Tag Archives: Florida

Daily Beast: Trump Admin Deports 2-Year-Old Girl Who Is American Citizen

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Manu’s parents were undocumented, but she was born in the United States.

A 2-year-old American girl has been left stateless after the Trump administration deported her alongside her family.

Emanuelly Borges Santos, known to her family as Manu, was born in a Florida hospital in 2022. She has an American passport and a Social Security card. Nevertheless, Manu and her parents, who are both undocumented, were packed onto a plane with 94 others and shipped to Brazil in February, according to a report from The Washington Post.

When they arrived, Brazilian officials were shocked to find the American toddler among the deportees.

“We’d never seen another case like this,” federal police officer Alexsandra Oliveira Medeiros Reis told the Post.

Manu is currently living in Brazil on a tourist visa as the government tries to resolve the bureaucratic predicament of the girl’s citizenship. In the meantime, she’s living with no right to healthcare or schooling in Brazil. Her visa is set to expire within weeks.

Trump Admin Deports 2-Year-Old Girl Who Is American Citizen
Manu’s parents were undocumented, but she was born in the United States.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-admin-deports-2-year-old-girl-who-is-american-citizen

Christian Post: Evangelical pastor detained by ICE despite stay of removal, no criminal record

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An Evangelical pastor in Florida who entered the United States illegally several years ago but was allowed to stay under certain conditions has been detained by authorities.

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Ambrocio had been living in Florida for 20 years. While he entered the country illegally, he had been allowed to remain via a stay of removal, which required that he meet with ICE officials for the last decade at least once a year, remain employed and not commit any crimes.

However, when Ambrocio met with ICE officials on April 18, he was detained, to the surprise of his local neighborhood, as National Public Radio reported last week.

“For my kids, it’s like the world ended,” Ambrocio’s wife, Marleny, told NPR.

The couple has five children aged between 12 and 19, all U.S. citizens.

Evangelical pastor detained by ICE despite stay of removal, no criminal record
An Evangelical pastor in Florida who entered the United States illegally several years ago but was allowed to stay under certain conditions has been detained by authorities

https://www.christianpost.com/news/evangelical-pastor-detained-by-ice-despite-stay-of-removal.html

New York Times: Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner

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Paul Walczak’s pardon application cited his mother’s support for the president, including raising millions of dollars and a connection to a plot to publicize a Biden family diary.

As Paul Walczak awaited sentencing early this year, his best hope for avoiding prison time rested with the newly inaugurated president.

Mr. Walczak, a former nursing home executive who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes days after the 2024 election, submitted a pardon application to President Trump around Inauguration Day. The application focused not solely on Mr. Walczak’s offenses but also on the political activity of his mother, Elizabeth Fago.

Ms. Fago had raised millions of dollars for Mr. Trump’s campaigns and those of other Republicans, the application said. It also highlighted her connections to an effort to sabotage Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 campaign by publicizing the addiction diary of his daughter Ashley Biden — an episode that drew law enforcement scrutiny.

Mr. Walczak’s pardon application argued that his criminal prosecution was motivated more by his mother’s efforts for Mr. Trump than by his admitted use of money earmarked for employees’ taxes to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

Still, weeks went by and no pardon was forthcoming, even as Mr. Trump issued clemency grants to hundreds of other allies.

Then, Ms. Fago was invited to a $1-million-per-person fund-raising dinner last month that promised face-to-face access to Mr. Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.

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trump-pardon-paul-walczak-tax-crimes.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/us/politics/trump-pardon-paul-walczak-tax-crimes.html

Politico: The Pro-Trump Cuban Rapper About to Be Deported

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The predicament of the rapper known as ‘El Funky’ reveals the deeply conflicted anti-Castro and pro-Trump politics of South Florida.

In 2021, like many Cubans and Cuban Americans that summer, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was jamming to “Patria y Vida,” the Grammy-winning protest anthem that became a rallying cry for dissidents in Cuba. The hip-hop song, whose title translates to “Homeland and Life,” directly rebuked Fidel Castro’s revolutionary slogan, “Patria o Muerte” — “Homeland or Death.” That was a cause that resonated with Rubio, the son of Cuban exiles, so much that in 2023, he introduced the “Patria y Vida Act,” “protecting against Tyrants” and expanding internet service in Cuba.

