Worst Of The Worst

ICYMI - “Trump claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua took over the building. But new docs make no mention of them”

They lie & use gangs as an excuse to terrorize immigrants. @MarshaBlackburn tells this lie all the time—even TBI got caught telling it. https://t.co/7cgMMGu6fU pic.twitter.com/CwwXhCreWa

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) February 8, 2026

Beyond the headline (which is the thesis of the article), two interesting points:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security makes no mention in the records of Tren de Aragua, even though officials repeatedly cited the gang’s presence in the building as the motivation for the raid. Agents paraded immigrants in front of cameras and called their arrests a victory against terrorism. The government also claimed two of those arrested were gang members but never provided any proof. A clipping from a document filed in court on Tuesday, with a highlighted paragraph stating: “On Tuesday, September 30, 2025, USBP agents along with OFO Special Response Team Officers assisted by AMO, ERO, and FBI executed a methodical search of an apartment building located 7500 S. South Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois. This operation was based on intelligence that there were illegal aliens unlawfully occupying apartments in the building. The entry and subsequent search of the premise was facilitated as a result of the/building’s owner/manager’s verbal and written consent./The combined forces search consisted of only apartments that were not legally rented or leased at the time.”

ProPublica previously reported, based on interviews and records, that there was little evidence to back up the government’s claims. Even today, four months after the raid, federal prosecutors have not filed criminal charges against anyone who was arrested.

The first paragraph is context; it’s the second paragraph I’m interested in. All that sturm und drang, and nothing came of it. Helicopters, TV cameras The cover story was Tren de Aragua. The actual reason was to find immigrants squatting in empty apartments. They didn’t find any.  They didn’t arrest anyone.

Over the past few months, ProPublica has interviewed 15 of the immigrants detained that night; all denied gang membership. They and others who lived in the building acknowledged there was criminal activity there, including the murder of a Venezuelan man last summer, but nobody knew of gang members there.

The two arrest records were filed in federal court as part of ongoing litigation over whether the government, during its monthslong deportation campaign in Chicago, violated a 2022 consent decree that limits warrantless arrests. The consent decree is still in place, and the government continues to challenge it.

So the point? SOP for this administration. Including misleading the court:

In the motion filed Tuesday night, immigrant rights attorneys said that to justify warrantless arrests across Chicago, the government described immigrants as flight risks though they were not. Some of the factors that DHS used to make that determination for the South Shore men — including their “willful disregard for other’s personal property” and their “attempt to flee from law enforcement” — were baseless and contradicted by the arrest narratives, the attorneys wrote.

But the other interesting bit is why the raid occurred in the first place:

The property owner, Trinity Flood, a Wisconsin-based real estate investor, and the management company at the time of the raid, Strength in Management, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday morning. Flood and Corey Oliver, the management company’s owner, have repeatedly declined interview requests and have not acknowledged any involvement in the operation.

...

From the beginning there had been questions about whether Flood and her property manager tipped off the government to get rid of squatters in her building, which had repeatedly failed city inspections in the two years before the raid.

Last month, state officials launched a housing discrimination investigation into allegations that Flood and Strength in Management used federal agents to illegally force the Black and Hispanic tenants from the 130-unit building in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood.

In their complaint, state officials wrote that “building management blamed Venezuelan tenants for their own (management’s) failure to provide needed locks and security service, as well as other needed maintenance and repairs, and perpetuated stereotypes about Venezuelan gang members to send a message that tenants born outside of the United States were considered gang associates, even if they were law abiding.”

What’s that saying about birds of a feather? And now Flood has a dilapidated building and a state investigation, as well as a foreclosure suit. And the Administration deported a few people but ended up with no criminal convictions. 

Worst of the worst.