged 18 percent of its value in a single week after disappointing earnings reports.
The
"honeymoon" with investors is officially over, reports the Washington
Post, as close scrutiny of business fundamentals replaced unbridled
optimism.
"One of the benefits of being private is that there wasn't a market to weigh in on and evaluate business decisions," David Meier, senior investment analyst at Motley Fool, told the Post. "Being publicly traded means everything will be evaluated and information transmitted through market prices. So every SpaceX launch, every Starlink decision and every xAI decision will be scrutinized by the market."
This week, on their first day of trading on the Nasdaq-100 stock index, SpaceX’s shares dropped 6.8% to $149.47. That’s above their IPO price of $135, but down from a peak above $200, and below the $150 price where shares began trading on June 12.
SpaceX’s decline disappointed investors who wagered that inclusion in major indexes would provide a boost to the shares.
But, what about all the Americans who didn’t even know they were buying into SpaceX, but whose savings are in index funds linked to SpaceX and the Nasdaq-100? They’ve been taken for a ride.
On May 1, the Nasdaq 100 implemented a new “fast entry” rule that included companies among the top 40 most highly valued in the U.S. — which put SpaceX on board automatically.
The result: A big chunk of Americans’ retirement savings and pensions (as well as university endowments) are now automatically tied to SpaceX’s market value.
[. . .]
If this sounds to you like a Ponzi scheme, it does to me, too. SpaceX may turn out to be the universe’s biggest Ponzi scheme — with the possible exception of Trump meme coins.
Of course, the Nasdaq’s overall weakness today didn’t help. Weighed down by semiconductor stocks, the Nasdaq composite fell 1.2%. The S&P 500 dropped 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2%.
But investors have been nervous about SpaceX for weeks. The rocket company started to veer off course with a report out on June 22 that, notwithstanding all the hoopla surrounding its IPO’s raising $85 billion in its first trading days, SpaceX wasn’t really flying all that high.
He started his downward spiral on Friday. Daniel Hampton (RAW STORY) reports:
CNBC was left holding the bag on Friday when Elon Musk abruptly backed out of a live, heavily promoted interview moments before it was set to air, as SpaceX shares slid below the price of their first public trade.
The network had spent the morning teasing the sit-down, billed as Musk's first television interview since SpaceX went public. Anchor Scott Wapner threw to correspondent Julia Boorstin at the Allen & Co. gathering in Sun Valley, Idaho, to explain why it suddenly wasn't happening.
"We've been promoting this exclusive interview that Elon Musk was expected to give to our Julia Boorstin, which is now apparently no longer happening. I want to bring in Julia Boorstin, who's been in Sun Valley. Julia, do you want to explain to us exactly what happened here, as this was imminent?" said Wapner.
This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"
This week, we published an investigation into David Brouillette, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who reportedly killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine earlier this month. That investigation revealed a long history of alleged violence against Brouillette’s ex-wives and children. “To be honest, I was surprised anyone would give that man a gun,” a former friend said of Brouillette.
On July 22, the advocacy group Ohio Immigrant Alliance released a list of 59 active and former ICE and CBP agents charged with sexual and violent crimes between 2007 and 2026. Brouillette is no outlier, said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance and author of the report. “But we have no way of knowing the full extent of the problem, because the agency doesn’t even look at family court records.”
A federal employment website states that “all personnel employed by ICE are mandated to undergo a comprehensive background investigation.” When asked for comment on the Ohio Immigrant Alliance report, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said “We take allegations regarding misconduct seriously and cherish the public’s trust. We work tirelessly to uphold the rule of law and hold ourselves accountable.”
Fifty of 59 cases the group documented were sex crimes, many of them committed against children. And the problem, according to their research, is getting worse: “Cases documented in 2025 and 2026 alone account for 42.4 percent of the list — 25 out of 59 cases,” Tramonte wrote. “Compare that to 2020, the previous peak year, which had just 6.”
