A special notice for all those MAGA nuts who work on the waterfront
The Orange Felon announced “liberation day” on April 2, missing All Fools Day by just 24 hours, but not fooling anyone in doing so. In the aftermath, the stock market crashed, our long-term trading partners gasped, and then he imposed a 145% tariff on all products coming from China, our largest trading partner. This immediately rang the alarm at the ports in the San Pedro Bay. Just last week, Port of LA executive director, Gene Seroka, projected that shipping was going to be down by 34% this year. This will affect Longshore workers, truckers, and others in the international trade and logistics business.
The shipping companies have already dropped their rates /prices and canceled many sailings to the US out of China for May.
“It’s a precipitous drop in volume, with a number of major American retailers stopping all shipments from China based on the tariffs,” Seroka said on CNBC Tuesday (April 29) morning.
While the Orange Felon pressed pause on his sweeping tariff regime and placed a 10% blanket tax on goods from all other countries, he taxed the goods from China more; China retaliated against the 145% tariff with a 125% duty on American goods (mostly agricultural products). No trade deal has been made, even though he said negotiations are happening. That seems to be a surprise to the Chinese, who said they weren’t talking and they’re not pathological liars. Trump is.
Even further with the threat of tariffs on Canada, its current antipathy towards this administration and the remarks about making them our 51st state, tourism from the north has nearly vanished, flight bookings to the snowbird resorts like Palm Springs have declined.
The Los Angeles area is a major tourist destination, attracting millions of visitors annually.
In 2023, the city welcomed 49.1 million visitors, representing a strong recovery from pre-pandemic levels. It’s a significant economic driver, generating substantial revenue and supporting tens of thousands of jobs. The city offers a wide range of attractions, including theme parks, museums, beaches, and entertainment venues. Who knows what impact this might have on the 2028 Olympics?
According to the LA Tourism and Convention Board, the worries are rippling across a local tourism and hospitality industry that employs a half-million Angelenos and supports more than 1,000 local businesses.
In all, the decline of trade and tourism could easily impact 1.5 million jobs in hospitality, transportation, and the waterfront. You would think that some of the few MAGA ILWU members and others in this community might start to reconsider their approval of “the very stable genius” who launched this global trade war. Instead of making America great again, his tariff tantrum will likely just sink our economy, just like he has done with so many other businesses he has run into the ground. Remember, he’s the one who went bankrupt six times running at New Jersey casinos. And he destroyed the USFL football league as well.
Republicans like to think that you can run the government like a business, as they run up the national debt and then balance the budget off the working poor and working classes. While giving tax breaks to the wealthiest. This “trickle down” theory of economics has been debunked in the past, and we are about to learn again–it’s a flat-out lie–it doesn’t work!
In the process of gaslighting America–blaming immigrants, transsexuals, and student protestors for all the ills of our country–he has just made us more divided. And when you point out that he’s wrong or lied, he attacks the media, the universities, the academics, and scientists, anyone who disagrees with him. What the twice-impeached Orange Felon knows about world economics could be placed on one of his cryptocurrency coins, which is just one more of his many grifts!
For those misguided souls who believed this grifter and voted for him because they thought Biden was too old or incompetent, I ask you just to wait and see what happens to your job at the hotel, on the waterfront, or if you have your 401(k) account. And just pray that he’s unsuccessful in privatizing Social Security or Medicare.
We are already beginning to see the effects on the grocery store shelves because of the immigrant labor shortage. What will you say when your latest Amazon purchase from China has a 145% surcharge?
On top of all this “good” news, “People are very happy with this presidency,” the Orange Felon bragged in an interview with The Atlantic last week. “I’ve had great polls.”
That wasn’t true then, and it’s even less true now. As he hits his 100th day in office today, pollsters have been releasing new surveys, and the results are ugly. NBC News finds that 55 percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of the job, but that’s rosy compared with the 59 percent in a CNN poll. An ABC News/Washington Postpoll finds that just 39 percent of Americans approve of his performance—the lowest ever recorded, going back to 1945. Is America just waking up to the fact that they can’t trust a word this grifter has to say?
There are 553 more days to go before the next midterm election. That’s plenty of time for more disruption, more lies, and chaos to rule! And for the disapproval rating to grow, Americans need to figure out just how to resist.
What We Choose to Remember — and Forget — in the Fight for Justice
I was 11 years old when the Menendez brothers were initially charged with their parents’ 1989 murders.
We lived across from the tennis courts of Queen Anne Park and around the corner from Queen Anne Elementary School. At 11, my routine was simple: school ended at 2:35 p.m., and I was expected home to complete chores before my parents returned from work between 5:30 and 8 p.m.
Pre-gentrification Mid-City was sharply divided. South of Pico was “the hood.” Between Olympic and Wilshire was middle class. North of Wilshire? The wealthy. My working-class family, with middle-class aspirations, lived between Pico and Olympic.
For much of my childhood, I was not allowed to go to Queen Anne because of the presence of gangs, and there were plenty of stories of gang members pressing youngsters to join their ranks, deal drugs, and wind up dead, often in that order. The trouble was, even these and other precautions my father took weren’t guarantees I would escape shootings and gang violence.
My mom worked in retail, and my dad ran a lawn care business. He saw firsthand how the crack epidemic and gang violence shaped South LA. As an only child for most of my upbringing, household responsibilities, except cooking, fell on me. I had to finish chores and homework before I could shoot hoops at the local courts, and summer break meant joining my dad in cutting lawns, pulling weeds, and trimming hedges. My father reinforced discipline, structure, and respect for authority, backed by the child-rearing maxim, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” I didn’t come from a household that believed in “timeouts” or letting a child throw tantrums in public places without a stern look that was more a promise than a threat of violence on the return home.
So when Erik and Lyle Menendez were accused of murdering their wealthy parents in Beverly Hills, many in my community saw the Menendez boys as the result of lax parenting that didn’t reinforce respect for authority. The community also believed those boys would avoid consequences because of their wealth and whiteness. That belief seemed affirmed after the first trial ended in a hung jury. Then the ink on the details of how the Menendez brothers spent their inheritance flowed.
This double murder occurred against a backdrop of villainization of Black children by the police, mainstream media, and, to a degree, even our own community, as the narrative of Black crack babies growing up to become super-criminals without conscience and empathy struck fear among Angelenos at the time.
The 1990s saw harsh policies like mandatory minimums for drug offenses, the 100:1 crack vs. powder cocaine disparity, “truth-in-sentencing,” and the three-strikes law. These laws devastated Black and brown communities. Prisons were built rapidly, police were militarized, and minor offenses received major sentences.
Violent crime peaked in 1992. Los Angeles recorded 88,919 violent crimes — a rate of 2,491 per 100,000 residents. By contrast, 2023 saw 27,988 violent crimes in a city of 4 million, at 700 per 100,000. Yet we are still asked to relitigate justice through the lens of fear.
The Menendez brothers were convicted in a second trial in 1995. Now, almost 30 years later, District Attorney Nathan Hochman is opposing the brothers’ potential resentencing, and Justice for Murdered Children founder LaWanda Hawkins and Najee Ali are echoing his demagoguery by saying that resentencing would open the door to more successful habeas corpus petitions from convicted murderers.
