Tag Archives: Florida

Daily Mail: Walmart hit by ‘immediate crisis’ as mass firings begin

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Walmart employees are saying they’re losing coworkers overnight. The retailer, America’s largest private employer, is complying with a sweeping Supreme Court decision that allowed the Trump administration to revoke work protections for half a million migrant employees. Walmart staffers are saying the company is responding with quick staffing cuts in stores. They’re worried there aren’t enough workers.

‘Anyone else just lose a bunch of employees to Trump policy?’ a Redditor asked in a thread dedicated to Walmart. ‘[My store] just lost 10 employees who were here on work visa.’ Another claimed their store lost 40 staffers at a 400-worker store, representing 10 percent of the workforce. They said remaining employees are now scrambling to keep stores running. Some said their store is turning to elderly employees to fill the gap. ‘Most of our older floor associates are constantly asking for help,’ another added. ‘It’s not really ideal.’

Retail experts told DailyMail.com that the impact on consumers at affected stores is likely temporary and regional. ‘This disruption is real, but it’s more of a speed bump than a roadblock for a company that’s weathered much worse,’ Carol Spieckerman, a global retail expert, said. ‘This is just the latest curveball for Walmart — after navigating inflation , potential tariffs, and economic uncertainty, they’ve become experts at adaptation. The impact won’t be uniform. States closer to the border will feel this more acutely than stores in the heartland.’

‘Immediate crisis’ erupts at Walmart with mass worker firings
Walmart employees are saying they’re losing coworkers overnight.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-14799717/walmart-job-cuts-staff-panic-trump-immigration-orders.html

Daily Beast: Florida City Ends ICE Deal Ahead of Trump’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Visit

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Key West, home to the southernmost point in the continental U.S., voted to end its cooperation agreement with ICE.

A Florida city welcomed President Donald Trump to the state Tuesday by making life harder for his ICE goons.

Hours before Trump touched down at Florida’s so-called “Alligator Alcatraz,” city commissioners in Key West voted 6-1 in favor of scrapping an agreement requiring local police to coordinate with federal immigration officials.

The vote “basically invalidated the city’s most recent agreement with ICE,” which was reached in March, reported Local 10.

“People who are seeking political asylum are important members of our community,” Commissioner Samuel Kaufman said, according to WLRN. “We have thousands of them here, by the way. And they deserve the respect that anybody else does.”

Florida’s southernmost city, less than 100 miles from the Cuban coast, is also among its most progressive. Commissioner Donald Lee said that the city’s police chief, Sean Brandenburg, signed the deal to cooperate with ICE because he had a proverbial “gun” to his head from both federal and state officials. The Florida city of Fort Myers has refused to sign an agreement, and its leaders have been threatened with removal from office.

Key West residents went into uproar last month when a beloved local hairstylist, who a city cop stopped as he rode his e-bike to work, was placed in ICE custody and detained for weeks.

Lee Stinton, a Northern Ireland national, holds an employment authorization card and has applied for a green card, according to Keys Weekly. Still, his traffic infraction reportedly warranted the involvement of ICE agents, who allegedly harassed him and tossed him in a detention center in Miami, where a Canadian citizen, 49, and a Cuban national, 75, died in custody within the last week.

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“The ICE agent that got involved in his traffic stop—and I’m still not sure how that happened, whether he was riding with the police officer or showed up separately—saw the photo of the two of us on Lee’s phone’s lock screen, and assumed I was Haitian,” Davis said. “He asked Lee, ‘Is that your boyfriend? We’ll go find him as well and get two for one.’”

Florida City Ends ICE Deal Ahead of Trump’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Visit
Key West, home to the southernmost point in the continental U.S., voted to end its cooperation agreement with ICE.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/florida-city-ends-ice-deal-ahead-of-trumps-alligator-alcatraz-visit

NBC News: Debate over ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention center a personal one for members of Miccosukee and Seminole tribes

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The homes of Miccosukee and Seminole people, as well as their ceremonial sites, surround the detention center on three sides.

The constant rumbling of passing dump trucks drowns out the once familiar chirping of birds at the family home of Mae’anna Osceola-Hart in Everglades National Park.

“It’s all-day, all-night truck noise,” says the 21-year-old photographer who describes herself as part Miccosukee and part Seminole, two Florida tribes at the heart of the debate over the detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

The homes of Miccosukee and Seminole people, as well as their ceremonial sites, surround the detention center on three sides.

