ICE’s Use of Full-Body Restraints During Deportations Raises Concerns Over Inhumane Treatment
The AP identified multiple examples of ICE using the black-and-yellow full-body restraint device, the WRAP, in deportations. Its use was described to the AP by five people who said they were restrained in the device, sometimes for hours, on ICE deportation flights dating to 2020. And witnesses and family members in four countries told the AP about its use on at least seven other people this year. The AP found ICE has used the device despite internal concerns voiced in a 2023 report by the civil rights division of its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in part due to reports of deaths involving use of the WRAP by local law enforcement. And the AP has identified a dozen fatal cases in the last decade where local police or jailers around the U.S. used the WRAP and autopsies determined “restraint” played a role in the death.
Trump’s Unlikely ICE Detention Giant Is an Alaska Native Company
Nana Regional Corp. is supposed to uphold Iñupiat values. Some shareholders say its role in the president’s deportation machinery makes a mockery of that. Through several presidential administrations, the company has turned itself into a large government contractor, with its biggest revenue generator run out of an office park in a suburb of Washington, DC. Nana’s largest contracts, worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, are with the Department of Defense. But over the past decade, one of its fastest-growing lines of government business is with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Warships, Fighter Jets and the CIA – What is Trump’s Endgame in Venezuela?
For two months, the US military has been building up a force of warships, fighter jets, bombers, marines, drones and spy planes in the Caribbean Sea. It is the largest deployment there for decades. Long-range bomber planes, B-52s, have carried out “bomber attack demonstrations” off the coast of Venezuela. Trump has authorised the deployment of the CIA to Venezuela and the world’s largest aircraft carrier is being sent to the region. The US says it has killed dozens of people in strikes on small vessels from Venezuela which it alleges carry “narcotics” and “narco-terrorists”, without providing evidence or details about those on board. The strikes have drawn condemnation in the region and experts have questioned their legality. They are being sold by the US as a war on drug trafficking but all the signs suggest this is really an intimidation campaign that seeks to remove Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro from power.
Protests in Tanzania Spread After a Disputed Election, With the Military on the Streets
Hundreds of protesters took to the streets for a second day of demonstrations in Tanzania on Thursday after a disputed election, while Amnesty International reported that two people have died. After the protests broke out on Wednesday, the government shut down the internet, imposed a curfew and deployed the military to the streets. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi or CCM party, which has been in power since independence in 1961, sought to extend its rule in Wednesday’s election, with presidential candidates from the two main opposition parties barred from running.