Tag Archives: united states

Latin Times: At Least a Dozen Migrants Arrested After Attending Immigration Hearings in Arizona

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A dozen people who attended a morning session of immigration hearings in Phoenix were arrested and taken away in vans after prosecutors asked to dismiss their cases.

Multiple people who attended civil immigration hearings were arrested in Phoenix outside the courtroom this week.

At least a dozen people who attended a morning session of hearings in Phoenix were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and taken away in vans after prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss their cases, AZ Mirror reported.

Isaac Ortega, a Phoenix-based immigration attorney, said one of his clients was among those arrested Tuesday morning. He recalled that the officials who took the people refused to identify themselves and wore masks. It remained unclear whether his client was taken to an immigration detention facility in Eloy or Florence, or sent to another state.

“My client has no criminal history; he entered the U.S. through the CBP program,” Ortega said. He added his client was preparing for a credible fear interview, the first hurdle as part of the asylum process when federal agents grabbed him from the court.

This is very deceitful, dishonest behavior on the part of DHS & ICE:

“There were two ICE officers inside the courtrooms who would notify the officers sitting in the hallway when a case was dismissed,” she wrote on social media. “It appears the (government attorneys) were moving to dismiss cases where people have been in the U.S. less than 2 years. By arresting them post-dismissal they will now try to put them in expedited removal proceedings and move towards deportations at lightning speed.”

And the locals weren’t particularly impressed:

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs denounced the arrests on a social media statement, saying, “we need to prioritize efforts to deport criminals and secure the border. Indiscriminately rounding up people following the rules won’t make us safer.”

In time, Karma will come around.

At Least a Dozen Migrants Arrested After Attending Immigration Hearings in Arizona
A dozen people who attended a morning session of immigration hearings in Phoenix were arrested and taken away in vans after prosecutors asked to dismiss their cases.

https://www.latintimes.com/least-dozen-migrants-arrested-after-attending-immigration-hearings-arizona-583619

LGBTQ Nation: Cruel Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem says it’s not her problem if a gay hairdresser she sent to a prison camp is dead

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She sent people to languish in the prison known for torturing inmates. Now she says how they’re treated isn’t her “jurisdiction.”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) confronted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem about the administration sending a gay man to a prison camp in El Salvador and not even knowing if he’s still alive. [Bimbo #2] Noem said that it wasn’t her problem.

[Bimbo #2] Noem, who has bragged in the past about shooting her dog to death, appeared before the House Homeland Security Committee for a hearing yesterday, where Garcia asked her about Andry Hernandez Romero, a gay hair dresser from Venezuela who came to the U.S. legally to escape anti-LGBTQ+ violence and who was sent to the CECOT camp in El Salvador, which is known for torturing inmates, earlier this year.

The administration, which sent immigrants to the CECOT without letting courts determine if they were in the country illegally or if they had committed any crimes, has refused to try to bring anyone back from the camp.

“Would you commit to just letting his mother know – as a mother-to-mother – if Andry is alive?” Garcia asked [Bimbo #2] Noem. “He was given an asylum appointment by the United States government. We gave him an appointment, we said, Andry, come to the border at this time and claim asylum, he was taken to a foreign prison in El Salvador.”

“His mother just wants to know if he’s alive. Can we check and do a wellness check on him?”

[Bimbo #2] Noem said she doesn’t “know the specifics” of Hernandez Romero’s case but said that since he’s in El Salvador, Garcia should be asking El Salvador’s government about him.

“This isn’t under my jurisdiction,” [Bimbo #2] Noem said.

Garcia reminded her that she said that the Salvadoran prison is a “tool in our toolkit” for fighting crime.

“You and the president have the ability to check that Andry is alive and not being harmed,” he said. “Would you commit into at least looking and asking El Salvador if he is alive?”

“This is a question that is best asked to the president and the government of El Salvador,” [Bimbo #2] Noem responded drily.

Hernandez Romero is a Venezuelan immigrant who trekked to the U.S. and entered legally last year at San Diego. There, he asked for asylum, saying that he was being targeted in Venezuela for being gay and due to his political beliefs. He was held in a CoreCivic detention center, where he was screened by Charles Cross Jr.

“The government had found that his threats against him were credible and that he had a real probability of winning an asylum claim,” his lawyer, Lindsay Toczylowski, said.

In March, he, along with over 200 other immigrants, was taken in shackles to the CECOT camp in El Salvador. Even his lawyer said she didn’t know what happened to him until he was gone and missed a hearing in his immigration case.

