Latest news with #Carruthers
West Australian
a day ago
- Business
- West Australian
Perth pet groomers reveal some clients spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on their pet's appearance
Perth dog groomers have revealed their clients are spending thousands of dollars a year to have their pups puffed every week with some treating their 'furbaby' to regular facials, manicures and jacuzzi sessions at elite puppy parlours. Bookings are through the roof and wait-lists are lengthy at dog grooming centres as pet owners prioritise pooch maintenance despite cost-of-living strains. Groomers told The West Australian the rise in apartment living has boosted the popularity of small, non-shedding breeds who share a bed with their owner. 'I think due to a concentration of people living in small homes with small backyards — and more apartment-living — people are investing more in smaller companion breads,' Couture Canine co-founder Charmaine Cayeux said. 'We're growing away from chucking a dog in a kennel in the backyard. None of our clients do that, their dogs are inside. 'They're like velcro dogs so people want their dogs to be clean like children, they don't want them to have a grubby face or bottom, they want them clean and tidy and presentable.' Ms Cayeux's luxury services, which include doggy facials, jacuzzi sessions, nail painting and stylised haircuts, can range between $150 to $500. Couture Canine regular Emma Carruthers told The West she travels half an hour from Alkimos to the West Perth puppy salon because she 'only wants the best' for her Bichoodle Maru. 'I wanted to go there at first because they looked really fancy and I just wanted the best for my baby,' Ms Carruthers said. 'I tried them out and all the girls are super lovely and she's really happy here, she always comes out with a wagging tail so we keep coming back. 'I've never been anywhere as good as this place . . . she's never come out with a bad haircut.' Her 11-month-old 'baby' has a weekly bath and blow-dry, a haircut every six to eight weeks, and enjoys the jacuzzi and nail painting services on special occasions. 'I wanted to do it often just cause I don't like having a dirty dog and she sleeps in the bed with me so it's just nice to have her clean,' Ms Carruthers said. 'I like how fluffy she gets as well, she gets really curly when she gets wet so it's nice to get her blow-dried so she's all nice and fluffy.' The company has a wait-list with more than 50 dogs from all over the State who face a queue of at least a year to join the list of regular clients willing to fork out tens of thousands of dollars every year to maintain their pet's immaculate appearance. Australia has one of the highest pet ownership rates in the world, so it is no surprise that dog grooming businesses are booming in the west. FurBaby Groom and Pamper — one of the oldest privately run dog-grooming salons in WA — opened 10 years ago in Perth's northern suburbs. The owner Shari Fiorentino said the demand for her services has never been higher with some customers paying her close to $5000 a year to wash their dog once a week. 'The need for grooming has gone up exponentially since we started 10 years ago,' she said. 'People say 'I'll try from home' and then four weeks later they're back and they're like 'so that didn't work'. 'Let's face it, we don't want to be sleeping next to a smelly little thing so everyone's getting their dogs washed a lot more often than what they used to because they're living a lot closer to us humans than what we have ever seen before.' Marian Gorman, the owner of Madame Ma's dog-grooming service in West Perth, said her regular customers spend upwards of $7000 a year because 'dogs are family members that parents treat like babies'. 'They're so clever and intuitive and they are their owner's best friend, fur-baby and confidant all in one,' Ms Gorman said. The dog groomers confirmed poodle cross breeds like cavoodles, spoodles and groodles are by far their most regular clients. Barking Butler Grooming Studio co-founder Charlotte Butler said their four-legged clients are required to be groomed every eight weeks but often choose a weekly appointment. 'Consistency in grooming is the key to maintaining optimal coat and skin health,' she said. 'Our clients want their dogs to feel comfortable, stay healthy, and yes, look beautiful — and they understand that takes regular maintenance. 'More and more, we're seeing pet parents treat grooming not as a luxury, but as an essential part of their dog's health and well-being — and it's a beautiful thing.'
