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Guardian Petition by man against Ice custody may provide new path to release for others

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Rodney Taylor, who is a double amputee, filed a habeas corpus after being held in a Georgia center for eight months

Rodney Taylor, a Liberia-born man who is a double amputee and is missing three fingers on one hand has filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court seeking release from Georgia’s Stewart detention center, after being held there by Ice for eight months.

“What is at stake in this case … is one of the most profound individual interests recognized by our legal system: whether Ice may unilaterally take away – without a lawful basis – his physical freedom, ie, his ‘constitutionally protected interest in avoiding physical restraint,’” the petition says.

The action is “a canary in the coal mine for what’s about to happen” nationwide, said Sarah Owings, Taylor’s immigration attorney. “[T]housands of habeas claims are going to be filed across the country,” she said, after a Board of Immigration Appeals decision on 5 September dramatically curtailed the immigration system’s ability to release detainees while awaiting decisions on their status.

This is making immigration attorneys turn to federal district courts, observers told the Guardian.

Taylor’s continued detention despite his extensive medical needs is “yet another stark example of the cruelty of this administration”, said Helen L Parsonage, the attorney who filed the petition.

Brought to the US by his mother on a medical visa when he was a child, Taylor had 16 operations for his medical conditions. Now 46, he has lived in the US nearly his entire life and works as a barber. He got engaged only 10 days before Ice detained him in January – due to a burglary conviction from when he was a teenager and for which the state of Georgia pardoned him in 2010, according to Owings, who shared some of Taylor’s paperwork with the Guardian.

Taylor has a pending application for US residence – commonly known as a “green card” – but has not been released on bond while the federal government determines his immigration status. He says he has been subjected to multiple mishaps in detention, including the screws coming out of his prosthetic legs, causing him to fall and injure his hand; and, during different periods, not being able to charge the batteries in his prosthetic legs or get them calibrated, leading to other injuries.

Concurrently, the Trump administration has dismantled the office for civil rights and civil liberties (CRCL) and the immigration detention ombudsman (Oido) – two federal offices that provided oversight for healthcare and other issues.

Habeas corpus, a legal tool meant to challenge the legal basis for detention, “predates the United States and goes back to the English legal system”, said César García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University. It fundamentally means that a detained person has the right for a judge to rule on whether their detention is unlawful.

Taylor’s petition is important because it comes after the September decision, which “virtually eliminate[d] bond for people no matter how long they’ve lived here and whether they have jobs and contribute to our nation”, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).

“The meaning of this case at this point in time is because it is a direct challenge to this administration’s … recent attempt to expand detention authority,” García Hernández said.

Immigration attorneys nationwide are pursuing the same strategy – but it requires a few steps.

“Most immigration lawyers have never seen the inside of a federal court,” said Charles Kuck, an Atlanta immigration attorney of more than three decades. That’s because immigration courts are a separate system from federal district courts.

This is leading to training sessions for immigration attorneys on filing habeas claims being staged nationwide, so they can try to get tens of thousands of detainees released from detention while their cases are resolved.

Since district courts are separate from immigration courts, immigration attorneys are also having to follow a process of admission into district courts, which then authorizes them to file habeas petitions. In Georgia and some other states, this can include traveling to the district court with jurisdiction over the area where the detention center is located and attending a ceremony.

“We’re having to adapt,” Owings said. “We’re figuring out how to respond.”

Several observers familiar with Taylor’s case said he would never have been detained without bond for eight months during previous administrations, given his medical condition. “This case is an example of what happens when Ice is judge, jury and executioner,” Owings said. “Now, if you’re coming in the door, there’s no going out,” she said.

In the months to come, she added, “There will be more Rodneys. There will be more claims from people treated the same – without medical care, without guardrails to review their situations, without the ability to be released.”

Petition by man against Ice custody may provide new path to release for others
Rodney Taylor, who is a double amputee, filed a habeas corpus after being held in a Georgia center for eight months

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/25/ice-immigration-rodney-taylor-georgia

Alternet: ‘Undisputed idiot king’: Former NBC journalist calls Eric Trump ‘the epitome of stupidity’

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First Son Eric Trump’s false claim that political violence is exclusively carried out by the American left prompted Emmy-winning journalist David Shuster to declare that President Donald Trump’s second-oldest son was the “undisputed idiot king” and “a grotesque epitome of stupidity so profound he renders the rest of his family — already a display of moral and cognitive deformities that would confound Sigmund Freud — almost respectable by comparison.”

After MAGA activist Charlie Kirk was killed by a lone gunman on a Utah college campus last week, Eric Trump recently joined a far-right podcast to lay blame for Kirk’s murder at the feet of the left. This is despite the alleged shooter’s staunch Republican family, non-partisan voter registration status and his own friends saying he never discussed politics.

“The bullets are only flying one way,” Eric Trump told podcast host Will Cain. “Listen, there’s fringe on both sides, 100%, but like, I don’t know … These people have tried to do everything they could to take us out of the game.”

In a Tuesday post to his Substack, Shuster — who is a veteran of NBC, CNN and Fox News — called Eric “the dumbest Trump, which is saying something.” He went on to say that Trump’s adult son saying that the left was the only side carrying political violence was “the intellectual equivalent of spraying manure in your own eyes while insisting it is perfume.”

“In this single sentence, Eric demonstrated the mental agility of a cornered sloth,” Shuster wrote. “And the selective memory of a dung beetle rolling it’s own feculent ball across the lawn of public discourse.”

Shuster pointed out that Eric Trump glossed over high-profile recent instances of right-wing violence, like the June murder of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman (D) and her husband Mark — in which the alleged killer also wounded Democratic state senator Jon Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. Shuster also reminded his readers that a man angry about vaccines fired on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and killed the police officer who confronted him. The former MSNBC host also didn’t hold back in criticizing Eric Trump from using Kirk’s murder to promote his new book.

“Eric was baffled when critics said the pledge looked opportunistic. Maybe the word itself baffled Eric since ‘opportunistic’ has five syllables,” Shuster wrote. “…He is the family’s apex of ignorance. The pinnacle of self-important incompetence. The organism whose very existence makes the rest of the Trump clan’s failings appear almost tolerable.”