HOMAN: No, if those of those are facts, he -- I don't think he should ever have cleared vetting. When they hire somebody, they put them through a vetting process and look at all that stuff. So I know, based on that information -- that's part of the ongoing investigation. How -- did the vetting process fail? Was that information not available? Did they not know? So there's a separate administrative investigation on what happened here. Did you -- did we have that information? Did we not have that information? But the vetting process, I -- if that was factual, he would have an almost impossible time to pass vetting.
BASH: So does that raise questions about ICE's vetting procedures, especially as it has in the past several months ramped up its law enforcement officers, who are around the country looking for undocumented immigrants?
HOMAN: Well, look, ICE has about 30,000 employees. They all go through vetting. This is a kind of a rare instance. But, again, it's under review. There's several things under review, right? The training is under review. And I know that the acting ICE director now, David Venturella, has added additional training, because I'm one that supports you can't -- you can't ever have too much training.
According to the investigation, DHS launched an aggressive campaign last year to hire 10,000 new enforcement officers while directing ICE to increase street-level arrests of alleged undocumented immigrants to as many as 2,000 per day. Ashley Brouillette said her ex-husband told her he accepted a position with ICE in November 2025.
The investigation noted that David Brouillette joined the agency during a period when ICE significantly reduced training requirements for new officers.
When President Trump announced an anti-crime task force for Memphis last fall, federal and local officials never mentioned immigration enforcement as a goal.
But the influx of federal agents into the city has led to widespread immigration arrests — a majority without criminal convictions, according to an Institute for Public Service Reporting data analysis.
NPR reviewed arrest data and spoke with lawyers, immigrants, activists and community members to piece together the task force's impact on Memphis over the past 10 months.
It found paralyzed immigrant neighborhoods, where scenes played out reminiscent of Chicago and Minneapolis at the height of targeted federal immigration enforcement actions. Aid networks ramped up their work to help immigrants too fearful to leave their homes. Hotlines rang out with calls from panicked immigrants. And routine traffic stops led to immigration arrests.
All of this has happened without the glare of the national spotlight and amid muted public outcry, as local and state leaders have largely cooperated with the federal government.
Meanwhile, Trump has said he has plans for similar task forces elsewhere, particularly in Republican-led states where he has more political buy-in.
t was just after 8am on 16 August and Francisco Longoria, who runs a party supply business, was driving his truck down a suburban southern California street to deliver a jumper for a water slide. But this ordinary Saturday morning turned into a nightmare when, suddenly, three unmarked vehicles stopped his truck and four masked men jumped out.
Longoria, who had brought his son Jonathan Longoria and son-in-law Daniel Rascon with him, wondered if they were being abducted.
“I see what happens in Mexico,” he said in Spanish. “I thought, are we going to be kidnapped by these masked men?”
The masked men were agents with US immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). They wore police gear, but Longoria said they didn’t identify themselves. As the agents walked toward the truck with their guns drawn, the passengers pulled out their phones to record video.
One agent pulled on the door handle, knocked on the window, and told Longoria to roll down his window, but the agent didn’t have a warrant. When Longoria didn’t comply, the agent smashed the glass and struck him in the face. Another agent broke the front passenger’s window.
With the agents on either side of the truck, and the road ahead clear, Longoria hit the gas. As he drove away, an agent shot three rounds, leaving two bullet holes in the passenger’s side of the truck. One bullet barely missed the back window. Sitting in the back seat, Rascon felt terrified. “One of us is about to get killed,” he thought.
“I was afraid for my life,” Longoria said. “I felt like death was imminent.”
The whole encounter lasted less than a minute, but it was only the beginning of the family’s harrowing tale.
The shooting happened a few blocks away from their home in San Bernardino, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles. When they arrived back at home minutes later, they called the police to report that masked men had shot at them.
Instead of receiving help, Longoria found himself in the crosshairs of a US government investigation that culminated in a night-time ambush of the family’s home, a felony charge accusing Longoria of weaponizing his vehicle against officers, and months in ICE detention – only for the case against him to eventually be dropped.