NZ Herald
22-05-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
Posh doggy daycare Pets and Pats: Owner Angela Beer faces sentencing, council says her RMA breaches were to make money
In the end, Judge Sheena Tepania reserved her decision after hearing Auckland Council seek fines of $140,000 while Beer's lawyer Bronwyn Carruthers KC argued a more reasonable starting point would be $20,000. Council's lawyer Laura Bielby told the court the breaches of Resource Management Act enforcement orders were 'intentional' and 'deliberate'. The enforcement orders were, she said, council's attempt to get the business to a place where it would be operating lawfully. 'The defendant, having agreed to the orders... moved pretty quickly to not comply. This is a case that warrants specific deterrence. The council really has exhausted all its options. 'The defendant knew exactly what they needed to do to regularise the operation and it was a choice not to do that.' Bielby said it was a 'deliberate and calculated decision, perhaps for commercial reasons' to continue to exceed the allowed dog numbers because more dogs 'resulted in more profit for the business'. This was a position rejected by Carruthers who said Beer had been taking active steps to move the business from Dairy Flat and that some breaches related to actions by staff. One example she pointed to was a photograph that showed a staff member with a dog in one of the fields from which dogs were prohibited under the agreement with Beer. Carruthers said there were breaches that involved staff members and their own dogs which – while not compliant – were of a different character to that which the council alleged. She said there was no evidence put before the court by council to support its claim Beer was acting for profit. Rather, she pointed the judge to a line in an affidavit from Beer in which the doggy daycare owner said: 'I have not profited from it.' 'Yes, there has been revenue generated but that is not profit.' Carruthers said an additional fine – on top of the earlier $77,750 levied against Beer and her company for the earlier breaches – could bring an end to the business. She told the court that her client might be unable to pay a fine. Judge Tepania invited evidence of that, which Carruthers said would not be provided. Beer has styled her business as a luxury day in the countryside, targeting dog owners living in Auckland's well-heeled inner suburbs. Auckland Council was told it would be a 'boutique' facility when it granted a retrospective consent in 2017 allowing the business to operate, years after it had started taking in dogs. Each weekday morning, a fleet of vans branded Pets and Pats would circle wealthy Auckland suburbs, collecting dogs for a day in the grounds around the manor-like home Beer rented in Dairy Flat, enjoying what the company's website billed as a 'private canine country club'. The day out would cost dog owners upwards of $50 a head but council inspectors found it cost neighbours something money couldn't buy – the peace and quiet of country life that drew them to the area in the first place. The rules she agreed to allowed the business a maximum of 60 dogs on the property between 11am and 1.30pm during the week. Winter allowed for an extra hour, to 2.30pm, granting time to wash dogs down before they were returned home. That limit was found to have been repeatedly broken with inspectors finding 83 breaches between December 2021 and May 2022. Beer and her company were convicted on those charges, appealed and lost, and were waiting on a final sentencing when Auckland Council filed another tranche of charges, this time over multiple breaches between June 2023 and April 2024. Advertise with NZME. Council documents show there were, again, dozens of breaches of the consent – this time carried out while Beer and her company were awaiting sentencing on the earlier conviction. Throughout this period, Beer had name suppression, meaning the charges against her, the conviction entered and the fresh charges could not be made public. Neighbours, desperate for action, found themselves starved of information when the suppression drew a veil across the court process. Beer moved from the Bawden Rd property around June last year, moving her Pets and Pats business to former stables in Kumeu.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
After Trump immigration order, ICE ‘force multiplier' agreements with Texas police surge
Under President Donald Trump's renewed administration, Texas has emerged as a key frontline in the push for aggressive immigration enforcement and widespread deportations. Texas residents – regardless of immigration status – feel the ripple effects in the economy, schools, healthcare systems, courts and public safety services. To better understand these challenges, KXAN spent the first 100 days of Trump's second term producing 'Undocumented,' a comprehensive project diving into the real-life consequences of related policies and proposals. TERRELL COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) – With one ranch-worn hand on the steering wheel of his all-terrain mule, Cody Carruthers pointed with the other at a small herd of his goats amid the scrub brush and cactus on his sprawling Terrell County ranch near the Rio Grande that carves out the border with Mexico. Terrell County is one of the most sparsely populated places in the country, with about 800 people living in an area the size of Delaware. Carruthers comes from generations who have ranched the rugged, unforgiving terrain with hardly a speck of shade in the scorching desert heat. EN ESPAÑOL: Tras la orden de inmigración de Trump, aumentan los acuerdos de 'multiplicador de fuerza' del ICE con la policía de Texas Carruthers steered the open-air vehicle – loaded with three KXAN journalists, his shepherd mix Sissy and his rifle – along the rocky path toward his high-fenced perimeter in early March. Cody Carruthers drives his all-terrain vehicle looking for broken fencing, a sign of migrants crossing the border a few miles south of Terrell County ranch (KXAN Photos/Josh Hinkle) 'This is a real hot spot right here,' Carruthers said. 