‘Undisputed idiot king’: Former NBC journalist calls Eric Trump ‘the epitome of stupidity’

https://www.alternet.org/eric-trump-stupidity

Daily Beast: ICE Karen Sparks Major Backlash After Saying She Tipped Off Feds in Hyundai Raid

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The MAGA candidate has been accused of undermining President Trump’s economic agenda and causing an international incident.

A MAGA congressional candidate is being trolled relentlessly online after announcing that she tipped off Immigration and Customs Enforcement about alleged workplace violations at a Hyundai plant in Georgia that was raided last week.

Tori Branum, 47, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and firearms instructor, said in social media posts and in interviews that she had reported the battery plant, which is under construction near Savannah, to ICE several months before officials conducted the largest work-site immigration raid in Department of Homeland Security history there.

About 475 people were detained, including 300 South Korean nationals.

The raid angered South Korea, a close ally that agreed in July to invest $350 billion in the U.S. in exchange for Trump lowering the duty on Korean products from 25 percent to 15 percent. The tariffs are paid by American companies, with the costs typically passed on to consumers.

“I have gotten hate mail from all over the country with people telling me to die or that I should be in fear,” Branum wrote on Facebook. “I served this country and I’ll go down with the ship before someone silences me.”

Over the past few days, she’s also been inundated with social media comments accusing her of undermining President Donald Trump’s economic agenda and creating a diplomatic scandal with one of the U.S’.’s closest allies.

The battery plant that was raided will be jointly operated by Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, a South Korean battery manufacturer, as part of a $12.6 billion investment in Georgia that also includes a nearby auto factory.

“So MAGA wanted tariffs to bring manufacturing back to the US. But when a company tries to open a plant here, MAGA undermines it. Once again you proved what an embarrassment your party is to our country,” a user wrote under one of Branum’s Instagram posts.

The Hyundai plant arrests came just 10 days after South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae Myung, met Trump in Washington, D.C., where they both vowed to strengthen business ties between the two countries.

“Imagine backing Trump’s ‘bring jobs back’ tariffs then cheering the ICE raid that nuked Georgia’s $4.3B Hyundai plant—475 workers arrested, 40k jobs gone. That’s not America First, that’s economic suicide. You’re a walking contradiction and a clown,” wrote another under a different post by Branum.

“You have caused a serious geopolitical problem between us and S. Korea with your massively ignorant actions,” another user chimed in.

Residents in the Korean capital of Seoul were outraged by the operation’s optics, as footage of the raid showed armored vehicles and shackled workers. In a statement, Hyundai told the Wall Street Journal it didn’t directly employ anyone who was detained.

The South Korean government has negotiated the release of its nationals and is chartering a plane to repatriate them, Reuters reported Monday.

The local press has attacked Branum and accused her of using the raid to generate momentum for her political campaign in Georgia’s 12th district, The Washington Post reported.

“Her justification of ‘protecting American jobs’ rings hollow when her actions sabotage Georgia’s long-term prosperity,” wrote a South Korean business publication called CEO News.

Many users on social media said they hoped the ICE raid would hurt her campaign instead of helping it.

“You literally helped kill the economy in your own area, but you want to be a leader?” a user responded to a third post.

The Daily Beast has reached out to Branum, ICE, DHS, and Hyundai for comment.

Branum has remained defiant throughout it all, telling Rolling Stone in an interview, “This is what I voted for — to get rid of a lot of illegals. And what I voted for is happening.”

At one point, she posted a photo of herself on Facebook holding a modified, AR-15-style rifle with a laser scope, the Korea JoonAng Daily reported.

“I’m kinda curious what that was [that] you said in my inbox,” Branum wrote.

She later took down the post, but still has a different shot of her brandishing an automatic weapon.

“Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime,” she captioned the post, attributing the quote to Benjamin Franklin.

In fact, it was Democratic governor and ambassador Adlai Stevenson II who said it.

ICE Karen Sparks Major Backlash After Saying She Tipped Off Feds in Hyundai Raid
The MAGA candidate has been accused of undermining President Trump’s economic agenda and causing an international incident.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/candidate-tori-branum-sparks-major-backlash-after-saying-she-tipped-off-feds-in-hyundai-raid

Another article:

‘I’ll go down with the ship!’ MAGA candidate not sorry for sparking international incident

https://www.rawstory.com/hyundai-2673975173

Wall Street Journal: Did a Boat Strike in Caribbean Exceed Trump’s Authority to Use Military Force?

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President Trump was operating within his constitutional powers as commander in chief when he ordered the U.S. military to destroy a vessel in the Caribbean, administration officials said, describing the drugs it was allegedly smuggling as an imminent national security threat.

But that claim was sharply disputed by legal experts and some lawmakers, who said that Trump exceeded his legal authority by using lethal military force against a target that posed no direct danger to the U.S. and doing so without congressional authorization.

The disagreement since Trump announced the deadly attack Tuesday underscored how much of a departure it represents from decades of U.S. counternarcotics operations—and raised questions about whether drug smugglers can be treated as legitimate military targets.

“Every boatload of any form of drug that poisons the American people is an imminent threat. And at the DOD, our job is to defeat imminent threats,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Thursday during a visit to an Army base in Georgia. “A drug cartel is no different than al Qaeda, and they will be treated as such.”

Trump administration officials said Tuesday’s strike, which killed 11 people on the boat, was just the opening salvo in an expanded campaign to dismantle the drug cartels they say pose a major threat to Americans.

But in importing tactics from the post-9/11 war against terrorist groups to use against drug cartels, some former officials said, Trump is trampling on longstanding limits on presidential use of force and asserting legal authorities that don’t exist.

The casualties “weren’t engaged in anything like a direct attack on the United States” and weren’t afforded a trial to determine their guilt, said Frank Kendall, who served as the secretary of the Air Force during the Biden administration and holds a law degree. “Frankly, I can’t see how this can be considered anything other than a nonjudicial killing outside the boundaries of domestic and international law.”

