Raw Story: Omaha restaurants close as DHS sparks panic for workers

Two Omaha restaurant locations have closed after their owner reported receiving a subpoena from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking the immigration status of its employees.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Fernando’s Omaha said it was cooperating with the DHS inquiry. However, the subpoena resulted in the loss of some workers, causing the two restaurant locations to close temporarily.

“We understand this situation may raise concerns for our team and community. We want to assure everyone that we are handling this matter with the utmost sensitivity and respect for all individuals involved. We deeply appreciate the contributions of all our employees,” the statement said.

“This review, unfortunately, resulted in the departure of some valued co-workers. This impacts our ability to fully staff operations and may temporarily affect hours and service levels.”

“The loss of colleagues is difficult and can affect the morale and productivity of our remaining team members. To our team, we express our sincere gratitude for your resilience during this time of uncertainty. We are committed to returning to full operations as soon as possible,” Fernando’s Omaha added.

https://www.rawstory.com/dhs-immigration

Newsweek: Supreme Court to hear JD Vance case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a Republican-led challenge to a federal campaign finance law provision that limits how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates. The case, which centers on free speech claims, involves Vice President JD Vance, who was a U.S. Senate candidate in Ohio when the lawsuit was initiated.

The justices took up an appeal from Vance and two Republican committees, contesting a lower court’s decision that upheld the spending limits. The challengers argue the restrictions violate constitutional protections by capping party spending influenced by input from supported candidates.

How dare they deprive the wealthy of their God-given right to purchase election results!

DNC Chair Ken Martin, DSCC Chair Kirsten Gillibrand, and DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene said in a statement: “We refuse to sit on the sidelines as Trump’s DOJ and the Republican Party attempt to throw out longstanding election laws for their own benefit. Republicans know their grassroots support is drying up across the country, and they want to drown out the will of the voters.

https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-jd-vance-campaign-finance-ohio-case-2092657

Axios: Judge blocks Colorado governor from forcing some staff to aid ICE subpoena

A Denver judge on Wednesday granted a preliminary injunction blocking Colorado Gov. Jared Polis from ordering certain state employees to comply with an ICE subpoena for personal information about undocumented children and their sponsors.

The ruling delivers a legal setback to Polis and a win for whistleblower Scott Moss, a top labor official in the governor’s administration, who sued to block the disclosures.

Denver District Judge A. Bruce Jones called the ICE subpoena “overly broad,” noted that it wasn’t issued by a court, and suggested it may serve purposes beyond what’s stated, including to help with deportation efforts.

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https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2025/06/26/colorado-governor-polis-ice-subpoena-judge-ruling

Newsweek: Utah college student says ICE agent who detained her “knew it wasn’t right”

A 19-year-old student at the University of Utah says the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who detained her repeatedly apologized and “knew it wasn’t right,” but his “hands were tied.”

Caroline Dias Goncalves was pulled over by police in Fruita, Colorado, on June 5 on the way to Denver. Shortly after being let go by the officer, Dias Goncalves was stopped again a few miles away in Grand Junction—this time by immigration agents.

“He kept apologizing and told me he wanted to let me go, but his ‘hands were tied.’ There was nothing he could do, even though he knew it wasn’t right. I want you to know—I forgive you,” Dias Goncalves said in a statement.

https://www.newsweek.com/caroline-dias-goncalves-utah-college-student-ice-agent-2089824

KREX: MCSO investigator placed on leave after ICE incident

This is an update to the previous post about Caroline Dias Goncalves, whose traffic stop by Mesa County Sheriff’s Office “Investigator” Alexander Zwinck resulted in her being detained by ICE and jailed for two weeks.

Mesa County “Investigator” Alexander Zwinck, big, dumb, stupid, and at least temporarily unemployed, thanks to whose courage and bravery above and beyond the call of duty, an innocent nursing student was detained for two weeks.

On Thursday, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) announced that Investigator Alexander Zwinck, the officer who pulled over a 19-year-old Utah student, has been placed on administrative leave after an investigation.

Zwinck was the deputy who pulled over Caroline Dias Goncalves for a traffic stop on June 5. She was later detained by ICE shortly after the interaction.

In the statement, MCSO said any further repercussions for Zwinck will be determined after the investigation has been completed.

MCSO’s investigation includes reviewing communication between members of the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office and local, state, and federal partners through a Signal communication group chat. The investigation aims to see if MCSO’s deputies acted within the sheriff’s office’s policies and Colorado law after it was discovered that details about Dias Goncalves’ birthplace, Brazil, were allegedly released in the group chat and given to ICE.