JULIANA KIM, BYLINE: Since her son's death, Rachel Reyes has tried to take a break from the news. But she says it's difficult, especially when the headlines hit close to home.
RACHEL REYES: It's been, honestly, very triggering because it just brings back the memories of this pattern of abuse that's still going on.
KIM: Earlier this month, two men were shot and killed by ICE officers in the span of a week, and in both cases, the deadly encounters happened during traffic stops. The same was true for Reyes' 23-year-old son, Ruben Ray Martinez.
REYES: It really breaks my heart for the families because I understand the nightmare they're going through.
KIM: Reyes' son was fatally shot in south Texas back in March of last year, two months into President Trump's second term when he quickly launched his aggressive immigration campaign. Martinez was the first U.S. citizen killed by a federal immigration agent since Trump's return to office. The officer who opened fire worked for Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of ICE. Eleven months after her son's death, Martinez's case was finally presented to a grand jury in Texas this February. They declined to bring charges against the agent who shot Martinez.
REYES: I don't feel like we've got justice. I don't feel like that was right.
KIM: Martinez was shot three times. The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly accused Martinez of intentionally running over an HSI officer, who was there to help direct traffic after a car accident. But NPR reviewed body camera footage from the night of the shooting, and it's unclear from the videos whether Martinez's car struck an agent. After this month's deadly ICE shootings, DHS said last week it planned to pause nonurgent vehicle stops. But soon after, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said they would, in fact, continue.
As of Saturday morning, the Pentagon’s website was still listing 14 service members killed.
“It is truly disgusting and disheartening to lower the count of our service members who gave their life for this country,” said Tanya Stamos, a Navy veteran and the founder of Operation R.J.S., a nonprofit in honor of her father, Richard James Stamos, also a veteran, that provides free telehealth counseling and support.
She continued: “As a Navy combat veteran myself, I find it a slap in the face that it is so easy to disregard my brothers and sisters in arms who raised their hand and gave an oath to protect and serve foreign and domestic, all for the government who is choosing to wipe their names from history.”
The brother of Dominic Ascioti, 36, is in the military and has been deployed to the Middle East during the war.
Mr. Ascioti said the change in the count by the Pentagon was either “gross incompetence” or “a deliberate attempt to mislead or mischaracterize reality.”
He said it reminded him of how Russia hides the number of its dead from its war on Ukraine.
“As families we need, to the best of the government’s ability, some transparency,” said Mr. Ascioti, who added that he opposed the war. “We want to know what’s happening with our family, and we want to know what happened to our family if something happened.”
The criticism of the Pentagon over its accounting of American casualties in the war has extended to the halls of Congress. On Thursday, a group of Democratic senators sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting a “comprehensive accounting” of the number of service members killed or wounded.
In the week before the recent attacks that killed three soldiers in Jordan, there were three other strikes by Iran that left dozens injured. These casualties were not immediately disclosed by the Pentagon, raising questions about whether the government was meeting its obligation to inform the country about the number of service members who had been either wounded or killed.
Jack, 50, scouts an app for deals at her local supermarket before she buys groceries. When she reaches the store, she looks in the weekly circular for coupons she might have missed. If shelf prices look too high, she tries to find lower prices someplace else.
“The apples went up here, the ones I eat, so now I’m not going to get them here,” Jack said as she pushed a cart into a Stop & Shop near her home in Lexington, Massachusetts.
With a conflict in the Middle East creating more price pressures, the cost of filling refrigerators, freezers and pantries has made affordability a central issue in the fall midterm elections.
Residents of four urban areas where food inflation has exceeded the national average shared how steadily rising prices are changing the way they shop. They described hunting for discounts, switching to store brands and feeling grateful for food banks. Some are buying less meat and skipping nonessentials like cookies. Others are buying less food overall.