Unlike the interdictions which are usually conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard, the strike was carried out without warning shots, and no effort was made to detain the ship, apprehend its crew, or confirm the drugs on board. “Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders they blew it up,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Mexico City on Wednesday.

Trump said U.S. forces “positively identified” the crew before the attack as members of Venezuelan crime syndicate Tren de Aragua, calling them “narcoterrorists.” Tren de Aragua is among the Latin American cartels and gangs that Trump has designated as foreign terrorist organizations since February.

The White House has provided no further information on the operation against the boat or detailed the legal arguments that it claims support it. Nor have officials disclosed where the strike took place, the identities of the casualties or the weapons used.

Some Trump administration officials suggest that by designating the drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, the Pentagon has the leeway to treat the groups as it would foreign terrorists. As commander in chief, Trump has the power to order military action against imminent threats without congressional authorization, they said.

The strike “was taken in defense of vital U.S. national interests and in the collective self-defense of other nations,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said, adding that the strike occurred in international waters and “was fully consistent with the law of armed conflict.”

But Geoffrey Corn, a retired lieutenant colonel who was the Army’s senior adviser on the law of war, said: “I don’t think there is any way to legitimately characterize a drug ship heading from Venezuela, arguably to Trinidad, as an actual or imminent armed attack against the United States, justifying this military response.”

Corn, a law professor at Texas Tech University, noted that critics have condemned U.S. drone strikes since 2001 against militants in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries as extrajudicial killings, but those strikes were legitimate, he said, because the U.S. was engaged in an armed conflict under the laws of war against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is now at the International Crisis Group, said that designation of drug cartels as terrorist groups doesn’t authorize the use of military force against them. Rather it enables the U.S. to levy sanctions and pursue criminal prosecutions against individuals who support the groups.

Nor can military action be justified under the law Congress passed authorizing the use of force against al Qaeda and related terrorist groups following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, experts said.

For the military to use force, “there needs to be a legitimate claim of self-defense in international waters, an action that is necessary and proportional in response to an armed attack or imminent armed attack,” said Juan Gonzalez, who served as the National Security Council’s senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs during the Biden administration. “That clearly didn’t happen.”

The attack was the U.S. military’s first publicly acknowledged airstrike in Central or South America since the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. The White House released a grainy black-and-white video that showed the destruction of a small boat, which it celebrated as a blunt warning for drug traffickers throughout the region.

Trump administration officials have offered conflicting accounts of the episode. On Tuesday, Rubio said the drugs the vessel was carrying “were probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean” and could “contribute to the instability these countries are facing,” differing from Trump’s statement that the vessel was “heading to the United States.” On Wednesday, Rubio suggested that the shipment was “eventually” headed to the U.S.

No state in the region has publicly appealed for the U.S. to take military action against the cartels as an act of collective self-defense, Corn said.

On Thursday, two Venezuelan F-16 jet fighters flew near one of the U.S. Navy warships that have been positioned near the county. The Pentagon criticized the apparent show of force as a “highly provocative move” and warned Venezuela not to interfere with its “counter narco-terror operations.”

In the past, some U.S. counternarcotics strikes have ended in tragedy. In 2001, Peruvian and U.S. counterdrug agents mistook a small plane carrying American missionaries over the Peruvian Amazon as belonging to drug traffickers. The Peruvian Air Force shot down the plane, killing a 35-year-old woman and her infant daughter.

The U.S. has limited intelligence on small drug boats leaving Venezuela, from which the Drug Enforcement Administration was expelled in 2005 under then-President Hugo Chávez, said Mike Vigil, a former DEA director of international operations.

“The United States doesn’t really have the capability to develop good intelligence about these embarkations,” he said. “You don’t just send a missile and destroy a boat. It is the equivalent of a police officer walking up to a drug trafficker on the street and shooting him.”

In Quito, Ecuador, on Thursday, Rubio announced the designation of two more criminal groups—the Ecuadorean Los Choneros and Los Lobos—as foreign terrorist organizations. He said U.S. partners in the region would participate in operations to use lethal force against drug cartels.

A senior Mexican naval officer with decades of service and experience boarding drug vessels said actions like the one taken Tuesday by the U.S. would never be allowed by its Mexican counterpart, which has been trained in interdiction procedures by the U.S. Coast Guard.

“There is never a direct attack unless you are attacked,” he said. “As commander of the ship, I would get into serious trouble. I could be accused of murder.”

Did a Boat Strike in Caribbean Exceed Trump’s Authority to Use Military Force?
Legal experts said the president exceeded his legal authority by using lethal military force against a target that posed no direct danger to the U.S.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/did-a-boat-strike-in-caribbean-exceed-trump-s-authority-to-use-military-force/ar-AA1LU02a

Slingshot News: ‘You Don’t Know This’: Trump Makes Freudian Slip, Infers His GOP Underlings Are Dumb During White House Dinner Event

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‘You Don’t Know This’: Trump Makes Freudian Slip, Infers His GOP Underlings Are Dumb During White House Dinner Event
Donald Trump held a dinner event for Republican members of Congress several days ago at the Rose Garden in the White House. Trump talked down to his GOP underlings, telling them they don’t know that grass has a “life,” inferring they’re too dumb to understand that grass is a living organism.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/you-don-t-know-this-trump-makes-freudian-slip-infers-his-gop-underlings-are-dumb-during-white-house-dinner-event/vi-AA1M3as2

For once, Trump was right!

Washington Post: RFK Jr. says anyone who wants a covid shot can get one. Not these Americans.

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Pharmacies and doctors are struggling to adjust to a new regulatory environment for updated coronavirus vaccines that are no longer broadly recommended.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told senators last week that anyone can get a new coronavirus vaccine. But many Americans are finding the opposite.

Confusion is rippling through the health care system as pharmacies and doctors try to adjust to providing a vaccine that is no longer broadly recommended. Americans’ experiences vary widely, from easily booking appointments to having to cross state lines to access the shots, according to more than 3,200 submissions to The Washington Post’s request for readers to share their experiences.