In a video from the CECOT, Hernandez Romero could be heard saying, “I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a stylist,” as he was slapped and had his head shaved.

“We have grave concerns about whether he can survive,” Toczylowski told CBS News.

It was later revealed that the evidence Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had against Hernandez Romero was his tattoos, which came from a report from the contractor CoreCivic, specifically from former police officer Charles Cross Jr., who lost his job with the Milwaukee police after he drunkenly crashed into a house and allegedly committed fraud. His name was subsequently added to the Brady List, a list of police officers who are considered non-credible for providing legal testimony in Milwaukee County.

Cross claimed that Hernandez Romero had crown tattoos associated with a gang. The tattoos are labeled “Mom” and “Dad” and are common symbols associated with his hometown of Capacho, Venezuela.

Cruel Kristi Noem says it’s not her problem if a gay hairdresser she sent to a prison camp is dead – LGBTQ Nation
She sent people to languish in the prison known for torturing inmates. Now she says how they’re treated isn’t her “jurisdiction.”

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/05/cruel-kristi-noem-says-its-not-her-problem-if-a-gay-hairdresser-she-sent-to-a-camp-is

USA Today: Trump’s crypto dinner: Black ties, a Chinese billionaire and ethics questions

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Referencing Trump’s business moves while in office, an ethics expert said, “His is one of the most blatant and appalling instances of selling access to the presidency I’ve ever seen.”

President Donald Trump dined with 220 investors who plowed a combined $148 million into his crypto venture, boosting the growing crypto industry and inviting a torrent of criticism about the ethical implications.

Black-tie dinners with the wealthy are nothing new for Trump. But this event, which took place on the evening of May 22 at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, stood out among the annals of presidential dining.

The dinner with the president was a reward for making the leaderboard in a contest to be among the top purchasers of the $TRUMP meme coin, a type of cryptocurrency. The top 25 buyers spent more than $111 million and were granted a private VIP reception with Trump, while the top four also received a limited edition Trump Tourbillon watch that sells for $100,000.

This is corruption and influence-peddling at is finest. King Donald is for sale!

Trump’s crypto dinner: Black ties, a Chinese billionaire and ethics questions
Trump hosted a black-tie dinner at his Virginia golf club for 220 investors who gave a combined $148 million to his crypto venture.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/22/trump-crypto-dinner-ethics-meme-coin/83787117007

MSNBC: Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem is making the homeland less secure

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The former governor is overseeing a vast machine dedicated to encroaching on rights that she may not even know Americans have.

Since her confirmation as secretary of homeland security in January, Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem has appeared completely over her head at her new job. Most recently, when asked to define the legal principle of “habeas corpus,” the former South Dakota governor — one of the country’s top law enforcement officials — face-planted.

It was merely the latest in a string of embarrassments that underscores that America is less safe with [Bimbo #2] Noem assigned as its chief protector. [Bimbo #2] Noem’s department — hastily founded in a moment of fear — is charged with protecting the United States from threats both external and internal. With her focus turned almost exclusively toward executing President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy at all costs, the Department of Homeland Security has become a threat to our rights and liberties — many of which [Bimbo #2] Noem apparently doesn’t even know Americans possess.

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But her most Trumpian public relations efforts since she took office have backfired. [Bimbo #2] Noem has been roundly mocked for her costume choices in her interviews and for wearing full-face makeup when she has tagged along on Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. The $50,000 Rolex flashing on her wrist while she posed in front of incarcerated men at a mega-prison in El Salvador smacked of callous cruelty. And the theft of her bag — along with $3,000 cash and her work badge — while she was sitting in a Washington restaurant was peak irony for a top security official.

She’s a top-notch bimbo — what else would you expect from a blithering fool?

Meanwhile, in the halls of Congress:

“Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country, and suspend their right to … ,” [Bimbo #2] Noem responded before she was cut off by Hassan.

“That’s incorrect,” the senator said.

“Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason,” Hassan said, calling it a “foundational right.”

“So Secretary [Bimbo #2] Noem, do you support the core protection that habeas corpus provides, that the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone?” she asked.

[Bimbo #2] Noem responded, “I support habeas corpus. I also recognize that the president of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not.”

The President has no such authority.

Opinion | Kristi Noem is making the homeland less secure
The former governor is overseeing a vast machine dedicated to encroaching on rights that she may not even know Americans have.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/kristi-noem-habeas-corpus-senate-deportation-rcna208009

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.

…

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.

…

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.”

…

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

MSNBC: Judge blocks Trump administration from dismantling the Education Department

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There’s no evidence the government’s actions are making the department more efficient, a federal judge wrote.

A federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the Trump administration from dismantling the Education Department, calling out the government’s “efficiency” efforts in the process as anything but. U.S. District Judge Myong Joun wrote that there’s “no evidence” that a massive reduction in force “has actually made the Department more efficient.”

“Rather,” he wrote Thursday, “the record is replete with evidence of the opposite.”

The Biden-appointed judge made that observation when he granted a preliminary injunction, ordering the government to, among other things, halt the reduction in force and reinstate federal employees who were already terminated.

…

Noting that Congress created the department in 1979, the judge explained that the president can’t shut it down without congressional approval. And yet, he found the government is trying to effectively dismantle it without such approval.

Judge blocks Trump administration from dismantling the Education Department
There’s no evidence the government’s actions are making the department more efficient, a federal judge wrote.

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/trump-education-department-judge-blocks-efficiency-rcna208572

Miami Herald: ICE agents in Miami find new spot to carry out arrests: Immigration court

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Federal agents in plain clothes staked out the hallways of Miami’s downtown immigration courthouse for hours and arrested at least four unsuspecting men as they walked out of courtrooms on Wednesday.

Miami Herald reporters witnessed how Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers sat in on run-of-the-mill immigration proceedings and followed the men outside the courtrooms after their hearings wrapped up.

Then, a group of about 10 other ICE agents, also in plain clothes, caught them off guard in the hallway. The agents identified themselves in Spanish before handcuffing each of the men and escorting them to a van outside.

“I am not afraid,” a Cuban man said to his wife and daughter as ICE agents arrested him.

In each case, Department of Homeland Security attorneys moved to drop the deportation cases before immigration judges. That is important because ICE cannot place someone in expedited removal proceedings — an administrative process that doesn’t require a judge and that the government uses to quickly deport people — if they have a pending case in court.

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The reason behind Wednesday’s arrests at immigration court is unclear. The Herald does not know if the men detained have criminal records. But several immigration attorneys told the Herald they believe the arrests are being driven by a Homeland Security memo from January directing ICE agents to consider putting immigrants in expedited removal proceedings if they have been in the U.S. for less than two years. Expedited removals are deportation proceedings that are administrative and don’t require a judge.

“Take all steps necessary to review the alien’s case and consider, in exercising your enforcement discretion, whether to apply expedited removal. This may include steps to terminate any ongoing removal proceeding,” the DHS memo says.

Lawyers had previously told the Herald the memo could lead to agents showing up at immigration court, and called it a “tool for mass deportation.”

“In my opinion, they are taking removal cases out of the docket… to put it on expedited removal, which is a lot faster,” said Antonio Ramos, an immigration attorney whose office is based in the downtown immigration court building.

Ramos urged people with pending cases to seek legal counsel and request virtual hearings to avoid unnecessary exposure at in-person court dates.

ICE agents in Miami find new spot to carry out arrests: Immigration court
The Herald witnessed ICE agents arresting at least four men inside the immigration courthouse in downtown Miami.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article306900486.html

Mediaite: House Republican Shreds Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ as ‘Titanic’-Level ‘Debt Bomb’

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Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) broke ranks to deliver a stark warning that President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” was a time “bomb” in a scathing Titanic-inspired takedown that argued the policies will send the U.S. full speed toward a fiscal “iceberg.”

During a combative stretch of floor debate into the early hours of Thursday, House Democrats lambasted the legislation as a cynical giveaway to the ultra-wealthy that guts federal health and nutrition programs, Massie joined them in protest to offer what he called a “dose of reality.”

“I’d love to stand here and tell the American people, we can cut your taxes and we can increase spending and everything’s going to be just fine. But I can’t do that because I’m here to deliver a dose of reality.

“This bill dramatically increases deficits in the near term, but promises our government will be fiscally responsible five years from now. Where have we heard that before? How do you bind a future Congress to these promises? This bill is a debt bomb ticking.”

…

“We’re not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic tonight. We’re putting coal in the boiler and setting a course for the iceberg,” he warned.

House Republican Shreds Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ as ‘Titanic’-Level ‘Debt Bomb’
Massie
House Republican Shreds Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ as ‘Titanic’-Level ‘Debt Bomb’

MSNBC: I confronted Sec. Noem [Bimbo #2] because our democracy is threatened like never before

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President Trump has demonstrated he’s willing to tell any lie to justify jailing anyone.

Last month, President Donald Trump shared an edited image of the knuckles of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident with protected status wrongfully sent to a Salvadoran detention facility. The photo showed “MS13” apparently added above his knuckle tattoos, even though other photos of his hand did not have that text. Last week, I had a chance to ask Homeland Security Security Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem if she had investigated how an edited image came into the president’s hands. Not only did she refuse to answer, she barely acknowledged that the image was edited.