Osceola-Hart’s great-grandfather Wild Bill Osceola fought against the development of an airport at the same site where the ICE facility’s construction is now underway.

In 1968, authorities in Dade County, now known as Miami-Dade County, began building the Big Cypress Jetport on land the Miccosukees used for ceremonial practices. The Dade County Port Authority referred to the project as the “world’s largest airport,” with six runways designed to handle large jets, and officials were quoted as calling the environmental and tribal leaders who opposed it “butterfly chasers.”

The airport became a flashpoint for resistance, but in 1969, a coalition including Osceola-Hart’s great-grandfather, fellow tribesmen and conservationists persuaded Florida Gov. Claude R. Kirk Jr. that the airport would damage the Everglades. He ordered construction be stopped. One runway, approximately 10,000 feet in length, was left behind as a training ground for pilots.

Osceola-Hart is proud of her great-grandfather’s efforts to stop the 1960s development, but she is disappointed the Miccosukees lost land they considered sacred. “We got kicked out of ceremonial grounds,” she says.

Finding a safe place to live has been an ongoing battle for the tribes in Florida. Seminoles retreated into the Everglades after the Seminole wars ended in 1858.

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Leaders of both tribes are constantly advocating for the preservation of the national park’s wildlife and vegetation, but they don’t have authority over how the land is used.

“It’s a long, fraught battle,” says William “Popeye” Osceola, secretary of the Miccosukee Tribe, describing how tribes are constantly fighting for rights over the land they have lived on for more than a century.

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William Osceola tells young members of his tribe to stay engaged to protect their rights. “Some of these fights, they come in different forms, but it’s still the same fight.” he said.

Osceola-Hart agrees. “This is history repeating itself,” she says.

Debate over ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention center a personal one for members of Miccosukee and Seminole tribes
The homes of Miccosukee and Seminole people, as well as their ceremonial sites, surround the detention center on three sides.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alligator-alcatraz-detention-center-personal-rcna215824

Newsweek: Trump admin shares meme of ICE alligators outside Florida prison

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The Trump regime’s Carnival of Cruelty continues!

The Department of Homeland Security has shared an apparently AI-generated meme depicting alligators as ICE agents outside of a Florida detention center.

“Alligator Alcatraz” is a new migrant detention center being developed on a remote airstrip in the Everglades. The facility aims to house up to 5,000 detainees and uses the area’s natural isolation and wildlife as part of its security measures.

“Coming soon!” DHS said in a post on X.

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The remote facility is expected to cost Florida approximately $450 million annually to operate. The proposal comes as President Donald Trump‘s administration looks to conduct what it describes as the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.

Critics say that the center’s remote location and rapid deployment raise ethical and legal questions about the treatment of migrants, transparency, and due process. Supporters say the project is a cost-efficient step to handle increased immigration enforcement.

The image shared by DHS shows alligators wearing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) baseball caps outside the fences of the detention center.

The meme and plans have sparked outrage from critics over inhumane conditions and concerns from environmental groups.

“A horrendous lack of humanity,” Georgetown lecturer Brett Bruen, who served as director of global engagement during the Obama administration, said in a post on X.

Former CIA officer Christopher Burgess described the post as “Disgusting.”

Trump admin shares meme of ICE alligators outside Florida prison
The image depicted the security of “Alligator Alcatraz,” which has become a flashpoint in the immigration debate.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admin-meme-ice-alligator-alcatraz-florida-2092148

Huffington Post: Trump’s Immigration Arrests Are Seeing A Wave Of Resistance

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Recent weeks have seen the Trump administration’s “mass deportation” program kick into overdrive. 

Militarized federal agents are working hard to meet the White House’s sky-high arrest quotas, and the number of people in immigration detention is surging past record highs. That means focusing even more on otherwise law-abiding people who happen to have irregular immigration statuses ― people who pay taxes, show up to court dates and check-ins, work hard to provide for their families, and followed previous administrations’ rules to apply for humanitarian protections. It also means interrogating people at swap meets, and underground parties, or those who just have brown skin. 

The nation disapproves, polling shows. Massive protests around the country ― in both large urban areas and small towns ― have showcased Americans’ fury at having their loved ones and neighbors ripped out of their communities at random. 

Across the country, people are also taking action to slow down what they see as the egregious over-enforcement of immigration law, attempting to starve Trump’s mass deportation machine of fuel and to throw sand in its gears.