Chain pharmacy locations in some parts of the country have yet to stock the shots or are turning away patients seeking the updated vaccines manufactured to protect people from the worst effects of new strains of the coronavirus. In some states, they require prescriptions, a step that has largely not been required since vaccines became widely available in early 2021.

Even more confusing: Pharmacies are reaching different conclusions about whether they’re allowed to administer coronavirus vaccines, even in the same state. And some states, including New York and Massachusetts, have scrambled in recent days to rewrite their rules to make it easier to get shots.

Many patients puzzle about whether they qualify to get the shot at all, or if they remain free as in years past.

Officials in the Trump administration have insisted that the new coronavirus vaccines remain available to those who want them and have blasted those who have suggested otherwise. Some Republican leaders are casting doubt on the safety of the shots, while some Democratic governors are rushing to preserve access — underscoring the nation’s deepening political divide over vaccines.

In Washington, D.C., Vernon Stewart, a 59-year-old retired parking enforcement officer, spent Wednesday riding his bike to see a doctor to get a prescription for the vaccine and to find a pharmacy where he could get it, only to be told the shot was not available. At one CVS, Stewart was seated in the chair with his sleeve rolled up when a nurse emerged to tell him his Medicaid insurance plan didn’t cover it.

On Friday morning, he hopped on the Metro train to Temple Hills, in Maryland — a state where CVS is not requiring prescriptions. He didn’t have to show his insurance card and paid nothing for the shot. He left with a bandage on his arm and a free bag of popcorn.

“It shouldn’t have to be this hard,” Stewart said Friday. “It was such a hassle. But I found a way.”

Doctors have the option to provide coronavirus vaccines “off label” to lower risk groups without approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Amid the fierce debates about coronavirus vaccines and low uptake of the latest versions, plenty of Americans want them.

Some, like Stewart, simply want to protect their health, despite not being considered at high risk. Many care for elderly or immunocompromised people and don’t want to get them sick. Some want to be immunized before traveling abroad or to reduce their risk of long covid.

Research has shown that annual coronavirus vaccinations reduce hospitalization and death, especially in people with weaker immune systems because of their age and underlying conditions. Health officials in the Trump administration argue that a universal recommendation is no longer warranted, because clinical trials have not demonstrated the vaccines are effective at reducing infection or transmission in younger and otherwise healthy people who are at low risk of hospitalization. Past research into updated coronavirus vaccines suggests they confer short-term partial protection against infections and can reduce transmission by reducing viral loads and symptoms.

Under Kennedy, the FDA in August narrowed approval of updated coronavirus shots to those 65 and older and people with underlying conditions that elevate their risk of severe disease. Typically, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee meets soon after such an announcement — often a few days later — to recommend which Americans should get coronavirus vaccines. The recommendations, which previously applied to everyone ages 6 months and older, compel insurers to pay for the vaccines.

But this year, the CDC panel was thrown into turmoil when Kennedy fired its members and replaced them with his own picks, most of whom have been critical of coronavirus vaccines. The panel is now scheduled to meet Sept. 18-19.

The vast majority of Americans receive coronavirus shots at pharmacies. More than a dozen states limit the vaccines that pharmacists can give without a doctor’s prescription to only those recommended by the CDC advisory panel, according to the American Pharmacists Association, complicating efforts even for those who are seniors or have preexisting conditions as approved by the FDA.

Five Democratic-led states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York and Pennsylvania — have recently issued orders to pharmacies to provide coronavirus vaccines without a prescription.

At CVS, the nation’s largest pharmacy chain, prescriptions are still required for coronavirus vaccines in Louisiana, Maine, New Mexico (where the order has yet to take effect), Utah and West Virginia. Patients in higher-risk groups can receive them through CVS Minute Clinics to bypass prescription requirements in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and D.C.

The nation’s other two largest pharmacy chains — Walgreens and Walmart — have not provided a list of states where prescriptions are required to get the vaccine.

In a combative appearance before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, Kennedy bristled when Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) accused the Trump administration of taking steps that deny people vaccines.

“Everybody can get the vaccine. You’re just making things up,” Kennedy said. “You’re making things up to scare people, and it’s a lie.”

In Virginia, Elaine Cox said she and her husband asked their doctor for a prescription before leaving Saturday for a vacation in Italy. The office declined because it hadn’t received CDC guidance. Cox, 68, suffers from chronic lung disease, and her nephew died of the viral infection in 2022.

“I was crying this afternoon about this,” she said on Thursday. “My family takes [covid] very seriously.”

Pharmacy employees have given conflicting instructions about how to get coronavirus vaccines, patients report.

In San Antonio, 78-year-old Brant Mittler was told at a CVS Minute Clinic that he needed a prescription on Monday, even though the pharmacy includes Texas among its no-prescription states. The next day, a pharmacist at the same clinic told him it wasn’t needed.

In states where CVS does not require prescriptions, coronavirus vaccine appointments aren’t available for younger, healthier people outside the recommended categories. But the list of qualifying medical conditions, including physical inactivity, being overweight or a history of smoking, is so long that nearly anyone who wants a shot should be able to get one, said Amy Thibault, a CVS spokeswoman.

“If you’re five pounds overweight, you qualify,” she said. “If you’ve smoked a cigarette once, you qualify.”

Some people seeking prescriptions from their doctors face pushback.

In Louisville, Stephen Pedigo said his primary care doctor recommended against receiving the vaccine, arguing that covid is mild and that the vaccine has “a lot of complications,” including heart problems, according to a screenshot of their messages.

The most recent CDC guidance says coronavirus vaccination is “especially important” if you are 65 or older and notes vaccines underwent the most intensive safety analysis in U.S. history.

Pedigo, who is 66 and has undergone a heart valve replacement, insisted, and the office gave him the prescription. He received the shot at a CVS on Friday. “I trust the vaccines are safe,” Pedigo said.

Doctors offices also have reported challenges helping patients get vaccinated.

In Raleigh, North Carolina, pediatrician Mary-Cassie Shaw said her office has preordered from Moderna hundreds of shots, at $200 a dose, but worries that insurers won’t provide reimbursement.

Families for the past month have been asking for coronavirus shots to go along with flu vaccines, she said.