Now, one of the song’s central voices, Cuban rapper Eliéxer Márquez Duany — better known as El Funky — faces removal from the United States. Earlier this month, U.S. immigration authorities denied Márquez Duany’s residency application under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. He has less than 30 days to leave the U.S. or face deportation and likely imprisonment in Cuba, since his music helped fuel the largest anti-government protests in Cuba in decades.

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Márquez Duany’s journey from resistance icon to deportation case began in February 2021, when he and other artists released “Patria y Vida.” The song, featuring rappers and musicians both on and off the island, denounced repression in Cuba and called for change. Two of its creators, Maykel Osorbo and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, are currently in prison in Cuba for their participation in the project and other protests. Meanwhile, the song’s banned status on the island only amplified its power: It became the de facto anthem of the unprecedented protests during the summer of 2021.

By then, Márquez Duany had already been under house arrest for months, kept from participating in the demonstrations by guards posted outside his home. When the Latin Grammy Awards sent him an invitation a few months later, Márquez Duany knew it was likely his only chance to escape. As is customary, a Cuban government official escorted him to the airport.

“What we want is for you to leave,” he says the official told him. “Go, but don’t come back because you’re not welcome here.”

Once in Miami, Márquez Duany married a Cuban American, found a maintenance job at a Christian school, and kept recording music. He applied to adjust his legal status under the CAA, which allows Cubans paroled into the U.S. to claim permanent residency after one year.

He assumed the law still stood firmly behind him. But the ground had already shifted.

The Pro-Trump Cuban Rapper About to Be Deported
The predicament of the rapper known as ‘El Funky’ reveals the deeply conflicted anti-Castro and pro-Trump politics of South Florida.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/05/23/hes-a-pro-trump-rapper-and-a-cuban-dissident-the-trump-administration-is-deporting-him-anyway-00367085

NBC News: U.S. citizen with REAL ID handcuffed and held in immigration raid before being released

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The man told Noticias Telemundo that authorities took his ID from his wallet and told him it was fake before handcuffing him.

A U.S.-born citizen who was wrestled into the dirt, handcuffed and detained in a vehicle as part of an immigration raid had a REAL ID on him that was dismissed as fake, the man’s cousin said Friday.

Video of the arrest, aired by Noticias Telemundo, showed authorities grabbing Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, while at a job site in Foley, Alabama, on Wednesday and bending his arms behind him. Someone off-camera can be heard yelling, “He’s a citizen.”

Garcia had told Noticias Telemundo that “they grabbed me real bad” and the handcuffs were placed “very hard” on him.

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Garcia said he was released from the vehicle where he was held after he gave the arresting officials his Social Security number, which showed he is a U.S. citizen.

U.S. citizen with REAL ID handcuffed and held in immigration raid before being released
The man told Noticias Telemundo that authorities took his ID from his wallet and told him it was fake before handcuffing him.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/us-citizen-immigration-raid-real-id-handcuffed-alabama-rcna208794

Newsweek: Proposal may ban some green card holders from owning land throughout state

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King told Newsweek that “this is about protecting our obligation to keep our power stations, water treatment plants, and gas lines safe from surveillance and espionage.” It seeks to do so byprohibiting noncitizens from designated “foreign adversaries,” including China, Russia, and Iran, among others, from owning land within 25 miles of “critical infrastructure.”

Designating “foreign adversaries” would seem to be a federal power, not permitted to individual states.

The bill exempts American citizens or those with dual citizenship from the ban. The Senate counterpart bill notes that impacted individuals would have to sell and divest their property within two years.

Under the bills, county sheriffs would be responsible for enforcing the new restrictions. If the legislation passes, individuals subject to the prohibition would be required to sell restricted property within two years.

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Xiang Zhang, a professor of genomics at the University of Cincinnati, said at a hearing on Tuesday, as reported by the South China Morning Post: “I never thought that one day, I would have to stand here in front of you to defend myself solely because of my nationality. I never thought that one day, I would lose my house in Ohio solely because of my nationality.”

