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immigration
Ilhan Omar’s Office Slams Trump Deportation Plot as ‘Authoritarian Move to Silence an Opponent’
"To Trump, no American value or principle is too important to be shredded for his own personal gain."
Oct 15, 2026
The office of Rep. Ilhan Omar slammed the Trump administration on Thursday over its reported plot to have the Minnesota Democrat stripped of her US citizenship.
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the raid on Omar's home carried out earlier this week by Department of Homeland Security agents was part of and effort to build "a case to strip her of her US citizenship and ultimately deport her."
"The multipronged effort is focused at least in part on how Omar obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the US from Somalia decades ago," the Journal explained. "Investigators are focused both on the congresswoman and actions of her deceased father."
Omar spokesperson Jackie Rogers responded to the report by accusing President Donald Trump of engaging in "desperate attempt to justify his extraordinary abuse of power."
"This is politically motivated and an escalation of Trump’s personal vendetta against her lasting over a decade," Rogers told HuffPost. "He has lied about her family, about her immigration history, and about her love of this country."
Rogers also accused Trump of acting like a dictator by singling out a member of the opposition party for punishment.
"This isn’t a legitimate law enforcement action," said Rogers, "it is an authoritarian move to silence an opponent right before an election where he and his party will be rejected by Americans in historic proportions... To Trump, no American value or principle is too important to be shredded for his own personal gain."
Author John Ganz on Thursday published an analysis of the reported Omar deportation plot, which he said is "undoubtedly driven by racial and religious animus" and also "a serious assault on the constitutional order being carried out through the executive branch’s legal and bureaucratic machinery."
Ganz argued that a serious attempt to strip Omar of her citizenship and remove her from the country would be a major escalation from the Trump administration toward establishing an outright totalitarian state.
"Authoritarian governments suppress political opposition and deprive their subjects of particular rights," Ganz explained. "Totalitarian movements aspire to something much more radical: the destruction of the independent political and juridical personhood. They attack not merely the liberties of particular citizens they seek to repress, but the concept of citizenship itself—and then, ultimately, the concept of shared humanity."
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How Racist Legislation From 30 Years Ago Laid the Foundation for Trump’s ICE Terror
The Ilegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 cast the very act of immigrating to the United States as potentially criminal, creating the concept of “criminal alienhood.
Oct 15, 2026
Under President Donald Trump, immigration enforcement agencies have launched a massive campaign of terror against immigrant families with raids, detentions, and deportations unequaled in recent history.
The effects of the president’s assault on immigrants is plain to see. But many people have forgotten that key parts of the legal infrastructure, and the very language around immigration and criminality to which we have become so accustomed, were built long before his administration.
Key foundations to Trump’s racist anti-immigrant policies were laid 30 years ago when the Clinton administration passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA).
Undoing IIRAIRA and its harmful consequences must be part of a broader plan to undo the tangle of laws that treat immigration as a pre-crime, and to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security and its punitive and militarized tools.
IIRAIRA cast the very act of immigrating to the United States as potentially criminal, creating the concept of “criminal alienhood.” The law vastly expanded the consequences on immigration status for convictions or for committing violations. It also blocked immigration judges in many cases from granting case-by-case protection to very sympathetic immigrants who had unusual circumstances.
Part of President Bill Clinton’s “tough on crime” wave of legislation in the 90s, IIRAIRA allowed immigration enforcement agencies to treat immigrants as criminals and laid the groundwork for the racist anti-immigrant policies we’re seeing today. IIRAIRA also created the 287(g) program, authorizing local police to arrest and detain immigrants on behalf of immigration enforcement agencies—which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has used to terrorize immigrants across the country under the Trump administration.
IIRAIRA greatly increased the list of triggers for immigration penalties, as well as making them more vague. What started out as a focus on the worst offenses ballooned to sweep up lower-level offenses. IIRAIRA made it much harder for immigrants to apply for asylum and established grounds for detaining and deporting many more immigrants—including permanent legal residents. This included a bar on reentry for deported immigrants, and making reentry a criminal offense, which further criminalizes immigrants and which is currently the top charge for immigration prosecutions.