But habeas corpus isn’t casually granted. It requires the petitioner to be in custody, to have exhausted all appeals, and to prove a serious constitutional error, like ineffective counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, or new evidence of innocence. The Menendez brothers exhausted all options by 2003. Their recent request came after new allegations surfaced.
In 2023, former Menudo band member Roy Rosselló alleged that José Menendez, the father, raped him when he was 14. This came to light in the Peacock docuseries Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed. A Today Show preview aired weeks earlier. The brothers’ current appeal cites a letter Erik allegedly wrote in 1988 to his cousin, Andy Cano, detailing abuse. Journalist Robert Rand, author of The Menendez Murders, says he found the letter in 2018.
Last October, then-District Attorney George Gascón recommended resentencing after a three-week review. He acknowledged the abuse but noted the killings were premeditated. His reasoning included the brothers’ long prison terms and clean records behind bars.
Resentencing was scheduled for Dec. 11, 2024, but was delayed by procedural issues and wildfires. Newly elected DA Nathan Hochman, endorsed by LaWanda Hawkins, reversed Gascón’s stance, filing to oppose the petition. Hochman called the abuse claims “self-serving lies” and dismissed the letter to Cano as lacking credibility because it wasn’t used in the original defense.
These allegations, however, were central to both trials. The issue? There was no evidence deemed credible enough to be heard at the orginal trial.
I received Ali’s text announcement the day before the press conference. It didn’t bother me that he or Hawkins opposed the resentencing. What bothered me was their stance that the brothers should not be allowed to appeal based on new corroborating evidence.
In the press invitation, Ali quoted Hawkins:
“Our organization, composed of homicide victims’ surviving family members, is outraged that the Menendez brothers are even being considered by a judge for possible resentencing. The Menendez brothers had their day in court. In fact, they had two trials. The jury verdict found them both guilty of the cold-blooded execution of their parents.”
He continued: “The judge sentenced them to life in prison. If they are granted a resentencing hearing … we should all respect the original decision and never allow convicted murderers to use their fame and money to manipulate the courts decades later.”
This same script opened the press conference the following morning.
Hawkins had also supported Rick Caruso for mayor and Hochman for DA. Her political motives may be strategic or personal, but she owns them.
I showed up to the 11 a.m. press conference planning to direct tough questions at Hochman. But when I realized that Ali and Hawkins organized this independently, without prompting from Hochman, I was stunned.
I’ve known Najee Ali for more than 25 years. He became close to Black Panther Party icon Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt, whom he calls a mentor and big brother. That’s when I first met Ali, while following Pratt’s fight for a new trial. Convicted of a 1968 murder, Pratt insisted he was 350 miles away. His case involved years of habeas filings before his conviction was overturned after nearly 27 years.
I was a 20-year-old editor at UCLA’s Black student publication, Nommo Magazine. Back then, I was skeptical of anyone claiming activist credentials — Ali included. I had a whole lot of information, but no lived experience to understand how the world worked. If not for my experiences with student organizers who hovered around the Community Programs Office and my experiences volunteering with the African Education Project in public housing in South Los Angeles in the late 1990s, I would not have understood that the fight against systemic injustice has no days off, and doesn’t come with a paycheck, health benefits, a pension nor a 401(k) plan. Choosing to fight the good fight doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be personally rewarded for your efforts.
When I finally interviewed Ali for Nommo and made him our cover story, it began a journey of observation. I watched him — a former convict shaped by Malcolm X — become a voice for people who felt unheard by City Hall and the Los Angeles Police Department.
What was dangerous, and not just problematic about that April 16 press conference, is that their rhetoric against the Menendez brothers can just as easily be aimed at darker, poorer and more disenfranchised people, like Cyntoyia Brown, who was released six years after serving 15 years in prison for killing Johnny Allen, a 43-year-old man who had paid her for sex. Brown stated she acted in self-defense, fearing for her life during their encounter. Despite her claims, she was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison at the age of 16. She was only released because the Tennessee governor granted her clemency.
In cases like Brown’s or Pratt’s, would Ali argue that they should serve their full sentences, too?I think not.
Hochman campaigned on restoring public safety and rejecting progressive reforms enacted by Gascón. He claimed to be a centrist who believed in “accountability with fairness.” But his actions say otherwise. Crime rates have been declining since 2023, yet Hochman calls for restoring a two-tiered system of justice that punishes the poor and privileges the wealthy. If Ali were willing to pull back the curtain to reveal the Wizard of Oz, he’d see the same behind the push to deny the convicted access to the appeals process.
Najee Ali should know better. And choose better. It’s wild to me that an ex-felon would deny other felons due process. We’re already finding out what that’s like with the guy currently occupying the Oval Office.
As Deportations Rise, Can Labor Defend Both Immigrant and H-2A Farmworkers?
On March 25, Alfredo Juarez was driving his compañera to work in the flower fields of Washington Bulb, the largest tulip grower in Washington state. His family, including two uncles, all work there, and until two years ago, he did too. That’s when Lelo (as he is known) started working full-time for the union, Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ).
That morning, however, was anything but normal. In the predawn darkness, he saw flashing lights in his rearview mirror and pulled over. As a Border Patrol agent approached the car, Lelo rolled his window down partway. He asked why he was being stopped and if the agent had a warrant. When he reached into his pocket for his ID, however, the Border Patrol cop broke the window. The agent dragged him out of the car as his partner began shouting, demanding to know why he was being brutalized, before the agent took him away.
The Border Patrol first brought Lelo to the nearby Ferndale Detention Center, and then to the giant migrant prison in Tacoma run by GEO Group. Within days, he was lined up to board a deportation flight to Sonora, Mexico. But, without a clear reason, he was called out of line and returned to detention while the others were flown off. There he remains, at least as of the publication of this article.
Meanwhile, workers at Washington Bulb report that ICE agents picked up two more people from the company warehouse.
Was Lelo A Target?
The recognition Lelo earned for his years of organizing farmworkers created the pressure that kept him off the deportation flight, according to Rosalinda Guillen, director of Community2Community, the farmworker rights organization of northwest Washington. He joined FUJ when it won a contract at Sakuma Farms in 2017, after a watershed four-year strike and boycott of the giant Driscoll’s berry company, buyer of the fruit Sakuma workers picked. After the union stabilized, its members began organizing in the tulip and daffodil fields in the same valley, trying to win better wages there as well.
As a leader of the flower workers’ union committee, Lelo and his workmates tried to get an agreement from the company about their pay and rights as the harvest started. At the same time, crowds of tourists began to fill the valley’s back roads, gawking at the fields of brilliant blooms and the workers laboring in them. The union’s efforts to fight for workers extended beyond the fields. The week before he was picked up, Lelo spent several days in the state capital, Olympia, trying to ensure that the Keep Washington Working Act would stay in force. The law, won five years ago, prohibits state agencies from cooperating in federal immigration raids. In the Trump era, it is predictably under attack.
Lelo spoke so many times to so many members of the legislature that politicians know him well. Within hours of his arrest, they were already discussing his detention. U.S Sen. Patty Murphy said she was tracking his case. “I don’t care what Trump promised on the campaign trail,” her statement said. Other expressions of concern came from U.S. Rep. Rick Larson and Gov. Bob Ferguson.