Politics is hyperbole. I know that voters have become inured to politicians saying, “The opposing party is the end of the country as we know it!” But what we are witnessing today is like nothing we have seen since the founding of this country, almost 250 years ago. Every warning light on democracy’s dashboard now flashes red.

Since taking the Oval Office, Trump has never been coy about his ambitions to rule as a dictator rather than serve as a president, accountable to the people who put him there. In just the past few months, he’s laid out the groundwork to jail innocent people and silence his political enemies, all under the guise of “law and order.” Perhaps in just a few months, Trump’s authoritarian ambitions will be realized. And it will be like how Hemingway described how one grows broke: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”Just last week, Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and one of his longest-serving enablers, said the White House was “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus for immigrants.

Let’s be clear: Suspending the constitutional right to challenge unlawful detention is not some academic exercise or abstract policy debate, as many on the right may claim. Miller is deadly serious. There is no ambiguity. Equally explicit is the United States Constitution: Only Congress can suspend habeas corpus, and only in cases of actual rebellion or invasion.

Suspending habeas corpus is the move of dictators and despots.

Click the link below to read the whole article:

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/eric-swalwell-kristi-noem-kilmar-abrego-garcia-rcna207275

MSNBC: The Trump administration likely sent scores of legal immigrants to a foreign prison

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The Cato Institute published the most comprehensive review to date of how the roughly 240 Venezuelans expelled to El Salvador came to the United States.

This week, the Cato Institute published the most comprehensive review to date of how the roughly 240 Venezuelans expelled on March 15 came to the United States. We found that at least 50 reported that they arrived in the United States legally before being subject to arbitrary arrest, detention and rendition to El Salvador without due process.

Information about the men was not easy to obtain. The U.S. government has aggressively suppressed disclosures. It not only denied them any due process before their imprisonment, leaving no court records, but it has failed to detail any individual explanations either.

In fact, DHS has refused even to confirm who it has imprisoned there, leaving families to rely on incomplete leaks to the media to uncover the whereabouts of their loved ones. As for the men, they are being held incommunicado — with no ability to communicate with their attorneys, families or the outside world at all — so they can’t tell their stories.

We attempted to fill this void by compiling all known information about these men. 

…

Some of the CBP One applicants sent to El Salvador were initially detained at their interview, but two dozen were first granted parole, a legal designation that permitted them to enter, live and work legally in the United States — which they did until their arrest and imprisonment in El Salvador. 

One of the now-imprisoned men entered as a tourist, and four men came through the U.S. refugee admissions program — where U.S. refugee officers believed they would face persecution abroad and officially approved them for resettlement. These refugees expected to receive a permanent legal status and a path to U.S. citizenship when they came here. Instead, they were handcuffed, detained and rendered to a foreign prison in March. 

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The government has selectively released information about some men who it wants to discredit, noting whenever possible if they entered illegally, but it has not rebutted the claims made by the legal immigrants’ families and attorneys.

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For instance, Jerce Reyes Barrios — a former Venezuelan professional soccer player — came to the United States with advanced permission via a CBP One appointment (confirmation of which his attorney still has). In response, a DHS official said Reyes Barrios “was in the country illegally,” but this doesn’t explain DHS’s actions: he arrived legally with a CBP One appointment in accordance with all U.S. laws. It was DHS that made him technically be “in the country illegally” by arresting him based on his tattoos and denying him entry.

DHS also disappeared Ricardo Jesus Prada Vasquez and then lied to the family about his whereabouts for weeks, only admitting to his rendition after The New York Times reported on the case. In his case, DHS said that he had “entered the United States illegally … via the CBP One App.” But it was legal to enter via the CBP One app, so he didn’t enter illegally. 

DHS claims that these legal immigrants are all members of a Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua (TdA). But in nearly all the men’s cases, DHS was not able to identify any crimes committed, and background checks run by Bloomberg, The New York Times and CBS News have found that the vast majority have no criminal record in the United States or abroad.///

DHS’ gang identification is based on little more than their tattoos. According to court documents, DHS is using a checklist to deem people “gang members” based primarily on common tattoos, clothing and other imprecise signs …

DHS is arresting, detaining and expelling legal immigrants: student visa holders, tourists, refugees, parolees and even legal permanent residents who have no criminal records. In this case, it went further: to imprison them.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-dhs-legal-immigrants-el-salvador-prison-report-rcna207751