'It leads in the canyon to where they can kind of, you know, conceal themselves.' With a bottom lip stuffed full of chewing tobacco, Carruthers pointed at another bit of sagging fence wire where, he said, migrants stepped while climbing over. Further down the rocky road, he located a square of fence near the ground that had to be patched after someone clipped the wires to crawl through. Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland brought KXAN to Carruthers' property as part of a tour of the area he previously patrolled for over a decade as a Border Patrol agent before assuming his current role in 2022. Cleveland, a conservative lawman, grew up in nearby Sanderson, the unincorporated town of 650 that is, by far, the county's largest community. The Texas borderlands have been ground zero in the immigration debate – a critical component of President Donald Trump's re-ascension to office and his well-publicized campaign to conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. 'Out here, we typically catch accompanied juveniles,' Cleveland explained. 'That means they're with their father, their brother, an uncle. The vast majority are people who are no different than us that are coming to work … but there are those that have committed crimes in the United States. And of course, that's what this administration said they were going to target.' KXAN crowdsourcing initiative results in Texas immigration stories, interviews and understanding Cleveland said he has seen the worst impacts of immigration over more than two decades while working with Border Patrol in Arizona, New Mexico and, most recently, Terrell County. The previous four years were the most active of his career, he added. The border can be a 'sad' place, he said. He has apprehended violent criminals and people trafficked by cartels. A week before KXAN's visit, he responded to a call about a dead man found in the desert. It was a migrant who had succumbed to exposure after apparently running out of food and resorting to eating leaves and berries. 'Since I've been sheriff in the (past) three years, we've had a total of 31 deceased illegal aliens,' Cleveland said. 'The year before I took over as sheriff, they had 12 … If we do discover somebody and recover the remains and there's no identification and there's no one asking about that individual, then we will end up burying them in a pauper's grave.' In a far corner of the city cemetery in Sanderson, a section of dirt mounds are marked only by a granite slab with the inscription 'In Memory of the Unknown Persons in These Graves' (KXAN Photos/Josh Hinkle) Though border crossings have decreased dramatically since Trump resumed office, Cleveland is still wary of a potential uptick in unauthorized migrants in the area. He said his agency has had no drug seizures or related arrests in five years, but that could change. 'I anticipated we would start seeing more activity out here,' he said, suggesting enforcement in urban areas and other sections of the border could force more crossings along Terrell County's quiet, 54-mile stretch. 'I don't see the cartels just throwing up their arms and saying, 'OK, we give up. We're going away. We're not going to pass people or dangerous drugs.'' On a rocky outcropping overlooking the thin and winding Rio Grande, Cleveland said he was eager to renew his agency's partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – commonly called a 287(g) agreement – that allows non-federal law enforcement like sheriff's deputies to assume some ICE duties. Local officers with 287(g) authority can question migrants, issue warrants or arrest them for immigration violations, depending on their specific training. LEFT: Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland looks into Mexico in an area he said is known for border crossings along the Rio Grande (KXAN Photo/Josh Hinkle); RIGHT: Cleveland spent over 26 years in the U.S. Border Patrol before becoming sheriff (Courtesy Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland) TOP: Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland looks into Mexico in an area he said is known for border crossings along the Rio Grande (KXAN Photo/Josh Hinkle); BOTTOM: Cleveland spent over 26 years in the U.S. Border Patrol before becoming sheriff (Courtesy Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland) The 287(g) agreements are an effort endorsed and pushed by the Trump administration to essentially expand its immigration crackdown from the southern border to communities across the country. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order directing, 'to the maximum extent permitted by law,' the Secretary of Homeland Security to enter into the agreements, which are named after a U.S. legal code created by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. Law enforcement officials like Cleveland, and many other sheriffs in Texas, applaud the program and say it's necessary to protect the public. Critics, meanwhile, have denounced it as a costly effort that won't make people safer, could lead to violations of constitutional rights and stymie law enforcement's ability to work with immigrant communities. Since Trump took office, the number of 287(g) agreements has soared across the country – far beyond the Southern border. 287(g) agreements have proliferated across the country in 2025. KXAN has mapped the number of agreements for each state, broken down by the three types of agreements signed. Source: U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security data from April 2025. (KXAN Interactive/Christopher Adams & David Barer) By late April, there were over 450 signed agreements with state and local law enforcement nationwide – more than 320 signed this year. There are now agreements in Minnesota, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Wyoming and many more states. One reason behind the surge in agreements: some states have created laws mandating them. In 2022, Florida passed a law requiring agencies operating jails to sign 287(g) agreements. Florida currently leads the country with over 200 agreements – 75% of them signed this year, according to ICE. Last year, Georgia passed legislation pushing local law enforcement to pursue federal agreements, including 287(g). As the number of agreements has ballooned, so have the types of law enforcement entities getting involved, with city police departments and state agencies also signing up. 'I'm just waiting': Texas immigrant among millions in years-long legal, administrative backlog In years past, the agreements were used mostly by sheriffs' offices, which operate jails. This year, the Texas Office of the Attorney General signed an agreement, as did the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, the Florida Department of Financial Services and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Texas has the second-most agreements of any state, with nearly 80 inked and several more pending, as of late April. The majority of Texas' agreements were signed or renewed since Trump resumed office in January, and none were signed during the Biden administration, according to ICE data. Texas is now on the cusp of passing its own legislation to require 287(g) agreements. Senate Bill 8 by Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, would mandate sheriffs' offices sign up if their county population exceeds 100,000 people. In an interview with KXAN, Schwertner said Trump's victory in November spurred him to pursue the bill. It is time for Texas to take a 'bold stance' on handling immigration, he said. State 287(g) efforts have the backing of the Texas' executive branch as well. In January, Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order directing 'all appropriate state agencies' to assist the federal government in enforcing immigration laws. 'In my opinion, it's an obligation of local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws and detain criminal aliens,' Schwertner said. 'That is what our citizens want. That is what is necessary to … make Texas safe and our community safe, and it is absolutely vital that we identify, detain, prosecute and deport criminal aliens that are in this country illegally.' The jail enforcement model allows officers to question people to determine immigration status, put their information into a Homeland Security database, take statements and begin the deportation process with an immigration detainer and notice to appear. The warrant service officer model has a narrower scope than jail enforcement, with officers identifying people as non-citizens during the booking process, referring those people to ICE for evaluation and possible deportation, and serving ICE administrative warrants on people in their custody, according to the ACLU. The task force model is described by ICE as a 'force multiplier,' allowing local officers to enforce immigration laws during their routine duties in the community. Officers enrolled in the program travel for a multi-week training, and ICE installs a computer at their office to access federal information. John Fabbricatore, a former ICE field office director in Colorado and 287(g) trainer, said the training could take about four weeks. There's a push to expand 287(g) because ICE needs more manpower, he said. WATCH: Former 287(g) trainer John Fabbricatore discusses with KXAN Investigator Josh Hinkle the process for officers to become 287(g) certified. (KXAN Video/Richie Bowes, Josh Hinkle & Chris Nelson) 'It definitely helps out in, you know, being able to identify people in the jail that may be unlawfully present, that were illegally in the United States,' Fabbricatore said. 'It's a good opportunity for … the law enforcement to partner up with ICE and ensure a smoother process with getting those who are removable from the United States into ICE custody.' At a mid-March Senate State Affairs Committee hearing on Schwertner's bill this legislative session, several sheriffs echoed Fabbricatore's pro-287(g) stance, including Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn. Waybourn's department has had a 287(g) jail agreement since 2017, when he took office. Texas counties are already required to share information with ICE and cooperate on ICE detainers, due to a 2017 law that banned so-called sanctuary cities, Waybourn noted. Sanctuary cities restrain cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. ICE agents are already present and putting detainers on people in major counties' jails. The 287(g) jail officers 'make our community safer' by adding a layer of oversight, Waybourn said. 