Proposal may ban some green card holders from owning land throughout state
An Ohio legislative proposal aims to restrict certain property ownership.

https://www.newsweek.com/proposal-may-ban-some-green-card-holders-owning-land-2076488

Irish Star: US citizen detained by immigration officials who thought Real ID was a fake

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Immigration officials detained a US citizen during a raid on a construction site, as video footage showed numerous officers rushing to handcuff the man while others shouted in his defense

A US citizen was detained during an ICE raid at a construction site and claims he was ‘tackled’ and ‘handcuffed, hard,’ as police accused his REAL ID of being a fake.

Leonardo García Venegas, 25, was detained at the Foley, Alabama, site where he was working as ICE agents raided the place. A video of the incident aired by Telemundo showed the scene as authorities on the site had García Venegas bent over while multiple officers rushed over to put handcuffs on him, and someone yelled in the background, ‘he’s a citizen!’

Garcia was kept in a vehicle until officers released him. He says he took out his wallet and ID and showed them his REAL ID.

“They took out my wallet, took out my ID,” he said in an interview. “And they told me it was fake. Said it wasn’t valid and that it was fake. My ID. They handcuffed me, and they handcuffed me really tight.”

“Very hard.”

“Apparently, a REAL ID is not valid anymore. He has a REAL ID,” his cousin Shelah Venegas said.

García Venegas was born in Florida to Mexican parents and is a US citizen.

“We all made sure we have the REAL ID and went through the protocols the administration is asking for….. He has his REAL ID, and then they see him, and I guess because his English isn’t fluent and/or because he’s brown, it’s fake, it’s not real.”

The arrest left Venegas shaken, but mostly afraid for his brother, who is in the country illegally and was arrested and detained.

Venegas says he wants to sue but was told by lawyers that prosecuting a federal agent would be nearly impossible.

Pigs just gotta be pigs. ICE will be reformed only from top down, by rolling heads. Once enough people are fed up with their Gestapo behavior, it will happen.

US citizen detained by immigration officials who thought Real ID was a fake
Immigration officials detained a US citizen during a raid on a construction site, as video footage showed numerous officers rushing to handcuff the man while others shouted in his defense

https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/citizen-detained-immigration-officials-who-35283394

Associated Press: Trump’s $600 million war chest: How he plans to wield his power in the midterms and beyond

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Between a barrage of executive orders, foreign trips and norm-shattering proclamations, Donald Trump has also been busy raking in cash.

The president has amassed a war chest of at least $600 million in political donations heading into the midterm elections, according to three people familiar with the matter. It’s an unprecedented sum in modern politics, particularly for a lame-duck president who is barred by the U.S. Constitution from running again.

The only way for MAGA & King Donald to survive is to buy their way through the mid-term elections in 2026.

Trump’s $600 million war chest: How he plans to wield his power in the midterms and beyond
Between a barrage of executive orders, foreign trips and norm-shattering proclamations, President Donald Trump has also been busy raking in cash.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-fundraising-midterms-leverage-ccee4d19d5b41f08504370839fb36364

MSNBC: What the FDA’s new Covid vaccine policy is really about

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With the current leadership at FDA and HHS, the incentives are simply stacked against humane vaccine policy.

On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration announced plans to significantly curtail people’s access to Covid-19 vaccines. Under the new framework, outlined in an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Vinay Prasad, routine approval of updated vaccines will be limited to the elderly and vulnerable only. Approval for the rest of the “healthy” population will require extensive, costly testing.

While Makary and Prasad claimed their policy “balances the need for evidence,” critics noted a number of problems with the plan right away. Some of the research demanded for broad approval of new Covid vaccines was infeasible and even unethical. There were no carve-outs for caregivers upon whom vulnerable people depend. The timing of the release appeared primed to usurp the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which makes vaccine recommendations.

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The success of those efforts may have contributed to Trump’s return to office after mismanaging the crisis during his first term. The president himself seems to think so. Last month, the White House replaced the informational covid.gov website with a new page promoting the speculative lab leak theory of the pandemic’s origins and featuring sections on the harms of lockdowns and mask mandates.

The FDA’s new guidance on Covid vaccines can be seen as an extension of this effort, using the imprimatur of the agency to validate misleading and false narratives promoted by the right about the Covid — namely that the vaccines are insufficiently tested with unknown effects and unsuited for young people. Indeed, the authors of the policy were themselves prolific spreaders of those narratives.

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The FDA commissioner role was the big prize, however. Serving under his ally, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. — a longtime anti-vaccine activist who called the Covid jab “the deadliest ever made” — Makary was bound to take a stab at the vaccines.