Unions and immigrant rights groups began demanding Lelo’s release. Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers, called for it during a recent march in Delano, California, celebrating Cesar Chavez’s birthday. Local groups have mounted continuous demonstrations in front of the Tacoma center.
While this broad coalition tries to free him, immigrant rights activists report that ICE is picking people up on warrants for detention across the country. ICE Director Tom Homan calls all undocumented immigrants criminals, and therefore credible targets for deportation, no matter how many years they’ve lived in the United States. “Sometimes they have a list,” reports Fernando Martinez, organizer for the Mixteco Immigrant Community Organizing Project in Santa Maria, California. “But when they can’t find a person, they go for any family member they can find.”
Yet Lelo’s arrest wasn’t just one of many. “ICE claims it had a warrant from 2018,” Guillen says. “But it’s clear they’d been surveilling him, because they knew when he was leaving for work and what route he’d take. He was targeted because he’s been such a visible activist. That’s why there’s been this massive support for him.”
Guillen believes thousands of people are in ICE’s database of immigrants who weren’t notified of an immigration court date or somehow were flagged by the system, providing the pretext for warrants. But why was Lelo singled out, Guillen asks, and by whom?
Lelo’s supporters believe his detention is another example of immigration enforcement targeting social movement activists, from working-class leaders to students protesting the genocide in Gaza. But his case raises particular questions, Guillen believes, about the use of immigration enforcement against farmworkers.
When Lelo spoke in the legislature the Friday before his arrest, he denounced the abuse of farmworkers brought to the United States in the H-2A guest worker program, and the use of that program to displace local farmworkers — almost all of whom are immigrants. His union, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, has a long record of opposing the H-2A program because it exploits both guest workers and resident farmworkers. And over the past decade, the union has built a reputation for helping guest workers themselves when they protest abuse or strike against it. That makes FUJ and Lelo himself a target in this new era, in which the Trump administration uses detentions and deportations to terrorize workers, while encouraging growers to bring in guest workers to replace them.
On March 31, farmworkers and supporters march in Delano to celebrate the birthday of Cesar Chavez and to protest the wave of immigration raids by the Trump administration. Photo by David Bacon
Attacks Against Farmworkers
Trump’s immigration enforcement strategy is not new. Some of it expands measures already initiated by Republican-held state legislatures. In the last few years, states like Georgia and North Carolina have passed laws mandating that employers use the E-Verify database to identify undocumented employees and then fire them. Last year, Florida passed a law, SB 1718, not only mandating E-Verify but making it a crime to give a person without papers a ride to work, and requiring hospitals to check the immigration status of patients.
During the 2024 election campaign, Democrats and Republicans vied to claim each was more committed to enforcement than the other. After Trump’s election, the Border Patrol office in southern California didn’t wait for his inauguration. For three days, starting the day after the Jan. 6 certification of Trump’s win, agents stopped farmworker vehicles on their way to the fields and detained workers at day labor sites in front of Home Depot and gas stations.
In the orange and grapefruit groves that supply the winter’s few field jobs, the normal cacophony of ladders and voices grew silent, as workers stayed home. “I didn’t go to work for two days,” Emma, an orange picker, told me. “I have a 5-year-old, and that’s the fear, that I won’t be able to come home to him. But on Wednesday I went back to work. The fear is great, but the need is greater.” Some of her coworkers, however, decided to leave for other areas, or even to go back to Mexico, she said.
Joe Biden officials claimed that the raid was a “rogue operation,” but self-deportation — the predictable impact of the raid and the arrests — is also not new. In one four-month period in 1954, at the height of “Operation Wetback,” Fay Bennett, executive secretary of the National Sharecroppers Fund reported, “300,000 Mexicans were arrested and deported, or frightened back across the border.” As raids drove undocumented workers back to Mexico, the government then relaxed federal requirements on housing, wages and food for braceros, the guest workers of the Cold War era. In one year, 1954, over a million workers were deported, and two years later, the number of braceros brought to the United States by growers reached 450,000.
The parallel wasn’t lost on Marc Grossman, who spent a lifetime as communications director for the United Farm Workers. In a Sacramento Bee op-ed in early March, he wrote that the growers’ agenda “is replacing the domestic farm labor work force-now comprising both documented and undocumented farm workers-with many more H-2A guest workers.”
Grossman highlights the vulnerability of H-2A workers, who can only work less than a year in the United States before returning home and are tethered to the growers who recruit them. “If undocumented workers are mistreated,” he wrote, “at least they have the option to leave and work elsewhere. More vulnerable H-2A workers, however, are at the total mercy of employers who control their livelihoods through the visas they obtain for their employees. If H-2A workers complain about abuse, they are immediately shipped home. The H-2A program is practically serfdom.”
Trump’s Immigration Priorities
Combining deportation and expansion of the H-2A program has been an explicit Trump goal since his first administration. At a Michigan rally in February 2018, he told farmers, “We’re going to have strong borders, but we have to have your workers come in.” In 2020, then-Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue emphasized the government’s support for more H-2A workers. “That’s what agriculture needs, and that’s what we want,” he said. In her nomination hearing, Trump’s current secretary of agriculture, Brooke Rollins, told Congress that she’d modernize the H-2A program “to do everything we can to make sure that none of these farms or dairy producers are put out of business [by immigration enforcement].”
The growth of the H-2A visa program, however, has been a bipartisan project. Twenty years ago, the Department of Labor issued 48,336 certifications to growers for workers brought to the United States with H-2A work visas. Eight years later, that number had almost doubled, to 85,248. In Trump’s first year in office, growers received 200,049 certifications, and in Biden’s last year, they received 384,900. The total number of farmworkers in the United States is about 2 million, so almost a fifth are now H-2A workers.
In Florida, with its draconian anti-immigrant and anti-farmworker laws, growers’ 47,416 H-2A certifications last year covered over half of the 80,821 people employed on its farms. Georgia’s 43,436 certifications were for over three-quarters of its 55,990 farm laborers. Of New York’s 51,330 farmworkers, 10,294 come on H-2A visas.
When Lelo denounced the impact of H-2A certifications in Washington, one big target was the Washington Farm Labor Association (now simply WAFLA), the state’s biggest labor contractor. Both WAFLA and the website Save Family Farms — which has a long history of fighting environmentalists and FUJ — lobby hard for growers, who last year received certifications for 35,884 H-2A visas, among the state’s 90,166 farmworkers. Save Family Farms calls itself the voice of Washington farmers and takes credit for defeating overtime pay for farmworkers.
During Trump’s first administration, at WAFLA’s instigation, Washington State’s Employment Security Department and the U.S. Department of Labor agreed to remove the guaranteed piece-rate wage for H-2A workers picking apples, the state’s largest harvest. That effectively lowered the wage by as much as a third.
In his last term, in addition to lowering H-2A wages, Trump allowed growers to access federal funds earmarked for farmworker housing and even use federal labor camps to house H-2A workers. This December, before Trump took office, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (who is currently running for governor) asked him to discard the federal rule setting the minimum wage for H-2A workers in the state.
