NBC News reports: San Diego Padres minor-league catching coordinator detained by ICE in Texas.

San Diego Padres minor-league catching coordinator Oswaldo José Pirela was detained by immigration authorities in El Paso, Texas, and remained in custody, according to family and ICE detainee records.

The piece is not specific, but it reads as if Pirela had TPS and was in the process of getting permanent status. It seems worth noting that he appears to have been in the country since at least 2009, playing baseball for the Texas Rangers. He has two American-born daughters. It seems unlikely (to put it mildly) that the Rangers or Padres were able to employ him if he did not have appropriate paperwork.

Regardless, this is simply a very easy example that underscores that the Trump administration is not going after criminals, let alone the “worst of the worst,” nor are these actions making anyone safer. This is just engaging in human rights abuses because of the xenophobia at the heart of trumpism.

Then there was this case from a few days ago, as reported by the NYT: Years of Trump Support Came Undone in 15 Minutes in an Airport.

Last month, moments after the couple got off their flight in Burbank, Calif., a young man in a brown hooded sweatshirt stopped Galina Bobreneva.

“Congratulations, you’ve been chosen for secondary screening,” he told her, according to the couple’s recollection.

The man was a federal agent, and after questioning Ms. Bobreneva for about 15 minutes, he led her away in handcuffs to an unmarked vehicle.

Freed on a $35,000 bond with an electronic monitor clamped to her ankle, she is now fighting to stay in the United States against federal charges of overstaying her visa.

[…]

Ms. Bobreneva, who is from Russia, has a pending green card application, and her lawyer asserts that she was never out of lawful status.

Her case represents a new front in President Trump’s mass deportation drive: arrests at airports of people whose visas have expired but who have active immigration cases and no criminal history.

Although green-card applicants with expired visas can be detained under federal law, previous administrations did not consider them to be in the country unlawfully. But as the Trump administration seeks to nearly double its daily arrests to 2,000 people, it is detaining and attempting to deport thousands of people who believed they were following the rules.

[…]

In response to questions about Ms. Bobreneva’s case, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that she was “an illegal alien” targeted for arrest because “she overstayed her welcome in violation of our nation’s laws.”

“To be clear, work authorization or a pending application do NOT confer legal status in the United States,” the agency said in a statement.

Again, I note that this is not targeting criminals, nor is it making anyone safer. This is abusing people

This also strikes me, as with the TPS cases, as using ambiguity in the law to achieve those goals.

And yes, I note that the husband voted thrice for Trump and helped empower that which has now disrupted his life and those of his wife.

“The allure of the MAGA campaign was around illegal entries of criminals,” said Mr. Jindra, 48. “There was never a mandate for this president to turn the barrel of the gun and start going after people who legally entered.”

[…]

Mr. Jindra considered himself a MAGA patriot until his wife’s detention.

“She did not jump a wall, she did not swim a river,” he said. “She came in Trump’s beautiful, big front door.”

Well, vote for fascistic policies, get fascistic results.

Another example from April, also via the NYT: The 85-Year-Old Widow Snagged by Trump’s Immigration Crackdown.

Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé was in bed at home in Anniston, Ala., when she was startled awake by banging. Men had surrounded the bungalow where Ms. Ross-Mahé, a French citizen, had lived with her American husband until he died in January. They were knocking loudly on the windows and doors.

When Ms. Ross-Mahé, 85, opened the door, they pushed inside, saying they were the immigration police, she said in an interview. They handcuffed her and took her to an unmarked car before driving her to a jail cell. She was still in her bathrobe, pajamas and slippers, she said.

[…]

After her arrest on April 1, Ms. Ross-Mahé was swallowed into the country’s sprawling immigration detention system, where, she said, she was chained by her wrists and ankles to other inmates and loaded onto buses and a plane “like a potato sack.” After two weeks in detention in Alabama and Louisiana, she said, she feared she might die.

No doubt the 85-year-old was a real threat to domestic tranquility.

I recognize that these cases are of relatively privileged people and that there are countless other stories of abuse on a daily basis of persons who don’t get released or make it to the pages of the NYT. But these cases are worth noting because if the administration is grabbing and abusing people like these, it shows the callous disregard for any semblance of justice or common sense in the pursuit of things like Stephen Miller’s deportation quotas.

And if they are going to treat baseball scouts, blonde middle-class wives, and 85-year-olds this way, what are they doing to random Haitians or Venezuelans who have had their TPS revoked or some random individual trying to navigate our clearly broken immigration system?

Meanwhile, people are dying in custody. Human Rights Watch reports:

In the 500 days between President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025 and June 4, 2026, 52 people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in the United States. The mortality rate of deaths in ICE custody is at its highest level in over a decade and has more than doubled since Trump’s second term began. The rate is nearly four times that of the Biden administration, and more than two and a half times as high as that of the first Trump administration. The current trend-level rate is now even higher than during the Covid-19 pandemic. Urgent action is needed to address this crisis and prevent further deaths.

The second Trump administration launched an aggressive campaign to expand immigration detention, pushing the number of people held to a record high of over 71,000 people in January 2026. The surge in deaths is much worse than what one would expect even considering the much higher number of people in detention. Deaths in ICE custody have increased at a rate disproportionate to the growth in the detained population. January 2025- January 2026 saw an approximately 140 percent increase in the annual mortality rate compared to the prior year.

And, again, this is not about apprehending and deporting violent criminals; this is about purging the nation of foreigners.