Movement Against ICE Terror Grows; Driverless Trucking Advances; Congress Targets BreakThrough News
Movement against ICE terror grows
The movement against ICE terror continues to grow as communities respond to a string of deadly encounters and the broader expansion of the deportation machine.
In Houston this weekend, thousands marched through the East End and gathered in Hidalgo Park for a “No Business As Usual” protest demanding justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, the 52-year-old husband, father, and construction worker killed by ICE on July 7 while driving to work with coworkers. Organizers called on residents and businesses to close, stay home, avoid spending money, and join the protest to demand accountability. Dozens of businesses in the East End – the neighborhood where Lorenzo lived and built his life – reportedly closed their doors or supported the action.
The protest comes after weeks of outrage. Federal officials have acknowledged that Lorenzo was not the intended target of the immigration operation. Passengers in the van have also contradicted the government’s account, saying officers were not in danger and that Lorenzo was parking when shots were fired. The men who survived the shooting remain detained by ICE.
At the same time, police violence is again fueling protests in cities across the country. In Madison, Wisconsin, Corey Ruiz was shot and killed by police during an attempted arrest captured on bystander video, sparking protests and renewed demands for accountability. The shooting has added to the same national anger over people being killed in the streets by armed agents of the state.
Whether at the hands of ICE or police, working people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people and marginalized people shot down, disappeared into detention, or killed in custody with little accountability.
Driverless trucking advances as the industry pushes immigrant drivers out
Aurora announced this week that its driverless trucks are now operating with no person behind the wheel, marking another major step toward wider deployment of autonomous freight. The company says the Aurora Driver is now handling all driving on its second-generation driverless trucks, with the driver’s seat empty. A roadside assistance worker may ride in the rear seat on some trips, but no human operator is behind the wheel.
This matters because trucking is already entering one of the most turbulent periods in its history.
As we covered in a previous bulletin, new immigration and licensing rules could push hundreds of thousands of immigrant truckers out of the industry. FreightWaves reported last year that transportation economist Noël Perry warned the industry could face the “largest capacity purge in history,” estimating that the total at-risk driver population could exceed 600,000 when accounting for non-domiciled CDL restrictions, English-language enforcement, undocumented drivers, and restrictions on new hires. That number is a projection of drivers at risk, not a confirmed count of workers already removed, but the scale of the threat is enormous.
Now, as immigrant drivers are pushed out and remaining workers face pressure to take on longer, harder hours, autonomous trucking companies are moving fast to fill the space. Aurora is already operating in Texas and expanding across the Sun Belt. Its latest driverless launch removes one of the major barriers to broader deployment: the need to keep a human operator behind the wheel.
Tesla is also pushing deeper into the trucking market. The company reported $28.24 billion in quarterly revenue this week, while Elon Musk told investors Tesla is pursuing a self-driving version of its electric Semi. Tesla is pouring money into AI, autonomy, robotics, and electric vehicles, while presenting its future around a world where drivers, warehouse workers, and logistics workers are increasingly replaced by machines. But nothing about this is automatic. It is a political and economic choice by corporations and elected officials.
The trucking industry is being reshaped by immigration crackdowns, deregulation, longer-hour proposals, and self-driving technology all at once. Logistics giants are positioning themselves to reap super profits from that upheaval while immigrant drivers and working-class truckers are left to absorb the damage.
If autonomous trucking expands without worker power at the table, the result could be devastating: lost livelihoods, degraded labor standards, higher pressure on remaining drivers, and communities left to deal with the consequences of a logistics system built around profit instead of people.
Congress targets BreakThrough News in attack on independent media
The Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed BreakThrough News this week, along with The People’s Forum and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, demanding internal communications and financial records as part of an investigation into alleged foreign-linked influence in the U.S. nonprofit sector. The committee claims the subpoenas are about foreign influence and tax compliance. Press freedom organizations have said the investigation is a political attack on independent journalism, aimed at punishing its reporting on U.S. foreign policy, mass deportations, ICE abuses, Cuba, Palestine, and anti-war movements.
BTN has reported extensively on Trump’s war on Iran, the military buildup against Venezuela, the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the tightening U.S. blockade on Cuba, the genocide in Gaza, and the ICE occupation of immigrant communities across the United States. Those are exactly the stories the U.S. state, weapons manufacturers, corporate media, and billionaire-backed political class do not want challenged.
The attack has been years in the making. During the genocide in Gaza, BTN became one of the independent outlets consistently challenging both the Biden and Trump administrations’ military and diplomatic support for Israel. Now, under Trump, the attack has intensified alongside broader crackdowns on protest, immigrant rights organizing, and anti-war dissent.
The subpoena campaign also parallels the long-standing history and growing use of foreign influence accusations and FARA-style pressure against anti-war organizations, Palestine solidarity groups, immigrant rights advocates, and media outlets that challenge U.S. foreign policy. The basic logic is dangerous: if you criticize U.S. foreign policy too effectively, the government can imply you are working for a foreign power. That is a direct threat to press freedom.
At the same time, corporate media is consolidating even further. The Justice Department approved Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, bringing major film studios, streaming platforms, and news brands like CBS News and CNN under one corporate roof. While the merger has since been challenged and delayed, they still plan to move forward. As media megamergers hand more control to billionaires and corporate executives, state attacks on independent journalism become even more dangerous.
When billionaires consolidate the media and Congress targets outlets that challenge U.S. foreign policy, the result is not a free press. It is a media system where dissent is marginalized, independent journalism is criminalized, and mainstream political narratives go uncontested. Organizations and media figures are now speaking out in defense of BreakThrough News, warning that if this attack succeeds, it will not stop with BTN. Any outlet reporting critically on U.S. wars, sanctions, deportations, corporate power, or police violence could be next.
A free press means nothing if it only protects billionaire-owned media that repeats the government’s line.
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