These massive late night raids on occupations can’t be cheap. They involve dozens, perhaps hundreds of police officers, often brought in from other nearby jurisdictions. There just aren’t that many police on the graveyard shift, so the bulk of them must be getting paid costly overtime to work evictions in the middle of the night. Who is paying for this?

This deportation review is unlikely to stop the record level of deportations, which hit 400,000 last year. Obama Administration official Cecilia Munoz admitted on a Frontline documentary this week that “As long as Congress gives us the money to deport 400,000 people a year, that’s what the administration is going to do.”

That’s a pretty shocking admission.

The news that the Obama Administration deported 400,000 undocumented immigrants in the last fiscal year, setting another record, did not come as welcome news to immigration advocates. The Administration claims there is new focus on just criminals, but what do they define as “criminal”?

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) announced a roundup over the last week of nearly 3,000 alleged criminal immigrants from across the country. The action follows a recent order from the Department of Homeland Security to focus only on serious criminals in their deportation efforts. But why is the Department of Justice undermining the Dream Act?

A few people asked me why the Obama Administration is so dead-set on deporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants, when they have no hope of attracting the anti-immigrant crowd from a political standpoint. Rep. Luis Gutierrez explained that to me at Netroots Nation, and I think if more people understood this rationale you’d see even more outcry than you do now:

So why have there been so many deportations, more than under the Bush Administration? Gutierrez suggested that the White House feels they have a mandate from Congress to deport 400,000 people a year. Which means they’re literally breaking up families to fulfill a budgetary authority. Congress has expanded deportation systems and given DHS more money to deport. So the contractors have been paid, and now they have to be used. That’s how Secure Communities, a real cash cow for the contractors, was created. And that’s why they don’t want states dropping out. “The fastest-growing airline in the country is the one that flies around undocumented immigrants,” said Gutierrez. In the end, it comes down to money, for detention, information sharing and the mechanics of deportation.

Hundreds of immigrants rights advocates in Los Angeles staged a walkout during a federal task force field hearing about the Secure Communities program, blamed for the deportations of tens of thousands of non-citizens living peacefully in America. Activists implored the members of the task force to resign their post, and recommend that the Obama Administration end Secure Communities, before exiting the meeting to a chant of “we don’t need a hearing, we need to end the program.”

The top cybersecurity guy at DHS, Phil Reitinger, announced his resignation today. Which is pretty odd, given that Obama just rolled out his cybersecurity strategy a few days ago.

Ignoring the anger and demonizing the angry does not service liberty or security, and it doesn’t do much for the causes of progressives or the Democratic Party, either.

The last thing the TSA needs is a pile of crappy technology that isn’t even effective, that people refuse to use, right?

The “groping” technique was developed as a way to punish people into using the scanners — because there are $148 million more on the way. And just so nobody gets the idea to follow Tyner’s lead, the TSA is using threats and intimidation to guarantee the market for the porno scanners. Whether Tyner is prosecuted or not, people will hear about what happened to him and think twice before refusing to become fodder for their new machines.

This is a full-on outrage.

It’s time to investigate the TSA, not Tyner. Sign the petition demanding Congress investigate the TSA’s porno scanners, aggressive groping, and abuses of power.

You’ve probably heard of the “Don’t Touch My Junk” guy who chose to miss his flight rather than have TSA touch his genitals in its brand new “aggressive pat-downs” strategy. As if the experience wasn’t humiliating enough – and expensive, for missing his flight – the TSA has decided to make an example of John “Don’t Touch My Junk” Tyner. The TSA announced yesterday it would investigate, and may prosecute, Tyner for declining the porno scanners and groping.