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Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
ICE detains over 100 in one of Florida's largest immigration raids
More than 100 people were detained in one of Florida's largest single-day immigration raids at a Tallahassee construction site on May 29 in what was described as a panicked scene with some law enforcement wearing face coverings and camouflage. Homeland Security Investigations, which operates under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Florida Highway Patrol and other Florida and federal law enforcement agencies conducted the immigration raids at a student housing development site in the College Town neighborhood by Florida State University. Another construction site nearby was raided an hour earlier, worker Michael Martinez told the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network. Officers reportedly checked every individual's identification and permits before releasing or arresting them. The Department of Homeland Security said on social media that authorities had "arrested more than 100 illegal aliens, some of which were previously deported and others with criminal backgrounds," calling it "a targeted enforcement operation." People detained in a bus told reporters at the scene they were from Mexico, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Honduras, while officials said others detained were from Guatemala, El Salvador and Colombia. The raids come as President Donald Trump's administration touts its crackdown on migrants who enter the country illegally, expanding arrests nationwide while driving down border crossings. ICE agents have begun detaining people who show up for mandatory court appearances about their immigration cases. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature have pushed the state to become the "toughest" on illegal immigration in the country this year, enacting laws and directing hundreds of millions of dollars to state and local law enforcement to expand the state's authority to detain and house undocumented immigrants to comply with Trump's mass deportation mandate. ICE and Florida law enforcement arrested 1,120 people in April during "Operation Tidal Wave," the largest joint immigration operation in Florida history. The operation lasted six days, from April 21 through April 26. In the last month, ICE raids have also rattled Nashville, where nearly 200 people were arrested in a weeklong operation, according to the Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. In northern Nevada, more than 50 were arrested in Reno, Carson City and Tahoe earlier in May and most have been deported, the Reno Gazette Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported. Florida is currently appealing a federal judge's decision to temporarily block a new law creating state crimes for undocumented immigrants entering or re-entering Florida. The raid was likely the largest single illegal immigration sweep in Florida since DeSantis agreed to join in on Trump's aggressive mass deportation agenda. Here's what we know about the ICE raids in Tallahassee, Florida: Law enforcement officers detained more than 100 people at a construction site near the Florida State University campus. One detainee, 43-year-old Juan Carlos Hernandez, told the USA TODAY Network-Florida he didn't know where the group was being taken. Hernandez said he did not have a criminal record, and he said others on the bus had asylum cases. "I'm sad," he said. "It's not the time or the moment for us to leave." Many of the construction workers were in bright yellow shirts and jeans – work clothes. Some didn't have any money on them, Hernandez said, others were worried about their family members who they would be leaving behind. Some of those detained were handcuffed, while others were zip-tied. They were led into the back of white school buses with no air conditioning on a day where the feels-like temperature was 86 degrees. Pedro Arroliga, 30, held up his residency card and said he came from Nicaragua and has been a resident for two years. He said federal agents checked him inside the gate of the construction site and said he was OK to go, but then he was taken and put on the bus. Martinez, the worker from the other job site nearby, said agents came and raided his construction site about an hour earlier. People were fleeing and only a few got caught. 'It's just crazy how they're doing this,' Martinez said. Caity Salter, a recent Florida State University graduate, stood behind a fence with other FSU students watching the scene unfold. "Some of the people, the construction workers, (were in) zip ties and they were in a line ... and it was just very disturbing to see that," she said. Ray D'Amico, general superintendent for the plumbing contractor at the construction site, watched his employees, who were zip-tied and waiting to be processed by federal agents. Once word got out about the raid, he said, other construction sites in town stopped for the day and workers went home. Videos of laborers getting tackled to the ground by agents at 9 a.m. spread quickly, and by noon, many of Tallahassee's construction sites were silent. "This is infuriating. This is absolutely ridiculous," D'Amico said. To locate detainees who are 18 or older and in ICE custody for more than 48 hours, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website has an online detainee locator system. Click here for ICE inmate search According to ICE, you don't have to provide any information about yourself or create an account to use the system, but the system collects information including your internet domain, IP address and the internet address of the website from which you linked directly to the ODLS website. However, ICE says the information is not used to identify or track users and isn't used in immigration enforcement activities. Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY; C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY Network-Florida; Antonio Fins and Valentina Palm, Palm Beach Post This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: ICE detains over 100 people in one of Florida's largest raids
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
With deportations on the rise, it's important immigrants, citizens alike know their rights
President Donald Trump has been known to shift his stance on issues from time to time, but his thoughts on immigration remain immutable. His first term focused on keeping migrants from entering the United States by building a wall that would span the 1,954-mile border between the Mexico-U.S. border. His second term has taken a more menacing tone as he pivots to an aggressive mass deportation campaign that has swept up young children with migrant parents and immigrants who legally live here. Florida has partnered with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to coordinate arresting immigrants through an effort that Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt said is "a preview of what is to come around this country: large-scale operations that employ our state and local enforcement partners to get criminal illegal aliens off our street." The effort, dubbed "Operation Tidal Wave," led to the arrest of about 1,100 people from April 21-26, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis. "Operation Tidal Wave" targeted people in Miami-Dade and Broward counties and the cities of Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Stuart, Tallahassee and Fort Myers, according to records seen by the Miami Herald. All of them are areas with high immigrant populations. The total number of people deported by ICE has not been publicly shared, but data compiled by NBC News estimates the figure to be north of 40,000 as of April, which is just 4% of the one million people the White House has promised to move annually. The White House has set a goal of removing one million people annually. An estimated 10 million migrants live in the U.S. The data also shows that border crossings have plummeted, ICE arrests have doubled, and the number of people in detention is at an all-time high. Trump's deportation numbers still trail Biden's, who deported 271,484 immigrants last fiscal year, the most since 2014. Trump's deportations have caught national attention in part because of the lack of due process. In April, it was reported that three young children, ages 2, 4 and 7, who are all U.S. citizens, were removed from the country and sent to Honduras with their mother as she was deported. The most famous case so far involved Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal Salvadoran immigrant who was unlawfully deported back to El Salvador, where he was held at a supermax prison. It was learned on Friday that Garcia was returned to the U.S., where he now faces two human smuggling charges. The aggressive nature of these recent deportations make clear the importance of immigrants and U.S. citizens knowing their rights. The rights you are afforded will largely depend on where a confrontation with ICE occurs. Your home is one of the safest places to be because ICE can only enter your home if they have a valid judicial search warrant, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Knowing that information is important but won't be enough to get you through a potential confrontation. Here is how the ACLU advises people to respond. Don't open the door. Opening the door for an ICE agent is an opportunity for them to make an arrest. The ACLU urges people to ask the ICE officers to slide any warrants they may have underneath the door so you can review it. Verify that they have the correct warrant. This part is crucial: Check the warrant to see if it was issued by a court and signed by a judge. According to the ACLU, only a warrant officially issued and signed grants them permission to enter your home. A warrant issued and signed by the Department of Homeland Security or ICE does not give them the right to enter your home without permission. A judicial warrant is a warrant signed by a judge with "U.S. District Court" or a state court listed at the top. Other warrants, like a deportation warrant, do not allow entry without consent. If an ICE agent forces their way into your home, it is important that you do not act in a way that can be used against you later. You can reiterate that you do not consent to their entry, but you should not physically resist them, according to the ACLU. You should exercise your right to remain silent for the same reason. Tell the officers that you would like to speak with a lawyer. If they ask any questions, tell them that you would like to remain silent and wait to answer any questions until you can do so under legal counsel. In some cases, the ACLU says that ICE officers will attempt to have a person sign a form agreeing to be deported without due process. It is best not to sign any document until you have a lawyer present who can offer advice. A confrontation with ICE at work can be a little more complicated. Officers are allowed to be within the general public of a business without permission, but that doesn't give them the authority to detain, question or arrest anyone, according to the ACLU. If an ICE officer attempts to question you, do not answer them without a lawyer present. If they ask to search the property, bags or anyone's products, tell them that you do not consent and encourage your coworkers to do the same. Treat a traffic stop by ICE the same as any other. Turn on your emergency lights to acknowledge that you are being stopped, and then slowly pull over. Put your keys on the dashboard and place your hands in a visible location. Don't worry about searching for your license and