ICE expands power of agents to arrest people without warrants
nytimes.comA reminder to everyone that a lot of federal politicians do some form of community outreach.
Heres coffee with senator slotkin or coffee with senator peters for michiganders who want to schlep to washington or happen to be there
Theres people are not as inaccessible as you would think so if you want to give them a piece of your mind do it in person.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=SenGaryPeters&set...
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=14534019961714...
They will keep expanding their powers until they are stopped. We need to find the best way to stop them. Economic boycott? Not sure protest works, other than giving them excuses for violence.
It's not too late for a political solution. If Congress stopped abdicating it's constitutional duty all these problems could be solved quickly. If you're in the US, visit your representatives offices IN PERSON, calling is a distant second best.
Every senator and rep has to be replaced. They’ve funded DHS / ICE with more money at every opportunity since they created it.
That's extreme and unreasonable. There are 100 or so mostly D that don't take any PAC or foreign influence bribes.
In a hilarious turn of events the senate has passed a funding bill with the DHS bill separated out since this comment.
I don’t know if this means zero DHS funding until the piecemeal bill passes or something less dramatic but I fully expect they will break all previous records for funding DHS shortly after.
US senators request for visit forms are just for show if you're not "important". That said maybe just requesting an in person visit is enough. I would definitely not recommend just showing up at a US senator's public office building (and you probably didn't mean this, just making it clear for everyone).
> If you're in the US, visit your representatives offices IN PERSON,
What does this do?
The political solution is 30 year term limits for Senate and House (5 terms and 15 terms respectively). The current system lack of term limits incentivizes inaction
Term limits for elective office are fake, nonworking solution to problems caused by a broken electoral system; the solution is to fix the electoral system, not to impose term limits (which solve nothing.)
> the solution is to fix the electoral system
Any suggestions? Term limits might well be the least-bad of the feasible alternatives.
Term limits make the problem worse; the main fix is to abandon strict single-member-district first-past-the-post for a more proportional system for legislative elections (for Presidential elections the problem is harder, both because there is no good, easy fix for an inherently single-winner election and because almost any meaningful change will require a Constitutional amendment which is quite difficult even if you can nail down what to do.)
For the House, using a multimember ranked ballots system like Single Transferrable Vote in districts capped at a size of 5 members in states with more than one rep would work tolerably well (especially if combined with increasing the total number of seats beyond the currently-legislated fixed 435.) This does all of support more parties, reduce or eliminate [depending on the exact method chosen] spoiler effects for voting first choice for parties that don't win seats reducing the need for tactical voting, reduce incumbent protection without removing voter choice [because parties are encouraged to run more candidates than they are likely to win], and produce a body that better represents the preferences of the electorate.
The Senate is more complicated because of the 1/3 per class rule, but it can be made slightly better (in order from smallest to largest changes), by:
1. Adopting a single-winner ranked choice method instead of first-past-the-post for Senate elections.
2. Increasing the size of the Senate to three seats per state (electing one Senator from each stare in each of the three two-year classes), combined with #1.
3. Increase the size of the Senate to six (2/state/class) or nine (3/state/class), using a ranked ballots multiwinner proportional system like STV for elections. (3/state/class keeps the majority a significant threshold.
Because of the Constitutional manner of apportioning electors, increasing the size of the House makes Presidential election voting power more equal by population while increasing the size of the Senate makes it less; for this reason, if doing the fixes for Congress discussed above, I would favor not increasing the size of the Senate by a greater multiple than thet of the house, so three per state in the Senate would go with at least a 50% increase in the size of the House, 2/state/class would go with at least tripling the House, 3/class/state would go with at least a 4.5× on the size of the House.
All are very-sound ideas. Regrettably, they'd be tough to explain to the voters — and the vested interests would oppose fiercely.
A good start might be to just triple the size of the House to approximately match the Repr.-to-population ratio when the present 435 number was legislated.
This seems too long? Why not 2 and 3 terms? 12 years aught to be enough for anyone.
And sadly
The courts could also use term limits.
Also the cap on members of the house should be removed.
Also the electoral college should be removed or reworked.
... the list of impossible* things goes on.
2nd amendment is literally there to allow states a lady resort to defend themselves against federal overreach.
I know calling attention to typos is verboten here, but this one is a delightfully evocative contrast with the intended message.
except when Obama’s DOJ (successfully) sued Arizona to stop it from enforcing the border.