Armando Elenes, UFW secretary treasurer, says bitterly, “On one side of their mouth they’re saying they’re worried about their workforce, but on the other, they’re trying to strip away workers’ rights from the guest worker program. They don’t want to pay the workers what the law requires or provide the housing that the workers need. They don’t want to pay for the transportation of the workers. They want to make it as cheap as possible.”
Teresa Romero is the president of the United Farm Workers. Photo by David Bacon
What Can Be Done?
The sharp increase in detentions and deportations raises big questions: Will unions be able to organize in this political environment? And can they protest the raids and displacement of immigrant workers who are already residents (including their own members), and at the same time organize and defend the rights of H-2A workers brought by growers to replace them?
Over the last several years, UFW has organized H-2A workers in New York state, where Elenes has headed the UFW effort to use the new state labor law for farmworkers. As a result, the union has won votes on six farms, and has invoked arbitration to force contract negotiations on four of them. California’s new law gives farmworkers an easier way to organize. Growers have to bargain if a majority of workers sign union cards; if they don’t, the state can impose a contract. The union has won five campaigns covering about 3,000 workers, and has signed two collective bargaining agreements.
The UFW currently represents H-2A workers under contract in California as well, as a result of organizing drives where resident workers were a majority of the workforce. At D’Arrigo California, for instance, the union contract gives H-2A workers workplace rights while guaranteeing that resident workers can’t be replaced.
Other unions also represent H-2A workers, particularly the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, which has a bargaining agreement with the North Carolina Growers Association covering over 6,000 workers.
Roman Pinal, UFW’s organizing director, says it will take a lot of work to build unity between immigrant workers residing in the country and the H-2A workers being brought here. “I’ve heard workers living here say their shifts are being cut from five, six days to two, three days a week, as growers use more H-2A workers. At the same time, H-2A workers have a lot of issues of their own. Growers threaten one group with being replaced, and the other with being sent back to Mexico. We have to help them stick together. And we have to stick together with unions like FUJ as well.”
While fear induced by grower threats or immigration raids can be paralyzing, workers aren’t always fearful. Guillen says the committee at Washington Bulb was angry at Lelo’s detention and plans to organize their own march to protest. “Before the march in Delano,” Pinal says, “many farmworkers asked me, ‘Is it safe to do this?’ Seven thousand answered yes and came.” More marches are planned in other parts of the state.
In the end, a strong counterweight to fear of deportation or job loss is the anger many workers feel over the lack of recognition of the importance of their work, and the heavy demands it makes on them. Emma described to me the toll farm work takes on her. “In the oranges, I have to climb ladders with a 40 or 50-pound bag on my shoulders,” she said. “When I’m bunching carrots, I’m on my knees all day. Every season, my body has to learn to adjust to the way my hands and back hurt. It can take an hour and a half to get to the field, and for all that, the most I make is $700 a week. And last year, 70% of the time, I only got four hours of work a day because the company hired so many other people.”
She resents growers and the government for threatening deportation instead of recognizing the value of her labor. “The company takes advantage of the fear [of deportation by paying] low wages, and sends us to meetings to tell us that the union is bad. We work in the heat and cold to put food on the table [in] this country, but they call us criminals. We need to lift up our voices.”
Great Replacement Theory Leads To A Great Replacement of Facts
Kilmar Abrego Garcia fled a criminal gang in El Salvador that terrorized his family for years, threatening to kill him. A conservative Trump-appointed judge said so in a 2019 court ruling that explicitly prohibited his deportation to El Salvador — which the Trump administration didn’t appeal.
So, he’s the exact opposite of what Trump, his administration and allies have painted him as — including with badly photo-shopped images Trump promoted on his social media site. Like so many others, he’s a victim fleeing gang violence, not a perpetrator spreading it.
Trump’s big-lie narrative of foreign governments sending criminals to invade the U.S. with the complicity of Democrats and liberal elites is a form of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, arguably the most central big lie in Trump era conservatism. Once a fringe belief of white supremacist conspiracy theorists, repeated in a series of mass-murder manifestos, it was mainstreamed on Fox News by Trump confidant Tucker Carlson. A 2022 New York Times investigation found that he “amplified the idea that Democratic politicians and others want to force demographic change through immigration” in more than 400 episodes.
Other lies and conspiracy theories can be woven into it, such as voter fraud claims that millions of undocumented immigrants are voting, or welfare abuse claims that immigrants are bankrupting programs. But Trump’s favorite focus is on crime — despite the well-established fact that immigrant crime rates are lower than those of native-born Americans. All the versions are based on lies, so why not stress the one that scares and angers people the most?
But Garcia’s story shows just how false the narrative is.
We’re a nation of immigrants who always come seeking a better life — sometimes fleeing hardship, and sometimes something much darker: violence and fear of death. Garcia’s story may be recent, but the story itself is centuries old.
His mother, Cecilia, made and sold pupusas (tortilla-like griddle cakes) from home, a business that became so successful the whole family was involved. That success drew attention from the Barrio 18 gang, which extorted the family, physically threatening Kilmar, threatening to rape his sisters and kill his brother Cesar. The gang demanded weekly payments, but offered to stop if Cesar joined the gang. Instead, he fled to America and became a citizen.
The gang’s attention then shifted to Kilmar, who eventually, at 16, fled to America as well, where he met his future wife, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, an American citizen. His story was summed up in the 2019 court ruling cited above.
He’s now a Maryland sheet-metal apprentice, and at the building trades federation’s recent legislative conference, President Sean McGarvey issued a ringing demand for his return.
“We need to make our voices heard,” McGarvey said. “We’re not red, we’re not blue, we’re the building trades; the backbone of America. You want to build a five billion dollar data center? Want more six-figure careers with healthcare, retirement, and no college debt? You don’t call Elon Musk! You call us!
“And yeah, that means all of us. All of us! Including our brother, SMART apprentice Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who we demand to be returned to us and his family now! Bring him home!”
On April 10, the Supreme Court ruled Garcia’s removal illegal, saying the Trump administration had to “facilitate” his return. But Trump responded with double-talk and multiple lies, even claiming the court had ruled in his favor, and that he was powerless to bring Garcia back — a lie matched by El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who likewise pretended helplessness.
So, on April 16, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen went to El Salvador to check on Garcia’s well-being and highlight the issue. After first being denied a meeting, he met with Garcia the following day.
“This is about safeguarding the constitutional rights of everyone living in the United States,” Van Hollen said on his return to the U.S. He promised that although his visit was the first, it wouldn’t be the last. And just four days later, a delegation of four House Democrats — including Long Beach Rep. Robert Garcia — arrived in El Salvador to bring further pressure.
“Kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America,” Rep. Garcia said in a press statement. “We are demanding the Trump Administration abide by the Supreme Court decision and give Kilmar and the other migrants mistakenly sent to El Salvador due process in the United States.”
Recently, the public has increasingly turned against Trump. Polls by both the Washington Post and the Associated Press show his approval at just 39%. Approval for his immigration policies have also fallen, but remain his strongest suit, at 46% in both — largely because cases like Garcia’s may have started to register, but aren’t yet seen as typical, and the impact of the Great Replacement big lie remains strong.
In the Post poll, 42% say Garcia should be brought back, vs. 26% who say he should remain imprisoned abroad. So specific support for Trump’s immigration policy is 20 points lower in this case.