Further investigation is being conducted to see if MCSO employees were aware that the information in the group chat, originally for drug interdiction efforts, was being used for immigration enforcement.

https://www.westernslopenow.com/top-stories/mcso-investigator-placed-on-leave-after-ice-incident

Daily Mail: Nursing student detained by ICE after cop noticed she had ‘a bit of an accent’ during routine traffic stop

A college student was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after a cop noticed she had ‘a bit of an accent’ during a routine traffic stop.

Caroline Dias Goncalves, 19, was pulled over on the Colorado Interstate 70 on June 5, accused of driving too close to a semi-truck.

The University of Utah nursing student complied with the officer, identified as Investigator Alexander Zwinck, by handing over all of her documentation and paperwork.

In bodyworn camera footage seen by DailyMail.com, Zwinck told Goncalves he would let her off with just a warning, asking: ‘Where are you from? You have a bit of an accent.’

Goncalves answered: ‘I’m from Utah.’ 

Zwinck asked how long she’d been living in Utah and whether she was ‘born and raised there’, to which she cautiously answered: ‘No. I was born in, um, gosh I always forget the town.. down in Brazil.’

‘My parents moved here,’ she added.

Zwinck appeared unfazed by her answer, moving on to ask her questions about her boyfriend, her weekend plans and her dreams of becoming a nurse.

Mistake #1: Personal questions are none of the pig’s business. Respectfully decline to answer any such questions.

After explaining to her once again that he was giving her a warning which would not require any following up, he sent her on her way, wishing her safe travels and urging her to give semi trucks on the road a little more space.

But minutes after the friendly interaction, Goncalves was pulled over again by ICE agents as she exited the freeway, and taken into custody.

The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office has since revealed that Zwinck was part of a group chat with local, state, and federal law enforcement partners which was used to improve multi-agency cooperation to stem the drug trafficking trade.

‘We were unaware that the communication group was used for anything other than drug interdiction efforts, including immigration,’ the statement read.

‘We have since removed all Mesa County Sheriff’s Office members from the communication group.’

Goncalves is now being held in Denver Detention Facility.

She is one of 2.5 million Dreamers in the United States, referring to undocumented migrants who were brought to the US as young children.

It is understood her family arrived in the US on a tourist visa, which they overstayed. Her father then applied for asylum, and that case is pending.

Goncalves earned a coveted TheDream.US national scholarship, which allows undocumented youth to help finance college.

While her asylum claim was pending, she had been granted temporary rights to work.

A GoFundMe set up by a friend to help Goncalves’ family cover legal costs associated with her detention has already raised $25,000.

‘Caroline has always followed the law, passionately pursued her education, and dreamed of a future full of opportunity,’ the fundraising page reads.

‘Yet she now finds herself unlawfully detained, frightened, and far from the safety and support she deserves.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14822749/college-student-caroline-dias-goncalves-detained-ice-traffic-stop.html

CNN: Wife of Colorado attack suspect says she and her 5 children are ‘suffering’ in ICE custody

The wife of an Egyptian man accused of carrying out an antisemitic attack in Colorado earlier this month says she was in “total shock” when she learned what her husband had allegedly done, detailing the “grieving and suffering” her family is enduring in after federal custody, in a statement released Wednesday.

Hayam El Gamal, 43, and her five children were detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement two days after federal prosecutors say her husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, drove to downtown Boulder with a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails and attacked demonstrators at a peaceful event to support Israeli hostages in Gaza, injuring at least 12 people.

But El Gamal says she and the children were not aware of Soliman’s plan to hurt innocent people.

“Why punish any of us, who did nothing wrong?” El Gamal said in the statement. “We are treated like animals by the officers, who told us we are being punished for what my husband is accused of doing.”

On June 3, El Gamal says she and her children were arrested, put on a flight in the middle of the night and transferred from Colorado to the Dilley Family Detention Center in southern Texas.

In the two weeks that have passed, El Gamal said her eldest daughter turned 18 in federal custody and her younger children – aged 4, 4, 7 and 15 – were “forced to watch officials rough-up” another detainee.

“They cried and cried, thinking they would be roughed-up, too,” El Gamal said. “How much longer will we be here for something we didn’t do?”

Conditions in the detention center are inhumane, according to El Gamal, who says detainees are always being watched and woken up in the middle of the night.

“Now my seven-year-old is about to have her birthday in jail, and my fifteen-year-old, too,” El Gamal added. “All they want is to be home, to be in school, to have privacy, to sleep in their own beds, to have their mother make them a home-cooked meal, to help them grieve and get through these terrible weeks.”

And the legal basis for the family’s detainment?

The exact reason for the detention of Soliman’s wife and children is not clear, according to Eric Lee, the family’s immigration attorney based in Michigan.

The family entered the United States in August 2022, Lee told CNN Wednesday, before overstaying their visas. However, that’s not why they were detained, he said.

“The issue here is whether they can be detained when the government has explicitly stated that its reason for detaining them is not because their visa overstays, but is because of their family relationship to their husband/father,” Lee told CNN Wednesday.