One 12-year-old immunocompromised girl went to CVS but needed a prescription from Shaw — who was asked by the pharmacist to rewrite the prescription to include certain diagnosis codes indicating why the patient needed the vaccine.

“I have to do the legwork to come up with the codes that might qualify them,” Shaw said. “It’s a huge barrier. It’s ridiculous.”

Vaccination rates for the latest coronavirus shots have been low, particularly for people not considered at high risk, according to CDC estimates. For adults, uptake of the 2024-2025 vaccine ranged from 11 percent for younger adults to nearly 44 percent for those 65 and older. Roughly 13 percent of children between 6 months and 17 years received the shot.

The most effective way to increase vaccine uptake is to make it easier for people to get the shots, said Noel Brewer, professor of public health at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. In states such as North Carolina, the added step of getting prescriptions will prompt many people to not bother, he said.

“They might even just hear about other people having a hassle and decide to go back another time and never get back to it,” said Brewer, who studies patient behavior in regard to vaccines.

Last week, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington announced plans to form a “health alliance” to coordinate vaccine recommendations based on advice from national medical organizations rather than the federal government, because, they said, federal actions have raised concerns “about the politicization of science,” according to a joint statement.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) announced Thursday that her state would be the first to require insurance companies to cover vaccines recommended by the state’s Department of Public Health, even if the CDC does not. Washington state government officials on Friday recommended coronavirus vaccines for people ages 6 months and older.

At 59, Brewer doesn’t fall into the category of people for whom the FDA recommended updated coronavirus vaccines. Instead, Brewer said, he will wait until the fall, when he might travel to a blue state.

RFK Jr. says anyone who wants a covid shot can get one. Not these Americans.
Pharmacies and doctors are struggling to adjust to a new regulatory environment for updated coronavirus vaccines that are no longer broadly recommended.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/rfk-jr-says-anyone-who-wants-a-covid-shot-can-get-one-not-these-americans/ar-AA1M32EI

Associated Press: What to know about a large-scale immigration raid at a Georgia manufacturing plant

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Hundreds of federal agents descended on a sprawling site where Hyundai manufactures electric vehicles in Georgia and detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals.

This is the latest in a long line of workplace raids conducted as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. But the one on Thursday is especially distinct because of its large size and the fact that it targeted a manufacturing site state officials have long called Georgia’s largest economic development project.

The detainment of South Korean nationals also sets it apart, as they are rarely caught up in immigration enforcement compared to other nationalities.

Video released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday showed a caravan of vehicles driving up to the site and then federal agents directing workers to line up outside. Some detainees were ordered to put their hands up against a bus as they were frisked and then shackled around their hands, ankles and waist. Others had plastic ties around their wrists as they boarded a Georgia inmate-transfer bus.

Here are some things to know about the raid and the people impacted:

The workers detained

South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Saturday that more than 300 South Koreans were among the 475 people detained.

Some of them worked for the battery plant operated by HL-GA Battery Co., a joint venture by Hyundai and LG Energy Solution that is slated to open next year, while others were employed by contractors and subcontractors at the construction site, according to Steven Schrank, the lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations.

He said that some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others had entered the country legally but had expired visas or had entered on a visa waiver that prohibited them from working.

But an immigration attorney representing two of the detained workers said his clients arrived from South Korea under a visa waiver program that enables them to travel for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa.

Attorney Charles Kuck said one of his clients has been in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, while the other has been in the country for about 45 days, adding that they had been planning to return home soon.

The detainees also included a lawful permanent resident who was kept in custody for having a prior record involving firearm and drug offenses, since committing a crime of “moral turpitude” can put their status in jeopardy, Lindsay Williams, a public affairs officer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Saturday.

Williams denied reports that U.S. citizens had been detained at the site since “once citizens have identified themselves, we have no authority.”

Hyundai Motor Company said in a statement Friday that none of its employees had been detained as far as it knew and that it is reviewing its practices to make sure suppliers and subcontractors follow U.S. employment laws. LG told The Associated Press that it couldn’t immediately confirm how many of its employees or Hyundai workers had been detained.

The South Korean government expressed “concern and regret” over the operation targeting its citizens and is sending diplomats to the site.

“The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be unjustly infringed in the process of U.S. law enforcement,” South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jaewoong said in a televised statement from Seoul.

Most of the people detained have been taken to an immigration detention center in Folkston, Georgia, near the Florida state line. None of them have been charged with any crimes yet, Schrank said, but the investigation is ongoing.

Family members and friends of the detainees were having a hard time locating them or figuring out how to get in touch with them, James Woo, communications director for the advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, said Saturday in an email.

Woo added that many of the families were in South Korea because many of the detainees were in the United States only for business purposes.

Raid is the result of a monthslong investigation

The raid was the result of a monthslong investigation into allegations of illegal hiring at the site, Schrank said.

In a search warrant and related affidavits, agents sought everything from employment records for current and former workers and timecards to video and photos of workers.

Court records filed this week indicated that prosecutors do not know who hired what it called “hundreds of illegal aliens.” The identity of the “actual company or contractor hiring the illegal aliens is currently unknown,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote in a Thursday court filing.

The sprawling manufacturing site

The raid targeted a manufacturing site widely considered one of Georgia’s largest and most high profile.

Hyundai Motor Group started manufacturing EVs at the $7.6 billion plant a year ago. Today, the site employs about 1,200 people in a largely rural area about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Savannah.

Agents specifically honed in on an adjacent plant that is still under construction at which Hyundai has partnered with LG Energy Solution to produce batteries that power EVs.

The Hyundai site is in Bryan County, which saw its population increase by more than a quarter in the early 2020s and stood at almost 47,000 residents in 2023, the most recent year data is available. The county’s Asian population went from 1.5% in 2018 to 2.2% in 2023, and the growth was primarily among people of Indian descent, according to Census Bureau figures.

Raid was the ‘largest single site enforcement operation’

From farms and construction sites to restaurants and auto repair shops, there have been a wide array of workplace raids undertaken in this administration. But most have been smaller, including a raid the same day as the Georgia one in which federal officers took away dozens of workers from a snack-bar manufacturer in Cato, New York.