Protecting Children
But Garcia’s case is hardly an outlier. A growing number of cases show the breadth of cruelty and absurdity that result from this big lie. On April 25 came word of cases involving the most vulnerable victims as well as the most powerful.
In the first instance, three U.S. citizen children, ages 2, 4 and 7, were kidnapped and sent to Mexico with their mothers. The 4-year-old has stage 4 cancer and was deported without medication or medical contact. ICE agents refused to let the mothers speak with attorneys or their husbands, so they could not make an informed decision, much less a freely-chosen one. It was more like an illegal kidnapping than a lawful deportation.
Lawyers for the 2-year-old’s father filed an emergency petition seeking her release on May 24, but she was put on a plane to Honduras before court opened the next morning. District Judge Terry A. Doughty, a Trump appointee, stressed that it’s “illegal and unconstitutional” to deport U.S. citizens, and wrote that it appeared the Trump administration had “just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”
But if helpless, sick little children are the most innocent, vulnerable victims of Trump’s immigration lawlessness, judges who would protect them — and the rule of law — represent the opposite poll: people with the power to curb his lawlessness. And they’ve become victims, too.
Graphic by Terelle Jerricks
Executive Attack on the Judiciary
Trump has long attacked judges ruling against him, but recently, he’s been joined by GOP congress members calling for their impeachment. This led Chief Justice John Roberts to issue a rare push-back in mid-March. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
But the next week GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson escalated the attacks. “We can eliminate an entire district court,” he told reporters. “We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” he said. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”
Then, on April 25, the administration arrested Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan and accused her of helping a Mexican immigrant evade arrest by federal agents. They handcuffed her in public — unprecedented treatment for a judge, clearly playing to Trump’s base, as FBI Director Kash Patel quickly publicized it on social media. But the criminal complaint against her was noticeably lacking, legal blogger Marcy Wheeler noted.
“DOJ didn’t even bother convening a grand jury to find out whether there’s any evidence that Judge Dugan had corrupt intent before arresting her at the courthouse and ginning up an even bigger media storm about it,” she wrote.
“Until they actually look for evidence of corrupt intent, this is a media campaign against the judiciary, not a criminal prosecution.”
Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin was even more blunt.
“By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this president is putting those basic Democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line,” she said.
Even conservative jurists were outraged. “The obvious purpose of the arrest of Judge Dugan on criminal charges is to intimidate and threaten all judges, state and local, across the country,” J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge, told the Washington Post.
The general public broadly agrees. “More than 6 in 10 say they think federal judges are trying to enforce existing limits on Trump’s authority,” the Post reported, “compared with slightly more than 1 in 3 who say these judges are trying to interfere with the president’s authority.” More damningly, “About two-thirds say they think the administration is trying to avoid complying with court orders.”
A Range of Other Targets
Other cases showing different facets of Trump’s cruelty, lawlessness or folly — and the range of people targetted — include the following:
Rümeysa Öztürk is a Turkish national Ph.D. student at Tufts University who was abducted off the streets by plainclothes agents in what looked like a kidnapping. Her student visa had been secretly revoked four days earlier, thereby making her presence in the U.S. illegal, without any legal process.
She was targeted for a student newspaper op-ed last year that was critical of the school’s response to Gaza protests, calling for them to act in accord with a vote by the student senate — hardly a radical idea. In fact, Tufts University Democrats and Republicans have released a joint statement supporting her.
She’s being held in a Louisian detention center, where she was visited by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and representatives Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley. Afterward, they wrote in the New York Times, “This is not immigration enforcement. This is repression. This is authoritarianism. The Trump administration is working overtime to silence dissent and terrorize immigrant communities.”
Kseniia Petrova is a Harvard Medical School research scientist working on cancer and life extension, who fled Russia for fear of prosecution for her political beliefs. She had her visa canceled and was arrested at Logan airport in Boston for the “crime” of not declaring some frog-embryo samples for research, which her superiors had asked her to bring back from Europe with her, as previous attempts to ship via air freight hadn’t been successful. The first customs officer who spoke with her cleared her to leave, but a second one arrested her. She’s now also in a Louisiana ICE facility.
Mahmoud Khalil is a legal permanent U.S. resident, married to an American citizen who gave birth to their first child while he was in custody in Louisiana. He was arrested under false pretenses without a warrant, and faces deportation based on the groundless claim that his presence in America posed, “potentially serious foreign policy consequences.”
Khalil served as spokesperson and negotiator for campus activists at Columbia last year during large demonstrations against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the war in Gaza. Contrary to Zionist propaganda equating pro-Palestinian views with antisemitism, he has strong support from Jewish students who chained themselves to Columbia gates in protest of his arrest. “I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand by hand, and you cannot achieve one without the other,” he said in a 2024 interview.
Andry Hernandez Romero is a gay makeup artist who sought asylum in the U.S. last year, and the government had found that threats against him were credible, giving him a good chance of gaining asylum. But then, he “just disappeared,” his lawyer Lindsay Toczylowski told 60 Minutes.
He was one of 238 Venezuelan migrants who were flown to El Salvador in mid-March, and there’s been no trace of him since. He was taken under the triple pretense that he was a member of Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, that that gang acts as an agent of the Venezuelan government, and that doing so allows Trump to deport gang members under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which has only been used before in times of war — most recently for the infamous mass imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in World War II.
But he’s not a gang member. Like many others, he was falsely identified as such because of tattoos, which Tren de Aragua does not use to identify membership. What’s more, the tattoos cited in his case were crowns on top of the names of his parents.
“The most plausible explanation for that is that his mom and dad are his king and queen,” Toczylowski said.
Nor is the gang an agent of the Venezuelan government, according to a mid-April U.S. intelligence assessment drawing from 18 agencies. Finally, the peacetime use of the Alien Enemies Act is legally, if not constitutionally questionable, and is being challenged in court.
What all these cases show — and there are many more similar to them — is that one big lie can serve as an umbrella for countless others. Indeed, it has to. Because it is a lie so sweeping that it encompasses so much, it inevitably conflicts with the truth over and over again. And so it must generate a seemingly endless stream of lies.
SACRAMENTO — Amidst increasing attacks on our immigrant communities, Majority Leader Gonzalez’s (D-Long Beach) Senate Bill 48, which is a California Latino Legislative Caucus priority bill, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on an 11-1 vote.
Earlier this month, immigration enforcement officials sought and were denied access to two elementary schools in Los Angeles County. The targeting of minors on school property for immigration enforcement actions raises numerous concerns and the resulting chilling effect is substantial.
“Immigration officials showing up at our schools to target young children and intimidate families is shameless and unjustifiable,” said Majority Leader Gonzalez, “Schools should be places where all students, regardless of their immigration status or the status of their families, have a safe learning environment. Senate Bill 48 will codify the protections we need to keep immigrant students and families safe in California schools.”
Senate Bill (SB) 48 would restrict local educational agencies from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement officers at school sites, unless presented with a judicial warrant, providing additional protections for students and families to attend school safely.
