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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 26/11/2025

Incredible @matinastevis.bsky.social story about an asylum-seeker kept apart from her son and family as she ping-ponged back and forth between U.S. and Canadian immigration officials has a telling detail about ICE Air. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/w...

Screenshot of story text:
“You need to go because you are American,” Rahel told him. “I will stay here because I am Eritrean.” She smiled weakly, trying to put on a brave face for him. “Remember, mommy is a fighter and she’s going to fight,” she said.

Rahel was moved from one place to the next until eventually she boarded a plane, its destination unclear. She realized that, if there were an emergency, she would not be able to reach the oxygen mask with her shackled hands.

She complained to an ICE officer.

“Nothing we can do,” she said he told her. “These are the rules.”

She couldn’t stop imagining that the cabin would experience air loss and she would die trying to reach her mask.

When the plane landed, Rahel saw that another detainee had begun menstruating and blood had seeped through her clothes and onto her seat. She would remain like this, blood drenching her clothes, as she moved from the plane to buses and walked in front of dozens of officers.

“How can this be happening in America?” Rahel thought.

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 24/11/2025

"A cracked windshield, a waiting officer, a forgotten document: The new family separations often start in the most mundane ways." From our story out today: www.propublica.org/article/ice-...

Article text: “In South Carolina, a Colombian family of five went to a government office for a fingerprinting appointment, only to have the parents detained while the children — ages 5, 11 and 15 — were sent into the shelter system for four months. In South Florida, a 17-year-old from Guatemala was taken into custody because officers couldn't make contact with his dad after a traffic stop; his dad is deaf. In Maryland, a 17-year-old from Mexico ended up in a shelter after making a wrong turn onto military property.”

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 16/10/2025

Over on Twitter, DHS just questioned @nicolefoy.bsky.social's vital @propublica.org reporting on American citizens arrested by immigration agents, calling her story "fake news." But—whoops!—they conveniently forgot the link. Here it is. Check the receipts. www.propublica.org/article/immi...

Screenshot of an October 16, 2025 tweet by the Department of Homeland Security claiming that ProPublica's reporting that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been arrested by immigration authorities since January was "fake news" and that DHS enforcement operations are "HIGHLY TARGETED"

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 16/10/2025

The reality of Kavanaugh stops: American citizens dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, and shot by immigration agents. Citizens held in the rain while in their underwear. A pregnant citizen's door blown off while Kristi Noem watched. Important story by @nicolefoy.bsky.social of @propublica.org

Screenshot of the article by Nicole Foy of ProPublica:
"When the Supreme Court recently allowed immigration agents in the Los Angeles area to take race into consideration during sweeps, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that citizens shouldn’t be concerned.

“If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote, “they promptly let the individual go.”

But that is far from the reality many citizens have experienced. Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched.

About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers or loved ones."

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 07/08/2025

ProPublica asked the administration detailed questions about each incident in our story. In reply, a White House spokesperson called us “a left-wing rag” and asserted that “ICE Officers are heroically getting these violent illegal aliens off of American streets with the utmost professionalism.” 11/

An article screenshot reads: "When we asked the White House detailed questions about the tactic and specific incidents, it stood by officers’ conduct. “ProPublica is a left-wing rag that is shamelessly doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens,” deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “ICE Officers are heroically getting these violent illegal aliens off of American streets with the utmost professionalism.”

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin also defended the tactic in response to questions about Border Patrol. Officers “may break vehicle windows” if occupants don’t follow their commands, she said. In June, an ICE spokesperson told ProPublica, “Our officers follow their training to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve situations in a manner that ensures the success of the operation and prioritizes safety.”

Other agencies whose officers were involved in incidents we documented — FBI; DEA; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — did not respond or declined to comment on specific cases."

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 07/08/2025

It looks like officers stopping a Massachusetts family as they drive home from church on Mother’s Day, shattering their window, and letting the kids in the back of the car watch as their dad is forced to kneel, then slammed chest-first to the ground. 9/

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 07/08/2025

So “Is this legal?” may be the wrong question. “Is this normal?” was the better one. We did eventually find 8 instances of ICE and Border Patrol smashing car windows in the decade before Trump’s second presidency. But we’ve found nearly 50 instances in the six+ months since. 5/

An article screenshot reads: "YOUR CAR is a constitutional gray zone. It doesn’t have the same Fourth Amendment protections as homes. You can refuse to open the door of your home if officers don’t have a judicial warrant; you can’t refuse to step out of your car.

The Constitution still limits when officers can use force and how much they can use. But there are no firm rules. Should they shatter windows just minutes or seconds after making a vehicle stop? Should they drag someone through broken glass when they could wait to make the arrest another day?

“Use of force has to be objectively reasonable,” says Bruce-Alan Barnard, a retired Fourth Amendment instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia, where ICE officers train. The problem with “objectively reasonable,” Barnard says, is that “it’s an oxymoron. What’s reasonable to you might not be reasonable to me.”

Immigration officers are given little guidance on whether or how they should breach car windows, former federal law enforcement..."

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 07/08/2025

As we collected videos, we called around to legal experts. Your home may be your castle under the Constitution—you don't have to open your door if there’s no warrant—but your car, we learned, is not. How much force officers can use to get you out hangs on the “totality of the circumstances.” 4/

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 07/08/2025

Right after that, on the other side of the country, officers stopped a 51-year-old Maryland mother and smashed her window as her teenage daughter filmed from inside the car. The woman thanked one officer for helping her shake the broken glass out of her dress. Then he handcuffed her. 3/

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 07/08/2025

One of the first videos we saw was from Spokane, Washington: Officers broke three car windows to arrest two brothers while the wife of the older brother, a U.S. citizen, cried and told the officers that she was pregnant. 2/

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 01/04/2025

Three flight attendants said they did get some rare guidance on how to run evacuations on deportation flights from ICE Air pilots. “Just get up and leave” after you open the exit door, one recalls a pilot telling him. “That’s it... Save your life first." 9/

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 01/04/2025

... only the mom was allowed to join the little girl as they took her to the hospital, the flight attendant said. The flight attendant said the dad had to stay, and that he was going to be deported without the rest of his family, without knowing if his daughter would live. 8/

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 01/04/2025

The flight attendants said there were new rules to follow, though: •Don’t talk to the detainees. •Don’t feed them. •Don’t make eye contact. •Don’t walk down the aisles without a guard escorting you. •Don’t sit in aisle seats, where detainees could get close to you. 6/

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McKenzie Funk @mckenziefunk.com · 01/04/2025

Their training classes hadn't prepared them for this, they told me. One flight attendant said: “They never taught us anything regarding the immigration flights... They didn’t tell us these people were going to be shackled, wrists to fucking ankles.” 5/

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