registration until the officer makes contact and instructs you to do so. The Florida Immigrant Coalition says that you should not answer any questions about your immigration status or where you are from. If the officers appear agitated, tell them that you would like to use your right to remain silent and ask to speak with a lawyer. Do not consent to a search. Officers must have a judicial warrant to conduct a search unless they have reasonable suspicion. If ICE officers show up at your school, it's important to know the legal rights teachers and students have. Here's a breakdown of educator and student rights when it comes to ICE raids, according to a packet from the American Federation of Teachers: Immigration status does not affect whether a child can be enrolled in school. Every child has a constitutional right to a free public education, regardless of his or her immigration status or parents' immigration status. Schools cannot ask about a student's immigration status during enrollment. Public school districts have an obligation to enroll students regardless of their immigration status and without discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin. Schools can ask for documentation to prove age and district residency for enrollment. But no student should be turned away for lack of documentation. Schools may not bar a student from enrolling because the student lacks a birth certificate or social Security number or has a record that indicates a foreign place of birth. Schools may not bar a student from enrolling because his or her parents or guardians lack a driver's license or state-issued ID. Some students qualify for protections under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 which provides exemptions from enrollment requirements. If ICE officers show up at your school, you have the right to refuse to answer their questions and tell them they have no right to be at your school without a warrant. Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), schools are prohibited, (without parental consent) from providing information from a student's file to federal immigration agents if the information would potentially expose a student's immigration status. Some schools have also interpreted the Plyer decision as prohibiting them from requiring students to provide Social Security cards or birth certificates as a condition of enrollment, test taking or participation in school activities. The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) says that ICE agents can be prohibited from going into private areas of an organization unless they have a judicial warrant or express permission. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003 under the Department of Homeland Security to protect the U.S. from cross-border crime and illegal immigration. ICE enforces the nation's complex Title 8 immigration laws inside the country and U.S. Customs and Border Protection handles it at the nation's borders. ICE has more than 20,000 law enforcement officers and an annual budget of about $8 billion. The Trump administration, however, deputized thousands more federal law enforcement officers to help with his goal of mass deportations, and many local law enforcement agencies have agreed to coordinate and cooperate with the efforts. That depends on who you ask. "ICE detains individuals as necessary, including to secure their presence for immigration proceedings and removal from the United States," the agency says on its website. "ICE also detains those who are subject to mandatory detention under U.S. immigration law and those a supervisor has determined are public safety or flight risks." The president, who declared a national border emergency on his first day in office and ordered the U.S. armed forces to repel "forms of invasion," has said his administration will prioritize deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal histories. However, there have been multiple instances reported of mistaken identities, random sweeps, U.S. citizens sent out of the country, and people detained and shipped to a prison in El Salvador without any criminal charges filed, trials, or ways to appeal. The most well-known is Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland, who was picked up and to a prison in El Salvadore without due process and kept there despite orders from a federal court and the Supreme Court to bring him back. On April 16, a Georgia native with an ID and Social Security card on him was arrested in Florida's Panhandle under a blocked Florida immigration law. The family of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez presented his birth certificate to a judge, who agreed it was valid but said she had no power over his release. Lopez-Gomez was finally released after 30 hours in prison. A federal judge in Texas ruled on April 25 that the Trump administration could not deport Venezuelan immigrants under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and ordered the release of a detained couple due to the lack of "any lawful basis." The National Immigration Resource Center recommends: Gather important documents for all family members showing how long each one has been in the United States. This can include birth certificates, U.S. income tax returns, utility bills, leases, school records, medical records or bank records. Put copies into a secure online folder or location you can access by phone. Identify your emergency contacts, memorize their phone numbers and make sure your contact can access all of your documents. Provide your child's school or daycare with an emergency contact to pick up your child in case you are detained. Tell your loved ones that if you are detained by ICE, they can try to use ICE's online detainee locator to find you with the date of birth and country of origin. That's at You, your family or emergency contacts can contact