Reason Roundup

Children Left Crying in Streets After ICE Arrests Parents in Massive Mississippi Raid

Plus: Chelsea Manning's latest motion is denied, Prager University's Google lawsuit is nonsense, and more...

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(modified from @alexlovewjtv/twitter)

An immigration enforcement operation in Mississippi has led to 680 people being detained. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted the raids at seven food processing plants around the state Wednesday.

"The raids happened in small towns near Jackson with a workforce made up largely of Latino immigrants. The towns hit include Bay Springs, Carthage, Canton, Morton, Pelahatchie and Sebastapol," the Clarion Ledger reports.

In Scott County alone, at least six families with school-age children had parents taken in yesterday's ICE raids, says the paper. "Reports from the scene of the raids mentioned children waving goodbye to their parents as the adults were taken into custody. It is not publicly known how many children are being impacted by the arrests."

In Forrest, Mississippi, the "children of those who were arrested are left alone in the streets crying for help," tweeted WJTV 12 News staffer Alex Love. "Strangers and neighbors are taking them to a local gym to be put up for the night."

Later, from the gym, Love reported that many of the kids there—some of them only toddlers—were "left scared & crying after coming home from school & being locked out without their parents. Donated food & drinks are being provided."

One 11-year-old girl cried: "Government, please show some heart. Let my parent be free." (More here.)

Acting Director of ICE Matthew Albence bragged to the AP that this was biggest workplace sting operation conducted in more than a decade and likely the largest ever conducted in one state.

Those apprehended are being processed at a military facility in Flowood. The AP "witnessed dozens of agents ready to process the workers…with seven lines, one for each location."

Some local reporters got video of the raids:

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Chelsea Manning's motion to reconsider the steep sanctions imposed on her has been denied:

The Judge denied her motion without holding a hearing on the matter, although both parties had consented to and anticipated an opportunity to present further evidence and argument. In a footnote, Judge Trenga explained his unexpected decision by saying "The Court…finds, based upon the nature and volume of documents proffered, that a hearing would not aid the decision process and therefore decides the Motion without a hearing."

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Walter Olson offers some caveats about Prager University's lawsuit against YouTube:

YouTube's optional "restricted mode," meant to limit kid viewing, isn't important or much used (only 1.5% of users enable it). The PragerU shows at issue did have some content about topics like rape, murder, and genocide that might disturb younger children. And many other well-known shows see a larger share of their episodes put into restricted mode. Thus 12% of Prager U. videos have been put in restricted mode, compared with 24% of History Channel videos, 28% of Vox videos and 54% of Daily Show videos….One irony I see in this is that conservatives up till recently have tended to favor promoting parental-control modes in social media, or even making them the default, and have accepted the inevitability that the automated algorithms that inevitably drive these modes when applied to large bodies of material may sometimes sweep broadly enough to screen out even some responsible, sober, and fact-based discussions of topics to which parents might not want to expose younger teens. Having now seen these modes in action, they seem to be having second thoughts.

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  • Bill de Blasio is in a very stupid Twitter spat with Rudy Giuliani:

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  • Cheers: