Why Immigration Raids in Puerto Rico Hit Differently
Immigration raids have been so rare in Puerto Rico that its only detention facility, in an office building next to a mall, can hold only about 20 detainees. Yet federal authorities in the U.S. territory have detained more than 500 people since President Trump took office in January.
The escalation has upset many Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens, and has underscored their uneasy relationship with Washington.
Nearly three-quarters of the detainees have hailed from one country, the Dominican Republic, which lies 80 miles west of Puerto Rico by boat. Many Dominicans share the same ethnic background, language and culture as Puerto Ricans, and the detentions of Dominicans have felt to many Puerto Ricans like an affront.
'It's a historical aberration,' said Néstor Duprey, an associate professor of social sciences at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico.
Generations of Dominicans, as well as some Haitians, have migrated to the Puerto Rico archipelago on rickety boats from Hispaniola island, starting families and filling critical jobs in housekeeping, home health care and construction. Other than interdictions at sea and occasional raids in the capital, San Juan, federal authorities largely avoided mass immigration enforcement on the island before now.
Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic 'have stronger cultural and linguistic links than, I think, most countries in the world,' said Jorge Duany, an expert on Caribbean migration, citing their accents, Catholicism and shared love of baseball.
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CBS News
18 hours ago
- CBS News
Undocumented street vendors decide to stay at home amid ICE operations
Many undocumented street vendors have decided to stay home as fears of immigration raids grow in Los Angeles. "I don't go out, " street vendor Lidia said in Spanish. "I am scared." Lidia and her husband, who are both undocumented, are just two of the thousands of vendors staying home after hearing about the recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, according to immigrant rights advocate Sergio Jimenez. "ICE has been showing up in Pico Rivera, Home Depots, street vending communities in South Central, Boyle Heights, downtown L.A.," Jimenez said. "You just don't know when you're going to get hit by ICE." Her 10-year-old son Gerardo, who is a citizen, said he and his sister don't go outside anymore. "It just feels like you're trapped in your home because if you go outside, you're risking getting taken away by ICE," Geraldo said. Instead of being a kid, Geraldo is left worrying if he'll wake up with his parents by his side. "They normally go to sell on the street, but now they don't. They just stay here," he said. "We don't really go out much — just if it's important or necessary." Fearing that ICE may come to their home, Lidia and her husband posted a sign on their window saying, "This house does not open for ICE." On the back of the sign is a list of the family's rights, which they said gives them some peace of mind. "We are not criminals," Lidia said. The decision to stay at home and give up their only source of income means the family does not have money for rent or food. To help the family, local nonprofits, including Community Power Collective, launched a fundraiser. "This is the third initiative where we fundraise funds for street vendors," Jimenez said. Jimenez said the donations will go towards the family's living expenses. "Everything they need, but we understand that is not going to be enough," Jimenez said. While Jimenez can help Lidia's family, he says she is one of thousands of vendors in the same situation. L.A. organizers said the work is far from done but every donation helps keep a family together. "There's fear all over the place," Jimenez said.
Washington Post
a day ago
- Washington Post
As Trump shuts out migrants, Spain opens its doors and fuels economic growth
MADRID — When night falls on the other side of the Atlantic, her 32-year-old cousin, a house cleaner in New York, huddles inside a dim basement apartment, terrified of ICE raids. But in a burgeoning quarter of the Spanish capital, where immigrant-staffed restaurants tempt newcomers with Dominican chicharrones and Venezuelan empanadas, Edith Chimbo sat in the sunlight, musing about the Spanish Dream. 'My cousin told me, 'Go to Spain'' said Chimbo, 22, who landed in Madrid earlier this year from the Ecuadorian highlands. Armed with a college degree but no work permit, she's cleaning houses under the table, just like her cousin in the United States. Yet she is counting on something in the weeks ahead that her kin almost certainly cannot: legalization. 'Here,' she said, 'we have hope.' As the Trump administration's crackdown on immigrants and asylum seekers brings tear gas, protests and raids to the streets of the United States, Spain is positioning itself as a counterpoint: a new land of opportunity. In this nation of 48 million with long colonial links to the New World, an influx of predominantly Latin American immigrants is helping fuel one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe. The Spanish economic transformation is unfolding as the center-left government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has streamlined immigration rules while offering legal status to roughly 700,000 irregular migrants since 2021. A landmark bill now being negotiated in the Congress of Deputies could grant legal amnesty to hundreds of thousands more — most of them Spanish-speakers from predominantly Catholic countries in Latin America. Those newcomers often enjoy visa-free travel to Spain, even as Madrid controversially works with Morocco, Mauritania and other countries to block irregular arrivals from the African coast, though Sánchez has also called for tolerance toward migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Africa. Spain's approach is attracting at least some migrants rejected or barred from the United States, including Venezuelans who are now subject to President Donald Trump's travel ban. The number of Venezuelans applying for humanitarian protection in Spain surged to 36,923 between January and May, a 36.4 percent spike from the same period last year. With no visa requirements, all Venezuelans need is a valid passport and a plane ticket. In May, the most recent period available, applicants enjoyed a 98.6 percent acceptance rate. 