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house judiciary committee
House Dems Launch Probe Into ‘Violent’ ICE Raid of Chicago Apartment Complex
“Treating a US city like a war zone is intolerable. We urge you to end such violent, middle-of-the-night operations that traumatize entire communities and put innocent men, women and children, including US citizens, at risk.”
Oct 08, 2025
Democrats on the House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees on Tuesday announced they were launching a probe into a widely condemned raid by federal immigration officials on a Chicago apartment complex last week.
Led by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the Democrats said that they are demanding answers from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pamela Bondi about why it was necessary to deploy the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to conduct a raid reportedly without warrants that left local residents terrified.
"According to media reports, armed federal agents in military fatigues approached or entered nearly every apartment in the five-story, 130-unit apartment building, using flash-bang grenades, busting down doors, and pulling men, women, and children from their beds," the Democrats wrote in a letter to Noem and Bondi. "Agents put residents in zip ties and led them to unmarked vans to wait for hours while handcuffed, with children separated from their parents."
The Democrats also cited reports about "US citizens and military veterans" being "dragged out of their apartments in zip ties and detained for hours" with no explanation. They noted that residents had reported significant property damage after the raid, including doors that were blown off their hinges and holes that were left in their walls.
They also accused the federal government of waging a "violent, heavy-handed immigration enforcement operation" that left an entire community in trauma.
"Treating a US city like a war zone is intolerable," they emphasized. "We urge you to end such violent, middle-of-the-night operations that traumatize entire communities and put innocent men, women and children, including US citizens, at risk."
The Democrats' investigation into the raid comes as President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning pushed for jailing both Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Trump on Tuesday also deployed Texas National Guard troops to Chicago, over the objections of both Pritzker and Johnson.
The human rights group Amnesty International USA said Tuesday that in addition to "a full independent investigation into the unlawful raid," Congress "must immediately stop funding ICE and hold ICE and other federal agencies accountable for their lawlessness and abuses."
“The government has an obligation to uphold the rule of law and ensure that nobody is above the law,” said Paul O’Brien, the group's executive director. “These raids are an attack on human rights and a threat to everybody in the U.S. Federal officials who committed human rights violations during the raids, including those with command responsibility, must be held accountable.”
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Raskin Slams Trump DOJ Threat to Prosecute Local Officials Over Immigration Enforcement
"It's laughable that the party that once prided themselves on being champions of state and local government are now trampling state and local authority," said Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).
Jan 23, 2025
The top Democrat on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee issued a statement Thursday condemning the Trump administration's threat that state and local officials could be criminally prosecuted for refusing to cooperate with the president's planned immigration crackdown, which is already drawing legal action and vows of opposition from advocacy groups and communities across the country.
"This policy will lead to chaos, division, and protracted litigation that will unnecessarily cost both state and federal taxpayers huge amounts of money that could be used to keep America safe," wrote Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who also argued that the "federal government doesn't own the states."
Raskin's comments were in response to a Tuesday memo from Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to Justice Department employees that was obtained by The Washington Post.
"Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands," wrote Bove, who stated that the supremacy clause of the Constitution and other legal authorities "require state and local actors to comply with the executive branch's immigration enforcement initiatives."
The memo also makes mention of a "Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group" which will identify state and local policies and laws that are inconsistent with White House immigration initiatives.
On Monday, his first day in office, Trump announced sweeping changes to U.S. immigration enforcement via executive actions, including attempting to end birthright citizenship, reinstating his "Remain in Mexico" policy, suspending refugee resettlement, and moving to restrict federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities.
In response to the memo, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said that the move is a "scare tactic," according to The Los Angeles Times. Bonta said that his team is reviewing the memo and will be "prepared to take legal action if the Trump administration's vague threats turn to illegal action."
Raskin challenged the memo for its "failure to cite any authority for this proposition."
"The Constitution and Supreme Court precedents make clear that the 10th Amendment and constitutional federalism protect state and local government and their officials from being 'commandeered' by the federal government as instrumentalities to carry out its policies," he wrote.
"It's laughable that the party that once prided themselves on being champions of state and local government are now trampling state and local authority by commandeering state and local governments to serve a federal agenda," he added.
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Morgan Stanley Latest Wall Street Giant to Ditch Net-Zero Coalition
Earlier this week, Bank of America and Citigroup also said they were leaving the Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
Jan 02, 2025
On Thursday, the Wall Street titan Morgan Stanley became the latest financial institution to leave the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a United Nations-convened group of banks committed to "aligning their lending, investment, and capital markets activities with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050."
The defections keep piling up. Earlier this week, Bank of America and Citigroup said they were leaving the alliance, and earlier in December Goldman Sachs Group and Wells Fargo announced they were doing the same.
“We will continue to report on our progress as we work towards our 2030 interim financed-emissions targets,” Morgan Stanley told Bloomberg in an email.
While Morgan Stanley didn't offer an explanation for the exit, according to Reuters, financial firms have repeatedly found themselves in the crosshairs of some members of the GOP who argue that corporate efforts to limit fossil fuels run afoul of antitrust law.
Last summer, the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee published a report accusing financial institutions colluding to impose "radical environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals on American companies." Their probe was largely focused on another climate group, Climate Action 100+, which is made up of financial institutions who strive to engage companies they invest in on climate issues. That coalition has also experienced a number of defections.
In December, 11 GOP-led states sued three asset managers in federal court, arguing that the firms had "artificially constrained the supply of coal, significantly diminished competition in the markets for coal, increased energy prices for American consumers, and produced cartel-level profits" for the firms in violation of antitrust law.
Despite the stated goals of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, Morgan Stanley and other firms who are a part of the alliance have remained a major financial life lines for fossil fuel companies.
According to a report published by a group of NGOs in 2023, 56 of the largest banks in the Net-Zero Banking Alliance—including Morgan Stanley—have provided nearly $270 billion in the form of loans and underwriting to more than 100 "major fossil fuel expanders," from Saudi Aramco to ExxonMobil to Shell.
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