And Marcia Greenwood (USA TODAY) adds:
In 2025, nearly one in five adults ages 18 to 64 — almost 20% — paid for groceries with savings, and nearly one in 20 — more than 5% — bought them with cash from a payday advance loan.
Those are two of the findings of a survey by the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.–based nonpartisan think tank that conducts economic and social policy research.
[. . .]
New Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that food costs have gone up over the past year.
According to its July 14 report, food-at-home costs rose 2.7% over the 12 months ending in June.
Over that same period:
- The cost of fruits and vegetables rose 5.3%
- The cost of nonalcoholic beverages increased 2.9%
- The cost of meats, poultry, fish and eggs was up 2.6%
- The cost of cereal and bakery products rose 2.4%
- The cost of dairy and related products increased 0.4%
Chump doesn't care. Tami Luhby (CNN) reports:
A growing number of Amazon and gig economy workers earn so little that they rely on public assistance to put food on the table and obtain health coverage, a Government Accountability Office study released Wednesday found.
The report is yet another example of the affordability crisis affecting many in the United States, where even some employed Americans need government help to pay for basic needs like food and healthcare.
The number of Amazon employees receiving food stamps and Medicaid in September nearly tripled since the GAO’s previous report in 2020, according to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who requested both analyses. Nearly 12,350 Amazon staffers were enrolled in food stamps and nearly 11,350 were covered by Medicaid in the states GAO examined.
Meanwhile, rideshare and food delivery companies are now among the top employers of recipients in the two safety net programs in several states, which was not the case five years earlier. Those companies include Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Grubhub and Instacart.
This is the Chump economy. And the addition to SNAP enrollment comes as Chump's cuts to SNAP are really registering. People are going hungry in this country -- that includes children. And it's thanks to Chump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' which gutted the safety net while giving millionaires and billionaires huge tax breaks. Aliss Higham (NEWSWEEK) notes:
Wholesome eating is a central part of the Trump administration's efforts to Make America Healthy Again. But a landmark nutrition education program for recipients of federal food assistance and other low-income people will cease to exist within weeks after President Trump eliminated it last summer when he signed a massive Republican spending and tax bill.
For decades, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program, known as SNAP-Ed, has funded programs such as community cooking classes, farmers markets in low-income neighborhoods, school nutrition lessons and more in every U.S. state. The program is a "pillar of the public health infrastructure in the US," according to a report published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
The decision to end SNAP-Ed at a time of rising food prices and the Trump administration's push for healthy eating has mystified nutrition advocates and public health experts alike.
"It doesn't make sense when we have an administration [promoting] the Make America Healthy Again efforts that are focused on decreasing consumption of ultra-processed foods and wanting to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables," said Tashara Leak, a professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University, "to then get rid of the largest federally funded nutrition education program that helps to achieve those goals."
Following tragic killings in Maine and Texas, Senators call for reforms, body-worn camera deployment, and independent investigations
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is joining dozens of her Senate colleagues in calling for stronger accountability measures for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. In a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the thirty-nine Senators urge DHS to fulfill its previous commitments to deploy and expand the usage of body-worn cameras, strengthen officer identification requirements, and review enforcement protocols.
The measures suggested by the Senators are intended to help prevent future deadly encounters involving ICE enforcement officers—and comes after two fatal shootings during immigration enforcement operations in Biddeford, Maine, and Houston, Texas.
“The recent fatal shootings involving U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers, specifically within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in Biddeford, Maine, and Houston, Texas, coupled with similar incidents elsewhere in the country, are completely unacceptable,” the senators wrote. “Rather than making our communities safer, these actions endanger our citizens and seriously undermine confidence in law enforcement generally.”