'It does get another set of eyes on things to make sure that people don't slip through the cracks,' he said. Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne, who serves as legislative chairman of the Sheriffs' Association of Texas, also testified in favor of Schwertner's bill. Hawthorne acknowledged some sheriffs in his association weren't in favor of making the partnerships mandatory. Hawthorne said he was concerned about 'unfunded mandates' and said 'the expenses for that program should be compensated, whether you're a hundred thousand or all the way up to five million, if we're going to mandate the sheriff to do it.' ICE said it pays for the training itself, but sheriffs in the hearing pointed out other costs associated with the training which are not covered. Hawthorne told lawmakers his county pays '$10,000 per jailer that are 287(g) certified,' while Calhoun County Sheriff Bobbie Vickery said the program 'could potentially put a very harsh monetary strain on our budgets every year.' Schwertner's bill provides grants to defray the cost for counties under 1 million people. Currently 36 of Texas' 254 counties have populations in the hundred thousands that would be eligible for such funding. The grants wouldn't apply to the seven largest counties in the state, where about half of all Texans live: Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, Collin and Denton Counties, according to estimates from the Texas Demographic Center. Law enforcement offices across Texas have signed 287(g) agreements with ICE. Click on the circles to see which types of agreements each agency has. Source: ICE (KXAN Interactive/Christopher Adams & David Barer) Schwertner's bill doesn't specify which of the three types of 287(g) agreements a county would be required to enter. As part of the bill, lawmakers are considering whether counties that receive grants would have to submit annual expenditure reports to the Comptroller and Office of the Attorney General. If sheriffs fail to follow the law, the attorney general could take them to district court. Hawthorne said his association was opposed to additional paperwork on top of immigration detainer reports that jails already send to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. The bill's fiscal note estimated a $1.4 million impact through August 2027. That cost includes multiple Comptroller employees who would be hired to handle the grant funds, but it doesn't include an 'additional indeterminate' amount for the grants that would depend on a legislative appropriation, the fiscal note states. In his interview with KXAN, Schwertner said his measure would protect Texas communities. There should not be cases of 'criminal aliens' not being detained for ICE and getting released on bond to 'commit further crime,' he said. 'That's just not acceptable to Texans, and I'm not going to stand for it. And this bill helps in this area,' Schwertner said. Texas lawmakers debate bills to curb illegal immigration Both Trump and Abbott have echoed similar sentiments. To support Trump's border mission, Abbott said in his February State of the State address, 'I have ordered Texas state agencies to assist the Trump Administration with arresting, jailing and deporting illegal immigrants.' But, while state and national leaders often publicly couple immigration and high-profile criminal acts, more comprehensive crime trends suggest otherwise. A 2024 report funded by the National Institute of Justice examining data from the Texas Department of Public Safety found undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes. The NIJ is under the Department of Justice and provides 'research, evaluation and technology' on criminal justice issues. The Trump administration deleted the NIJ study from its website, according to reporting by The Independent, but the report remains available through the U.S. House. Some sheriffs haven't seen an immediate need to be involved in the program. Burnet County Sheriff Calvin Boyd said his agency's agreement is inactive, telling KXAN '(we) weren't getting much out of it,' citing the 'cost, training time and resources' as challenges. Williamson County, which is in Schwertner's district, discontinued its 287(g) agreement after 2021. Williamson County Sheriff Matthew Lindemann, who took office after that agreement was terminated, told KXAN his main concern is the cost of sending a deputy to the East Coast for a month of training. 'Who's taking their place? Who's doing their work here at home?' Lindemann said. 