Another harm we can trace back to the passage of IIRAIRA is the legal framework the law created for mass detention without due process. The United States now has the largest immigration detention system in the world in which millions of people have been detained without guaranteed access to legal representation and in often inhumane conditions. As of July 2026, over 65,000 people were being held in ICE detention and—similarly to those already deported—over 70% had no criminal convictions.
Each administration after Clinton expanded the category of offenses for which immigrants could be detained and deported. By the Obama administration more than 20 categories of crimes were grounds for deportation. At the same time, criminal law and immigration law started working in tandem, in a process legal scholars dubbed “crimmigration.”
With the growth of “deportable offenses” came the rise in rhetoric that intertwined immigrants and criminality, despite repeated statistical studies showing lower crime commission rates among immigrants than among the native-born. By the time Trump said in his 2015 presidential campaign launch that Mexican immigrants were “bringing drugs… Bringing crime” and called them “rapists,” the US public had been well primed to associate criminality with immigrants.
In the decades since the passage of IIRAIRA, LatinoJustice PRLDEF and other immigrant rights organizations have repeatedly challenged both the perception of immigrants as criminals, and the laws and practices that have created the criminal charge-to-deportation express pipeline we are experiencing today. We brought our first case challenging 287(g) agreements in 2009, won $112 million last year for immigrants who had been illegally held in jail custody for handover to ICE, and filed our latest of these cases at the start of the current administration in 2025.
Over the past 30 years, IIRAIRA has frayed the fabric of our society by tearing apart families and criminalizing our immigrant neighbors. Undoing IIRAIRA and its harmful consequences must be part of a broader plan to undo the tangle of laws that treat immigration as a pre-crime, and to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security and its punitive and militarized tools. This is the only way we can once and for all have the immigration system we deserve.
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Omar Raid and Investigation Aimed at Deporting Congresswoman, Officials Say
"Stripping the citizenship of opposition elected officials is really, really far down the road to fascism."
Oct 15, 2026
"I have rarely wanted to be wrong more," said one journalist Wednesday night after The Wall Street Journal confirmed what many supporters of US Rep. Ilhan Omar had suspected: that the Department of Homeland Security's raid on her home this week was part of an investigation that is ultimately aimed at deporting her.
The Journal reported that US officials confirmed the Trump administration aims to revoke Omar's (D-Minn.) citizenship, which she obtained in 2000, five years after she arrived in the US with her family from a refugee camp in Kenya. Omar is originally from Somalia, and President Donald Trump has made Somali Americans a key target of his mass deportation agenda and his racist attacks on immigrant communities.
Agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), part of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), seized Omar's passport, cellphone, personal computers, and notebooks, according to the WSJ, when they searched her home in Washington, DC.
Authorities have also issued more than a dozen subpoenas and are seeking testimony from people including Omar's family members before a grand jury.
A Justice Department official told the WSJ that the agency plans to build its case on allegations that Omar lied about her age when she became a citizen.
Federal investigators have been examining whether Omar's father, who died in 2020, altered her age to say she was 17 instead of 18 on immigration paperwork when he applied for citizenship. Doing so would have allowed Omar to acquire citizenship through her father.
The congresswoman, who is currently running for a fifth term, has previously denied committing immigration fraud, which Vice President JD Vance has openly accused her of. Other Republican elected officials have explicitly attacked Omar for her criticism of Israel and for being a Muslim, with Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) calling her a "terrorist."
Trump has suggested the progressive lawmaker should be deported for “always complaining” and has called to "denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility.”
Journalist Peter Sterne said Wednesday evening that "many on the left suspected" the administration was attempting to deport Omar, "but it’s still wild to see the WSJ confirm it."
Dylan Williams of the Center for International Policy emphasized that the raid and investigation—carried out just weeks before the midterm elections and as Americans are already voting, though the Justice Department typically does not take actions against candidates just before an election—are "an attempt by the Trump administration to stir up its flagging base ahead of elections that are going to be brutal for them."
