Army Vet Says ICE Detained Him for 8 Hours, Blocked Access to Lawyer

ICE beat, cuffed, and jailed an army veteran and Purple Heart recipient for protesting in Minneapolis—and then the Department of Homeland Security lied about his charges.

On Friday, ABC News reported that 39-year-old William Vermie was arrested while watching ICE agents go after two young men in his community. He was taken to the Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, where he said he was detained for eight hours and never given the opportunity to call a lawyer.

“They read me my rights and asked me if I wanted to answer any questions without a lawyer, and I said no,” Vermie told ABC News. “And then they said, ‘You’ll have an opportunity to contact one later.’”

“I have privilege,” Vermie added. “I was medically retired, I’m a combat vet, I’m white, I’m middle class. If I can’t advocate for people who need it, then who else is going to do it? Who else is going to stand up and speak truth to power?”

The DHS used its X account to call Vermie a liar after his story was published.

“FACT CHECK. This individual was arrested for assaulting a law enforcement officer—a felony and a federal crime. All detainees have the opportunity to communicate with their family and lawyer,” the agency wrote. “These smears from the media have directly lead to a 1,347% increase in assaults on DHS law enforcement and a 8,000% uptick in death threats.”

In reality, as ABC reported, no charges against Vermie were filed. Bystander video shows Vermie’s arrest on the sidewalk but doesn’t capture evidence that he assaulted an agent.

This is not a fact-check; it’s just another baseless claim from an administration that believes enough of its citizens are gullible enough to buy whatever version of reality it’s selling. People at the highest levels of government, from the president on down, have lied profusely to us about what has occurred this month in Minnesota, and for months in the rest of the country.

A top Homeland Security official is insisting that the American public trust the Trump administration with their children—even as reports circulate that ICE and Customs and Border Protection have detained multiple children in Minnesota.

Greg Bovino, a senior tactical commander for the U.S. Border Patrol, practically boasted about his agency’s ability to deal with children during a press conference Friday on the department’s Minneapolis operations, attempting to brush reports of child detentions under the rug by sharing anecdotes about officers playing soccer with locked-up kids.

“Here in the U.S. Border Patrol, I will say unequivocally that we are experts in dealing with children,” Bovino said. “Not because we want to be, but because we have to be.”

Later in the press conference, while crowing that both CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were “probably the most experienced [law enforcement agencies] anywhere in the United States” when dealing with children, the Border Patrol chief suggested that circumstances are not so dire for children in detention centers.

“I know that in my particular Border Patrol sector—that saw thousands of individuals coming across the border during that last administration, including hundreds of children—I remember our agents in the back parking lot playing soccer matches with those children.

“I would challenge any law enforcement agency to show me the fantastic care that ICE and U.S. Border Patrol provide children,” he added, before warning people to not commit crimes lest they have to deal with his agency.

Bovino further compared the family separations to those experienced by U.S. citizens when parents are arrested by local law enforcement—though the difference there is that police are constitutionally required to have probable cause that an individual committed a crime before they arrest them.

Reports emerged Thursday that ICE had also detained at least four Minnesota children, one of whom was a 5-year-old preschooler, Liam Ramos, who was abducted by masked agents in his driveway shortly after he and his father arrived home. ICE also detained a 2-year-old at a traffic stop in Minneapolis.

Just hours after Bovino recounted his dystopian, rather than feel-good, story about detained children, another report emerged that immigration agents had grabbed a child. ICE detained a family of three, including a 7-year-old girl, outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon, last week. The girl’s parents had been rushing her to emergency medical care after she had a nosebleed that wouldn’t stop.

ICE’s violent and relatively untrained militias, meanwhile, have been expressly permitted to operate with impunity by the Trump administration, allowing them to harass, batter, and kill their neighbors with little recourse.

It has become glaringly obvious over the course of the last year (or even just this last week) that the Trump administration’s pledge to focus on deporting violent criminals was little more than centrist lip service. In reality, immigration agents have arrested practically anybody in order to meet Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller’s quota of 3,000 or more arrests per day.

A winter storm is set to hit much of the country this weekend, and naturally, the Federal Emergency Management Association is sending out warnings to make sure people are safe.