'We're paying someone else overtime to fill in, and that was the concern that I would have — burdens that would be on the county.' Both Lindemann and Schwertner confirm they have been discussing the possibility of the county entering into a new agreement with ICE in the future. Fabbricatore said there is a proposal to bring the training duration down to a couple weeks, and Waybourn said he heard ICE was working to condense it into one week. Others in the hearing noted federal plans in the works to regionalize the training, too. But not everyone speaking before lawmakers that day was so supportive of the program and the legislation that would expand 287(g)in Texas. Krystal Gomez with the Texas Immigration Law Council – a nonpartisan group that coordinates policy work and gives resources to immigration legal service providers – said the agreements would foster distrust of law enforcement. '(That) can lead to decreased crime reporting, reduced witness cooperation and ultimately make our communities less safe for everybody,' Gomez told the committee. Trudy Taylor Smith with the Children's Defense Fund, which advocates on behalf of youths and racial justice, raised concerns about children and family members who have been 'contributing members of their local communities' being locked up in 'inhumane conditions.' Sarah Cruz with the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, of Texas echoed concerns about whether the costs to counties over 1 million would amount to a steep and unfunded mandate, along with other potential problems. '287(g) agreements have proved time and time again that they don't improve public safety and instead undermine it,' Cruz said. In the ACLU's 2022 study, 'License to Abuse,' the group urged the Biden administration to abandon 287(g) as a 'broken, racist relic of the past and an unproven, dubious, and often counterproductive public safety measure.' The 287(g) program has led to racial profiling, civil rights abuses and the 'erosion of community trust,' according to the ACLU. Schwertner said he would hope communities wouldn't want 'criminal aliens running around and causing violence.' The agreements make a difference in identifying those individuals, detaining them and 'making sure that they're held accountable.' On top of its other concerns, ACLU found the program lacked transparency. 'We do not know how many individuals have been arrested and deported as a result of the 287(g) program. A 2021 Government Accountability Office report noted that 'ICE admitted that it does not even track and cannot determine how many deportations and detentions have resulted from the program,' making the true footprint of the program impossible to know,' according to ACLU. That GAO report does provide some insight into the cost of the program at the federal level. From 2015 to 2020, the ICE 287(g) program spent an average $23.7 million per year, including about $3.5 million per year on technology support. In search of deeper information about the impact of the 287(g) program, KXAN found little showing how the program has been used over the past five years. ICE does share information on its website showing the jurisdictions with contracts and links to the contracts. The agency has also been posting monthly encounter reports with information about certain arrests across the country, but they don't show the full extent of work done under 287(g). For example, the March 2025 encounter report details only one arrest in Texas – a Mexican citizen arrested on a charge of sexual assault of a child by the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. KXAN sent requests to over a dozen law enforcement agencies in Texas that had agreements prior to the new Trump administration. We asked for details of work performed under 287(g), including numbers of officers involved, arrests, costs and complaints. We also requested that information from ICE. At the federal level, most of KXAN's Freedom of Information Act requests from March and April remain pending with no timeline for completion. Most Texas law enforcement agencies only provided the number of officers trained for 287(g) work. 'We do not maintain a log or record of work associated with the 287(g),' said the Chambers County Sheriff's Office. Galveston County said it has one person working under the 287(g) agreement, and 'nothing responsive to the remainder of this request.' Several other agencies provided similar responses. Sheriff Cleveland, in Terrell County, told KXAN he wanted to be transparent about his county's 287(g) work, but there weren't records to provide because the jail enforcement model had no activity since 2016. Soon after we submitted most of our requests to counties, a spokesperson for ICE asked KXAN by email to stop sending requests to local jurisdictions and funnel the inquiries to ICE instead. The agreements direct local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE on media requests. However, in one instance, the Smith County Sheriff's Office provided information revealing how its 287(g) program works, including a copy of its standard operating procedures and a detainer list with names and nationalities of over 100 people jailed under the 287(g) program in fiscal year 2019. Smith County's policies show a list of factors that would prompt the agency to refer a person in its jail to the 287(g) officer. The factors include – among many others – if a person has no ID, struggles with English or has tattoos with a connection to a foreign country. Some experts, like the ACLU and constitutional law scholar Annie Bright, expressed further concern that constitutional rights could be infringed under 287(g). Bright, a visiting professor at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, said the agreements raise a number of constitutional issues. 'There are very serious concerns about the lack of infrastructure, the lack of space, the lack of training to ensure that when somebody is arrested, detained, at the risk of being removed, that they're receiving due process of law that the Constitution provides everybody,' Bright said. Racial profiling could also be an issue, she added. 