"Nonetheless, we need to fight this fascist, un-American abuse of power, hold those responsible accountable, and stand with Ilhan Omar," said Williams.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, noted that "a case of this magnitude would take years to wend its way through the courts," and said DHS would have to initiate deportation proceedings after Omar was denaturalized.
Still, a number of observers wondered why many prominent Democrats—like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and vocal Trump critic Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) have stayed quiet about the raid on Omar's house.
"Democrats, nice time to do a press conference united in defense of Ilhan Omar and condemning the Islamophobia against Muslim candidates," said commentator Wajahat Ali.
New York state Assembly Member Diana Moreno (D-36) said of the WSJ's reporting, "This is either the breaking point of our democracy or the moment we start fighting like hell to win back this country from the authoritarian demons in the White House. I stand with Ilhan Omar."
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'The Court Must Intervene': Petition Seeks Release of Oscar Belgal, Who Still Has ICE Bullet in His Neck
“Mr. Belgal’s detention was unlawful from its inception."
Oct 14, 2026
Immigrant rights advocates this week demanded the immediate release of Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican father of two held in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody with a bullet lodged in his neck after an ICE agent shot him in front of his young son last week in New York City.
The Legal Aid Society filed an emergency petition Wednesday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York seeking Belgal's release, arguing that his continued detention threatens his health and violates his rights.
Masked ICE officers wearing civilian clothing approached Belgal's vehicle on October 8 with firearms drawn, without identifying themselves or presenting a warrant. An officer shattered the driver's-side window before agents fired at least seven shots, striking Belgal in the neck as his 5-year-old son sat in the back seat.
"Rather than providing immediate medical assistance, ICE officers threw Mr. Belgal to the ground, handcuffed him, and left him bleeding and fading in and out of consciousness," the Legal Aid Society said Wednesday. "[New York Police Department] officers ultimately intervened to secure medical assistance. Doctors advised that Mr. Belgal required surgery to remove the bullet and instructed him to return for treatment during the week of October 12. Instead, ICE transferred him into detention."
Belgal is being held at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center despite suffering a loss of sensation on the left side of his face and impaired hearing in his left ear, according to his attorneys. He has yet to receive surgery to remove the bullet.
“Mr. Belgal’s detention was unlawful from its inception. ICE officers shot him in the neck in front of his 5-year-old son, failed to provide him with immediate medical assistance, and now continue to hold him in a facility notorious for medical neglect,” said Perry McAninch and Elyssa Williams, counsel for Belgal and attorneys with Legal Aid.
“With a bullet still lodged in his neck and his serious medical needs unmet, every additional day in custody puts him at further risk," they added. "The court must intervene and order his immediate release.”
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents have shot more than two dozen people since President Donald Trump’s return to office, including more than half a dozen who died. In multiple cases, federal authorities had made allegations against shooting victims that were later contradicted by evidence.
More than 50 people have also died in ICE custody during Trump’s second term.
Belgal's shooting has fueled fresh calls to abolish ICE from progressives, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). Meanwhile, Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) has introduced legislation aimed at dismantling DHS, which oversees ICE.
The San Diego-based Haitian Bridge Alliance also condemned Belgal's shooting and called for an independent investigation, the release of relevant body camera footage, and accountability for what it called the unlawful uses of force.
“How many more families must be traumatized before we say enough is enough?” Guerline Jozef, the organization's founder and executive director, asked Monday.
“We cannot continue to accept a system where immigration enforcement becomes a license to terrorize communities, endanger children, and take human lives,” she added. “Our humanity is not negotiable. Our dignity is not conditional on immigration status.”
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'Senator Collins Paid for the Bullets,' Troy Jackson Says of ICE Killing in Maine
"I'm not going to stand up for ICE, and I don't think Senator Collins should either," said Democratic US Senate candidate Troy Jackson.
Oct 14, 2026
Democratic US Senate candidate Troy Jackson on Tuesday castigated his Republican opponent, incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, for voting to funnel tens of millions of dollars to Immigration and Customs Enforcement just over a month before one of the agency's officers killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine.
