Pro-Trump Town Stunned After ICE Raids Leave It “Nearly Destroyed”

A longtime resident of deep-red Wilder, Idaho, said his small town was “nearly destroyed” by a massive federal immigration raid last year, The New York Times reported.

On October 19, dozens of federal agents wielding automatic rifles and flash-bang grenades descended on La Catedral Arena, a horse-racing track outside of Wilder. The track had long been a hub for the town’s Latino community—but had now become a target of the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown.

While state and federal officials praised the raid as a crackdown on an alleged gambling ring, only four people have been scheduled for trial on gambling charges. And agents seemed to have another purpose altogether.

“The one thing everyone got asked was, ‘Where were you born?’” Neal Dougherty, an immigration lawyer, told the Times in the story published Monday. “Not, ‘Did you see gambling?’ Not, ‘Did you participate in gambling?’ Just, ‘Where were you born?’”

While a black military-style helicopter circled the scene, federal agents zip-tied the hands of most adults and some teenagers. Several hundred people were detained for four hours. In the end, 105 people were held for immigration charges, and 75 people were deported.

John Carter, a white Trump voter whose company provided security at La Catedral, told the Times that his 14-year-old daughter had had her hands zip-tied by federal agents.

“They could have gone first thing in the day with a few F.B.I. agents and just arrested the people they had warrants for,” Carter said. “Instead, they went in at the busiest time with maximum force.”

While the raid on La Catedral Arena is dwarfed by the massive operations in major American cities, it demonstrates just how destructive Trump’s immigration enforcement can be to the very communities that support him. A whopping 91 percent of the precinct that includes Wilder supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Meanwhile, roughly 60 percent of the population of 1,725 people identifies as Latino.

Chris Gross, a second-generation mint farmer in Wilder, told the Times that the town relies on Hispanic labor. “Nobody thought something like this could happen here,” he said.

David Lincoln, a longtime resident of Wilder who runs a rural economic development nonprofit, said that the raid “nearly destroyed” the town.

“What happens if everyone who is Hispanic thinks they’re at risk? There’s fear now that didn’t exist here before. I don’t know how you make that go away,” he said.

Meanwhile, Wilder’s Mayor Steve Rhodes has dismissed the effect the raid had on his community. “These were not our people,” he told the Times. “What happened out at that track had nothing to do with Wilder.”

Rhodes claimed that people in Wilder don’t even think about race anyway. “I don’t know anyone in town that sees a race,” he said. But come spring, when Wilder feels the full economic weight of the people the town has lost and the labor they provided, he may yet change his mind.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick arrived on Capitol Hill Tuesday to speak with a Senate subcommittee about U.S. broadcast funding, but ended up defending himself again and again about his various interactions with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Recently released documents from the Epstein files revealed that Lutnick’s connection to Epstein was deeper than he had previously disclosed. Last year, in an interview with the New York Post podcast, Lutnick claimed he cut off all contact with “that disgusting person” after he and his wife were invited to tour Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse in 2005. Epstein was, at the time, the Lutnicks’ Manhattan neighbor.

But emails made public in the recent Epstein documents dump indicated that wasn’t true. Instead, Lutnick continued to reach out to the controversial financier, even after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.

One such instance included an attempt by Lutnick to coordinate a family trip in 2012 to the financier’s “pedophile island”—a detail that he confirmed during the Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday.

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen pressed Lutnick on his ties to Epstein twice, excoriating him for lying to the American public.

“You totally misrepresented the extent of your relationship with him to the Congress, to the American people, and to the survivors of his despicable criminal and predatory acts,” Van Hollen said.

“When you visited the private island, did you see anything inappropriate?” he pressed.

“The only thing I saw with my wife and my children and the other couple and their children was staff who worked for Mr. Epstein on that island,” Lutnick said.

“And you realize this visit took place after he had been convicted, right? I mean you made a very big point of saying that you sensed this was a bad person in 2005. And then of course, in 2008 he was convicted of soliciting prostitution of a minor, and yet you went and had this trip and other interactions,” Van Hollen said.

The commerce secretary then denied that he had dinner with Epstein at the disgraced financier’s New York home in 2011, as detailed in the files. The dinner reportedly included other high-profile New York socialites, such as alleged child molester (and famed Hollywood filmmaker) Woody Allen.

“I actually don’t know what you’re referring to,” Lutnick said. “Look, I looked through the millions of documents for my name–just like everybody else—and found that there was a document that said I had a meeting with him in May, I think, for an hour at 5 o’clock. Not for a dinner or otherwise, for an hour, at 5 o’clock.”

“There’s also a reference to the fact that Epstein had expressed an interest in meeting with your nanny. Do you know whether Jeffrey Epstein ever met with your nanny?” asked Van Hollen.

But Lutnick was not aware of such an interaction. Ultimately, he could only toss back his meager defense.

“To the best of my memory, I met him when he was next door to me,” Lutnick told the senators. “Under no circumstances is there a single word that I’ve done anything even remotely wrong in any regard. I did not have anything that you could call a relationship, anything you could call an acquaintance. I literally met him three times over 14 years. That’s all I remember, that’s all that’s in the documents.”

