Also, carry plastic bags with you
If you detect mission creep in the White House deportation program enforced by unprofessional, undertrained DHS/ICE agents, you are not imagining things (from Thursday):
As President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown continues, one community says they’ve felt unfairly targeted. This year, the Navajo Nation said dozens of Native Americans have been questioned or detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, even though Indigenous people can’t be deported.
You may recognize Native American actress Elaine Miles from her roles in “Northern Exposure,” “The Last of Us,” and “Smoke Signals.” She said ICE agents approached her last month near a bus stop in Redmond, Washington, asking for her ID, and then said it looked fake.
“I kept telling them that it was from a federally recognized tribe in eastern Oregon. It’s a federal ID, and only enrolled members can get those because they kept saying anybody could make them,” Miles said.
Also in November, Leticia Jacobo, an Indigenous woman, was set to be released from an Iowa jail after serving time for a traffic violation. Her aunt, Maria Nunez, said things went downhill when the family tried to pick her up.
“They stated to her that she was to be released at midnight, but was not going to be released because she had an ICE detention hold on her,” Nunez said.
In case you missed the Jacobo story:
BREAKING: ICE agents are questioning and detaining Native Americans.
Leticia Jacobo, an Indigenous woman, was supposed to be released from an Iowa jail after serving time for a traffic violation. Instead, she was stopped at the door.
Jail staff told her she wasn’t being released after all, because ICE had placed a detention hold on her.
She was told she’d be free at midnight. Midnight came and went. Rather than being released, she was treated as if she were undocumented.
She was already dressed in a jumpsuit for deportation.
Leticia is 24 years old. She grew up in Arizona’s Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community. She is Native American. She had her tribal ID with her.
None of that stopped ICE from labeling her an “immigrant.”
Only later did jail staff admit they had made a “mistake,” claiming they confused her with another inmate who had the same last name. After that admission, she was finally released and sent home with her mother.
That explanation should alarm everyone.
This wasn’t a harmless clerical error. It’s the predictable outcome of an enforcement system that increasingly relies on names instead of verified identity.
ICE is not just operating inside jails. Agents are also stopping, questioning, and detaining people during street encounters, often without judicial warrants and with little immediate oversight. In these situations, enforcement frequently depends on name-based database matches, not confirmed identity.
At the same time, federal agencies are sharing large amounts of passenger name data, further expanding the number of ways someone can be flagged, misidentified, or detained.
When enforcement works this way, confusing one person for another isn’t a small mistake, it’s a due process failure. People can be treated as deportable first and sorted out later, if they’re lucky.
And as more of these cases come to light, DHS continues to deny they’re happening at all.
They are lying.
One might guess that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem shot her dog because she misplaced its leash. She could use some for her ICE agents. And a supply of plastic bags to clean up after them.
Happy Hollandaise, everyone.