ICE Agents and Immigrants Stranded in Hellish Conditions in Djibouti

Donald Trump’s administration is forcing horrible conditions upon a group of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and a group of immigrant detainees in limbo from a paused deportation to South Sudan.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy blocked the government’s imminent removal of a group of immigrants to South Sudan, ruling that immigration authorities had failed to give the detainees the opportunity to challenge their removal there. While Murphy had ruled that the government needed to maintain custody over the detainees, he never said that they could not be returned back to the United States—but the Trump administration has insisted on keeping them at Camp Lemonnier, a U.S. naval base in Djibouti, despite the dire conditions there.

In a court filing Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security’s acting Deputy Executive Associate Director Mellissa Harper testified about the poor condition to which the detainees, and the ICE officers charged with guarding them, had been subjected.

Harper said that the group of detainees were being held in a conference room in a converted Conex shipping container, which is “not equipped or suitable for detention of any length.”

Detainees are subjected to pat-downs before using the restrooms, located 40 yards from the container. Outside the container, the daily temperature has regularly reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so showers can only happen at night.

Harper said that since first arriving at Camp Lemonnier, things have been rough, with a nearby burn pit used to dispose of trash and waste creating a disgusting smoke that lingers in the air. “Within 72 hours of landing in Djibouti, the officers and detainees began to feel ill,” Harper said. “The medical staff did not have immediate access to medication necessary to treat their symptoms.”

She lamented the conditions of the ICE officials, who had foregone anti-malaria treatment before arriving in Djibouti and continue to experience a range of symptoms including coughing, difficulty breathing, fever, and achy joints.

The original team of three ICE officers who escorted the detainees was expanded late last month to a staff of 13, including two ICE officers to help medical staff. The group of ICE officers must share six beds total.

Harper also noted that the ICE officers did not have “body armor or other gear” that would be useful during a rocket attack from Yemen. It’s equally likely that the detainees also lack body gear, but that went unmentioned.

While the detainees may be kept on the base for an indeterminate amount of time, Harper said that relief will soon come to the ICE officers watching them.

“Notwithstanding staffing challenges, the current group of ICE officers responsible for administering these duties is expected to be replaced soon,” Harper said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has repeatedly railed against the federal judge’s decision to block the deportation, arguing that it puts ICE officers at risk. But in fact, it is their government that has stranded them abroad and endangered their lives.

MAGA is struggling to cope with the sudden rift between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the billionaire former bureaucrat they’d come to embrace as one of their own. 

Trump’s sycophants were left high and dry Friday after Musk broke with the president, attacking his big beautiful bill for being too, well, big, while Trump claimed that Musk is only mad because the spending bill would remove the electric vehicle mandate that subsidizes Tesla. Things remain tense, after Trump threatened Thursday to revoke Musk’s government contracts, leading the technocrat to raise the president’s ties to convicted sex offender and alleged human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. 

On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was struggling to corral the fighting. 

“I don’t know what has motivated this disturbance to begin, but obviously it’s not helpful,” said Johnson, whom Musk had previously targeted when the Tesla CEO opposed the last government spending bill in December. 

“My way is that policy disputes are not personal,” Johnson continued. “I’ve tried very hard to speak with Elon over and over, you know? And talk with him about what I believe are misconceptions he has about this bill and what it is.”

On Fox News, anchors tried to walk the line between Trump and Musk.

Sean Hannity called the rift over the missing E.V. mandate “understandable,” but he also leapt to respond to the Epstein allegations, despite the fact that Trump’s name was indeed in the Epstein files that his own administration released in February. 

“And on the Epstein issue, wasn’t it Donald Trump, he booted Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago nearly 20 years ago?” Hannity argued. Trump had reportedly banned Epstein a few months before the New York financier pleaded guilty to sex offense charges in 2008.

Hannity continued, turning his attention to someone else entirely: former President Bill Clinton. “Is he in those files also? I can’t say for sure, I haven’t seen them. But if I was a betting man, I know where I’d put my money!”

Jesse Watters summed the rift up as an “issue of donor maintenance.”

“But maybe they could patch things up,” Watters said. “Vance called Trump ‘Hitler,’ and he’s on the ticket!”

And online, where MAGA really lives, people were spiraling. 

Catturd, a pitiable MAGA shill account, seemed lost after Musk unfollowed him, and got into a fight with Alex Jones for failing to defend Trump. “Many large influencer accounts desperately tried to stay neutral today,” Catturd wrote, adding that his position on Trump had never changed. 

“But when you come out and call Trump a pedophile—that’s when you’ve crossed a redline. Don’t care about anything you have to say after that,” he added. 

