Ice raids stir fear as Kamala Harris says they demonstrate ‘insensitivity’ – live | US news

During their visit to El Paso on Wednesday, Trump and first lady Melania Trump met with the family of Andre and Jordan Anchondo, the couple who died protecting their two-month-old son during the El Paso shooting.

When the first lady later shared a Twitter post with photos from the El Paso trip, she included a picture of her holding the Anchondos’ son Paul, who escaped the shooting with minor injuries.

Reporters later learned more about how the Trumps’ visit with Paul and his grandparents came to be:

The series of events quickly led to accusations by many horrified Twitter users that the president and first lady had used the orphaned child as a prop.

From a Georgetown professor:

From a Media Matters editor:

From a host for the progressive site Occupy Democrats:

The presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders has released a new ad honoring Michael Brown, who was killed five years ago today in Ferguson, Missouri.

The ad features Missouri congressional candidate Cori Bush, who became a leader in the Black Lives Matter movement, discussing the impact Brown’s killing had on her community.

“If I could do anything to save the life of my son because I couldn’t save Michael Brown. I couldn’t save Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Aiyana Jones,” Bush says. “We were in a war zone, and I even heard Vietnam veterans say to me when the tear gas was going – they were saying I feel like I’m back. That was my war zone in my backyard that I couldn’t leave, that I couldn’t, I couldn’t get up and go somewhere else.”

She adds, “The only way to make change is to be able to step out and to have that courage, you know, that fearlessness. And so for me that political revolution is you being free to be you.”

The video then cuts to a clip from a Sanders campaign rally, with the candidate saying, “When we are in the White House, we are going to end institutional racism wherever it exists.”

Bush, who lost her 2018 Democratic primary to popular incumbent William Lacy Clay despite national coverage of her bid, is once again seeking the House seat next year.

Good morning, live blog readers — and welcome to the (almost) end of a long and difficult week.

As El Paso and Dayton continue to mourn the loss of 31 people lost in this weekend’s two mass shootings, the Mississippi Ice raids have stirred fear among the country’s immigrant communities. The raids were the largest ever Ice sweep conducted in a single state and resulted in the arrests of 680 people, most of them Latino.

The raids left dozens of children abandoned, and videos showed many of the kids crying at makeshift shelters as they were comforted by relatives and strangers. Magdalena Gomez Gregorio, an 11-year-old girl whose father was detained in the raids, offered this plea:“Government, please show some heart.”

Speaking to CNN yesterday, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said the raids, coming just days after a white supremacist warning of a Hispanic “invasion” killed 22 in El Paso, demonstrated the “insensitivity and callousness” of the Trump administration. “It is immoral,” Harris said. “These are human rights abuses being committed by the United States government.”

She continued, “People are in fear all over the country. When you combine those raids with what just happened in El Paso, and again, do you think that this administration, and this president might step back and say, wait a minute, after what just happened in El Paso, when it was motivated by hate against immigrants and Latino immigrants, do you think that a responsible leader would have said, don’t do those raids? … It shows a level of insensitivity and callousness that should not be traits of the president of the United States.”

Here’s what else the blog is keeping its eye on:

• Trump is traveling to Southampton, New York, today to hold fundraising receptions.
• The White House is expected to meet with major tech leaders from Facebook, Google and Twitter (among other companies) to discuss the rise of violent online extremism.
• Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke will attend an assembly at Mountain View High School in El Paso this morning.
• Other Democratic presidential candidates are campaigning at the Iowa State Fair.

That’s all still coming up, so stay tuned.