“The tragic deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero occurred less than a week apart and carry startling similarities. In both incidents, the individuals were killed in enforcement actions in which they were not the intended targets. Furthermore, both individuals were shot by DHS officials while inside a vehicle. The unnecessary loss of life in these incidents demands immediate, thorough, independent, and transparent investigations (including the full involvement of local and state law enforcement personnel) along with a comprehensive examination of enforcement protocols, training, and operational approaches necessary to prevent such tragedies. These recent events have further compromised the credibility of DHS and fractured public trust within communities across our country. In each case, DHS quickly issued statements asserting that officers were acting in self-defense, even before evidence of the facts surrounding the incidents had been gathered. Compounding this failure, no DHS officials involved in these fatal shootings wore body-worn cameras that could be reviewed by investigators or members of the public,” the senators continued.
“We remain supportive of removing dangerous convicted criminals from our communities, but this goal can and must be achieved without endangering these very communities in the process. By no stretch could either of the victims in Texas and Maine be characterized as ‘the worst of the worst,’ making these tragic deaths even more egregious. The American people deserve clarity and accountability. We urge you to honor your Department’s earlier commitments and take immediate action to implement these necessary reforms. We also stand ready to work with you to codify reforms into law,” the senators concluded.
Senator Murray has been outspoken and proactive in her efforts to negotiate necessary guardrails for ICE and CBP in the wake of unprofessional and unconstitutional behavior among those agencies. As Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee, she led Democrats’ efforts fighting tooth and nail to secure meaningful reforms in law to rein in ICE and Border Patrol—which Republicans ultimately refused altogether and chose to skirt Democrats by delivering another massive blank check for the agencies with no accountability. Last month, at a Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on the FY27 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—Murray pressed Secretary Markwayne Mullin on the conduct of ICE and Border Patrol and Republicans’ refusal to enact reforms into law.
In November 2025, Senator Murray joined 48 of her colleagues in the Senate and House of Representatives in introducing the Restoring Access to Detainees Act, which would mandate that DHS allow people who have been detained to contact their legal counsel and families. In February 2025, Senator Murray signed onto a letter demanding that DHS end wrongful searches and interrogations of Tribal members, and continued to push for answers from DHS on the matter last December. In March 2025, Murray also reintroduced her Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act. She and Senator Richard Blumenthal led 27 of their Senate colleagues last year in a letter expressing concern with prevalence and the treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in ICE detention.
In Washington state, Senator Murray has been conducting oversight of the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWIPC), despite the Trump administration’s efforts to block Congressional oversight of federal immigration detention facilities. After a protracted legal battle over Washington state’s ability to enforce health and safety standards at NWIPC, a federal appeals court ruled in August 2025 that the state should be allowed to enforce such standards at the detention center, and that failure to comply could result in fines of up to $10,000 per violation. In December 2025, Senator Murray led Members of the Washington state Congressional delegation in aletter to Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons expressing grave concerns with conditions at NWIPC in Tacoma, Washington and demanding answers to a long list of questions regarding overcrowding and lack of access to medical services, food, and legal counsel for individuals detained at the facility.
Joining Murray on the letter are U.S. Senators Angus King (I-ME), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Gary Peters (D-MI), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Chris Coons (D-DE), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Mark Warner (D-VA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and John Fetterman (D-PA).
Full text of the letter is available HERE and below:
Dear Secretary Mullin:
The recent fatal shootings involving U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers, specifically within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in Biddeford, Maine, and Houston, Texas, coupled with fatalities during similar incidents elsewhere in the country, are completely unacceptable. Rather than making our communities safer, these actions endanger our citizens and seriously undermine confidence in law enforcement generally.
The tragic deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero occurred less than a week apart and carry startling similarities. In both incidents, the individuals were killed in enforcement actions in which they were not the intended targets. Furthermore, both individuals were shot by DHS officials while inside a vehicle. The unnecessary loss of life in these incidents demands immediate, thorough, independent, and transparent investigations (including the full involvement of local and state law enforcement personnel), along with a comprehensive examination of enforcement protocols, training, and operational approaches necessary to prevent such tragedies.