Jones did ultimately defend Trump Friday, writing in a post on X, “I have investigated Trump for 10 years looking for any connection to Epstein’s crimes and found zero evidence.”

Right-wing filmmaker hack Dinesh D’Souza brought his own brand of copium to the debate, and mused in an outlandish post on X that there may be a greater conspiracy behind the apparent rift. 

“Is this some sort of perverse scheme to force the release of the Epstein files? How great it would be to have a horde of bad guys publicly exposed. Then Trump and Elon break out the champagne,” D’Souza wrote.

Others counseled reconciliation. “Broooos please noooooo 🫂   We love you both so much,” wrote Kanye West, outspoken antisemite and musical artist. 

The House of Representatives is trying to pass a resolution making the term “Free Palestine” an official antisemitic slogan. 

Republican Representative Gabe Evans from Colorado introduced the resolution in the wake of the attack on a gathering for Israeli hostages in Boulder this week. Mohammed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, has been charged for the attack, during which he yelled “Free Palestine,” according to the FBI.

“Whereas, while shouting ‘Free Palestine,’ an antisemitic slogan that calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and Jewish people, Mohammed Sabry Soliman attacked the peaceful demonstrators with homemade Molotov cocktails,” the resolution reads. House Republicans are expected to vote on the nonbinding resolution next week.

The term “free Palestine” has been a touchy subject among liberal and conservative Zionists alike, as they have long deemed even saying it to be antisemitic hate speech against Jews rather than an acknowledgment of the decades of displacement, destruction, death, and apartheid that Palestinians have suffered at the hands of the Israeli government. This right-wing attack on free speech clearly demonstrates the hypocrisy of these “anti-woke” Republicans who love to wax poetic about the land of the free while kidnapping students off the streets for writing op-eds. Now this resolution seeks to further entrench the flawed logic that the Jewish religion and culture and the Israeli government that has been starving and bombing Palestinians are one and the same. Anyone who votes against this bill in an attempt to protect free speech will be labeled a terrorist sympathizer.   

The labor market is slowing, but it’s all good news in the White House.

The U.S. added 139,000 jobs in May, a slight decline from April, according to a jobs report released Friday. The unemployment rate remained at 4.2 percent, still within the ballpark of historic lows reached in 2023, when the unemployment rate reached 3.4 percent—the lowest it had been in more than five decades. But within the folds of the report hid a major red flag for Donald Trump’s agenda: The U.S. is still bleeding manufacturing jobs.

“GREAT JOB NUMBERS, STOCK MARKET UP BIG! AT THE SAME TIME, BILLIONS POURING IN FROM TARIFFS!!!” Trump celebrated on Truth Social.

But even the president’s favorite conservative network couldn’t hide its dismay at the slight manufacturing downturn.

“Now, 8,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in May. That’s not what you wanted to see,” said Fox Business host Stuart Varney.

“Well, we’re certainly holding steady,” said Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer. “And under the Trump administration, manufacturing jobs are still up over what the last administration, under [Joe] Biden, had.

“The focus of my ‘America at Work’ tour is to increase those manufacturing jobs, and we’ll continue to stay laser focused on that as the president continues to double down on how important this is to the American economy,” she added.

“But how come we’re losing 8,000 manufacturing jobs in May, when there’s a big push to bring manufacturing jobs back to America? How come we’re losing those jobs?” Varney pressed.

Chavez-DeRemer was stuck in her script. “We’re certainly holding steady,” she insisted.

Since the beginning of April, Trump has pitched his global tariff agenda as a means to return manufacturing jobs to U.S. shores. But two months later, the president’s on-again, off-again tariffs have done little more than add tumult to American markets and trade. Investors have learned to play the market by an unflattering acronym—TACO, or “Trump always chickens out”—while administration officials such as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have blundered by publicly admitting they have no intention of bringing tariffs between the U.S. and other nations down to zero.

The breakup is really official now: President Trump is getting rid of his Tesla.

Trump’s red Tesla with Florida tags will be given away or sold, according to Fox News. This comes after Elon Musk and the president’s massive argument spilled over on Thursday, as Musk lambasted Trump’s big, beautiful bill for adding trillions to the deficit, while Trump posited that Musk knew about the bill all along and was just upset that he was losing his E.V. subsidies. Now Trump is ditching his Tesla too.

While this beef isn’t particularly shocking, it’s a long way from where the two men’s relationship was just a few months ago. In March, Musk pulled up to the White House with multiple Tesla trucks and cars and did free promo with the president.

“I’m going to buy [a Tesla] because, number one, it’s a great product,” Trump told reporters then. “It’s as good as it gets. And number two, because this man has devoted his energy and his life to doing this. I think he’s been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people.”

