The Roundup

Every day now, masked men driving in unmarked cars are arresting people without warrants in America, spreading fear and in a few isolated cases, encountering resistance. But for the most part, these raids are occurring without protests while the majority of us go about our daily lives seemingly unaffected and almost unknowing.

How long we can pretend to be unknowing is a good measure of whether our democracy will survive in anything but name.

Despite’s Trump’s campaign rhetoric that these arrests would target dangerous criminals, the vast majority of those arrested have no criminal record whatsoever. Rather, they are law-abiding, productive members of our communities whose only “crime” is they are undocumented — as were all of our ancestors when they arrived at these shores.

The Associated Press reports that “The latest ICE statistics show that as of June 29, there were 57,861 people detained by ICE, 41,495 — 71.7% — of whom had no criminal convictions.”

Only 7 percent of those detained at ICE detention facilities are classified by the agency as being suspected of committing violent crimes. That means 93 percent are not. They are our neighbors, our gardeners, our babysitters, our housecleaners, our farmworkers, our friends.

“President Trump has justified this immigration agenda in part by making false claims that migrants are driving violent crime in the United States, and that’s just simply not true,” said Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the justice program at the Brennan Center for Justice told the AP. “There’s no research and evidence that supports his claims.”

These are gross human rights violations and they are are happening in the U.S.A. As Linda Greenhouse says in a brilliant essay in the Times, “We Will Regret Not Standing Up to This Venomous Cruelty” (NYT).

(Thanks to my friend Joel Kirshenbaum for alerting me to the Greenhouse piece.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump says he wants to deport ‘the worst of the worst.’ Government data tells another story (AP)

• We Will Regret Not Standing Up to This Venomous Cruelty (NYT)

• ICE plans to deport immigrants to countries other than their own. (WP)

• Federal officials defended Trump's escalating campaign to deport immigrants in the US illegally, including a California farm raid that left one worker dead, and said the administration would appeal a ruling to halt some of its more aggressive tactics. (Reuters)

• ICE Raids Scare Off L.A. Workers Rebuilding Fire-Torn Areas (NYT)

• Trump does deal with Nato allies to arm Ukraine and warns Russia of severe sanctions (Guardian)

• Trump threatens Russia with tariffs while unveiling new Ukraine weapons plan (BBC)

• Flattery, Firmness, and Flourishes (Atlantic)

• Supreme Court allows Trump to proceed with mass firings at Education Department (CNN)

• Pentagon probes examine key Hegseth allies (Politico)

• The Philippines is quietly working with Taiwan to counter China (WP)

• MAGA media’s conspiracy theories put Trump in power — and now they’re coming back to bite him (CNN)

• CIA reveals more of its connections to Lee Harvey Oswald (WP)

• Kids are turning to AI for friendship: 'I don't have anyone else to talk to' (Quartz)

• AI is killing the web. Can anything save it? (Economist)

• Elon Musk’s Grok is making AI companions, including a goth anime girl (TechCrunch)

• Mark Zuckerberg Explains Meta’s AI Spending Spree (Barron’s)

• Elon Musk Weeps, For There Are No More Women To Impregnate (The Onion)