Other recent high-profile raids have included one in July targeting a legal marijuana farm northwest of Los Angeles. More than 360 people were arrested in one of the largest raids since Trump took office in January. Another one took place at an Omaha. Nebraska, meat production plant and involved dozens of workers being taken away.

Schrank described the one in Georgia as the “largest single site enforcement operation” in the agency’s two-decade history.

The majority of the people detained are Koreans. During the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, 2024, only 46 Koreans were deported during out of more than 270,000 removals for all nationalities, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Community members and advocates have mixed reactions

Kemp and other Georgia Republican officials, who had courted Hyundai and celebrated the EV plant’s opening, issued statements Friday saying all employers in the state were expected to follow the law.

The nonprofit legal advocacy organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta described the raid in a joint statement as “unacceptable.”

“Our communities know the workers targeted at Hyundai are everyday people who are trying to feed their families, build stronger communities, and work toward a better future,” the statement said.

Sammie Rentz opened the Viet Huong Supermarket less than 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from the Hyundai site six months ago and said he worries business may not bounce back after falling off sharply since the raid.

“I’m concerned. Koreans are very proud people, and I bet they’re not appreciating what just happened. I’m worried about them cutting and running, or starting an exit strategy,” he said.

Ellabell resident Tanya Cox, who lives less than a mile from the Hyundai site, said she had no ill feelings toward Korean nationals or other immigrant workers at the site. But few neighbors were employed there, and she felt like more construction jobs at the battery plant should have gone to local residents.

“I don’t see how it’s brought a lot of jobs to our community or nearby communities,” Cox said.

Something’s fishy here — many had 90-day visa waivers but had been for a much shorter time.

This looks like part of a desperate attempt to meet the ghoulish Stephen Miller’s goal of 3000 deportations monthly.

What to know about a large-scale immigration raid at a Georgia manufacturing plant
Hundreds of federal agents descended on a sprawling site where Hyundai manufactures electric vehicles in Georgia and detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals.

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-raid-hyundai-plant-4dd1a6b2ad66d27567b2463c5f3c97bb

CNN: Immigration raid at New York business left workers terrified and slowed production, co-owner says

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When Lenny Schmidt arrived at his family-run nutrition bar manufacturing business in upstate New York Thursday morning, federal immigration agents were already there.

“The agents were swarming the plant,” he said. “There were probably over 100 of these agents, on four-wheelers, on foot, they had dogs.”

“They had surrounded the facility and forced their way through into the plant … using, I think, crowbars,” Schmidt, the company’s co-owner and vice president, told CNN’s Laura Coates on Friday.

By the end of the hourslong raid at Nutrition Bar Confectioners in Cato, a rural community about 30 miles northwest of Syracuse, dozens of employees had been detained.

The raid in Cato coincided with a similar operation in Ellabell, Georgia, where federal agents detained 475 workers, mostly Korean nationals suspected of living or working in the US illegally. It marked the largest sweep yet in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown at worksites, which has increasingly targeted industries like manufacturing and agriculture that often depend on immigrant labor.

At the New York facility, agents sealed the exits, halting production and corralling workers for questioning.

“They cornered all of our workers, seemingly targeting just the Hispanic employees, separated everybody … later on, they ended up escorting them into vans,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt said his company, which has been operating since 1978, complies with all federal labor laws.

“We vet each person as best as we can in accordance with those laws and get the correct documentation to support this,” he said, adding that all his employees possessed the necessary documentation to legally work in the US.

ICE told CNN affiliate WSTM the raid was a “court-authorized enforcement operation,” but did not provide further details. Employees told WSTM that around 60 workers were detained. CNN has reached out to the agency for details.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul sharply condemned the raid, calling it a cruel disruption to immigrant families.

“What they did was shatter hard-working families who are simply trying to build a life here, just like millions of immigrants before them,” the governor said.

‘Everyone got scared’

The operation began around 9 a.m., according to a Guatemalan worker who has been working on the production line for two years. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the worker described the mounting panic as agents surrounded the building and gathered up to 70 workers – many from Guatemala and Nicaragua – into the lunchroom, where the entire workforce was questioned.

“They surrounded the building. Everyone got scared.”

The worker, a legal US resident, said ICE agents neither showed warrants nor explained the reason for the raid.

“They went straight to the workers,” the employee said. “They asked what country we were from, if we had permission to be in the US. They demanded papers.”

After showing his identification card, the worker was released within half an hour, but others, including coworkers with valid work permits, were taken into custody, he said.

CNN contacted the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to find out if the detainees had valid work permits and awaits a response.

Some employees who were released from detention returned to the plant almost immediately, Schmidt said.

“It’s heartbreaking … some of them came back to work. I remember seeing somebody punching the clock and I walked up to him and I couldn’t believe my eyes. So I shook his hand and gave him a hug,” he said.

Production at the plant came to a standstill during the raid, but Schmidt said operations have resumed – though at reduced capacity.

“It’s going to slow us down probably half speed or just less until we get hopefully some of these workers back,” Schmidt said, adding they will also start the hiring process for new workers this weekend.

“What makes us successful is having these wonderful workers,” he said. “We hope and pray for our workers to be safe and to return home to their families and, hopefully, back to work.”

Immigration raid at New York business left workers terrified and slowed production, co-owner says | CNN
When Lenny Schmidt arrived at his family-run nutrition bar manufacturing business in upstate New York Thursday morning, federal immigration agents were already there.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/06/us/cato-new-york-immigration-raid-business-owner-hnk

CNN: Massive immigration raid at Hyundai megaplant in Georgia leads to 475 arrests. Most are Korean

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Hundreds of federal officers descended on a small southeast Georgia community and raided the Hyundai Metaplant – arresting 475 people in the largest sweep yet in the current Trump administration’s immigration crackdown at US worksites.

Previously, federal officials estimated 450 people were apprehended Thursday at the enormous site in Ellabell, about 25 miles west of Savannah, Georgia.

The majority are Korean nationals, said Steven Schrank, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge. Schrank said he did not have a breakdown of the arrestees’ nationalities.