Musk has tweeted through the pain over the last 24 hours, calling his critics “retards” and threatening to pull his Space X program from the U.S. But Trump couldn’t seem to care less as he pushes his bill forward regardless of what his former confidant says. This is what happens when the richest man on earth gets into it with perhaps the pettiest president ever.

For months, Donald Trump and Elon Musk were practically inseparable. Now, a week after the Tesla CEO formally left the White House, the president has a new title for his ex-financier: “the man who has lost his mind.”

Speaking with ABC News’s Jonathan Karl early Friday morning, Trump added fuel to the MAGA duo’s viscerally public breakup. He did not, however, sound “angry or even concerned” about the feud, reported Karl.

“As for reports that there is going to be a Trump/Musk call scheduled for today, Trump told me he is ‘not particularly’ interested in talking to Musk although he says Musk wants to talk to him,” Karl wrote on X.

People close to the president have described Trump as “bummed” about his severed relationship with Musk.

The fiery back-and-forth between Trump and his former adviser is the culmination of differing opinions on the president’s “big, beautiful bill.” Musk has spent days trying to size down Trump’s domestic budget agenda, which aims to extend his 2017 tax cut plan for multimillionaires and corporations.

The tech billionaire has referred to the spending package as “pork-filled” and a “disgusting abomination,” criticizing the continuing resolution for potentially adding trillions of dollars to the national deficit. Musk has also leveraged his gargantuan fortune to influence Congress against voting for the bill, pledging to finance primary opponents to any lawmaker who votes in favor of the tax cut.

On Thursday, the stern disagreement boiled into a digital spectacle, with the two powerhouses throwing insults at each other over social media in real time until Musk claimed that Trump was mentioned in the infamous Epstein files. Musk wrote on X that Trump’s alleged involvement was “the real reason” the pedophile exposé had not yet been made public.

In response, Trump posted on Truth Social, “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. It’s a Record Cut in Expenses, $1.6 Trillion Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given.”

Hours later, Musk was retweeting Trump’s posts from 2012 and 2013, claiming that the deficit- and budget-minded former reality TV star had been replaced by a “body double.”

But Musk has had real influence in breaking up the MAGA block. Several Republican senators have said they oppose Trump’s bill as-is, with the majority of naysayers citing the budget’s enormous price tag as their reason why.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt went on yet another angry tirade against federal judges who rule against Donald Trump.

During an appearance on Fox News Thursday night, Leavitt was asked to respond to a federal judge who blocked the removal of the wife and five children of a man charged in a firebombing attack against peaceful protesters in Boulder, Colorado. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had the family arrested despite having no evidence that they were involved in the attack.

Leavitt, who regularly rails against anyone who opposes Trump, was predictably incensed.

“Well, this is just another rogue decision by a rogue judge who is trying to be—I don’t know—the president of the United States? The secretary of state? The secretary of homeland security?” Leavitt said. “Surely, these important matters of both homeland security and national security do not belong to lower district, local judges in these districts across the country.”

Leavitt’s insistence that federal judges, whom she attempted to dismiss as “local,” don’t have the jurisdiction to rule against Trump betrays a failure to grasp the whole “checks and balances” part of the U.S. Constitution.

Leavitt continued, once again complaining about another federal judge who had blocked the unlawful deportation of immigrants to South Sudan, and supposedly stranded some ICE agents in a “dangerous part of the world.” (The judge did not specifically say that the agents needed to stay overseas, which means the government is choosing not to bring them back.)

“Lower district court judges do not get to dictate the foreign policy and the national security interests of the United States of America. We can’t run a country if the executive is not allowed to freely exercise its powers, and that’s what we’re seeing take place,” Leavitt said.

Unfortunately for the Trump administration, the hits to its illegal immigration agenda just keep on coming. A federal judge on Thursday blocked the arrest and removal of Yunseo Chung, a Columbia University student and green card holder who was targeted by the administration over her involvement in pro-Palestinian protests. In a brutal hearing, U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald called the government’s position “disturbing” and “disappointing.”

“This is a new world. I’m a little taken aback,” Reice Buchwald said.

Elon Musk spent his evening calling Steve Bannon a “retard” after Bannon called for Trump to seize Musk’s companies and deport him following their fallout over the budget bill.

Musk and Trump had a highly publicized spat on Thursday that saw the president expressing his “disappointment” in Musk’s opposition to his “big, beautiful bill” on live TV, chalking the conflict up to Musk losing his government Tesla subsidies. The Silicon Valley right came to Musk’s side, while Bannon and the deep-MAGA right rallied around their leader.