the local ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) office to initiate an ICE Case Review process. You can find your local ERO office here. Have supporting documents ready. Everyone living in the United States has certain rights and protections provided by the U.S. Constitution, whatever their residency status is, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. You have the right to remain silent. You don't have to discuss your immigration or citizenship status with police or immigration officers. Anything said to an officer can later be used against you in court. You have the right to say 'no' if an immigration officer asks if they can search you. Immigration officers do not have the right to search you or your belongings without your consent or probable cause. This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: What to do if ICE comes to your home or stops you in Florida
Axios
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Local cops are making Florida an immigration enforcement hot spot
Efforts to arrest and remove unauthorized immigrants appear most aggressive in Florida and other southern states with Democratic-leaning cities, according to an Axios analysis. Why it matters: Our review of removal orders, pending deportation cases and agreements between immigration officials and local law enforcement agencies sheds light on where the Trump administration is dispatching resources to support its mass deportation plan. The analysis shows local law enforcement agencies in Texas and Florida have been most cooperative with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in rounding up immigrants through deals known as 287 (g) agreements. There are 629 such agreements now in place across the country. About 43% of them are in Florida. Zoom in: Earlier this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed off on the state's harshest immigration reform yet. The sweeping law directs local governments to partner with federal immigration efforts while broadening the reasons cops can detain immigrants and narrowing protections for undocumented crime victims and witnesses. Policies that impede immigration enforcement are now barred in Florida, and sheriffs must also share inmates' immigration status with ICE. Noncompliance can result in fines and suspension. The result: Recent raids in Florida by a coalition of agencies led to 1,120 arrests in an effort dubbed Operation Tidal Wave. Of the 42,000 removals of immigrants ordered in March, nearly 50% involved people in Texas, California, New York, Virginia and Florida, according to an analysis of data from the nonpartisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). The big picture: The data analyzed by Axios and the locations of the agreements between federal and local authorities reflect a few simple truths about immigration enforcement across the U.S. There aren't nearly enough federal agents to meet President Trump's unprecedented deportation goal of deporting a million immigrants a year. In some places where the Trump administration faces a gap in resources, local law enforcement agencies are unable or unwilling to meet the feds' demands or expand beyond their usual enforcement duties. With the nation's borders essentially locked down, the administration has shifted much of its deportation operations to the nation's interior. National Sheriffs' Association executive director and CEO Jonathan Thompson said some sheriffs are concerned that their departments could undermine their communities' trust by working with ICE. The other side: Trump border czar Tom Homan, a former ICE director, told Axios he rejects the notion that working with immigration officials can undermine the community's trust in local authorities.
Boston Globe
04-06-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Marcelo Gomes da Silva should be freed
Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up The arrest came as part of stepped-up Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Massachusetts over the past few months. The agency seems to have boosted its arrest numbers by widening its net. Of the roughly 1,500 people that Operation Patriot apprehended in Massachusetts, 790, or barely over half, had prior charges or convictions. The government's own tally implies that another estimated 710 community members had no criminal records at all. Advertisement Among them is Gomes, an honors student from Milford who officials say was a 'collateral arrest' — their name for arrests of people who are undocumented but have no criminal records, encountered by immigration agents in the community. Advertisement The Trump administration has argued that collateral arrests are more likely in places where local police don't cooperate with immigration authorities. If agents could just pick up criminals from courthouses or police stations, the argument goes, they wouldn't have to venture into the community where they're bound to run into other undocumented people. But the argument doesn't hold up under scrutiny — in the Gomes case and in general. The teenager was driving a vehicle belonging to his father, who officials say was the real target of the operation. But there is nothing publicly known that would suggest that the father was free because of anything the state of Massachusetts did, or that state officials could have turned him over to federal immigration even if they'd wanted to. Reporting by The Boston Globe found that the elder Gomes had faced traffic violations two years ago, which were later dismissed. But even if the state of Massachusetts had failed to cooperate with the feds to detain the father, the idea that immigration agents therefore simply had no choice but to arrest 'collaterals' it encountered while looking for him is false. Immigration officers didn't have to arrest Gomes; they chose to. If collateral