All 475 people taken into custody were suspected of living and working illegally in the US, Schrank said. Some crossed into the US illegally; some had visa waivers and were prohibited from working; and some had overstayed their visas, he said.

During the raid, several people tried to flee – including some who “ran into a sewage pond located on the premises,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia said.

“Agents used a boat to fish them out of the water. One of the individuals swam under the boat and tried to flip it over to no avail. These people were captured and identified as illegal workers.”

Schrank noted that some of the workers may have been contractors or subcontractors.

“We continue to work on the investigation of who exactly worked for what companies,” he said.

A Hyundai spokesperson told CNN he does not believe anyone arrested was a direct employee of Hyundai Motor Company.

“We are aware of the recent incident at the HL-GA Battery Company construction site in Bryan County, Georgia. We are closely monitoring the situation and working to understand the specific circumstances,” spokesperson Michael Stewart said Friday.

“As of today, it is our understanding that none of those detained is directly employed by Hyundai Motor Company. We prioritize the safety and well-being of everyone working at the site and comply with all laws and regulations wherever we operate.”

The sprawling, 2,900-acre Hyundai Metaplant has two parts: a Hyundai electric vehicle manufacturing site, and an EV battery plant that’s a joint venture between Hyundai and LG.

The raid halted construction of the EV battery plant, The Associated Press reported.

LG did not respond to CNN’s questions about how many arrested workers may have been employed by the company, and how many may have been contractors or subcontractors for LG.

But the company sent the following statement to CNN:

“We are closely monitoring the situation and gathering all relevant details. Our top priority is always ensuring the safety and well-being of our employees and partners. We will fully cooperate with the relevant authorities.”

How the Georgia raid happened

“This was not an immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks and put them on buses,” Schrank said.

“This has been a multi-month criminal investigation where we have developed evidence, conducted interviews, gathered documents and presented that evidence to the court in order to obtain judicial search warrants.”

At the Georgia site, masked and armed agents gave orders to construction workers wearing hard hats and safety vests as they lined up while officers raided the facility, video footage obtained by CNN showed.

ICE and Homeland Security Investigations were accompanied by the Georgia State Patrol, the FBI, DEA, ATF and other agencies in executing a search warrant.

“Together, we are sending a clear and unequivocal message: those who exploit our workforce, undermine our economy, and violate federal laws will be held accountable,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

While the raid is part of an ongoing investigation, “No charges have been filed, so that means that no wrongdoing is being accused at this time,” Schrank said.

GOP governor promoted the Metaplant

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has touted the Hyundai Metaplant as a boon for the Georgia economy.

In 2022, Hyundai announced an agreement with the state of Georgia to build Hyundai’s “first dedicated fully electrified vehicle and battery manufacturing facilities in the United States” in Bryan County, the company said.

The Metaplant was expected to create 8,500 jobs.

“With the first 500 employees trained, and more soon to join them, this is another major milestone as we continue our momentum towards the full opening of the Hyundai Metaplant!” Kemp posted on social media last year.

Kemp’s office issued a statement Friday in response to the raid.

“In Georgia, we will always enforce the law, including all state and federal immigration laws,” a Kemp spokesperson said. “The Department of Public Safety coordinated with ICE to provide all necessary support for this operation, the latest in a long line of cooperation and partnership between state law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement.”

South Korea says it’s concerned

In a televised statement Friday, a spokesperson for Korea’s Foreign Ministry said “many of our nationals were detained” in the raid, according to a translation from Reuters.

“The economic activities of our companies investing in the United States and the interests of our citizens must not be unduly violated during the course of US law enforcement,” spokesperson Lee Jae-woong said.

“In Seoul, we also conveyed our concerns and regret through the US Embassy today, urging special attention to ensure that the legitimate rights and interests of our citizens are not violated.”

CNN has reached out to the South Korean consulate in Atlanta and the embassy in Washington, DC for comment.

Dozens apprehended in New York, too

On the same day as the Georgia raid, dozens of workers at a family-owned plant that makes nutrition bars were also apprehended during an ICE raid, officials said.

Federal agents arrived at the Nutrition Bar Confectioners plant in Cato and questioned “virtually the entire workforce,” according to Rural & Migrant Ministry, whose staff witnessed the raid.

The group posted a video on its Facebook page showing law enforcement leading people into a van marked “Border Patrol.” During the raid, workers were taken into the kitchen area of the plant and “questioned one by one over the course of many hours,” the group said in the post.

The group estimates that “upwards of 70 employees” were questioned and “nearly all” were then arrested and taken to the nearby Oswego Detention Center. A spokesperson for the group told CNN they’re still waiting to hear from authorities about exactly how many were detained.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul condemned the ICE operation in her state.

“I am outraged by this morning’s ICE raids in Cato and Fulton, where more than 40 adults were seized — including parents of at least a dozen children at risk of returning from school to an empty house,” Hochul said in a statement.

Hochul said such operations “will not make New York safer” and will “shatter hard-working families who are simply trying to build a life here.”

ICE confirmed to CNN affiliate WSTM that it carried out a “court-authorized enforcement action” in Cato. Employees told WSTM that around 60 workers were detained. CNN has reached out to the agency for further details.

Mark Schmidt, the owner of Nutrition Bar Confectioners, told the New York Times that all his workers had legal documentation to work in the US. “We’ve done everything we can to vet people we hire,” he said.

Schmidt described the ICE raid as “overkill.” His son Lenny Schmidt, the company’s vice president, told the Times the scene was “almost theatrical,” describing police dogs and all-terrain vehicles involved in the operation.

“It could have been handled so much more humanely and decently,” he said. “This kind of raid, you feel like it’s a drug bust or a human trafficking situation.”

CNN has reached out to the company for further comment.

The New York and Georgia raids come as Chicago leaders are preparing for a possible National Guard deployment in step with an expected immigration enforcement operation in the city.