"Senator Collins paid for the bullets at [President] Donald Trump's command. Now she wants credit for not pulling the trigger," Jackson said in his closing remarks at the third debate of the critical US Senate contest. The debate was held three months to the day after ICE agent David Brouillette shot and killed Durán Guerrero—a father and Colombian national who had been authorized to work in the US—during a traffic stop.
Jackson pointed to Collins' June vote in favor of a $70 billion funding package that included nearly $40 billion for ICE, whose agents Trump has unleashed on American cities with deadly consequences. According to a CBS News review, federal immigration agents have killed at least nine people and injured over a dozen more in roughly 30 shootings so far during Trump's second White House term.
Days after the shooting in Biddeford, Collins—who chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee—declined to say she regretted supporting the additional ICE funding, which had few meaningful guardrails.
During Tuesday's debate, Collins admitted that "far too many ICE officers were hired and deployed without adequate vetting and training" and touted funding she secured for body cameras and "deescalation training" for immigration agents. (Collins voted against a Democratic amendment to the $70 billion funding package that would have required federal immigration agents to wear body cameras and make footage "accessible to Congress.")
Jackson said marginal reforms aren't enough to rein in "a rogue agency that's doing Trump's bidding."
"I do believe it's important to get rid of it and take that money and prioritize it into existing law enforcement," said Jackson. "So, no, I'm not going to stand up for ICE, and I don't think Senator Collins should either."
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After Raid of Omar’s Home and Latest ICE Shooting, Ramirez Unveils Bill to ‘Dismantle’ DHS
"For 23 years, since its inception, DHS has been utilized by the government to target and persecute those they consider the public enemy," Ramirez said.
Oct 13, 2026
In response to the agency's rampant abuses during President Donald Trump's second term, many elected Democrats have warmed to the idea of abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But one progressive lawmaker is pushing to go a step further: abolishing the entire Department of Homeland Security.
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) introduced legislation on Tuesday that would repeal all “duplicative and overreaching terrorism laws,” including getting rid of DHS, which was created in 2003 following the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The bill, titled the Reimagining Safety Act, would not only eliminate ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It seeks to eliminate immigration detention altogether and begin the process of replacing it with a civil court-based immigration system run through the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
In a dramatic departure from current immigration procedures, all deportations would need to be approved by Congress before they could proceed.
The bill comes just one day after agents with the DHS Investigations unit raided the home of Ramirez's colleague, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), as part of a federal criminal investigation related to her citizenship documents.
The investigation—which follows years of attacks by President Donald Trump and other Republicans against Omar's Somali background and Muslim faith, and comes just weeks before an election—has been described by critics as intimidation against a political opponent.
"For almost a decade, Trump and Republicans have lied about Congresswoman Omar to silence her dissent," Ramirez said on Monday. "My sister [Ilhan] has not backed down, so now they are using DHS and the federal government to target and persecute her."
"We must strip them of their weapons," she said. "We must dismantle DHS."
Under Ramirez's legislation, a new agency called the Department of Community Safety would assume DHS's duties. This would include running the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which handles the federal response to natural disasters and other emergencies.
The new agency would use DHS's massive pot of federal funding for programs that aim to stop gun violence and other crime; provide support to asylum seekers at the border; redirect federal resources toward community needs like healthcare, housing, education, and emergency preparedness; and support community-based safety programs that do not adopt the militarized law enforcement of DHS.
Other functions of DHS would be scattered across different agencies: Immigration enforcement would belong to the DOJ, the Department of Transportation would take over the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard, and the Treasury Department would conduct customs enforcement.
Some of the expansive powers introduced during the War on Terror would also be rolled back: Those without criminal convictions or warrants would no longer be able to be put on "no-fly" lists, which civil liberties advocates have long criticized for stripping people of their right to travel on arbitrary, often racist, grounds.
The legislation would also eliminate the authority of the secretary of state to declare "foreign terrorist" organizations, a power that has been wielded to criminalize protest.
Ramirez told The Intercept that the need to abolish the agency was also underscored by an ICE agent's shooting of 28-year-old Oscar Belgal in the neck last week in New York. Belgal was shot through the window of his car while his 5-year-old child was in the back seat. In the past year, ICE agents have shot at least 25 people, and six of those shootings have been fatal.