But they aren’t allowed to use the word “ice” in any of their messaging because their superiors at the Department of Homeland Security are worried about internet mockery thanks to the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, CNN reports.

DHS, which oversees both ICE and FEMA, told workers at the latter agency Thursday that phrases like “watch out for ice” could be misunderstood or turn into viral memes, considering the negative headlines ICE agents are producing in Minnesota and across the country.

“If FEMA says, ‘Keep off the roads if you see ice,’ it would be easy for the public to meme it,” an unnamed source told CNN. “I think it’s a dangerous precedent to set. If we can’t use clear language to help prepare Americans, then people may be left vulnerable and could suffer.”

FEMA staff have been told to use words like “freezing rain” instead, according to the source, although a FEMA spokesperson denied the report Friday in a statement.

“‘Reporting’ like this reads like a desperate ploy for clickbait rather than real journalism that actually gives Americans disaster preparedness information that could save lives. FEMA will use correct and accurate descriptors of weather conditions to communicate clearly to the American people,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

It’s hilarious that the Trump administration is worried about using the word “ice,” showing some degree of self-awareness about the negative attention its immigration crackdown is creating. Ice is a major hazard created by winter weather, and the public should still receive warnings regardless of whether they’ll be turned into jokes mocking ICE. If officials are that worried, perhaps the problem lies with ICE.

ICE detained a 2-year-old girl in Minneapolis on Thursday, just two days after using a 5-year-old as bait—once again proving that claims that federal agents are only going after the worst of the worst are outright lies.

A district court judge ordered that the child be released by 9:30 p.m. on Friday after she and her father were detained by ICE at a traffic stop. They have been identified as Elvis Joel Tipan Echeverria and Chloe Renata Tipan Villacis, following a GoFundMe effort to bring them home.

“Respondents have taken a 2-year-old into custody—an escalation of violence that is unspeakable, cruel and without any legal basis or justification,” their attorneys said in court filings.

Their attorneys claim that their clients, both from Ecuador, are asylum-seekers who were arrested without warrants.

“On January 22, 2026, Chloe who is 2 years of age, and Elvis who is her father, were detained in South Minneapolis by ICE. They were driving back home from the grocery store when immigration officials decided to detain them,” the father and daughter’s GoFundMe reads. “With the permission of the mother, we are reaching out to community to help us raise funds for lawyer fees, food, bond requests, rent, livability, and resources to keep this family together. She would appreciate the help from community in reuniting their family.”

While the judge’s ruling raises hope that the toddler will return home soon, her arrest only adds to the bleak deluge of news coming out of Minnesota. ICE continues to terrorize people, often brutalizing and wrongfully detaining them in the process. And they’re preparing to potentially move on to Maine, Wisconsin, and maybe your town next.

Dozens of faith leaders were arrested during a massive peaceful protest Friday at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

A group of clergy members were among thousands who gathered at the airport to urge airlines working with ICE to stand with them against the Trump administration’s sweeping deportation operation in the Twin Cities.

One video shared to X by Workday Magazine’s Sarah Lazare showed a line of clergy members assembled in the road outside of Terminal 1 departures, singing. “Before this campaign fails, we’ll all go down to jail, everybody’s got a right to live,” the clergy members sang.

Another video showed the large crowd of protesters—including striking workers and union members—cheering: “Our streets!”

A third video shared on X by Labor Notes’ Luis Feliz Leon showed faith leaders kneeling in the road, saying a prayer for the immigrants arrested by ICE as police officers assembled behind them. Organizers of the action said that “roughly 100” clergy members were arrested during the protest, according to CBS News.

Protesters specifically called on Delta Airlines and Signature Aviation to stop contracting deportation flights to the Department of Homeland Security. Organizers claimed that roughly 2,000 people had been deported through the airport.

Around 200 clergy members, hailing from a range of faiths and traditions, dispersed across Minneapolis Thursday in order to monitor federal agents’ interaction with protesters and civilians.

Tensions between residents and law enforcement in Minneapolis continued to mount this week as ICE agents proceeded to violently arrest protesters, carry out warrantless raids, and chase down immigrants who are already in custody. Earlier this week, ICE agents used a 5-year-old boy as bait for one of his relatives after arresting the child’s father—who had no criminal record. The father and son were then both removed to Texas for deportation.