“Every child in this country and in our state has a legal right to attend school and to learn, regardless of their immigration status,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. “We must have the courage and moral fortitude to protect the most vulnerable among us, and to ensure that every single child growing up in California is safe and can focus on learning and growing while at school.”
SB 48 is a direct response to federal immigration threats that seek to deprive students of their constitutional right to an education. Not only does SB 48 protect immigrant students and families, it provides clear guidance to educators who are being forced to interact with immigration enforcement officials on campuses and respond to the harmful impacts these unprecedented deportation threats have on students and their learning.
More support for SB 48 from educators:
“As educators, we work hard to build a sense of safety in our schools because we know students can’t do their best learning when they fear for their own personal wellbeing,” said Jeffery Freitas, President of CFT—A Union of Educators and Classified Professionals, AFT, AFT-CIO. “SB 48 will ensure that students, regardless of their backgrounds, are safe at school and able to access the quality education they deserve.”
“SB 48 is more than legislation, it’s a declaration that every student deserves to be seen, valued, and protected in their educational journey,” said Dr. Alma Castro, President of the Los Angeles County School Trustees Association and Board Member of Lynwood Unified School District. “By affirming student safety, security and dignity in our schools, we are shaping a future where all children can thrive without fear and with a sense of full belonging, regardless of immigrant status.”
SB 48 will now move on to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
SACRAMENTO — Sen. Thomas J. Umberg, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement today in response to Federal Bureau of Investigations Director Kash Patel’s announcement on X this morning that a Wisconsin Judge had been arrested:
“It is a sad day for democracy and the rule of law. Public safety is also deeply undermined when our courthouses become inhospitable, unwelcoming, and dangerous for vulnerable witnesses and parties.
The Trump administration has been threatening the independence of the judicial branch in an effort to consolidate power. The arrest of a state court judge is an escalation of his destruction of our fundamental structure of checks and balances and of our state rights and federalist system. As James Madison wrote in the Federalist papers: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Patel claimed in his post that Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan had been arrested for obstruction of justice for allegedly assisting an immigrant in avoiding arrest after he appeared in her courtroom this week. This is a developing story.
The Associated Press reported that FBI agents arrested Dugan April 26. The Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge is accused of escorting the man and his lawyer out of her courtroom through the jury door last week after learning that immigration authorities were seeking his arrest. The man was taken into custody outside the courthouse after agents chased him on foot.
President Donald Trump’s administration has accused state and local officials of interfering with his immigration enforcement priorities. The arrest also comes amid a growing battle between the administration and the federal judiciary over the president’s executive actions over deportations and other matters.
Protesters chanted and marched outside the FBI after Dugan’s arrest, chanted “Immigrants are here to stay” and held up signs saying, “Liberty and Justice for All” outside the FBI’s Milwaukee division.
Dugan was taken into custody by the FBI the morning of April 26. She appeared briefly in federal court in Milwaukee later that day before being released from custody. She faces charges of “concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest” and obstructing or impeding a proceeding.
The families of Lebanese civilians killed with American “bunker busters” want to hold both Israel and theU.S.accountable
Human Rights Watch, on Wednesday (April 23), accused the Israeli military of launching indiscriminate attacks on civilians in Lebanon. The organization claims there is mounting evidence that Israel repeatedly violated international law in 2023 and 2024. “More and more evidence is emerging that Israeli forces repeatedly failed to protect civilians or adequately distinguish civilians from military targets during its strikes across Lebanon in 2023 and 2024,” said Ramzi Kaiss, a researcher at Human Rights Watch on events in Lebanon.
The group called on all countries — including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany — to suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel.
Our colleagues at Al Jazeera’s award-winning documentary news program Fault Lines investigated several Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon that killed civilians with U.S.-made munitions. Today, they have released a powerful short film uncovering evidence of unlawful killings by Israel in Lebanon and revealing the central role of US-made weapons in the attacks. The film’s correspondent Hind Hassan also filed the story you are about to read for Drop Site. We encourage all of our readers to watch the film, Made in America, and spread the word about this investigation.
—Sharif Abdel Kouddous
Story by Hind Hassan
Mohammad Haidar, 21, says his parents, Fatima Fekiyeh and Abbas Haidar, spent twenty years trying to have a child before he was born. Five years later, they had his sister, Hasnah, who completed their small family. They lived in southern Lebanon, in a house near the village of Seksekiyeh. Fatima and Abbas marked forty years of marriage last year in the village, where, Mohammad says, their life was idyllic, only sharing the land with horses and chickens.
Everything has been upended by Israeli bombardment.
Hezbollah began firing rockets and artillery at Israeli military posts one day after Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza in October 2023. Israel bombed Lebanon, mostly in the south, with the low-level cross border attacks continuing for nearly a year. In September, Israel escalated the conflict into an all-out war. Bombs began raining down on large parts of Lebanon, including the south, causing widespread devastation and leaving entire towns in ruins. In total, more than 4,000 Lebanese people were killed and 1.2 million displaced.
Mohammad said his family planned to flee to Beirut on September 23. That same day, Israel launched one of the most intense aerial bombardment campaigns in recent warfare. The family never made it to the capital.
Mohammed recounted his attempts to flee from this ongoing bombardment to Al Jazeera English’s documentary program Fault Lines. “My father went to pick up our relatives so we can all leave for Beirut,” he said. “We wanted to escape the planes. I went to the third floor, and I had just finished eating. I was just about to get up when suddenly I saw the entire house collapsing.” He continued, “it was like a rainstorm, but the color was gray. As soon as I hit the ground, I was gone. I was unconscious. At first I had no idea what happened. I didn’t think it was a missile or anything like that. But, then, I woke up, I started to scream, tried to move. I realized I could not get up.”
Mohammad was trapped underground for seven hours. “Death is easier than being stuck under rubble,” he recalled, “you can’t breathe, you can’t move, all of the stones are on top of you.” As people arrived to help, he could hear his father’s voice through the chaos, alongside the relentless sound of bombs falling nearby. “My father was asking me if my mother and sister were next to me. I said I didn’t know, and then I was unconscious. I was coming in and out of consciousness because I was having a hard time breathing.”
When Mohammad was finally pulled from the wreckage, emergency workers rushed him to a hospital. Initially, news of his mother and sister’s fate was kept from him. He learned the next day that both had been killed, after seeing a memorial photo of his 15-year-old sister, Hasnah, posted online. Her body had been found three hours after the initial strike, but his mother’s body has never been recovered. “My mother, may God rest her soul, she’s still inside the stones,” he said, “we haven’t found her. Not even a single part of her. Maybe the missile fell on her and she evaporated. No one knows.” For months, Mohammad documented the ongoing search for her body in videos he posted on TikTok.
He says it’s taken a toll on his father, who remains trapped in a constant state of shock. “He cannot accept what happened. Every single day he comes to search,” Mohammed told Fault Lines, “when he reaches here, he starts to cry. His home, his sweat and tears, his family — it’s all gone.”
Evidence for War Crimes
No one has explained to Mohammad or his father why his home was bombed. The Israeli military has repeatedly claimed, on social media and in public statements, that it targets Hezbollah facilities and fighters, but it has not commented on this specific attack. Mohammad says his family are not Hezbollah members or fighters, and there’s no evidence to suggest otherwise.