Since Trump's return to office in January 2025, at least 58 people have died in immigration custody, according to the ACLU—a dramatic spike from previous administrations.
ICE agents arrive to clear protesters from a gate outside the Delaney Hall detention facility during a demonstration protesting the transfer of detainees and conditions inside the facility on June 11, 2026, in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/Getty Images)
The rising death toll comes as the Trump administration and Republican Congress have dramatically expanded DHS and its budget to create a massive network of new detention camps, where immigrants (and some US citizens)—most of whom have not been convicted of crimes—have been disappeared, often arbitrarily, denied access to legal representation, and subjected to severe physical mistreatment.
Some noncitizens have been targeted explicitly over their political speech, including the hundreds of students who suddenly found their legal status stripped over their participation in pro-Palestine protests, many of whom were summarily arrested and faced with the threat of deportation.
Ramirez told The Intercept all of these were examples of how DHS is "not rogue," but working as designed.
"For 23 years, since its inception, DHS has been utilized by the government to target and persecute those they consider the public enemy," she said, "whether it is Muslim Americans, Haitians escaping violence, Latinos yearning for a better life, or dissenting voices demanding an end to the genocide in Palestine and the kidnapping of our neighbors.”
People protest outside a federal immigration office after a man was fatally shot by ICE agents on July 14, 2026, in Scarborough, Maine. (Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)
During the second Trump administration, public opinion has dramatically shifted against ICE, to the point where a plurality of voters, 48%, said they wanted the agency abolished in a July YouGov poll. In a February poll by the Public Religion Institute, 60% said they opposed increasing ICE's budget, compared with just 36% who favored it.
“In the past, the type of policy we are fighting for would have been written off as outlandish, too ‘extreme,’ or simply put, impossible," said Viviana Baraja, a Chicago-based immigrants' rights advocate who has helped to launch Ramirez's proposal.
"I have seen this administration make the most impossible nightmares possible," Baraja said. "And in the most distorted way, it has strengthened my resolve that if the worst can be possible, we can also dare to dream and to believe that the best can be possible too."
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'Part of the Fascist Playbook': Ilhan Omar Condemns Trump DHS Raid on Her Home
"For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced."
Oct 13, 2026
US Rep. Ilhan Omar on Monday forcefully condemned the Department of Homeland Security's raid on her Washington, DC home as part of a broader effort to weaponize federal law enforcement against progressives who oppose President Donald Trump's agenda.
"This is part of the fascist playbook to rile up Trump's die-hard supporters and give them a big distraction in advance of the midterms," Omar (D-Minn.) wrote in an email distributed by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee hours after the raid. "With this obviously political investigation, Trump is telling his voters: 'Ignore the price of gas, ignore the war in Iran, ignore that you're losing your healthcare—we want you to get angry about this instead.'"
The email followed a statement issued by Omar's office saying that the congresswoman "has done nothing wrong" and condemning the raid as "an outrageous abuse of power."
"For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back," the statement read. "Now, those attacks have escalated to a pointless federal raid."
The Trump Justice Department said the raid, executed by the investigative arm of DHS, was "part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation." Trump administration officials are reportedly probing whether Omar, who entered the US as a child refugee from Somalia and became a citizen in 2000, is in the country illegally. CBS News reported that the investigation centers on paperwork completed by Omar's late father when she was a child.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday that he has "nothing to do with" the Omar investigation while attacking her as a "terrible person." Omar and the Somali American community in Minnesota have been frequent targets of the president's bigoted attacks, and Trump has called for the Democratic lawmaker to be jailed or deported.
"For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced," Omar wrote in a social media post on Monday.
In the campaign email, Omar called the federal investigation a "sham" and "further proof" that Trump is "willing to use the power of the federal government to try to intimidate and silence anyone who stands up to him."
"It's up to us to make sure it doesn't work," Omar added.
The raid on Omar's home drew widespread condemnation, including from top Democrats in Congress. The leadership of the House Democratic caucus issued a statement calling the raid a "deeply disturbing" act that "raises serious questions about the continued corrupt weaponization of the federal government against Donald Trump’s adversaries."