'My hopes and plans for the United States ended overnight,' said Alexander Salazar, 34, a Venezuelan living in Peru who found out in February that his U.S. visa, on humanitarian grounds as an LGBTQ+ migrant, had been suspended. His plan now is to join other family and friends who have already left for Spain. 'That's where my road leads,' he said by telephone from Lima. Sira Rego, a minister in Sánchez's government, said she was glad to see immigrants choosing Spain. 'It makes me feel a certain pride because it represents the kind of country we want to build: a welcoming country with rights.' Sánchez now finds his party embroiled in a political corruption scandal that has sparked calls for new elections. Still, Spanish lawmakers across the political spectrum have adopted a less demonizing approach toward immigration — at least from some countries — than many of their American and European counterparts. Even the far-right Vox party has appeared moderately welcoming of some Spanish-speaking, culturally similar immigrants from Latin America. Spain, which like most European countries has an aging population, for decades was more a source of outward emigration than a destination for immigrants. It first emerged as a tempting target for foreign job seekers during its economic boom in 2000s. More recently, it has experienced a historic post-pandemic surge, with 2.67 million people born outside the European Union arriving between 2021 and 2023 — an 85 percent increase compared with the previous three year period. Many of its immigrants, particularly from Latin America, arrive legally, either with work or student permits or as tourists, and later seek to change their status. Yet the country still harbors a hidden mass of migrants without legal permission to work. The government has no official figure of how many could be legalized under the new bill, but estimates suggest anywhere from 600,000 to 1 million. Critics point to Spain's unemployment rate — over 10 percent, the highest in the European Union, though less than half what it was a decade ago — as evidence that welcoming migrants is wrongheaded. They argue it suppresses wage growth, increases competition for Spanish workers and threatens Spanish identity. Some opinion polls also show a hardening public stance on migration. Yet the legislative amnesty push came not from a government plan but a grassroots effort backed by civil actors including small-town mayors, companies, migrant advocates and the Catholic church. Spain also has a history of normalizing irregular migrants who can prove steady work, with the last large-scale amnesty under the center-left government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in 2005. Should Sánchez survive the corruption crisis — and Spain's economy continue to thrive — his policies could set up this nation as the antithesis of Trump's America: a migrant-friendly progressive paradise. Under Sánchez, Spain has leaned in as few other nations to diversity, equity and inclusion. A new government rule effective May 1 compels companies with more than 50 employees to enact antidiscrimination policies protecting LGBTQ+ workers. The government is also forging a close economic relationship with Beijing, generating large-scale investment including Chinese auto giant Chery's first factory in Europe. No policy has been as transformative to Spanish society as the stance on immigration, which officials and economists say is helping to reverse population decline and boost social welfare funding at a moment when baby boomers are retiring. Immigration is also helping drive the strongest period of economic growth since Spain's construction boom in the mid-2000s. Between 2022 and 2024, average GDP per capita increased 2.9 percent — the strongest of the E.U.'s four largest economies. A report published this year by the Bank of Spain estimates that up to 25 percent of that growth was linked to the influx of foreign workers paying taxes, filling jobs, renting homes and purchasing goods and services. 'Spain is a complete anomaly, a country where the government is easing the arrival of migrants, and migrants have been absolutely existential to the dynamism of the economy,' said Gonzalo Fanjul, co-founder at porCausa Foundation, a research group on migrant issues. Experts and officials say the arrival of large numbers of Latin American immigrants, who speak Spanish and are overwhelmingly Catholic, has led to fewer societal divisions over assimilation than in countries like Sweden or Germany, which have experienced a large influx of Muslims. 'I really doubt that there is any other country in the world where migration is playing as much a role in economic growth right now as it is in Spain,' said Juan Cerruti, an Argentine émigré to Spain and now the global chief economist at Madrid-based Banco Santander. Immigrants are filling labor gaps not only in Spain's lower-wage tourism, construction and agricultural sectors, but also in the more highly skilled tech and medical sectors. In an office park on the edge of Valencia, companies such as Avantio, a digital services and software provider for the tourism industry, have leveraged Spain's streamlined immigration rules to employ foreigners and grow business. Company officials say they have turned to foreign labor for positions that otherwise might take up to a year to fill. Almost 73 percent of the company's hires in 2024 were born outside Spain, mostly in Latin America. 