The human cost of illegal deportations

Reprinted courtesy of The Freedom Writers Collaborative

The human cost of illegal deportations and violent attacks by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is being felt in many communities across the country, and will also likely wind up sinking the U.S. economy. The following stories, captured by The Freedom Writers Collaborative, clearly underscore the human suffering being perpetrated by this regime’s illegal Immigration Wars. One thing that all eight stories make abundantly clear – no one is immune from the lawlessness of ICE and DHS, including our own communities here in Clallam County.

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1. On June 26, 2025, a New Orleans woman, 64-year-old, Iranian-born Mandonna (Donna) Kashanian, the wife of a U.S.citizen and a grandmother who has lived in her community for almost 50 years, was snatched by ICE while picking figs in her own garden. As part of her community, Donna assisted others after Katrina, cooked for the poor, and was a PTA member. Witnesses say that three unmarked vehicles carrying plainclothes ICE agents handcuffed her, tossed her into one of their cars and took off. She was then held in a detention center in Louisiana. 
   
   Is the Trump regime now kidnapping grandmas with Iranian backgrounds because of U.S recent attacks on Iran? Or, is ICE just grabbing non-criminal seniors to make their quotas? Remind you of similar occurrences in 1930s Germany?
   
   
2. On May 29, 2025, a mother and her two young children, including her 6-year-old boy with leukemia, were arrested by ICE after a routine Los Angeles immigration court proceeding where the family was seeking asylum after fleeing violence in Honduras. The family then sued the Trump regime while being imprisoned at a Texas facility. In the meantime, there are numerous reports of lack of medical care and even deaths among ICE detainees, who sometimes haven’t even been charged with crimes.
   
   
3. On May 9, 2025, former Yale student Saifullah J. Khan, 32, was arrested by plainclothes ICE agents during an immigration court hearing in Connecticut. The agents did not identify themselves, Khan said, and he tried to run back to U.S. Immigration Judge Ted Doolittle’s courtroom while calling out for the judge. That is when Khan said the officers used a stun gun on him as he held onto the door of the courtroom, causing him to fall to the ground, hit his head, and briefly lose consciousness. He says he was held in a filthy solitary cell, with a harrowing multi-facility transfer, before being released on bond May 30. He may still be facing deportation despite a lack of any criminal record.
   
   Khan said that Judge Doolittle had come out of the courtroom and told the agents, “You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.” Later, Khan said he overheard ICE agents calling Judge Doolittle a “traitor” and saying they wished they had arrested the judge too! ICE agents motivated by professionalism and respect for the law? Obviously, not.
   
   
4. On June 12, 2025, Moises Sotelo-Casas, a long-time vineyard manager and church chaplain, was aggressively kidnapped by ICE near a church in Willamette Valley, Oregon, and transported 1,500 miles away, without his family or attorney being notified. His daughter said that her father’s feet were chained, shoelaces and belt taken off, his ring and watch removed. Everything was taken from him. Sotelo-Casas’ arrest shocked Oregon’s close-knit wine community. A respected businessperson in his community, Sotelo won the Oregon Wine Board’s 2020 Vineyard Excellence Award and started his own vineyard business in 2024. ICE cited a 1997 DUI but Oregon State Police said that they don’t have a DUI on file for him. Is the real reason ICE targeted Sotelo-Casas because he is a Mexican citizen?
   
   Why is the Trump regime so frightened of people of color who immigrated to the U.S. and are contributing to their communities and the economy? Could it be white supremacist paranoia?
   
   
5. Green card holder and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was held by ICE in Louisiana for more than three months without being charged with any crime, separated from his family in New York, targeted for exercising First Amendment rights during pro-Palestinian campus protests. After extensive public pressure and a federal judge ruling his detention unconstitutional, he finally was released on bail and got to see his newborn son for the first time. He may still be in jeopardy of being arrested again.
   
   Is ICE serving as secret police to try to terrorize people into giving up our Constitutional rights of freedom of speech and peaceful assembly?
   
   
6. On June 11, 2025, in San Diego, California, ICE handcuffed and arrested Sayed Naser, who served with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, while he was attending a court hearing, despite being legally paroled into the U.S. “Sayed stood with U.S. forces in combat. Now he faces removal without a lawyer, without a hearing and, possibly, without a country.” Shawn VanDiver, #AfghanEvac executive director said, “This isn't just cruel, it's cowardly!” Because of the help he gave U.S. troops during the war in Afghanistan, if deported there, Sayed Naser likely would be tortured and killed.
   Does the Trump regime respect and appreciate those who serve our country in the military and who support our military? Apparently, not.
   
   
7. In May, 2025, in East Boston, Massachusetts, ICE shattered a vehicle window to arrest a working father. Witnesses say agents slammed his face into the sidewalk and grabbed his tearful wife in front of their three kids. Another ICE-detained husband remained in Louisiana ICE custody without needed medication for 10 days.
   
   
8. In January, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, nonviolent ICE observer, Renée Good, was murdered by ICE agent Jonathan Ross through Good's open car window. After shooting her multiple times in the head, Ross called her a “f*cking bitch.” Renée Good was a writer, poet, and mother of three children. Nonviolent ICE observer and VA ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot multiple times and murdered by U.S. border agents when he was attempting to help a woman who had been pushed to the ground by an agent and pepper-sprayed. His last words were to ask the woman, "Are you okay?"