arrests were really more common in so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, one would expect to see fewer of them in places that do cooperate with immigration enforcement. But that doesn't seem to be the case. See Operation Tidal Wave in April, which apprehended 1,120 undocumented immigrants across Florida. Only 63 percent of those detained had prior criminal arrests or convictions. The problem may be that arresting noncriminals could be the only way to reach the deportation numbers the Trump administration wants. The Trump administration recently imposed a new target of 3,000 arrests a day, but contrary to the president's rhetoric, there just aren't enough actual immigrant criminals to meet those numbers. Advertisement Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration, is clinging to anecdotal and often misleading cases to justify its tactics. In a Two of these men were 'arrested' while in custody at state prisons — where the justice system was already punishing them. A third man had been arrested by a New York police department, not federal agents. And the fourth man was a lawful permanent resident, not an 'illegal alien,' as the release claimed. We didn't need to deeply analyze this particular press release to find these gaping errors — the Trump administration simply published information that was in direct contradiction to its own claims. It's scary that people this sloppy with the facts also have the power to make life-changing arrests. Its high-profile blunders also include mistakenly If there's any method to this madness, it may be that the Trump administration thinks it can use arrests of people like Gomes to pressure local governments into aiding with its immigration agenda — to raise the costs for cities and states that don't cooperate. Advertisement But if Gomes's plight is an indictment of the Trump administration, it's also an indictment of Congress. Proposals to normalize the status of young people like Gomes have widespread support but have stalled in Congress for years. If lawmakers had acted, thousands of kids and young adults would no longer fear being deported to a country they may barely know because their parents chose to break immigration laws. Lawmakers should get serious about protecting those young people. Meanwhile, immigration officials should focus on actual safety threats — and Gomes should be back in our community. Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Milwaukee man accused of framing illegal immigrant in Trump assassination threat, officials say
A man in Milwaukee allegedly forged a letter threatening President Donald Trump's life to get another man deported and prevent him from testifying in a criminal trial. Demetric D. Scott is accused of posing as Ramón Morales-Reyes, a 54-year-old illegal immigrant, when writing a letter threatening to assassinate Trump. Scott is facing multiple charges, including witness intimidation. Morales-Reyes is an illegal immigrant who has a criminal record that includes arrests for felony hit-and-run, criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct with a "domestic abuse modifier," according to the Department of Homeland Security. Ice Files Detainers Against 2 Illegal Aliens, Including 1 Facing Attempted Murder Charges For Shooting Spree On May 21, the Wisconsin Attorney General's Office, the Milwaukee Police Chief and Milwaukee ICE received handwritten notes threatening to kill Trump and blow up the White House, according to the criminal complaint. "We are tired of this president messing with us Mexicans – We have done more for this country than you white people – you have been deporting my family and I think it is time Donald J. Trump get what he has coming to him," the letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, stated. Read On The Fox News App In the letter, initially believed to be written by Morales-Reyes, the Mexican national said he would "self deport" after killing Trump. The letters were not identical, but all the envelopes had return addresses written in blue ink bearing Morales-Reyes' information. However, according to detectives, Morales-Reyes cannot read, speak or write English fluently. The complaint also says Morales-Reyes told detectives "the only person who would want to get him in trouble was the person who had robbed him and who law enforcement knows to be the defendant," Scott. Operation Tidal Wave: Ice, Florida Law Enforcement Arrest Over 1,100 In Record-breaking Crackdown On May 30, while executing a search warrant on Scott's jail cell, investigators recovered a blue pen. A note stating that Scott needed the address of the Wisconsin Attorney General's Office was also found, along with an envelope containing the address and phone number of Milwaukee ICE allegedly located under Scott's bed. "I'm just glad that they have identified who it was or have a better sense of who it was and that Ramon is being cleared of any involvement in this," Morales-Reyes' attorney, Kime Abduli, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. According to the criminal complaint, after learning that Morales-Reyes had been arrested and might be deported because of the letters, Scott said in a phone call that Morales-Reyes "got what he deserved." "The investigation into the threat is ongoing. Over the course of the investigation, this individual was determined to be in the country illegally and that he had a criminal record. He will remain in custody," a senior DHS official told Fox News Digital. Morales-Reyes is still being held at Dodge County Jail and faces possible deportation. According to Fox 6, a local Fox News affiliate, Morales-Reyes is scheduled to appear in court June 4. Fox News' Bill Melugin and Cameron Arcand contributed to this article source: Milwaukee man accused of framing illegal immigrant in Trump assassination threat, officials say