'How do you identify someone who is going to be detained for violation of the criminal law?' Bright said. 'Often, the easiest indicator is how they look.' In September 2022, following the ACLU's report on 287(g) highlighting the concern of racial profiling, the Biden administration's acting director of ICE released a statement saying the agency was committed to making its enforcement operations 'fair, efficient, and consistent with a commitment to the protection of civil rights.' But, even if a person doesn't 'look like what we think of as an immigrant, that doesn't mean that they're going to be immune from the consequences of an ill-trained or mistaken enforcement officer,' Bright said. Further, while it is a crime to enter the country outside of a legal pathway, casting everyone who does that as a 'criminal' is an 'intentional misuse of the term,' she added. 'We're not ready to give up': Central Texas Mom fights for daughter's citizenship 'There are plenty of studies that show that the immigrants in the United States commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens,' Bright said. 'That is pretty undisputed.' Charis Kubrin, a professor of criminology, law and society at the University of California Irvine, has studied that link and wrote about it in her 2023 book 'Immigration and Crime: Taking Stock.' The 287(g) program is part of a 'devolution' of law enforcement – a push of federal immigration authority from the federal government down to the state and local level, she said. Other programs, like Secure Communities, the Criminal Alien Program, and the Laken Riley Act, are also part of this effort. 'The foundational assumption for the vast majority of these policies is that immigration and crime go hand in hand,' Kubrin said. 'I've done the research myself and also have reviewed all of the research in the field, and that is an incorrect assumption. That is a flawed assumption.' To improve public safety, the goal should be to arrest the worst criminals, she said. Since we already have the infrastructure to do that, 'what you're picking up is a lot of noise.' The immigration crackdown also, ultimately, comes down to resources. More arrests cost more money, so, Kubrin asked, will the investment be worth the return? Sheriff Cleveland says that investment is worthwhile, even if unauthorized border crossings are at record lows right now. Since Trump took office, Cleveland said the number of crossings at the southern border are lower than they have been in the past 25 years. Federal data backs that up. Federal border encounters on the U.S. southern border began dipping in 2024 – President Biden's final year in office. When President Trump returned in January, encounters sank to roughly 11,000 per month, a fraction compared to previous years. Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (KXAN Interactive/Christopher Adams & David Barer) State-level efforts have also buttressed border county law enforcement agencies, like Cleveland's, with their immigration control efforts. Texas has pumped roughly $11 billion into Operation Lone Star since 2021, deploying the Texas National Guard and DPS troopers to the border, according to media reports and Abbott's office. All of those initiatives combined have led to low border crossings, which is good news for Cleveland. But, he reiterated, the cartels could find new ways to traffic people and drugs in his area. 'I don't see numbers staying this low,' he said. 'At some point, something's going to … shift and start happening.' With so many partner resources – including a Border Patrol station in Sanderson – readily available, Cleveland said he hasn't had to tap his county's 287(g) yet. But he's considering how his deputies could soon recommence their existing jail-based agreement and possibly explore other models, in case ICE ever calls. 'It's just to have it available and ready if there is a need, and I foresee a lot of other jurisdictions doing the same – having it in place in case there's a need,' Cleveland said. KXAN Digital Data Reporter Christopher Adams, Investigative Photojournalist Richie Bowes, Graphic Artist Wendy Gonzalez, Digital Special Projects Developer Robert Sims, Digital Director Kate Winkle and WFLA Bilingual Digital Producer José Acevedo Negrón contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Epoch Times
12-05-2025
- Epoch Times
Two Former Friends Found Guilty of Cutting Down World-Famous Sycamore Gap Tree
Two former friends have been found guilty of cutting down the world-famous Sycamore Gap tree in an act of 'deliberate and mindless criminal damage.' Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers drove through a storm for 30 miles in the middle of the night from their homes in Cumbria to the Northumberland landmark, where one of them cut down the sycamore with a chainsaw and the other filmed it. Newcastle Crown Court heard the pair then kept a wedge of the trunk as a trophy and spent the next day 'revelling' in news reports about their 'moronic mission.' Prosecutors said the 'odd couple' who did everything together had thought it would be 'a bit of a laugh,' but realised they 'weren't the big men they thought they were' when they saw the public outrage they had caused by committing 'the arboreal equivalent of mindless thuggery.' On Friday, groundworker Graham, 39, and mechanic Carruthers, 32, were each found guilty of two counts of criminal damage—one to the much-photographed tree and and one to Hadrian's Wall, which was damaged when the sycamore fell on