Progressive Analilia Mejia has pulled off a long-shot win in a special election primary for New Jersey’s 11th congressional district, defeating favorite Tom Malinowski thanks to AIPAC’s intervention in the race.

Malinowski conceded Tuesday morning, saying in a post on X that Mejia “deserves unequivocal praise and credit for running a positive campaign and for inspiring so many voters on Election Day.”

“But the outcome of this race cannot be understood without also taking into account the massive flood of dark money that AIPAC spent on dishonest ads during the last three weeks,” Malinowski’s post said.

AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, spent $2.3 million against Malinowski after he came out in support of conditions on aid to Israel, a moderate position gaining traction among House Democrats as more and more voters oppose Israel’s massacre in Gaza. But the move backfired as Mejia holds stronger views on Israel and Palestine, calling Israel’s actions in the territory a genocide and pledging not to accept AIPAC-funded trips to Israel.

Mejia, who helped to run Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, was endorsed by the Vermont senator along with Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her campaign was based on cost-of-living issues, with Middle East policy taking a back seat. But AIPAC’s poor judgement has now backfired.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump’s threat to block the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which would connect Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, not only strains already tense relations with Canada, but could also hurt Republicans in the battleground state of Michigan. 

The president threw a tantrum on Truth Social Monday, saying that he would “not allow” the bridge to open “until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve. We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY.” 

How Trump would block the bridge from opening when major construction is already completed is unclear, although he falsely claimed that Canada owns “both the Canada and the United States side and, of course, built it with virtually no US content.” In reality, Canada has paid the full cost of over $4 billion to build the bridge, which is jointly owned by the state of Michigan and the Canadian government but fully operated and maintained by Ottawa.  

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said that the bridge will be an economic boon to the state, with her spokesperson Stacey LaRouche telling CNN in a statement Tuesday that it is “all about jobs.” 

“It’s good for Michigan workers and it’s good for Michigan’s auto industry. As a reminder, Canada financed the construction of the bridge – which was built by union construction workers from both sides of the border — and it will be operated under a joint ownership agreement between Michigan and Canada,” LaRouche said. “This project has been a tremendous example of bipartisan and international cooperation. It’s going to open one way or another, and the governor looks forward to attending the ribbon cutting.” 

The agreement, made in 2012, requires all iron and steel in its construction be produced in the U.S. or Canada, with neither country being favored. Trump either has no idea, or is deliberately lying, frustrating local officials. 

“It’s just insane,” said Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens regarding Trump’s post, noting that steel on the Michigan side of the bridge was all made in the U.S. “I really can’t believe what I’m reading.” 

Trump is going out of his way to antagonize Michigan voters, simply because he’s still mad at Canada for some imagined trade slight, raising and lowering tariffs against the U.S.’s northern neighbor on a whim. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made an emphatic speech at Davos last month, announcing that his country would seek economic independence from the U.S. 

Trump has doubled down in response, threatening to raise tariffs on Canada even further if it follows through on an expansive trade deal with China. Now, it seems Trump doesn’t care if the state of Michigan suffers over his beef with Canada, and it could backfire on him starting with November’s midterm elections. 

Representative Thomas Massie has identified Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem as the recipient of the “I loved the torture video” email from disgraced sex predator Jeffrey Epstein. The sultan’s name was initially redacted.

“A sultan seems to have sent this,” Massie said Monday evening, after viewing the unredacted files. “DOJ should make this public.”

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche quickly replied to Massie. “You looked at the document. You know it’s an email address that was redacted. The law requires redactions for personally identifiable information, including if in an email address,” he said. “And you know that the Sultan’s name is available unredacted in the files.”

Blanche’s post was hit with a community note that disputed his reasoning.

“The Epstein Files Transparency Act allows redaction of PII only in very narrow circumstances, such as an unwarranted invasion of privacy or the risk of jeopardizing a federal investigation,” it read. “It is unlikely the cited email would meet that criterion.”

As Massie concluded, Blanche “tacitly admitted that Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem was the sender of the torture video.”

Sulayem is currently the chairman and CEO of DP World, an international logistics company worth billions headquartered in Dubai.

The public version of the email, dated April 24, 2009, shows Epstein messaging someone, “where are you? Are you ok, I loved the torture video.”

That person responds back, “I am in china I will be in the US 2nd week of May.”

It is unclear what the nature of the “torture video” Epstein refers to is. But given just about everything else we know about him, it’s hard not to imagine that this is exactly what it looks like, if not worse.

The DP World executive had a rather intimate correspondence with Epstein.

“This girl is russian father Cypriot mom I met her two years ago she goes to t=e American university in Dubai,” Sulayem wrote to Epstein in September 2015, in another email that identifies him by name. “She got engaged but now she back with me. The best sex I ever had amazing body.”

There are also multiple receipts from the sultan for a 23andMe test and a 2012 dinner invitation to Epstein’s home.

Neither DP World nor Sulayem have publicly commented.