Weekly Member Update - April 27, 2026

Written By Indivisible Albany Team

We still need top be talking about ICE. Since the terror campaign known as “Operation Metro Surge” wound down in Minneapolis in February of this year following the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, resulting in the banishment of odious bantam rooster and Commander-at-Large of the Border Patrol Greg Bovino, the mainstream media has seemed to move on to whatever new outrage has been spewing from the Trump Regime. For many, the perception was that ICE and Border Patrol had scaled back their operations, switching their duties from masked abductions of random neighbors to merely loitering at airports. Kristi Noem had disembarked from her Fuckplane and MMA plumber Markwayne “Two Names” Mullin took over at Homeland Security; before you knew it, the Associated Press was reporting that ICE abductions had decreased by twelve percent.

Well, we’re here to remind you that ICE and Border Patrol are alive and well and that the assaults on American communities still continue every single day. Behind the headlines of the AP’s reporting is the reality that there are still more than 7,300 ICE abductions happening every week across the Country, down from the peak numbers of Trump’s second term but still dramatically higher than the number of apprehensions which took place in the Biden Administration. And, while the focus of ICE activity seems to have shifted from blue states to red, ICE is still out there, even in the 518. According to our friends in the Capital Region Sanctuary Coalition, there have been at least six ICE abductions in the Albany area over the past two weeks: on April 13, a community member was taken at River Street and Ingalls Avenue in Troy, leaving his car abandoned; the next day, another neighbor was taken at Tivoli Park in Albany, with ICE also spotted that day in Colonie and in Schenectady; by Cohoes Middle School on April 17, three ICE vehicles surrounded a work van, searched the vehicle without a warrant and took one of the occupants; on April 20, three unmarked vehicles pulled over a truck in Albany’s West Hill and abducted a passenger, with multiple ICE vehicles being spotted later that same day in Schenectady; ICE was in the City of Rensselaer on April 21 and took two people away near the Empire State Trail; and, this past Saturday, multiple ICE vehicles were spotted in the parking lot of Lucky Times grocery store on Second Avenue in Albany.

What also remains true is that the people that ICE is abducting are not the menacing criminals the Regime wants us to believe they are. The New York Times reported this week on an 85-year-old, Trump supporting widow of an American veteran who was taken from her home in her nightclothes and handcuffs, detained for weeks in squalid conditions and deported to her native France; in a delightful twist, it seems that her arrest was initiated by her son-in-law, a former Alabama State Trooper, in the midst of court proceedings concerning distribution of her late husband’s estate. The Texas Observer has told the story of a longtime court interpreter — and 35-year US resident — who was snatched by ICE at a Texas airport on her way to Wisconsin in connection with her work. She was taken to a Texas detention facility where she had previously performed interpretative services; the agents working at the facility posed for photos with her in handcuffs, apparently for social media.

Sadly, performative cruelty is hardly the only routine display of inhumanity at the detention facilities being run by the Regime and its private prison contractors. The San Francisco Chronicle has done extensive reporting on the 48 deaths — 15 already this year — which have occurred in ICE detention facilities since Trump returned to power. That tale is one of unnecessary deaths resulting from systematic medical neglect and malpractice. In Arizona, a surprise visit to a detention facility at Mesa-Gateway Airport — a former destination of Avelo Airlines, by the way — by Members of Congress revealed deplorable conditions with people packed “like sardines” in a “temporary” facility with no showers, no beds, no feminine-hygiene products and no medical care whatsoever. Project Saltbox has told the story of a Baltimore business owner who was injured when ICE agents crashed into his vehicle to arrest him; he has since been denied medical care for his wounds and access to legal counsel. At the notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” concentration camp in the Florida Everglades, there are reports of widespread civil rights violations, including routine beatings. And then there is the psychological damage being inflicted at these detention facilities, particularly on children. According to the Marshall Project, since Trump reinstituted the practice of “family detention,” more than 6,200 children have been imprisoned by the Regime, with about half having been held at the privately-held Dilley detention facility in Texas. There, according to court filings, “families consistently report their children are hungry, exhausted, perpetually sick, and despondent from the conditions of confinement.” Parents have reported finding worms and mold in food and foul-smelling water. In one court filing, a parent said, “babies are getting thin because they can only really eat pieces of bread.” But, believe it or not, it could even get worse; there was reporting this weekend that ICE is planning to convert a toxic-waste site at a former military facility in Louisiana into a detention center for children and families.

Stories like these make it clear that the fight against ICE is not just about preventing abductions in our communities where possible, it’s also about dismantling the detention network that the Regime is erecting across the Country. To that end, many of you took to the streets this past Saturday to demand that Citizens Bank stop underwriting CoreCivic and GEO Group, the two largest private prison contractors assisting Trump and his ICE stormtroopers. This followed protests by hundreds at the Citizens Bank shareholder meeting in Rhode Island last week. You can also now sign up to be part of a rapid-response network to help fight ICE detention centers before they even get started. You can also write to Members of Congress to demand that they demand accountability for the Regime’s detention and deportation machine. Detention facilities are not inevitable, and they have been defeated in both blue and red communities alike; there is blueprint, the American people just need to follow it.

The Week in Flock:

  • The Flock surveillance company is offering a one-hour webinar to law enforcement on May 20. The topic? “How to Speak to City Councils: Meeting the Moment with Confidence.” Among the areas to be covered at this webinar is Flock’s advice on “practical ways to engage community stakeholders early and build alignment before concerns escalate.” Although advertised to police command leadership and public information officers, apparently anybody can register to hear just what it is that Flock is coaching the police to say.

  • A driver in Colorado is being repeatedly pulled over by police because his license plate has been erroneously flagged on Flock’s “Hotlist” feature as being connected to an outstanding warrant. Not only is the driver being repeatedly inconvenienced, since he has no idea what the outstanding warrant is for, he fears what could happen if some police officer believes Flock over him.

  • Outside Kansas City, a concerned citizen wrote an op/ed which was mildly critical of police and his municipality for not doing more to protect his neighbors from ICE. In return, local police tracked his movements using their license plate reader network.

  • The City of Everett, Washington has reactivated its Flock network in the wake of state legislation which exempts license plate reader footage from disclosure pursuant to a public record request.

  • In Oshkosh, Wisconsin, however, City officials rescinded their Flock contract only 24 hours after previously renewing it. Leading the charge to cancel the contract was the Oshkosh Police Chief, who revealed that Flock’s representatives had lied to him about the ability of Flock technology to create “heat maps” to track vehicles; spoiler alert, Flock absolutely does have that capacity.

  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s EFFector podcast had a recent episode on How License Plate Readers are Normalizing Mass Surveillance.

  • Flock sales employees were caught logging onto the Flock network in Dunwoody, Georgia to spy on Dunwoody residents in childrens’ gymnastics centers, fitness studios, libraries, playgrounds, schools and private pools.

Odds & Ends:

Indivisible Albany Team
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Weekly Member Update - April 20, 2026