“As you can see, it’s a normal house. We have nothing to do with anyone; we’re living alone here. They convey to the media that these are Hezbollah targets. But in reality, that’s not true.”
Only the frame of Mohammad’s house remains—lying in ruin among rocks, stones, and twisted metal—and stands alone in the center of their once-gated land. The destruction of the civilian home did not unveil any tunnels, reveal any weapon storage facilities, or unearth any militant activity.
Among the debris, Fault Lines found shrapnel and large metal casings, which were photographed and sent to forensic investigators at Airwars, a watchdog tracking civilian harm in conflict-affected nations. They partnered with Armament Research Services to analyze the munitions.
Emily Tripp, Airwars’s director, says the footage showed evidence of a JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) kit: “it’s a piece of material that attaches onto a specific munition and allows it to hit a very particular coordinate. So from that, we know that there must have been coordinates essentially plugged into the targeting system in order for that bomb to have been dropped.”
JDAMs are American-made, as are most of the bombs attached to them. U.S.-manufactured weapons used by Israel in Lebanon have killed many civilians, including Mohammad’s mother and sister. Airwars identified the weapon that struck Mohammed’s house as a BLU-109, a 2,000 pound bomb in a category known as “bunker busters.” These bombs can penetrate hardened structures—including concrete, steel, and rock—before detonating, and they have been used by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq, and by Israel in Gaza—with devastating consequences.
The BLU-109 is considered a “dumb bomb,” meaning it cannot navigate once released, but when paired with a JDAM, it becomes a “precision-guided munition,” capable of adjusting course mid-flight using GPS coordinates to hit a specific location. This suggests that Mohammad’s home was intentionally targeted.
Tripp adds: “We have found no evidence, based on our review of the online information environment, around connections between this family and Hezbollah. This is a typical situation in that a military will make a decision, drop a bomb, and assume that nobody will say anything afterwards.”
We shared our findings and evidence with Dearbhla Minogue, a senior lawyer at the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), an independent organization whose work includes pursuing cases involving serious human rights violations. Minogue confirmed that, based on the available evidence and without an explanation from Israel, the attack could constitute a war crime.
Mohammad’s story is just one of many in a war that has resulted in widespread civilian casualties, often caused by U.S.-suppliedmunitions.
Fault Lines emailed the Israeli military’s press office to ask why Mohammad Haidar’s home—a civilian residence—-was struck. They did not respond.
America’s Role
In the United States, the Leahy Law prohibits the U.S. government from providing military assistance to foreign military units credibly accused of gross human rights violations. Human Rights watchdogs, like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have called for Israel to be investigated for war crimes, and accused it of committing genocide during its assault on Gaza. Despite this, Israel continues to receive more U.S. weapons annually than any other country.
For years, massive arms shipments to Israel have received wide bipartisan support in Washington. The Trump administration has approved around $12 billion worth of arms to Israel since January alone, while just months earlier, the Biden administration authorized the export of thousands of JDAMs—like the one found at Mohammad Haidar’s home.
Democratic Senator Mark Kelly has repeatedly spoken in favor of providing these weapons to Israel. Fault Lines spoke to him on his way to a committee meeting in February and asked him about his advocacy for the sale of JDAMs. He explained that: “JDAM is a much more precise weapon, helps you hit the target and to avoid collateral damage.”
However, Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned over U.S. arms transfers to Israel in October 2023, argues that Gaza serves as evidence that Israel has no interest in that type of precision, and he underscored American responsibility: “The reality is that every bomb dropped, every tank that rolls through Gaza, and every missile fired from U.S.-made aircraft carries with it the weight of American policy decisions. And, in many cases, we are complicit in those actions, whether we want to acknowledge it or not.”
In his role, Paul worked on vetting arms sales. He says the process changed when weapons were sold to Israel after October 7th: “Any space for debate, discussion, for remediating possible bad outcomes went away, because the whole process was flipped on its head […] it wasn’t, we are not going to be asking you for your approval. It was, ‘you must approve this’, and there were deadlines.”
The bombs were approved and widely used: the type of 2,000-pound bomb that destroyed Mohammad Haidar’s home was also reportedly dropped on Lebanon’s capital Beirut—just days later.
Celebrated by Leaders, The Strike That Killed a Family
At around 6 p.m., on September 27, 2024, Amira Zaydan stood on her balcony in Beirut when she saw smoke rising in the distance. The smoke was drifting from the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, where her mother, father, and brother lived in an apartment. Turning to her husband she said, “I think my family is dead.”
A series of “bunker buster” bombs had been dropped by the Israeli military on the Haret Hreik municipality. Israel later claimed it had struck Hezbollah’s “central headquarters,” allegedly located “under residential buildings.” The strike killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and was celebrated by then-U.S. President Joe Biden, who called it “a measure of justice.”
But this was the same attack that killed Amira’s family.
She rushed to the site of the bombing. “When I got there after the strikes, I was just screaming because the site was catastrophic. The Red Cross wanted to take me to the hospital because I fell to the ground a few times.”
Emergency crews, overwhelmed by the scale of the destruction left by the 2,000-pound American-made bombs, could not locate her family. That night, Amira returned to the site, and she found her uncle holding a flashlight, digging with his bare hands and calling out her father’s name. It took five days for their bodies to be recovered.
Her brother, 22-year-old Mohammad Zaydan, was found first. “They asked me if I wanted to identify the body, and I agreed. I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to see. I entered the room, and as soon as they opened the bag he was in, I glanced quickly and started to scream. I didn’t want to see if it was him or not. My uncle came and started to rub [my brother’s] head, but then his skin came off. At first, I said it wasn’t my brother. I didn’t want to accept that this was him.”
“We tried to lift his eyelids to see if it was him, but we didn’t find any eyeballs. His eyes had exploded.”
The next day, emergency workers found her father, Wissam Zaydan, and then her mother, Mona Al Shaker. “My uncle told the rescue workers to work delicately. Once they recovered the couch, they found my mother sitting on it. When they tried to move her, the top of her head fell off, it had melted.”
Her tone is fast and detached, Amira recounted the details as though they belong to someone else, until she broke down when recalling her final exchange with her mother. “That morning I sent her a message telling her to forgive me if anything happened to me. She said don’t speak like this. I swear, I felt like something was going to happen. I told her I wanted to go over there.”
She added: “Israel did this. They say that they had warned us, but they didn’t. They didn’t warn us about that initial strike on September 27.”
Amira says there were other families living in the building who also died. The total number of civilians killed remains unclear, but Fault Lines has verified that at least seven civilians were killed in the same attack.
Absence of Accountability
Despite the immense loss and grief, Amira is not expecting justice.
“We say God-willing whoever did that to our parents and other people will feel this pain and more. If he’s [Joe Biden] saying that we achieved justice by assassinating Hassan Nasrallah — what justice could they have achieved by killing civilians? He killed innocent and oppressed people, like my family.”
Both Israel and the U.S. are not parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Additionally, the U.S. holds veto power at the United Nations Security Council, and Israel does not cooperate fully with international bodies. As a result, Amira and Mohammad are unlikely to bring accountability to fruition through international mechanisms.
Mohammad Haidar is also not expecting answers, but he does have a message for the U.S. government.