Massive immigration raid at Hyundai megaplant in Georgia leads to 475 arrests. Most are Korean | CNN
Hundreds of federal officers descended on a small southeast Georgia community and raided the Hyundai Metaplant – arresting 475 people in the largest sweep yet in the current Trump administration’s immigration crackdown at US worksites.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/05/us/georgia-plant-ice-raid-hundreds-arrested-hnk

Reuters: These Trump voters back his immigration crackdown, but some worry about his methods

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While Trump supporters are happy to see criminals deported, they are split over methods for detaining immigrants.

Juan Rivera voted for President Donald Trump, hoping that the president’s efforts to rid the United States of illegal immigration would improve safety in the Southern California city where the 25-year-old content creator lives.

Neighborhoods near Rivera’s home in San Marcos that used to be frequented by migrants with “violent tendencies” do feel much safer now, he said. But he also said he’ll “never forget” seeing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pull over a truck of Latino workers and haul the men into their cars without asking for identification, leaving the empty truck behind.

Some of Rivera’s family members work for U.S. Border Patrol. Other relatives who are in the process of establishing legal residency in the United States “are scared of going to work because they fear that they’re going to get pulled over by immigration,” he said.

Overall, however, Rivera gave the Trump administration very high marks on its handling of immigration because “there’s a lot more public safety.”

Seven months into his second term, Trump’s signature issue – immigration – is still helping buoy his overall sinking approval ratings, making up for a downturn in support for his economic policies. A group of 20 Trump voters Reuters has interviewed monthly since February, including Rivera, illuminated the complex views behind the numbers.

Reuters asked the voters to rate the Trump administration’s handling of immigration on a scale of 1 to 10. Sixteen gave it a rating of 7 or higher, and none rated it below 5.

They universally support Trump’s tightening of U.S. border security to prevent further illegal immigration and his efforts to expel immigration offenders with violent criminal records. But there was less consensus about how Trump is going about the crackdown.

“President Trump was elected based on his promise to close the border and deport criminal illegal aliens,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in an emailed statement. “The Trump Administration will continue carrying out the largest mass deportation operation in history.”

The 20 voters were selected from 429 respondents to a February 2025 Ipsos poll who said they voted for Trump in November and were willing to speak to a reporter. They are not a statistically representative portrait of all Trump voters, but their ages, educational backgrounds, races/ethnicities, locations and voting histories roughly correspond to those of Trump’s overall electorate.

Seven of the voters said they worried about the means Trump was using to achieve his goals, with some recoiling at the way authorities are rounding up immigrants for deportation.

“I agree that you have to have an immigration policy and enforce it. I don’t agree with kidnapping people off the street,” said Virginia Beach-based retiree Don Jernigan.

Jernigan, 75, said that footage of ICE raids he has seen on ABC and Fox News “reminds me of Nazi Germany. And you would rarely hear me say that name, Nazi, okay? But it does, the way they snatch people.”

Other voters, such as Will Brown, 20, a student at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, urged the administration to pursue even more ambitious deportation goals.

Brown, who said he “couldn’t be more of a fan of Stephen Miller,” the White House aide credited with designing Trump’s immigration policy, noted that the deportation rate of Trump’s second term so far lagged that of the last two Democratic administrations. “Honestly, I don’t think they’re doing enough,” he said.

REALITY DIVIDE

The voters’ attitudes towards traditional news outlets heavily affected their view of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“If you get your information from one source, ICE is devils incarnate, and if you get it from another source, they’re superheroes,” said Gerald Dunn, 66, a martial arts instructor in upstate New York.

Dunn said he rarely reads or watches news from mainstream outlets because “everything is so exaggerated.” Instead, he browses headlines and watches YouTube videos to stay informed.

He has heard reports of ICE agents detaining non-criminal immigrants, but said such incidents are blown out of proportion.

“You’re going to arrest people wrongfully, and it turns out they shouldn’t have been arrested. That doesn’t mean you don’t arrest anybody.”

In the Chicago suburbs, municipal office secretary Kate Mottl, 62, said she is thrilled with Trump’s immigration policy. She does not believe news outlets that report immigrants without a criminal record are being swept up in raids.

Mottl was dismayed to learn that some immigrants without legal status she knows are afraid of being deported under Trump.

“I tell them, ‘you shouldn’t be worried about that because you’re not a bad person. You’re not committing crimes,’” she said, adding that she feared they were being misinformed by the news sources they watch.

CLEARER PATHWAY TO LEGAL STATUS

Fourteen of the 20 voters said they hoped Trump would improve the immigration system and vetting process to help deserving foreigners with the potential to contribute to the U.S. economy legalize their status more easily in the United States.

Like Mottl, Lesa Sandberg of St. George, Utah, said she knows undocumented immigrants “who are raising their families here, who are working, who are contributing to our economy and our society. And my heart goes out to them.”

Sandberg, 57, who runs an accounting business, rents properties and works for a former Republican congressman’s political action committee, said she is glad to see the administration cracking down on immigrants with criminal backgrounds.

But when it comes to the immigrants in the U.S. illegally she considers friends, she said, “I would never call ICE on them … [it’s] that whole concept of when we know people in the situation, feelings are different about it because we know how bad it is for them.”

David Ferguson, 53, a mechanical engineer and account manager in western Georgia, said some of the foreign students in his daughter’s graduate school program want to stay and work in the United States but fear they won’t be able to re-enter if they visit their home countries, despite having valid visas.

Some immigrants really do “want to have long-term residency and be productive members of our society. Let’s give them a path for that,” he said.

Ferguson said he doesn’t think an amnesty program is necessarily the solution. But Juan Rivera, the Trump voter in southern California, thinks it could attract wide support.

“It’s actually a really big sentiment I’ve been hearing from a lot of local Republican elected officials, that the Trump administration [should] offer amnesty the way that Reagan did,” said Rivera, who does Latino outreach advocacy for his county’s Republican Party.

His own father was able to become a U.S. citizen after former Republican President Ronald Reagan signed legislation in 1986 granting amnesty to about 3 million immigrants without legal status, according to Rivera.

He said he hopes Trump moves the country toward “an immigration system that balances security with humanity.”

These Trump voters back his immigration crackdown, but some worry about his methods

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/these-trump-voters-back-his-immigration-crackdown-some-worry-about-his-methods-2025-09-02