Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 22, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba B4 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM W ASHINGTON — Federal author- ities have set up checkpoints around the nation’s capital, sometimes asking people for their im- migration status and detaining them, as President Donald Trump’s crackdown ensnares more residents each day. Trump claimed that a crime crisis re- quired his Republican administration’s intervention in the Democratic-led city this month, brushing aside statistics that showed the problem was already waning. However, immigration enforce- ment appears to be a priority, as more than a third of people arrested in the last two weeks were in the country il- legally, according to the White House. Hundreds of federal agents and Na- tional Guard soldiers have surged into Washington, leaving some residents on edge and creating tense confrontations in the streets. A day care centre was partially closed Thursday when staff became afraid to go to work because they heard about federal agents nearby. An administra- tor asked parents to keep their children at home if possible. Other day cares have stopped taking kids on daily walks because of fears about encountering law enforcement. The White House said there have been 630 arrests, including 251 people who are in the country illegally, since Aug. 7, when Trump began surging federal agents into the city. Trump has been ratcheting up the pressure since then, seizing control of the D.C. police department on Aug. 11 and deploying more National Guard troops, mostly from Republican-led states. On Thursday evening, Trump visited with officers and troops at a U.S. Park Police facility in the latest show of force from the White House. “We’re not playing games,” he said. Trump suggested that operations in the city could be drawn out and serve as a model for others around the country. “We’re going to make it safe, and we’re going to go on to other places, but we’re going to stay here for a while,” he said. Soldiers have been largely stationed in downtown areas, such as monuments on the National Mall and transit sta- tions. However, federal agents are oper- ating more widely through the city. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser acknowledged the proliferation of traffic checkpoints Thursday. “The surge of federal officers is al- lowing for different types of deploy- ments, more frequent types of deploy- ments, like checkpoints,” Bowser said. A crowd of people gathered outside a municipal office building to protest Trump’s crackdown, waving signs and cheering speakers who denounced the president’s plans. Their numbers swelled into the hundreds until police closed off nearby streets. When the rally ended, many remained to dance and listen to music. In other neighbourhoods Thursday evening, residents banged pots and pans on rooftops, front steps and street cor- ners. On Thursday morning, as Martin Romero rode through Washington’s Rock Creek Park on his way to a con- struction job in Virginia, he saw police on the road up ahead. He figured it was a normal traffic stop, but it wasn’t. Romero, 41, said U.S. Park Police were telling pickup trucks with com- pany logos to pull over, reminding them that commercial vehicles weren’t al- lowed on park roads. They checked for licenses and insurance information, and then U.S. Immigration and Customs En- forcement agents came over. Romero said there were two agents on one side of his truck and three on the other. He started to get nervous as the agents asked where they were from and whether they were in the country illegally. “We just came here to work,” Romero said afterwards. “We aren’t doing any- thing bad.” Two people in his truck were detained and the agents didn’t give a reason, he said. He also saw three other people taken from other vehicles. “I feel really worried because they took two of our guys,” he said. “They wouldn’t say where they’re taking them or if they’ll be able to come back.” Romero said he called his boss, who told him to just head home. They wouldn’t be working today. Enrique Martinez, a supervisor at the construction company, came to the scene afterwards. He pondered wheth- er to call families of the detained men. “This has never happened to our com- pany before,” Martinez said. “I’m not really sure what to do.” The Supreme Court has upheld the use of law enforcement and government checkpoints for specific purposes, such as policing the border and identifying suspected drunk drivers. But there are restrictions on that authority, especially when it comes to general crime control. Jeffrey Bellin, a former prosecutor in Washington and professor at Vanderbilt Law School who specializes in criminal law and pro- cedures, said the Constitution doesn’t allow “the government to be constantly checking us and stopping to see if we’re up to any criminal activity.” He said checkpoints for a legally justifiable purpose — like checking for driver’s licenses and registrations — cannot be used as “subterfuge” or a pre- text for stops that would otherwise not be allowed. And though the court has affirmed the use of checkpoints at the border, and even some distance away from it, to ask drivers about immigra- tion status, Bellin said it was unlikely the authority would extend to Washing- ton. Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor at Georgia State College of Law, said the seemingly “arbitrary” and intrusive nature of the checkpoints in the capital could leave residents feeling aggrieved. “Some of the things could be entirely constitutional and fine, but at the same time, the way that things are unfolding, people are suspicious — and I think for good reason,” he said. Lilly Burchfield, 25, said she’s seen people in her neighbourhood come out of their homes to yell at federal agents. “It feels like we’re all coming togeth- er as a community and everyone that I’ve talked to has been outraged by what’s happening,” she said. There are few places in the country that have been unaffected by Trump’s deportation drive, but his push into D.C. is shaping into something more sus- tained, similar to what has unfolded in the Los Angeles area since early June. In Los Angeles, immigration officers — working with the Border Patrol and other federal agencies — have been a near-daily presence at Home Depots, car washes and other highly visible lo- cations. Immigration officials have been an unusually public presence, sending horse patrols to the city’s famed Mac- Arthur Park and appearing outside California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s news conference last week on congressional redistricting. Authorities said an agent fired at a moving vehicle last week after the driver refused to roll down his win- dow during an immigration stop. The National Guard and marines were previously in the city for weeks on an assignment to maintain order amid protests. A federal judge blocked the adminis- tration from conducting indiscriminate immigration stops in Southern Califor- nia but authorities have vowed to keep the pressure on. — The Associated Press NEWS I WORLD FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2025 California special election called for redrawn congressional map TRÂN NGUYỄN AND JIM VERTUNO SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California vot- ers will decide in November whether to approve a redrawn congressional map designed to help Democrats win five more U.S. House seats next year, after Texas Republicans advanced their own redrawn map to pad their House major- ity by the same number of seats at Presi- dent Donald Trump’s urging. California lawmakers voted mostly along party lines Thursday to approve legislation calling for the special elec- tion. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has led the campaign in favour of the map, then quickly signed it — the latest step in a tit-for-tat gerryman- dering battle. “We don’t want this fight and we didn’t choose this fight, but with our democ- racy on the line, we will not run away from this fight,” Democratic Assembly- man Marc Berman said. Republicans, who have filed a lawsuit and called for a federal investigation into the plan, promised to keep fighting it. California Assemblyman James Gal- lagher, the Republican minority leader, said Trump was “wrong” to push for new Republican seats elsewhere, contending the president was just responding to Democratic gerrymandering in other states. But he warned that Newsom’s ap- proach, which the governor has dubbed “fight fire with fire,” was dangerous. “You move forward fighting fire with fire and what happens?” Gallagher asked. “You burn it all down.” In Texas, the Republican-controlled state Senate was scheduled to vote on a map Thursday night. After that, Repub- lican Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature will be all that is needed to make the map of- ficial. It’s part of Trump’s effort to stave off an expected loss of the GOP’s major- ity in the U.S. House in the 2026 midterm elections. On a national level, the partisan make- up of existing districts puts Democrats within three seats of a majority. The in- cumbent president’s party usually loses congressional seats in the midterms. The president has pushed other Repub- lican-controlled states including Indiana and Missouri to also revise their maps to add more winnable GOP seats. Ohio Re- publicans were also already scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan. The U.S. Supreme Court has said the Constitution does not outlaw partisan gerrymandering, only using race to re- draw district lines. Texas Republicans embraced that when their House of Rep- resentatives passed its revision Wednes- day. “The underlying goal of this plan is straight forward: improve Republican political performance,” state Rep. Todd Hunter, the Republican who wrote the bill revising Texas’ maps, said. On Thursday, California Democrats noted Hunter’s comments and said they had to take extreme steps to counter the Republican move. “What do we do, just sit back and do nothing? Or do we fight back?” Democratic state Sen. Lena Gon- zalez said. “This is how we fight back and protect our democracy.” Republicans and some