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But activists and community organizers have worked for generations to slow down deportations ― and, as it turns out, Trump’s deportation agenda relies upon some crucial choke points. Here they are.

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One key opportunity for bystanders to intervene in the deportation process comes during the actual moments where immigration agents may be making an arrest.

Take the case of Bishop-elect Michael Pham, Pope Leo XIV’s first bishop appointment in the United States. On World Refugee Day last week, Pham and other faith leaders visited an immigration court. The ICE agents who in recent weeks have been arresting immigrants showing up to routine hearings in the building “scattered” and did not take anyone into custody, Times of San Diego reported.

In Chicago, two National Guard soldiers appeared in uniform with their mother at her immigration appointment, alongside two members of Congress. The soldiers’ mother returned home without incident. 

Not everyone has the star power to discourage detentions by their mere presence. But at courthouses and ICE check-ins where Trump has taken advantage of a legal maneuver known as “expedited removal” to arrest and deport people without due process, volunteers accompanying immigrants can document arrests and sometimes provide informal legal information to people who might not know about ICE’stactics.

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Spreading information about people’s legal rights during interactions with law enforcement, known as “know your rights” information, has also grown enormously popular.

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Getting Everyone Legal Representation: The data is clear. Legal representation is associated withbetter outcomes in immigration court. 

That’s because the deck is stacked against people in the immigration legal system. Unlike in criminal court, people in the immigration process are not guaranteed free legal representation if they can’t afford it, even if they’re detained behind bars.

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Opposing Local Cooperation With The Feds: Even though immigration enforcement is a federal job, local cooperation is a crucial part of the operation.

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Fighting Trump’s Massive DHS Budget Increase 

You Can Actually Help Kneecap Trump’s ‘Mass Deportation’ Arrests. Here’s How.
The mass deportation agenda relies upon some key choke points.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-mass-deportation-resistance-choke-points_n_685d882fe4b01b4b31df992f

People: Trump Threatens to Arrest 2 Political Opponents in Same Press Conference, Hours After Entertaining Elon Musk Deportation

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President Donald Trump went on several tirades about former friends and political opponents alike on Tuesday, July 1, even threatening to jail a rising political star and a former Biden Cabinet member.

After touring a new detention facility for detainees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Florida, Trump sat down with reporters at “Alligator Alcatraz” to answer a few questions.

Asked about New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani — who had just officially earned the Democratic nomination on Tuesday — the president said, “A lot of people are saying he’s here illegally.”

Mamdani, 33, was born in Uganda and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018. He defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a major election upset as a self-described Democratic Socialist, which also earned Trump’s ire.

“We don’t need a communist in this country,” he said. “But if we have one, I’m going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation… We’re going to look at everything.”

Trump was also asked about Mamdani’s campaign promises to “stop masked ICE agents from deporting our neighbors.”

His response? “Well then, we’ll have to arrest him.”

Bubba is deranged, needs to be put out to pasture.

Trump Threatens to Arrest 2 Political Opponents in Same Press Conference, Hours After Entertaining Elon Musk Deportation
The president disparaged a rising political star and a former Biden Cabinet member while speaking with reporters on July 1

https://people.com/trump-threatens-arrest-2-political-opponents-in-same-press-conference-11764784

Mirror: Texas man born on U.S. Army Base abroad deported to country he’s never been to and left stateless

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A man from Texas claims that he was locked up in an ICE detention center for months before being sent to his father’s home country, where he has never been before.

A Texas man is currently stranded in Jamaica after getting deported for being born on a U.S. Army base in Germany.

Jermaine Thomas was dragged onto a deportation flight by immigration agents last week over a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he did not qualify for U.S. citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Thomas was born in 1986 on a U.S. Army Base in Germany, where his Jamaican-born father had served for nearly two decades. However, the military brat says he has never visited the Caribbean island before.

Now, he is stranded there by a fluke without citizenship to any country, rendering him stateless. He is unsure how long he will be trapped there and, in the meantime, is unsure how to find employment, especially since he struggles to understand the native dialect. 