Not just the power to arrest people. The power to break into citizens residences and use force. All done with just a permission slip they give themselves. No judicial warrant involved. No oversight. It is not overstating it to to say this is unprecedented violation of constitutional rights within the lifetimes of everyone currently alive (WWII internment camp survivors excepted).
This is being done right now and has been done for weeks. It continues to be done at the same rate as a week ago.
> The power to break into citizens residences
It was already ruled unconstitutional about 2 weeks ago:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26503916-ice-mn-garr...
If you think the courts are going to keep letting it happen anyway without any consequences... have some faith. Justice moves slowly but hope is not lost.
I hope you are right, but the administration does not tend to follow court orders. They break the law and then use every legal mechanism at their disposal to slow walk cases through the system. And then, as I say, they do not follow rulings except under the most extreme pressure.
Thanks for posting that link, but after reading it, I'm not nearly as hopeful as you are:
> Also on January 12, 2026, the Court ordered Respondents to respond to the Petition by January 15, 2026 at 11:00 a.m., certifying the true cause and proper duration of Petitioner’s confinement and showing cause as to why the writ should not be granted in this case. Respondents entered an appearance that day but have not filed any response to the Petition.
The government didn't even bother responding to the habeas petition because they knew what they were doing was unconstitutional, but it still successfully sows fear.
Worse, ICE detained the man again less than 24 hours after he was released on the judge's orders and called it a "mistake": https://youtu.be/jmoF63Msk0Y
I know who the domestic terrorists are, and it sure as hell isn't Renee Good or Alex Pretti.
I have about as much faith in the courts ability to actually walk any of this back as I do in their ability to return the families they have kidnapped from my community.
Sorry if I'm skeptical.
Sadly paywalled and [dead] on HN, still:
The Department of Justice Ignores Court Orders Because It Knows It Can https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46832063
https://www.americanmuckrakers.com/p/the-department-of-justi...
points out a current trend.
I'll relax when it gets through SCOTUS (who has overturned nearly 90% of lower conservative court rulings to be in Trump's favor) and not a moment before.
I’ll relax when the state courts get jurisdiction over rogue federal employees.
I'm waiting for the bingo card-filling 3a violations when they can't stay at a Hilton.
It continues to be done at the same rate as a week ago.
Except in Maine, where GOP Senator Susan Collins is up for re-election, so Trump ended ICE operation Catch-of-the-Day there and let her take credit.
https://www.pressherald.com/2026/01/29/how-donald-trump-hand...
It does not seem far-fetched the the plan would be to arrest anyone who looked vaguely non-white before they reach any swing-state polls in November. Just say it's to preserve the integrity of the vote. Just the threat of arrest would be enough to suppress it.
Install fear. Put up obstacles to vote.
Great way to lower turnout in specific areas.
Historically, this has backfired in the US because we have low turnout elections.
The people whose votes are being blocked get pissed and get off the couch on election day.
The groups that would normally support the side that’s loudly suppressing the vote lose enthusiasm, and are less likely to bother voting.
Hopefully, we’ll see the biggest example of this effect in recent memory this November.
I hope so.
Instill* Fear is already installed as a byproduct of the regime.
I think this would be too heavy handed. Depending on how the supreme court case goes if it's ruled that mail in ballots cannot be counted after election day, then I think it would be trivial to quietly setup a scheme where mail from reliably blue postal codes is rerouted and delayed just enough to swing the outcomes. There are quite a few states that have mail in voting. That and intimidating "poll watchers" is probably enough.
I thought Homan stood up and said they we're going to dial it back after yoinking Bovino.
The mainstream media uncritically makes Homan's claims of de-escalation their entire headlines [1], while conveniently forgetting his thinly veiled threats over the past year [2].
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/30/tom-homan-to-minneapolis...
[2] https://bsky.app/profile/radleybalko.bsky.social/post/3mdl4b...
Mainstream media has uncritically reported anything Trump or his surrogates have said for years. That kind and length of credulity calls into question their objectivity, and disposes of any previous doubts about "liberal bias".
Have you ever watched an interview with Tom Homan? Man is single-minded and highly motivated. Like leashing the dog, and letting loose a wolf.
That's why Obama gave him a medal. Homan is great at what he does. Too bad for the selective outrage over this. He was doing his job non-politically in the background for years until TDS brain rot made the left so easily manipulated into hysteria.
he's a steamroller. and he said they would "do it by the book" or something along those lines. "dial it back" is probably coming from media.
"Hacker news" btw