Democrats championed the 2008 ballot measure that established California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission, along with the 2010 one that extended its role to draw- ing congressional maps. Democrats have sought a national commission that would draw lines for all states but have been unable to pass legis- lation creating that system. That was clear in California, where Newsom was one of the members of his party who backed the initial redistrict- ing commission ballot measures, and where Assemblyman Joshua Lowenthal, whose father, Rep. Alan Lowenthal, was another Democratic champion of a non- partisan commission, presided over the state Assembly’s passage of the redis- tricting package. Former president Barack Obama, who’s also backed a nationwide nonparti- san approach, has also backed Newsom’s bid to redraw the California map, saying it was a necessary step to stave off the GOP’s Texas move. “I think that approach is a smart, meas- ured approach,” Obama said Tuesday during a fundraiser for the Democratic Party’s main redistricting arm, noting that California voters will still have the final say on the map. The California map would last only through 2030, when the state’s commis- sion would draw up a new map for the normal, once-a-decade redistricting to adjust district lines after the decennial U.S. Census. Democrats are also mulling reopening Maryland’s and New York’s maps for mid-decade redraws. However, more Democratic-run states have commission systems like Califor- nia’s or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York, for example, can’t draw new maps until 2028, and even then, only with voter approval. — The Associated Press JACQUELYN MARTIN / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with members of law enforcement and National Guard soldiers Thursday in Washington. CHRIS MEGERIAN AND JACQUELYN MARTIN Checkpoints set up around Washington Trump’s show of force in D.C. ‘going to stay here for a while’ Appeals court throws out massive civil fraud penalty against Trump NEW YORK — A New York appeals court on Thursday threw out President Donald Trump’s massive financial pen- alty while narrowly upholding a judge’s finding that he engaged in fraud by ex- aggerating his wealth for decades. The ruling spares Trump from a potential half-billion-dollar fine but bans him and his two eldest sons from serving in corporate leadership for a few years. Trump claimed “TOTAL VICTORY” in the case, which stemmed from a civil lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. “They stole $550 million from me with a fake case and it was overturned,” Trump said, echoing his earlier social media post as he addressed police in Washington, D.C. “They said this was a fake case. It was a terrible thing.” James, a Democrat, focused on the parts of the decision that went her way, saying in a statement that it “affirmed the well-supported finding of the trial court: Donald Trump, his company, and two of his children are liable for fraud.” The ruling came seven months after Trump returned to the White House, his political fortunes unimpeded by the civil fraud judgment, a criminal conviction and other legal blows. A sharply divided panel of five judges in the state’s mid-level Appellate Division couldn’t agree on many issues raised in Trump’s appeal, but a majority said the monetary penalty was “excessive.” A lower-court judge, Arthur Eng- oron, had ordered Trump last year to pay $355 million in penalties after finding that he flagrantly padded fi- nancial statements provided to lenders and insurers. With interest, the sum has topped $515 million. Additional pen- alties for executives at his company, the Trump Organization, including sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., have brought the total to $527 million with interest. “While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award” to the state, Judges Dianne Ren- wick and Peter Moulton wrote in one of three opinions shaping the appeals court’s ruling. They called the penal- ty “an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.” Both were appointed by Democratic governors. Engoron’s other punishments, up- held by the appeals court, have been on pause during Trump’s appeal, and the president was able to hold off collection of the money by posting a US$175 mil- lion bond. The five-judge panel, which split on the merits of the lawsuit and Engoron’s fraud finding, dismissed the monet- ary penalty in its entirety while also leaving a pathway for an appeal to the state’s highest court, the Court of Ap- peals. In the meantime, Trump and his co-defendants, the judges wrote, can seek to extend the pause to prevent any punishments from taking effect. While the Appellate Division dis- patches most appeals in a few pages in a matter of weeks, the judges weighing Trump’s case took nearly 11 months to rule after oral arguments last fall and issued 323 pages of concurring and dis- senting opinions with no majority. Rath- er, some judges endorsed parts of their colleagues’ findings while denouncing others, enabling the court to rule. — The Associated Press ;