“He doesn’t know anything. He’s a know-it-all. He knows some engineering, don’t get me wrong, but he doesn’t know anything about the real world,” Bannon said of Musk on his Thursday show. “Any fanboys that still exist … understand that DOGE, he didn’t find any fraud. There’s plenty of fraud out there. This is President Trump’s first complaint. Was this all B.S. with the DOGE?”

Bannon continued.

“Space X … President Trump should be taking immediately. When he threatens to take one of the big programs out of Space X, President Trump tonight should sign an executive order calling for the defense production act and seize Space X tonight before midnight,” Bannon said, responding to Musk’s threats to pull his Space X programs from the Trump administration.

“They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately,” Bannon later said to The New York Times, adding that he told Trump the same thing.

Multiple tech bros came to Musk’s defense on X, and the world’s richest man popped up in their replies to voice his agreement, calling Bannon multiple variations of “retard.” Musk called Bannon “peak retard” and a “communist retard” multiple times on X.

Bannon and Musk have been at odds since the H-1B visa fight, which underscored the ideological rifts within Trump’s base that are fully coming into fruition now. Bannon is the core of MAGA, resonating deeply with a right-wing populist base. Musk was simply a quick, messy fling, which he is now realizing—and not handling very well.

Billions of dollars are on the line as Donald Trump and Elon Musk continue their excruciatingly public breakup.

“In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Musk posted on X Thursday.

The statement came moments after Trump attacked Musk and his government contracts amid the tech billionaire’s multiday tirade against the president’s “big, beautiful bill.”

“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday afternoon. In a separate post, Trump said that Musk was “wearing thin” before he was asked to leave, adding that Musk went “CRAZY” after Trump nixed his electric vehicle mandate.

Musk has spent days trying to size down Trump’s domestic agenda, which aims to extend his 2017 tax cut plan for multimillionaires and corporations. Musk has referred to the spending package as “pork-filled” and as a “disgusting abomination,” criticizing the continuing resolution for potentially adding trillions of dollars to the national deficit. The world’s richest man has also leveraged his gargantuan fortune to influence Congress against voting for the bill, pledging to finance primaries for the opponents of any lawmaker who votes in favor of the tax cut.

Trump brushed off Musk’s concerns Thursday by insisting the ex-White House adviser was only upset that the bill removed the electric vehicle mandate that subsidizes Tesla. Musk hit back in real time, sparking the flame war.

In a strange attempt to influence the outcome of the spending package, Musk also claimed that Trump was mentioned in the infamous Epstein files, writing on X that Trump’s alleged involvement was “the real reason” the pedophile exposé had not yet been made public.

Trump claimed he wasn’t bothered by Musk’s meltdown. “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago,” he posted in response to Musk’s promise to decommission his SpaceX aircraft. “This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. It’s a Record Cut in Expenses, $1.6 Trillion Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given.

“If this Bill doesn’t pass, there will be a 68 percent Tax Increase, and things far worse than that,” Trump continued. “I didn’t create this mess, I’m just here to FIX IT. This puts our Country on a Path of Greatness. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Elon Musk’s feud with Donald Trump escalated quickly Thursday, when the billionaire former bureaucrat hinted at the president’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and alleged human trafficker.

As Musk and Trump volleyed on social media, attacking each other, the former DOGE czar decided to go nuclear, shortly after the president threatened to cut government contracts with Musk’s many businesses, which have totaled $38 billion.

“Time to drop the really big bomb,” Musk wrote. “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.”

“Have a nice day, DJT!” he added.

Musk’s post isn’t strictly revelatory. Trump’s name appeared seven times in the “Epstein files” his own administration released in February, as part of “phase one” of unveiling the secretive materials. The ultimately unremarkable collection of documents included flight logs, an evidence list, and painstakingly redacted pages from Epstein’s address book but didn’t contain anything that wasn’t already public information.

But Musk’s insistence that this was a “really big bomb” implies there is possibly more to the story than Trump’s administration has deigned to reveal.

“Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out,” Musk wrote in a separate post.

It’s worth noting that if Musk knows more details about Trump and Epstein’s relationship, it apparently didn’t bother him until he was on the outs with the president.

Meanwhile, Trump’s friendship with Epstein is no secret.

Trump was reportedly incredibly candid with Epstein about his feelings toward members of his administration, while the New York financier touted a photo of the president with half-naked women taken at the site of the pedophile’s rampant sexual abuse of young girls.

In November, a former model came forward with allegations that Trump had once groped her at a party, as part of a “twisted game” he was playing with Epstein. In September, Trump praised Epstein, calling the sex offender, who died in prison before ever standing trial for sex-trafficking charges, a “good salesman.”

Trump had previously waffled for years on the prospect of releasing files on Epstein’s known associates, and claimed that the files likely contained “phony” stuff.