Trump’s aggressive moves on immigration protests put Democrats in a political bind
CNN
President Donald Trump’s deployment of military troops to California is forcing Democrats back onto politically perilous turf.
President Donald Trump’s deployment of military troops to California is forcing Democrats back onto politically perilous turf, as they look for ways to condemn his actions without being drawn into a broad debate over immigration or tying themselves to the chaotic scenes emerging from Los Angeles. Republicans are relishing a fight that directs attention away from their monthslong, intraparty debate over tax and spending legislation, and the messy political breakup of Trump and Elon Musk, and toward what they view as Democrats’ biggest vulnerabilities: immigration, law enforcement and public disorder. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman warned his fellow Democrats about the images emerging from California, where protests erupted Friday after Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and escalated into outbreaks of violence. Some protesters have thrown objects at law enforcement, looted businesses, blocked a major freeway and set self-driving cars ablaze — while police in riot gear fired rubber bullets to disperse crowds. While much of the protest activity has been peaceful, images of burning cars and chaos have been widespread across social media and traditional news coverage. “You can’t defend when people start setting things on fire or they start damaging buildings or going after members of law enforcement. That’s not free speech. That is not peaceful protest,” Fetterman said Tuesday. Fetterman, who was lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania during racial justice protests around the country in 2020, said Democrats “should have learned the lesson back in 2020. Absolutely, there was righteous outrage over what happened to George Floyd, but that never means that you can support or be quiet if there’s destruction or rioting and destroying and looting and those kinds of things.” He said he was “not judging any of my other colleagues in my party,” but warned: “You can’t be quiet on those things. You have to just call it really what it is.”

Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia have asked a judge to put severe sanctions on the Trump administration, saying federal officials violated court orders to prove the steps they were taking to attempt to get the wrongfully deported man out of El Salvador for weeks, before he was returned to face criminal charges.