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Speaking on a video phone from her dark basement apartment in a New York City suburb, her cousin Cristina said she warned Chimbo away from the United States. 'I'm afraid all the time now … whenever I'm outside, taking the bus to work … I'm afraid,' said Cristina, who is trying to apply for asylum but frets about her chances. 'I've seen the videos. I've seen what they're doing to migrants in the U.S.,' Chimbo said. 'Here, my biggest fear is Mondays, when I have to go to work.' Two hundred and twenty-five miles east of Madrid, in the orange blossom-tinged air of Valencia, men from Colombia, Ecuador, Morocco, Senegal and a host of other countries labored on crews rebuilding infrastructure and erecting new apartments following the devastating floods that hit the region in October. This year, Spain offered legal status to more than 22,000 irregular migrants in the affected area — helping populate an army of construction workers and filling other key jobs in the rebuilding effort. It was a decision driven by humanitarian concern for migrants unable to access government aid following the disaster. But it was also driven by pragmatism. 'I asked the Spanish government for this,' said José Vicente Morata, president of the Valencia Chamber of Commerce. 'We needed these people to have an identification number, the number to be able to exist in Spain. There was a bottleneck in the procedures, [and] we needed workers.' The region has now evolved into a mini-test case of Spain's legalization efforts. After the floods, Gerardo López Mateu, mayor of the nearby village of Real, struggled to find workers willing to work in the town's ongoing cleanup effort. He had four positions open — three of them now filled by migrants. 'We still can't fill the fourth job,' he said. There are some jobs that 'Spaniards just don't want to do.' One of his workers is Ibra Bayane, a 24-year-old Senegalese who arrived in Spain by sea in 2021, living ever since off the precariously shadow economy. He'd pick oranges or deliver food. At best, he said, he'd earn the equivalent of $35 a day. As a documented migrant, he has been able to get a driver's license for the first time and access basic medical care. Now, he can also travel back to Senegal to visit family without risk. His salary is no fortune — 60 euros a day — about $70 — for cleanup work in the hot southern Spanish sun. But it's twice what he was earning before — and enough to afford a small room with a vase of fresh flowers on a desk, and a large window that brings a cooling breeze. 'My life is better now,' he said. 'I can live.' José Bautista contributed to this report.
Fox News
3 days ago
- Fox News
Latin music icon Bad Bunny records ICE operations, calls agents ‘sons of b-------'
Latin music mega-star Bad Bunny expressed outrage while witnessing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Puerto Rico on Tuesday. In a clip shared to his Instagram story, the artist recorded several law enforcement vehicles stopped on the side of the road, while officers appeared to interrogate several unidentified individuals. Bad Bunny could be heard insulting the ICE agents over the recording in Spanish. "Look, those motherf------s are in these cars, RAV-4s. They're here in Pontezuela," he said in Spanish, mentioning ICE working on the Avenida Pontezuela in Carolina, a city east of Puerto Rico's capital, San Juan. "Sons of b------, instead of leaving the people alone and working there," he added. ICE has ramped up operations in the U.S. territory since President Donald Trump's inauguration. Spanish newspaper El País reported on June 1 that 445 people have been detained on the island since Jan. 26. "The vast majority are men, and nearly 72% of those detained are Dominican citizens, followed by Haitians, Venezuelans and Mexicans," the outlet stated. The report described the city as being "under siege" thanks to the federal government's raids. Puerto Rico's governor, Jenniffer González-Colón – a Republican who supported Trump in the 2024 election – has stated that she will not get in the way of ICE operations, even those done in churches and hospitals. González-Colón stated that she "cannot afford" to risk losing federal funds by interrupting deportations operations. The subject of illegal immigration enforcement has reached a fever pitch in the United States in recent weeks. Protests against Trump's immigration crackdown turned violent in Los Angeles last week, with the president calling in the National Guard and several hundred U.S. Marines to quell the chaos. The artist, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is the latest to join the growing chorus of celebrities decrying Trump's immigration agenda. Kim Kardashian, whose sister Kendall Jenner dated Bad Bunny in 2023, made waves on social media earlier this month by denouncing the Los Angeles ICE raids as "inhumane." "When we're told that ICE exists to keep our country safe and remove violent criminals — great. But when we witness innocent, hardworking people being ripped from their families in inhumane ways, we have to speak up. We have to do what's right," she wrote in an Instagram story. "Scream" actress Jenna Ortega similarly encouraged her 37.2 million Instagram followers to "be angry" over ICE operations in an Instagram story last weekend. "The world is crying all over. People in Los Angeles are being torn away from their everyday lives & love... The ones they've built so tirelessly over the years, just like you… Innocent civilians in Iran are caught in the middle of warfare. Palestinian cries are still being buried in every day [sic] media. My thoughts are heavy, my heart follows." She added, "Listen to one another & love, but be angry too. Educate yourself as best you can. To say this doesn't concern you, or that it isn't your problem, is a privilege under abuse."