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) denounced the raid as "fascism in the extreme."
"Trump is weaponizing the federal government to escalate his racist attacks against Rep. Omar, undermine her ahead of the midterms, and distract from his failures as president," Kamlager-Dove added.
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Why Book Bans Harm Marginalized Young Readers
When we ban books for young readers that tackle topics surrounding marginalized people, we strip many young readers of the opportunity to feel seen when they are already painfully underrepresented.
Oct 10, 2026
As a first-generation Mexican American, the first time I ever connected with a book and felt genuinely excited to write a book report was when we were assigned to read Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan by Pam Muñoz Ryan in sixth grade. The story, which follows a girl learning to navigate her new life inside a labor camp in California after being forced to move there following the tragic death of her father in Mexico, included themes that really resonated with me.
Up until then, I had never read a book like that. It spoke to me in a way I never imagined a book would, and it made me want to read more. Sixth grade became the year I started considering myself an avid reader because I was pursuing that “special feeling” Esperanza Rising gave me in other books. I was chasing the feeling of being seen.
Today, Esperanza Rising is being challenged in states like Texas and North Carolina because parents feel uncomfortable with its themes of racism and immigration, and I can’t help but think back to my 11-year-old self. If this book had been banned before I got the opportunity to read it, I’m not sure that I would have discovered that “special feeling,” at least not in sixth grade. It would have taken me longer to discover it, if I discovered it at all.
There must be a collective understanding among the gatekeepers of children’s literature that these stories matter, and a commitment to protecting them from being removed from shelves.
This is what makes book bans incredibly dangerous, especially at a time of declining literacy rates, and parents struggling to get their kids to pick up a book instead of their tablets or devices. In October 2026, PEN America reported nearly 12,000 book bans involving more than 7,300 individual titles in US schools during the 2025-2026 school year, which the organization says is the largest censorship case numbers it had ever recorded.
There have been multiple studies reporting on the negative impact book bans are having on teacher morale and student learning, with marginalized young readers especially bearing the brunt of these decisions. The American Library Association reports that a significant proportion of contested books center on LGBTQ+ experiences, racial identity, or themes of systemic inequality, essentially sending the message that those themes should be censored.
When I wrote the first book in my middle-grade magic school series featuring the daughter of undocumented immigrants as the protagonist, Chloe Vega and the Agents of Magic, my goal was to educate young readers about immigration in a way that is digestible and age appropriate. It follows Chloe, who is terrified that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will take her undocumented parents from her. She’s unaware magic exists until a sorcerer disguised as an immigration officer takes her parents, forcing her to embark on a journey to harness her abilities at a magical academy so she can reunite her family.
Despite its fantasy elements, the book is essentially about a little girl fighting to reunite with her family. It’s a heavy message for many young readers, but the magical elements make it easier for them to process. The book has been out for a year, and many parents have reported that it served as an excellent gateway to serious conversations with their children about immigration and the times we’re living in.
The sequel to Chloe’s story, Chloe Vega and the Missing Unseen, was published on October 6, 2026, and both books could be challenged or banned in many states because they address immigration, despite their age appropriateness.
When we ban books for young readers that tackle topics surrounding marginalized people, we lose a critical avenue for parents, educators, and librarians to educate children on these serious topics and help them develop understanding and empathy. We also strip marginalized young readers of the opportunity to feel seen when they are already painfully underrepresented. In the times that we’re living in, this can be extremely harmful.
It also puts these authors at a significant disadvantage, making it harder to get their books into the hands of the readers who need them most. Many have had school visits canceled because educators and administrators fear repercussions from lawmakers and increasingly restrictive book-banning policies. These challenges create greater financial risk for both authors and publishers, which can make publishers more hesitant to invest in books by marginalized authors and further limit the diversity of stories available to young readers.
So far, many efforts have been made to combat book bans. In 2024, a group of authors banded together to launch Authors Against Book Bans, whose mission is to stand united against the unconstitutional movement to limit the freedom to read and to unequivocally support the availability of diverse voices in schools, libraries, and culture. Organizations such as PEN America are actively filing lawsuits against school boards, arguing that these bans violate the First Amendment.