All of the signs were there. One of his first acts was to bring on another vaccine skeptic, Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, a physical medicine doctor and epidemiologist who had worked in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Health Department, as his special assistant. The pair had collaborated on a Brownstone project called the Norfolk Group, which crafted an outline for a congressional inquiry into the federal Covid response ahead of the subcommittee hearing. With Høeg on the team, Makary’s FDA held up the scheduled approval of the Novavax booster, eventually scaling it back and limiting it to the elderly and the vulnerable in a precursor to Tuesday’s policy announcement.

Earlier this month, Makary also brought Prasad into the agency as its top vaccine regulator. Prasad, like Makary, has a link to Brownstone and spent years criticizing the FDA over Covid jabs, hyping up safety concerns about rare side effects like myocarditis, questioning their efficacy and suggesting that the risk-benefit ratio disfavored approval.

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As The Wall Street Journal noted the previous month in an infographic, the bivalent doses did not need to undergo human testing for safety since the original omicron strain vaccines did. “The changes simply update proven shots,” the graphic explained. “The process is similar to the development of the annual flu shots, which are given without testing them in people.”

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Billions of doses have been given over the years. There has been extensive safety monitoring of the vaccines, which have saved millions of lives in the United States and prevented even more hospitalizations. The data shows they reduce Covid transmission and the odds of getting long Covid and offer robust protection against severe illness and death.

With the current leadership at FDA and HHS, the incentives are simply stacked against humane vaccine policy. The only question is how far the agency will go. Is this new guidance the start of a complete phase-out of the vaccines, and might other immunizations follow? Time will tell.

Opinion | The far-right learned to weaponize Covid. And it’s about to effect all of us.
With the current leadership at FDA and HHS, the incentives are simply stacked against humane vaccine policy.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trumps-new-covid-vaccine-restrictions-are-right-wing-conspiracy-theori-rcna208317

NJ.com: Judge chides feds in dismissing ICE trespassing charge against Newark mayor

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A federal judge in Newark on Wednesday agreed to dismiss trespassing charges against Mayor Ras J. Baraka, chiding the federal prosecutors he said had filed the charges in a “worrisome” rush.

U.S. Magistrate Judge André Espinosa granted a motion for dismissal from the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Alina Habba, during a hearing in the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Courthouse, two blocks from Baraka’s office at Newark City Hall.

At the request of Habba’s office, Espinosa dismissed the charge “with prejudice,” meaning the case cannot be reopened.

But Espinosa harshly criticized federal authorities for acting with speed over caution.

“The hasty arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka followed swiftly by the dismissal of these trespassing charges a mere 13 days later suggests a worrisome misstep by your office,” Espinosa told Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Demanovich, whose boss, Habba, was not in court. “An arrest, particularly of a public figure, is not a preliminary investigative tool. It is a severe action, carrying significant reputational and personal consequences, and it should only be undertaken after a thorough, dispassionate evaluation of credible evidence.”

Espinosa, who addressed the parties remotely and not face-to-face in a courtroom, added that the conduct of the case was in sharp contrast to the stellar reputation of New Jersey’s U.S. attorney’s office over the past two decades.

What were you expecting when the U.S. Attorney with the stellar reputation was replaced by one of Trump’s loyal and not-particularly-bright sycophants, Alina “Bimbo #4” Habba?

“The apparent rush in this case, culminating today in the embarrassing retraction of charges, suggests a failure to adequately investigate, to carefully gather facts, and to carefully consider the implications of your actions before wielding your immense power.”

That criticisim applies equally well to all four of Trumps pathetic bimbos, not only Alina “Bimbo #4” Habba, but also Karoline “Bimbo #1” Leavitt, Kristi “Bimbo #2” Noem, and Pam “Bimbo #3” Bondi, each of whom is dumber than a rock, with all due respect to rocks.

Click the link below to read the rest of the judge’s scathing comments.

Judge chides feds in dismissing ICE trespassing charge against Newark mayor
Mayor Ras J. Baraka was arrested May 9 outside an immigrant detention center, though federal prosecutors later decided to drop the charges.

https://www.nj.com/essex/2025/05/judge-chides-feds-in-dismissing-ice-trespassing-charge-against-newark-mayor.html