The Trump-appointed head of the federal panel that recommends vaccines is saying that polio and measles vaccines—and perhaps every vaccine—should be optional.

Dr. Kirk Milhoan, who heads the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on a podcast Thursday that possibly every shot should be optional, saying that while he had “concerns” that some children might die of measles or become paralyzed from polio, a person’s right to refuse a vaccine supersedes all medical concerns.

“If there is no choice, then informed consent is an illusion,” Milhoan said. “Without consent, it is medical battery.”

Milhoan made the comments in an episode of Why Should I Trust You? released Thursday, claiming that polio and measles are not the threats they used to be because of medical advances and sanitation, not vaccination. His comments are in line with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s anti-vaccination views and his recent decision to reduce the number of recommended vaccines from 17 to 11.

Kennedy’s decision, however, is not being followed by leading medical organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, and every single state plus the District of Columbia still requires most, if not all 17 vaccinations, for an individual to attend public schools. But the measles and polio vaccines have prevented countless deaths and injuries in the United States and worldwide for the past several decades, and changing that could lead to more dangerous and deadly outbreaks.

Medical experts told The New York Times that Milhoan’s decision was completely unfounded and dangerous.

“These vaccines protect children and save lives,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics. “It’s very frustrating for those of us who spend our careers trying to do what we can to improve the health of children to see harm coming to children because of an ideological agenda not grounded in science.”

A person no longer needs to commit a crime in order to be considered a criminal in Donald Trump’s America.

A masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent warned a woman in Portland, Maine, that her information would be entered into a “nice little database” that would label her a domestic terrorist. Her infraction? Peacefully filming the immigration agency’s street activity.

“It’s not illegal to record,” the woman can be heard saying in a video posted Friday by self-described activist Nathan Bernard.

“Exactly, that’s what we’re doing,” the agent responds.

“Yeah, why are you taking my information down?” she asked.

“Because we have a nice little database, and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist,” he responded, sending her laughing.

“For videotaping you? Are you crazy?” she snarked.

But that is the current reality under the rule of the Department of Homeland Security. A leaked security threats assessment, obtained and published Wednesday by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, revealed the department’s intention to shift the definition of domestic terrorism toward a much broader one, encompassing a new subset of individuals acting on “class-based or economic grievances.”

As Klippenstein pointed out in his Substack, that could refer to any American.

Meanwhile, ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents have been granted sweeping authority to operate under DHS with impunity, effectively giving them free license to interact with the American public however they see fit. In Minneapolis alone, agents have been brazen enough to kill a 37-year-old mother by shooting her several times point-blank, arrest a 5-year-old child in his driveway, arrest U.S. citizens at their jobs, and regularly infringe on the public’s First Amendment rights by brutalizing protesters.

Part of the rush to violence could be because of the agency’s lackluster recruitment tactics. Federal officers have historically been recruited from smaller law enforcement departments with years of experience already under their belts, but that tradition has essentially been eradicated in order to satisfy the agency’s “wartime recruitment” hiring spree, which aims to take on as many as 10,000 new officers over the coming year.

ICE plans to spend $100 million on online advertisements in hopes of drawing gun rights advocates and military enthusiasts into its ranks. To do so, they are using software that allows them to “geofence” people within the so-called manosphere, identifying those who have recently attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts, or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear.

Last week, law enforcement officials told NBC News that ICE’s AI software had “sent many new recruits into field offices without proper training.”

ICE agents in Maine arrested a Black law enforcement officer, even after he repeatedly told them he was a legal immigrant.

Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce confirmed to reporters Thursday that a viral cell phone video of a man being detained by ICE agents in a Portland neighborhood Wednesday was a corrections officer recruit from the county. In the video, the man can be heard shouting “What’s wrong? I’m just coming from work. What’s wrong, guys? I don’t understand this. I don’t have any violations.”

An eyewitness who recorded video of the arrest, Ben Bozeman, told the Portland Press Herald that while taking a walk nearby Wednesday night, he saw five cars swarm the man and that ICE agents threatened him with a Taser before detaining him. Bozeman that the agents left the recruit’s car still running on the side of the road, with his corrections uniform sitting in plain sight in the back seat.

