Politics and views in the United States.

President Trump signs the bill to force the release of the Epstein files. ICE actions have advocates and community members afraid and educators are upset by the new stage of the dismantling of the Education Department.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2025 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

We have released over 33,000 Epstein documents to the Hill and we'll continue to follow the law and to have maximum transparency.

Also, we will always encourage all victims to come forward.

Attorney General Pam Bondi says the Justice Department will abide by the law President Donald Trump just signed to release all files relating to dead sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.

Bondi, at Trump's urging, has ordered the US Attorney District of New York to investigate prominent political enemies of Trump who were named in the documents.

That order came just after revelations in emails from Epstein's estate that Trump "knew about the girls" and spent time alone with one of Epstein's victims.

Bondi is in hot water after revelations a federal grand jury never saw the actual indictment it's supposedly handed down against one of Trump's critics, former FBI Director James Comey.

His lawyers say that means Comey was never really charged with the two counts of misleading Congress he's accused of.

They also want the case thrown out as a purely vindictive prosecution.

The blunder could bring disciplinary action for Bondi and Lindsey Halligan, the acting federal prosecutor in the case.

250 ICE agents are getting ready for what's being called the swamp sweep.

Mass raids in Mississippi and Louisiana starting next month.

Some leaders there praise the plan, but Louisiana Democratic Congressman Troy Carter says federal data show most people being targeted aren't criminals.

You do not build safety by driving families into shadows, emptying out workplaces and classrooms and creating an atmosphere where people are afraid to call police when their victims or witness of crimes.

ICE and other federal officers descended on a St. Paul, Minnesota factory Tuesday, prompting a large protest.

The city's mayor-elect, Kaleigh Hurst, says she understands the pain of the Latino community.

She says workers and their families are being targeted, forced to prove their citizenship and having their lives upended.

It is not just that they were detained and released, that they lose jobs from not being able to go to them, that their families that relied on them cannot.

The children who needed their parents to be there to give them transportation to school do not have them.

Last week, ICE agents broke down a family's front door in Queens, New York, without announcing themselves, searching for someone who doesn't live there.

Murata Wada with the New York Immigration Coalition says the agents didn't have a warrant, but pointed their guns at a mother and her four children.

He calls ICE a rogue agency.

The children are afraid of leaving their mother when they go to school now.

Even the neighbors thought a burglar is in progress and they called the NYPD, who showed up.

No child should ever have to be a victim of such unlawful and ruthless behavior.

The Trump administration must end its war on immigrants.

Several education department offices are being moved to other agencies as part of the president's plan to dismantle the department.

The White House points to low test scores as an indicator of vital student support getting lost in education's bureaucracy.

But Kate Diaz with the Connecticut Education Association says the administration doesn't understand the department's purpose.

While the department is charged with the distribution of funds, it also has critical oversight over how those funds are used assuring that every child has equitable access to public education and that families receive the assistance they need.

I'm Edwin J. Viera for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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