But more needs to be done. There must be a collective understanding among the gatekeepers of children’s literature that these stories matter, and a commitment to protecting them from being removed from shelves. Books have long been celebrated for their ability to build empathy and compassion by inviting readers into lives and experiences different from their own. But when the books being challenged and removed are disproportionately about marginalized people, it does more than limit what children can read. It erases the experiences and identities of the very people whose voices deserve to be heard.
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'Abolish ICE,' Say Potential 2028 Candidates AOC and Khanna After Latest Shooting in NYC
"No child should have to sit and watch while masked officers open fire on his father."
Oct 09, 2026
Two top progressive Democratic leaders were among those demanding an end on Friday to the 23-year-old federal agency that has provoked outrage and fear across US communities over the past 21 months under Trump administration—most recently on Thursday night, when a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fired seven shots into a car being driven by an immigrant in New York City, while his 5-year-old son sat in the back seat.
"ICE’s already unwelcome presence in our city has been growing more escalatory and dangerous by the day. Today’s shooting is a grave development that requires a swift and immediate response to protect the safety of all New Yorkers," said US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), whose district lies near Marble Hill, the site of the shooting of 28-year-old Oscar Belgal.
Belgal was taken to a nearby hospital and treated for injuries to his neck before ICE agents took him away in an unmarked vehicle. His son was physically unharmed and was in the care of relatives on Friday, but a number of Democratic officials, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, condemned the agency for leaving the child "traumatized and terrified."
"ICE is a rogue, lawless paramilitary and surveillance agency," said Ocasio-Cortez, who has been named as a potential 2028 presidential candidate or a contender for US Senate in New York, where Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is up for reelection in 2028.
"It does not belong in New York City and it should not exist in the United States of America," said Ocasio-Cortez. "Abolish ICE.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), another potential candidate for president in 2028, joined the congresswoman in calling for ICE to be abolished—a demand once dismissed as a fringe viewpoint, but now shared by about half the country, including 77% of Democratic voters and 52% of independents.
Khanna said that Democrats in Congress must take action after the midterm elections, which are widely expected to put them in control of at least one if not both chambers of Congress.
"No child should have to sit and watch while masked officers open fire on his father," said Khanna. "House Democrats have a duty when we take the majority. Get ICE agents off our streets. Keep them away from our children. Abolish ICE."
No child should have to sit and watch while masked officers open fire on his father. House Democrats have a duty when we take the majority.Get ICE agents off our streets. Keep them away from our children.Abolish ICE. https://t.co/XW1mBz00dV
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) October 9, 2026
A federal judge in New York City ordered ICE not to deport Belgal, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, while the court considers an emergency petition requesting his release from detention.
Agents approached Belgal when he was parked in front of a fire hydrant on West 225th Street. The officers were dressed in construction vests and had face masks on, and one was wielding a long gun on the busy street where children were walking home from school.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) noted that ICE's use of "disguises and masks" was not an isolated incident in Marble Hill, with some posing "as electricians in Phoenix last month to arrest a man in his own home."
Belgal was reportedly pulling away when an officer shot at him. It is against Department of Homeland Security policy to shoot into a moving vehicle, with limited exceptions.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) called on President Donald Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin to "hold rogue ICE agents accountable."
"What type of president and country not only allows, but causes, our children to be traumatized?" said Pressley. "Abolish ICE NOW."
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New Yorkers Rally Against ICE After Masked Officer Shoots, Injures Man With 5-Year-Old in Car
“Our New York communities have been built by generations of immigrant love, ingenuity, creativity, and resilience," said one organizer. "Trump can’t take that from us."
Oct 09, 2026
Outraged community members gathered in New York City's Marble Hill neighborhood Thursday night to demand that federal immigration agents leave the city after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fired at least seven shots into a vehicle on a bustling street, wounding the driver while a five-year-old boy sat in the back seat.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani expressed anger at the shooting that had left the child "traumatized and terrified," and accused the Trump administration of "terrorizing" the city.