“It’s very dark, just jarring and threatening,” Bozeman told the newspaper, saying that witnessing ICE’s violence had shaken him.

“They all took off, leaving his car with the windows down, the lights on, unsecured and unoccupied,” Joyce said in a press conference. “They left it right on the side of the street. Folks, that’s bush-league policing.”

The sheriff excoriated the agents for their conduct, saying the arrest had changed his mind about the federal government’s immigration actions.

“We’re being told one story, which is totally different than what’s occurring or what occurred [Wednesday] night,” Joyce said, noting that the recruit had passed the county’s application process to qualify as a corrections employee, and was cleared to work in the United States until April 2029.

“In fact, he was squeaky clean. Squeaky clean,” Joyce said. “I guess if you’re not the card-carrying, you know, U.S. citizen, then you must be illegal, because that’s what they told me is he’s illegal, and he’s definitely not a criminal. So what part of him is illegal? I don’t know.”

Law enforcement officers across the country have been caught up in ICE’s violence, including in Minneapolis, where local police have complained that officers of color have been questioned and detained on multiple occasions. ICE’s leadership has proclaimed that nearly everyone is considered fair game in their mass deportation agenda, as it becomes increasingly clear that the Trump administration is deploying a racist goon squad.

Federal judges in Minnesota are rejecting arrest warrants for some anti-ICE protesters because federal officials haven’t actually backed up claims that demonstrators have broken any law.

Federal immigration agents have repeatedly failed to provide sufficient evidence that demonstrators have committed crimes, such as assault, when trying to obtain warrants for arrest, two people briefed on discussions of sealed court proceedings told MS NOW Friday.

In order to obtain an arrest warrant, a federal officer is only required to show a fair probability that the suspect has engaged in criminal activity—but apparently, they’re not even doing that.

For example, U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Micko struck a charge listed on an arrest warrant for Chauntyll Allen, one of the demonstrators arrested at an anti-ICE protest during services at a Minnesota church Sunday. The warrant originally alleged that Allen had physically obstructed entrance to a place of religious worship, impeding the churchgoers’ religious freedom. CBS News Minnesota’s Jonah Kaplan reported that Micko had struck this charge on the arrest warrant, noting that there was “no probable cause.”

The other charge listed on the warrant alleged that Allen had committed a conspiracy against rights, accusing her and her fellow protesters of intending to injure, threaten, or intimidate someone exercising their right to religion.

Micko also rejected the arrest warrant of journalist Don Lemon.

Customs and Border Protection Commander Greg Bovino claimed that his agents “work very hard with the Department of Justice” to obtain arrest warrants, even working for “several days” to get a warrant for one person. Of course, Bovino is probably best known for “outright lying” about protesters himself.

MAGA operative Corey Lewandowski—who has long been rumored to be having an affair with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—will be extending his stay as her de facto chief of staff.

Despite being classified as a temporary employee, Lewandowski has been playing a shadow role of sorts at DHS since Trump was reelected, pulling many of the logistical strings behind the scenes while Noem played dress-up in tactical gear and posed for pictures.

Lewandowski’s continued work at DHS was confirmed when an Axios reporter spotted him loudly discussing DHS vendor contracts on the phone at Reagan National Airport in D.C. last week. Lewandowski reportedly mentioned a drone program, as well as Peter Thiel’s Palantir.

There have been countless reports of the alleged affair between Noem and Lewandowski over the last five years.

“Everybody knows they’re together. Can I prove it? No, but they’re together,” an anonymous administration employee told New York magazine last year. Another called it the “worst-kept secret in D.C.” Since 2019, various people have claimed they witnessed interactions like Noem sitting in Lewandowski’s lap and Lewandowski slapping Noem’s butt.

Lewandowski has kept his role at DHS officially unofficial. As a special government employee, he is only supposed to work for the government for 130 days. He does not receive a federal paycheck, has not filed a public form, and is allowed to do work outside of his work at DHS—which apparently includes securing contracts from Palantir, hiring and firing ICE agents, and approving plans. Now he’ll get to do it all over again in the new year. And he’ll get to do it with his so-called girlfriend.