“The weapons being sent to Israel are killing innocent people as you have seen. Boys, girls — they’re killing everything. Elderly people, animals. They’re uprooting the trees. This isn’t right. They should not be selling them any weapons, or give them anything else.”
On April 23, the union representing hospitality workers in California and Arizona, Unite HERE Local 11, announced that it and ASM Global had ratified a new contract for the Long Beach Convention Center and its workers over the weekend. ASM Global has also agreed to hire the workers from 1Fifty1 and reduce its reliance on subcontracted workers.
This came after ASM Global cut ties with 1Fifty1, which is currently under investigation for alleged wage theft and skirting income tax law by the California Labor Commissioner..
“It covers a lot of people’s needs, especially with what’s going on, with everything rising in cost,” Andrea Romero, a lead cook at the Long Beach Convention Center, told Random Lengths News. The new agreement includes a $12 raise over the next 3 years, $5 in the first year, $2 in the second, and $5 in the last year.
The contract includes family health insurance, an additional 400% added to pension plans, along with an extension of the agreement to the in-development Long Beach Amphitheater or the Long Beach Bowl, which ASM Global was charged with running a little while ago by the city council.
“We were worried it would be longer, that we would have to go on for longer. If we did, we would’ve had to get second jobs,” Romero said. The union moved to strike and boycott the center earlier in the year, urging various event organizers and visitors to choose other places to either host or visit. Negotiations began last year in September. The new contract will end in January of 2028, right before Los Angeles hosts the Olympics.
One of the largest sticking points in the contract was regarding the pay and hours of the subcontracted workers, the workers under the temporary agencies ASM Global works with to fill the holes in its labor force. As a part of the contract, ASM Global must move towards reducing subcontracted workers.
“We want to make it rare, instead of common as it is now, there are reduction goals that they have to meet … they have to reduce it by 80%,” UniteHere Local 11 Co-President Kurt Peterson told Random Lengths News.
As a part of the agreement, ASM Global has also agreed to hire the workers who were affected by 1Fifty1 management, and according to their press release, ASM Global has hired over 20 workers and has made offers to the others as well.
Additionally, the contract stipulates more protections for these workers against exploitation in the workplace, and those who were recently hired by ASM Global gained an 80% increase in wages.
While under 1Fifity1, they had a cap of about 960 hours per year, excluding them from benefits for full-time employees.
The union pushed for them to be included under Measure RW, which was originally meant to raise the wages of Long Beach’s hospitality workers to about $28 an hour by 2028, just in time for the Olympics.
However, when the Long Beach City Council voted on expanding the ordinance to the workers for the Long Beach Airport and Convention Center, they moved to not include the subcontracted workers from the temporary work agencies that ASM Global contracts with, citing the cost and impact to businesses.
Long Beach itself will be hosting about 11 Olympic games, priming the union and operator for another round of heated negotiations before the international event, as Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson is pushing Long Beach as a major waterfront venue for the games.
“I mean we got a lot with our contract, they expire before the Olympics and workers will be ready to do what they have to do,” Maria Hernendez told Random Lengths News when asked about the future negotiations.
“We have over 100 contracts for hotels, airports and food service that expire before the Olympics.
Members believe if we don’t get what we need, the Olympics, to benefit working people, we would be willing to strike,” Peterson said.
Native Blooms Receives Public Unveiling at at Angels Gate Cultural Center
Angels Gate Cultural Center or AGCC, in partnership with Mer Young and local youth, announces the public unveiling of a new mural, Native Blooms on May 3, at Angels Gate Cultural Center. The completion of this large-scale artwork marks the conclusion of the Spring 2025 AGCC Teen Mural Club or TMC, a ten-week professional development workshop for San Pedro students ages 13-20 years old.
Native Blooms is the culmination of the center’s third Teen Mural Club cohort, which included ten weeks of professional training, planning, and painting by San Pedro based students under the mentorship of Indigenous multidisciplinary artist, Mer Young (Chichimeca & Apache). The participants represented students from San Pedro High School’s Olguin and Flagship Campuses, Port of Los Angeles High School, Harbor College and homeschooling.
The final piece is an impactful vision of California Native plants thriving at Angels Gate Cultural Center, in San Pedro, and across the greater ecosystem. Under the mentorship of Mer Young, TMC students carefully observed and researched the native plants in their environment and selected one to adapt into the mural. The result, Native Blooms, is a colorful collage focusing on native species the young artists selected to bloom on AGCC’s campus.
Angels Gate Cultural Center invites the public to celebrate the power of education, community, and the native ecosystem as it presents the completed mural, for the first time, to the public. Join AGCC for the unveiling of Native Blooms created by the Teen Mural Club, under the guidance of Artist Mer Young, May 3. The unveiling will take place on the lawn, in between Buildings A and B, at Angels Gate Cultural Center.
Native Blooms will remain on display for the public during park hours daily, in perpetuity, at Angels Gate Cultural Center on Building B, overlooking the Lawn.
City Controller Kenneth Mejia has broken down Mayor Karen Bass’ proposed city budget to empower the LA community with knowledge. Random Lengths is sharing this resource to help you take action. Now is the time to get involved — review the budget, make your voice heard, and help shape the future of our city. The controller’s office urges you to speak up by sharing your feedback with the mayor and your city council. You’ll find links within each section to make it easy to participate.
The Mayor just released her proposed budget for the City for the next fiscal year.
The proposed budget is not the final budget.
The city council can still amend the mayor’s proposed budget.
Then, the city council will vote to approve or reject the budget by June 1.
The new fiscal year, FY2025-2026, starts this July 1.
The Mayor’s Proposed Budget includes laying off 1,647 City workers
The mayor’s Proposed Budget includes laying off 1,647 city workers and eliminating 1,074 vacant positions (which departments have been trying to fill).
1,074 vacant position eliminations: $100M in direct savings
Top Department Layoffs:
LAPD-Civilians: 403
Transportation: 262
Sanitation: 159
Street Services: 130
Planning: 114
General Services: 110
Engineering: 83
Personnel: 72
Animal Services: 62
Information Technology Agency: 54
Contract Administration: 31
Zoo: 31
Building & Safety: 23
Cultural Affairs: 14
Board of Public Works: 14
City Clerk: 12
Community Investment for Families: 12
The Mayor’s Proposed $13.95 Billion Total Budget
Click on the link above to zoom in for a closer look at how the proposed budget divides the city’s total $13.95B budget among city departments.
The $13.95B total budget includes both restricted (have to be spent on certain things like salaries and pensions) and unrestricted, or discretionary, funds (there is some flexibility in how this money is spent).
The Mayor’s Proposed $6.45 Billion Discretionary Budget
The Mayor’s Proposed salary budget increases/decreases — by Department
About 90% of department operating budgets is related to payroll (e.g., employee salaries + overtime).
Some departments with an increased budget for salaries/payroll may still get a net decrease in number of positions, due to higher wages for existing employees next fiscal year.
The Fire Department will get a net increase, adding 227 positions.
The Housing Department will get a net increase, adding 74 positions.
For more information
Visit the controllers FY2026 Budget site by clicking the button below.
This site will continuously update.
Get information on:
Which city positions are being proposed for layoffs/elimination