Long article, he almost got deported to Nicaragua instead of Jamaica. Click on links below to read the entire article:

Texas man born on U.S. Army Base deported to country he’s never been to
A man from Texas claims that he was locked up in an ICE detention center for months before being sent to his father’s home country, where he has never been before.

https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/texas-man-born-us-army-1230810

The Hill: Migrant deaths in ICE custody spark concerns

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  • 8 migrants have died in ICE detention centers since January
  • Migrant rights groups allege insufficient medical care in ICE facilities
  • ICE says every death at a facility is ‘a significant cause for concern’

A Canadian citizen held in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Miami became the 11th person to die in an ICE facility since October after he was found unresponsive this week.

The agency said Thursday that Johnny Noviello, 49, died in the ICE facility and that his cause of death remains under investigation.

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ICE officials say that any death that occurs in a detention facility is a “significant cause for concern” and that the agency prioritizes the health, safety and well-being of all migrants in ICE custody. Eight people have died in ICE detention centers this year alone — including four in Florida — according to federal data.

Noviello became a legal permanent resident in the U.S. in 1991 but was convicted in 2023 of racketeering and drug trafficking in Florida, ICE officials said this week. He was sentenced to spend a year in prison before he was arrested in May by ICE at the Florida Department of Corrections Probation office. He was given a notice to appear and was charged with being deported for violating state law.

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In 2024, an American Civil Liberties Union report indicated that 95% of deaths that took place in ICE facilities between 2017 and 2021 could have been prevented or possibly prevented. The investigation, which was conducted by the ACLU, American Oversight and Physicians for Human Rights, analyzed the deaths of the 52 people who died in ICE custody during that time frame.

“ICE has failed to provide adequate — even basic — medical and mental health care and ensure that people in detention are treated with dignity,” Eunice Cho, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project and report co-author, said last year. “Abuses in ICE detention should no longer go ignored. It’s time to hold ICE accountable and end this failed, dangerous mass detention machine once and for all.”

The report alleged that ICE had “persistent failings in medical and mental care” that caused preventable deaths, including suicides. It also said that the federal agency failed to provide adequate medical care, medication and staffing.

Of the 52 deaths that the study analyzed, 88% involved cases in which the organizations found that incomplete, inappropriate and delayed treatments or medications contributed directly to the deaths of migrants being held in ICE custody.

Migrant deaths in ICE custody spark concerns

https://thehill.com/policy/international/5374028-migrant-deaths-in-ice-custody-canadian-citizen-florida

Alternet: ‘Impossible to cover up’: Trump press conference seen as ‘clear sign of cognitive decline’

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President Donald Trump seemed to stumble when responding to a reporter’s question during a press conference in Florida on Tuesday, where he had traveled for the opening of “Alligator Alcatraz,” a controversial detention facility designed to accommodate migrants.

When asked how long detainees are expected to remain at the detention center, the president replied, “I’m gonna spend a lot. This is my home state. I love it. I’ll spend a lot of time here,” sidestepping the actual question.

The president’s unexpected answer sparked concern, prompting political commentators to question his cognitive well-being.

Journalist Mike Rothschild said: “He’s obviously losing his cognition and coherence in a way that’s becoming impossible to cover up or work around. And the more he declines, the more his sycophants prop him up as doing ‘better than ever.’ It’s an unsustainable situation that could easily end in chaos.”

MSNBC contributor Rotimi Adeoye said: “Clear sign of cognitive decline here.”

‘Impossible to cover up’: Trump press conference seen as ‘clear sign of cognitive decline’

https://www.alternet.org/trump-florida-migrants

Latin Times: Mass Deportations of Undocumented Immigrants Could Cost California $275 Billion, Study Finds

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According to the study, 2.28 million immigrants living in California are undocumented; they make up nearly 8% of the state’s workforce

Earlier this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a statement in which it said the agency had arrested more than 66,000 undocumented immigrants as well as deported an additional 65,682 people during the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term.

ICE’s stepped-up enforcement has focused heavily on sanctuary cities, including Los Angeles, as the administration seeks to meet its stated target of 3,000 deportations per day.

As immigration enforcement actions intensify, a new study by the University of California, Merced warns that mass deportations could cause serious damage to the state’s economy. The report estimates that removing California’s undocumented immigrant population would result in a $275 billion economic hit and a loss of $23 billion annually in local, state and federal tax revenue.

Mass Deportations of Undocumented Immigrants Could Cost California $275 Billion, Study Finds
A new study by the University of California, Merced warns that mass deportations could cause serious damage to the state’s economy.

https://www.latintimes.com/mass-deportations-undocumented-immigrants-could-cost-california-275-billion-study-finds-585491