“Tonight, millions of our neighbors are wondering whether they will be safe on our streets, in our schools, at their work sites," said Mamdani, a democratic socialist. "We know that ICE is rotten to its core. Tonight's shooting is only further confirmation of what we have long known, which is that ICE operates with impunity... that they have killed far more of our neighbors than they have ever claimed to save."
Mamdani: What happened today was an outrage. Today's shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known, which is that ICE operates with impunity, that they sow chaos and terror across our country, that they have killed far more of our neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save. This is an agency that must be abolished.
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2026
Mamdani said he had spent two hours on the phone with President Donald Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin in an attempt to negotiate the release of the man who was shot, identified as 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, but ICE instead "put the man in an unmarked vehicle and whisked him away" after he was treated at a hospital for his injuries.
The shooting took place around 4:00 pm on West 225th Street, as children were being let out of numerous schools in the neighborhood, Mamdani emphasized.
According to surveillance footage, Belgal was parked in front of a fire hydrant when a plainclothes ICE officer, dressed in a construction vest and wearing a face mask, approached the driver's side window of the car with his gun drawn.
After another plainclothes agent approached the front of Belgal's car, he began pulling away from the curb. One of the ICE officers then opened fire, hitting Belgal in the neck as the boy, whom New York City authorities believe to be the man's son, sat feet away.
An eyewitness, Viely Herrera, told The New York Times that she had heard several gunshots before seeing Belgal's SUV crash into a concrete barrier. Belgal then exited the car, holding his neck and shouting in Spanish.
Herrera added that the boy in the car was crying, and the officers would not allow a woman to remove him from the scene.
With limited exceptions, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers are prohibited from shooting into a moving vehicle to stop or apprehend the driver.
Mamdani demanded to know how DHS is "keeping anyone safe" by having "individuals in construction vests, wearing masks, with long guns? Residents have no idea if these are law enforcement agents or if they are simply attacking someone on the street. And when it comes to ICE, it begs the question, what's the difference?"
I am angry tonight.Because today ICE shot a New Yorker. They shot a New Yorker while his five year old child was in the car.ICE makes this city less safe.We want them out. Now. https://t.co/ZizKB0OP7S
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) October 9, 2026
DHS did not explain why its agent had fired into a moving vehicle against department policy, or mention the child who was inside the car. Officials said in a social media post that Belgal was a "criminal illegal alien" from the Dominican Republic with a prior conviction for grand larceny and a history of arrests for other crimes.
The agency said New York City authorities had previously released Belgal after his arrests.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, who is running to represent New York's 13th Congressional District, where Marble Hill lies, joined Mamdani in demanding that ICE be abolished—a call that is supported by 50% of Americans, according to a YouGov poll taken earlier this year.
Revulsion over the agency's practices has grown as Trump's mass deportation operations have intensified. DHS officers have fatally shot at least six people during enforcement operations, including three US citizens. Two of them were protesting the anti-immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
In the past three months, two immigrants have been killed during enforcement operations—Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine. Like Belgal, the two men were operating their vehicles when the shootings took place.
Chevalier emphasized that Trump is overseeing his violent nationwide crackdown on immigrant communities "to make us feel powerless."
https://t.co/qdrtxkPNP1
— Darializa for Congress (@DarializaforNY) October 9, 2026
"But I want us to look around and look at how many people came out for this community. That is how powerful this community is," she said. "He messed with the wrong fucking city."
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said New Yorkers had shown up to rally against ICE "because ICE is a rogue, unaccountable, violent, and racist plague on our communities. Because Trump is the fascist-in-chief. We are here to bear witness and be in solidarity with our immigrant friends and neighbors."
“Our New York communities have been built by generations of immigrant love, ingenuity, creativity, and resilience," she said. "Trump can’t take that from us. ICE cannot scare, brutalize, or shoot that out of New York. And no one—no one—has the right to terrorize our communities and traumatize our kids. We are immigrant New York!"
“We demand a full investigation. We demand humanity. We demand our rights," she added. "We demand ICE get the fuck out of New York.”
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