These recent events have further compromised the credibility of DHS and fractured public trust within communities across our country. In each case, DHS quickly issued statements asserting that officers were acting in self-defense, even before evidence of the facts surrounding the incidents had been gathered. Compounding this failure, no DHS officials involved in these fatal shootings wore body-worn cameras that could be reviewed by investigators or members of the public.
While DHS has previously acknowledged that body-worn cameras promote public trust and increase officer and public safety, accountability, and transparency, the Department has clearly not prioritized acquiring cameras. Recent statements from DHS and the White House assert that DHS could not acquire cameras due to the government shutdown. However, since July 2025, DHS received nearly $40 billion in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that could have been used to swiftly acquire and deploy body-worn cameras for both existing ICE law enforcement officers and the reported 10,000 additional officers hired since enactment of OBBBA. Contrary to recent statements made by the Department and the White House, DHS has had more than sufficient time and funding to procure and deploy a body-worn camera for every officer before the end of 2025.
Following public outrage in the aftermath of the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, the former Secretary announced in February of this year that DHS law enforcement officers would be required to wear body-worn cameras across the country, and ICE issued a directive reinforcing its policy to activate body-worn cameras during enforcement activities wherever cameras are available. Then-Secretary Noem stated that “[a]s funding is available, the body-worn camera program will be expanded nationwide.” In March of this year, the White House border czar, Tom Homan, stated that the administration would expand the use of body-worn cameras by DHS officers undertaking immigration enforcements and require footage, in addition to ending roving patrols. The recent tragedies confirm that neither of these commitments were honored.
As we underscored during the subsequent funding negotiations earlier this year, implementing comprehensive accountability and oversight reforms for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is necessary both to protect the public and restore trust in the work of your agency. Our reform proposals are based upon the standards applicable to virtually every law enforcement agency in the country (except immigration enforcement officers), including visibly displayed identification, no masks, and body-worn cameras.
In recent weeks, federal agents have aggressively ramped up enforcement operations, reportedly arresting thousands of immigrants in a matter of days. Following the public backlash from these most recent fatal shootings, your Department has once again committed to distributing body-worn cameras, stating that every ICE arrest team will have at least one law enforcement officer equipped with a camera going forward and promising that all field offices will receive them within the next 60 days. Acting ICE Director Venturella also went on the record promising members of Congress that all field agents would be outfitted by the end of July. We view this timeline not as a projection, but as a firm, binding commitment to which we will hold the Department accountable.
Furthermore, to strengthen public safety and minimize dangerous operational confusion, we urge an immediate policy change regarding agency branding. To help ensure clear accountability and avoid misleading the public, ICE personnel engaged in interior enforcement must immediately cease wearing tactical gear, vests, or uniforms labeled with the generic term “POLICE” or “POLICEICE.” All operational uniforms should explicitly and exclusively identify personnel as “ICE.” In addition, agents should be required to identify themselves as “ICE” when making arrests and uniforms must clearly be identified as “ICE.”
Finally, given the immediate need for administrative accountability following these tragedies, we request detailed information in response to the following questions:
- What is DHS’s specific plan to respond to the public’s interest in timely, transparent, and independently verified investigations into these incidents?
- What are the vetting procedures with respect to new ICE recruits? Does ICE consider records of domestic violence and abuse from family courts in its vetting?
- What immediate updates or reviews are being made to ICE vehicle pursuit and traffic stop policies, including enhanced training specifically applicable to traffic stops to ensure they prioritize public and officer safety?
- Beyond the deployment of body-worn cameras, what additional oversight, reporting requirements, or public safety measures is the agency implementing?
We remain supportive of removing dangerous convicted criminals from our communities, but this goal can and must be achieved without endangering these very communities in the process. By no stretch could either of the victims in Texas and Maine be characterized as “the worst of the worst,” making these tragic deaths even more egregious. The American people deserve clarity and accountability. We urge you to honor your Department’s earlier commitments and take immediate action to implement these necessary reforms. We also stand ready to work with you to codify reforms into law.
We look forward to hearing from you at the earliest possible date.
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