it. There was no visible reaction from either in the dock as the jury returned after just over five hours to convict them of causing £622,191 of criminal damage to the tree and £1,144 of damage to the wall. Related Stories 4/29/2025 5/8/2025 The trial heard the 'totemic' sycamore had stood for more than 100 years in a dramatic dip in Hadrian's Wall, becoming a popular spot for everything from picnics to proposals, and achieving worldwide fame when it was featured in the 1991 Kevin Costner film 'Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.' Opening the case to jurors, prosecutor Richard Wright, KC said, 'Though the tree had grown for over a hundred years, the act of irreparably damaging it was the work of a matter of minutes.' Jurors heard Graham and Carruthers were 'best of pals' at the time and regularly worked together felling trees. The court heard Graham's Land Rover was picked up on automatic number plate recognition cameras between Carlisle and Sycamore Gap at night on Sept. 27, 2023, and returning early the next morning. His phone was traced to cell sites making the same journey. When police arrested the pair and searched Graham's phone, they found a two minute and 41 second video which showed the sycamore being cut down at 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 28, and had been sent to Carruthers. They also found photos and videos of a wedge of tree trunk and a chainsaw in the boot of Graham's Range Rover, although these have never been found. Messages and voice notes between Graham and Carruthers the next day showed them talking about the story going 'wild' and 'viral,' referring to 'an operation like we did last night' and joking that damage looked like it had been done by a professional. But, Wright said, by the time their trial started 18 months later, the pair had 'lost their courage' and their once close friendship had collapsed, with each apparently blaming the other. Graham accused Carruthers of taking his Range Rover and mobile phone to Sycamore Gap that night without his knowledge, saying he had now turned on his former friend because his business was being affected by Carruthers's actions. Graham claimed during his evidence that Carruthers had a fascination with the sycamore, saying he had described it as 'the most famous tree in the world' and spoken of wanting to cut it down, even keeping a piece of string in his workshop that he had used to measure the circumference. Carruthers denied this and told the court he could not understand the outcry over the story, saying it was 'just a tree.' Cross examining Carruthers, Wright asked him: 'Is that what's at the heart of this? You thought it was 'just a tree,' and when the rest of the world didn't think it was 'just a tree' and it was a terrible and wicked thing to have done, you've lost your bottle and can't own up to it?' They will be sentenced on July 15.
Express Tribune
10-05-2025
- Express Tribune
UK court convicts duo of felling historic tree
An English court found two men guilty on Friday of the "deliberate and mindless" felling of one of the UK's most iconic trees, an incident that sparked national outrage. A jury at Newcastle Crown Court found former friends Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, guilty of criminal damage for the 2023 felling of the tree at Sycamore Gap. It had stood for nearly 200 years next to Hadrian's Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage site in northern England. The tree was so striking it featured in the 1991 Hollywood film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. They were convicted after around five hours of deliberation on two counts of criminal damage: to the sycamore and to the Roman wall, which was damaged when the tree fell on it. Prosecutors had told the court that the two men used a chainsaw to cut down the tree. It was, they said, "an act of deliberate and mindless criminal damage", which they filmed on Graham's phone and shared with others. Speaking after the conviction, Northumbria Police's Kevin Waring said: "We often hear references made to mindless acts of vandalism, but that term has never been more relevant than today. "At no point have the two men given an explanation for why they targeted the tree — and there never could be a justifiable one," he added. Graham has "been in custody for his own protection after an episode in December", his lawyer Chris Knox told court on Friday. Gale Gilchrist, from the Crown Prosecution Service North, said that "in just under three minutes, Graham and Carruthers ended its (the tree's) historic legacy in a deliberate and mindless act of destruction. "We hope our community can take some measure of comfort in seeing those responsible convicted today," she added. The pair were jointly charged with causing £622,191 ($832,?821) of criminal damage to the tree and £1,144 of damage to Hadrian's Wall, an ancient Roman fortification stretching from northwest to northeast England. The two men have been remanded in custody - Carruthers for his own protection. They will be sentenced on July 15. The sycamore was a symbol of northeast England and a key attraction photographed by millions of visitors over the years, winning the Woodland Trust's Tree of the Year in 2016. Efforts are underway to see if it can be regrown from its stump or seeds. The National Trust, which owns the wall and the tree, said it has grown 49 saplings from the sycamore's seeds, which will be planted this winter at sites across the UK. AFP