Once detained, El Gamal and the children were placed under expedited removal, a process that allows immigration officials to remove noncitizens without a hearing before an immigration judge, Lee says.

At the time of their detention, DHS did not provide additional details on the expedited removal process.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has said the agency is “investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it.”

El Gamal has not been charged with a crime, according to Lee, who notes there is no legal basis for deporting Soliman’s family.

“The government can’t detain individuals for unlawful purposes,” Lee added.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/18/us/colorado-attack-suspect-family-ice-detention

NBC News: ICE detains Utah college student after brief traffic stop, raising questions

A sheriff’s deputy in Colorado briefly pulled over Caroline Dias Goncalves before immigration agents detained her. Now county officials are conducting a review.

Caroline Dias Goncalves, a student at the University of Utah, was driving on Interstate 70 outside Loma on June 5 when a Mesa County sheriff’s deputy pulled her over.

The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office did not say why. Relatives told The Salt Lake City Tribune the deputy claimed she was driving too close to a semi-truck.

The stop lasted less than 20 minutes, and “Dias Goncalves was released from the traffic stop with a warning,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release Monday.

Then, shortly after she exited the highway, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stopped her, arrested her and took her to an immigration detention center.

“She has no criminal record and she was not shown a warrant,” her attorney, Jon Hyman, said in an email.

Dias Goncalves is one of nearly 2.5 million Dreamers living in the United States. The word “Dreamer” refers to undocumented young immigrants brought to the United States as children.

Dias Goncalves was born in Brazil and was brought to the United States as a 7-year-old. She has lived in Utah since she was 12 and has an asylum case pending.

Friends and relatives question how immigration authorities were alerted to her location.

As part of an ongoing “full administrative review,” the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office determined that the deputy who stopped Dias Goncalves was part of a communication group that included local, state and federal law enforcement partners participating in “a multi-agency drug interdiction effort focusing on the highways throughout Western Colorado.”

“We were unaware that the communication group was used for anything other than drug interdiction efforts, including immigration,” the sheriff’s office said. “We have since removed all Mesa County Sheriff’s Office members from the communication group.”

Meanwhile in Georgia:

Dias Goncalves’ immigration detention mirrors that of fellow 19-year-old Dreamer Ximena Arias-Cristobal in Georgia.

Police in Dalton wrongly pulled Arias-Cristobal over last month, putting her on the radar of immigration authorities and making her susceptible to deportation.

Since her release from immigration detention, Arias-Cristobal has been speaking up about the growing risks Dreamers face as the Trump administration steps up the pace of deportations of immigrants who do not have criminal charges or convictions, despite Donald Trump’s campaign promises to prioritize deporting violent criminals.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/ice-detains-utah-university-student-traffic-stop-colorado-rcna213231

Raw Story: ‘Dystopian’: Expert slams ICE for demanding attorney ‘make a Sophie’s Choice’

A prominent immigration expert was horrified at the latest report on how Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are going about their jobs.

The incident, caught on an Instagram reel, took place in San Diego, California, at a courthouse where numerous people awaited an immigration hearing. ICE showed up to arrest people who were following the legal process.

In the video, an ICE officer told an attorney, who was explaining that some of her clients included a family with health issues, to choose which of her clients would be arrested and which would be spared to get their hearing.

“I’m not picky so I’m giving you the options cause I have to take one. If not I’ll take all,” the officer says.

“This is dystopian,” said immigration attorney and American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “An ICE officer explains he was ordered to arrest migrants at their court hearings — even those with pending cases. Then he asks an attorney to make a Sophie’s Choice.”

ICE is evil!

https://www.rawstory.com/ice-2672366385

Salon: Stephen [“Goebbels”] Miller’s deportation machine is failing — and he’s furious

In reality, which still holds some influence in our aggressively-online world, there are about 11 million undocumented people in the U.S., total. And despite all-caps propaganda to the contrary, they as a class “have substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens,” according to a 2020 study; they even commit fewer crimes, on average, than fully legal immigrants — those who came here “the right way.”

“Relative to undocumented immigrants, U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes,” according to the research, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

That’s why Stephen [“Goebbels”] Miller is so mad: an administration that wants nothing more than to parade millions of brown bodies onto military aircraft and out of the country — a MAGA team that promised its voters nothing less than “mass deportations now” — is having a tough time actually finding the hardened criminals the last folks supposedly let in. In April, the Trump administration deported more than 17,200 people; that’s up 29% from a year but it’s far below the pace necessary to meet the stated goal of one million deportees a year (and per NBC News, more than half of those now in ICE detention have no criminal record whatsoever).

https://www.salon.com/2025/05/29/stephen-millers-deportation-machine-is-failing–and-hes-furious