Latest news with #shielded
New Indian Express
5 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Midhun's bail plea adjourned in liquor case
VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday adjourned the hearing on Rajampet MP PV Midhun Reddy's anticipatory bail plea in the liquor policy case to Wednesday after extensive arguments. Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, representing the CID, alleged that Midhun Reddy played a crucial role in the liquor policy's formulation and execution. He claimed liquor orders were selectively awarded to companies that paid kickbacks, leading to a Rs 3,500 crore loss. Statements from accused and witnesses reportedly support these claims. Conversely, Midhun Reddy's counsel, senior advocate T Niranjan Reddy, argued that the MP was falsely implicated due to political vendetta and pointed out inconsistencies in the CID's investigation. He claimed key accused were being shielded and cited past rulings protecting other leaders, demanding similar protection for Midhun Reddy.
India Today
13-06-2025
- General
- India Today
Air India plane crash: Search on for black box, probe underway
A search is underway for the black box of the Ahmedabad-London Air India plane that crashed in Ahmedabad on Thursday. At least 265 people were killed after the plane crashed into two hostels near Ahmedabad today, Air India debunked reports of the recovery of black box and termed them mere speculation. Air India has said that the black box of the crashed flight, which would provide crucial information about what went wrong, has not been Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the plane crash site and later met the survivors at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital. PLANE CRASH: UDPATES SO FAR Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the crash site of the Air India plane accident on Friday along with Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu. The PM inspected the crash site along with other officials. PM wrote on X, "Visited the crash site in Ahmedabad today. The scene of devastation is saddening. Met officials and teams working tirelessly in the aftermath. Our thoughts remain with those who lost their loved ones in this unimaginable tragedy." advertisement After visiting the crash site, PM Modi headed to the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital where he met the survivors of the plane crash. PM wrote on X, "Met those injured in the aftermath of the tragic plane crash in Ahmedabad, including the lone survivor and assured them that we are with them and their families in this tough time. The entire nation is praying for their speedy recovery." Meanwhile, families of those killed in the plane crash lined up outside Ahmedabad Civil hospital in Ahmedabad and gave their DNA samples to match with the bodies. Most of the bodies were charred beyond recognition. All 261 passengers, except the one in seat 11A, died in the plane crash. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British national, was seated in 11A, next to the emergency door on the left side of the aircraft. He said the plane broke apart shortly after take-off, and his seat was flung clear of the wreckage. As a result, he was shielded from the flames that engulfed the rest of the aircraft. The temperature in and around the crashed Air India plane rose to around 1,000 degrees Celsius, which made the rescue operation extremely difficult, officials told PTI. Even dogs and birds at the site could not escape, they said. Besides passengers and crew members, students in the medical college's hostels and some others on the premises were among those killed in the tragedy. While police said 265 bodies were brought to the civil hospital, officials were yet to announce the death toll. advertisementA State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) official said their personnel reached the hostel and residential quarters of doctors and staff members of the BJ Medical College, where the aircraft crashed, between 2 to 2.30 pm. Before that, locals had pulled out some people alive but their teams did not get anybody alive. Two pilots, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Kunder, met a cruel end on Thursday as the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner they were in charge of, crashed. Both were operating the Dreamliner to London's Gatwick Airport, carrying 230 passengers and 10 crew members. So far, five victims have been identified, and their bodies handed over to their families: two each from Gujarat and Rajasthan, and one from Madhya Pradesh. advertisement
USA Today
09-06-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Trump's mass deportation scheme is an insult to all of us
Trump's mass deportation scheme is an insult to all of us | Opinion This is not the America immigrants who actually contribute to society, have the right documentation, show character and continue to play by the rules of the nation's immigration process deserve. Show Caption Hide Caption Trump administration detains Vietnamese who came as refugees after war After the Vietnam War ended 50 years ago, Republican and Democratic administrations shielded refugees from deportation. Donald Trump is changing that. As a nation, we shouldn't have to worry about a young man like Esro Garcia Mendez, the son of immigrants and a first-generation high school graduate in Florida's Palm Beach County. Mendez' character is evident. Instead of celebrating with friends after receiving his diploma, he rushed to HCA Palms West Hospital to be with his ailing father. Imagine a father's joy in sharing such a special moment. Esro kept a 4.0 grade-point average on the way to finishing high school, a goal he and his family shared as they clearly understood the importance of a high school degree. He doesn't want to stop there. He wants to enlist in the U.S. armed forces, another first that he believes will also make his family and community proud. Although his future seems bright, there's cause for concern. Trump's mass deportation scheme targets good people Specifically, there simply may be too many good folk like Mendez who will get needlessly ensnared in President Donald Trump's administration's mass deportation scheme that touts making numbers. Trump wants to deport 1 million immigrants a year, according to The Washington Post. According to NBC News, Trump officials have pushed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to pick up the pace by arresting 3,000 immigrants a day, an unpractical rate that will most likely include legal residents and U.S. citizens. Opinion: Manufacturing down, food expensive and ICE is deporting moms. Happy now, MAGA? Like those old Florida speed traps that coincidently popped up when some local official decides to make easy marks out of unsuspecting motorists, arrests, detainment and deportation seem more of a numbers game than sound public policy. Rule of law? Habeas corpus? How quaint. This White House is more ready to fend off pesky news coverage than to ensure anybody nabbed as a suspected illegal immigrant gets their day in court before deportation. This rush to meet numbers at the expense of decency, fair play, even legality, hurts ... us. How do you even prepare to talk about deportation? As a teenager taking the family car out on a Friday night, I can remember my dad telling me to obey local traffic laws and how to act if I were stupid enough to get pulled over by the police. There was no Black Lives Matter back then, cops weren't routinely shooting Black motorists at traffic stops, and the conversation didn't have a convenient "The Talk" label. Still, my parents did their job in trying to protect their wayward son. I did the same for mine, in far harsher times. Opinion: Dems can make all the demands they want on ICE arrests. They won't get answers. I can't imagine what the equivalent of The Talk is right now for anyone who can be considered a suspect for deportation. I mean, what steps can you take to prepare yourself when culture, dialect and skin color can make you a target, whether you're attending school, going to work or leaving church? What do you do when so-called rights don't apply? Keep your papers on you at all times? Don't make sudden moves in reaching for those papers? Know a good lawyer, the deportation equivalent of Benjamin Crump? Prepare your family in advance for self-deportation, if necessary? Could any of that have helped Maurilio Ambrocio, an evangelical pastor, father of five and landscaper living in the Tampa area? Outstanding member of the community. No criminal record. Arrested and detained. Or Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, 20, in Tallahassee, charged with illegally entering Florida as an "unauthorized alien" despite having a U.S. birth certificate? Arrested and detained. It appears almost any "person of color" in the free state of Florida can get arrested, detained and possibly deported. How do we explain to anyone, much less rationalize to ourselves, how people are being snatched up only to "disappear" before being sent to El Salvador, South Sudan or God knows where else? This is not the America immigrants who actually contribute to society, have the right documentation, show character and continue to play by the rules of the nation's immigration process deserve. It's neither the type of country that befits its citizens who are quick to boast of freedom and liberty. We can't keep addressing a complex problem of immigration by simply trying to meet unrealistic deportation numbers. That should be an affront to us all. For the sake of Esro Garcia Mendez and so many like him, we must do better. Douglas C. Lyons is an editorial writer and columnist for The Palm Beach Post, where this column originally published. He can be reached at dclyons@
USA Today
28-05-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
50 years after Vietnam War, refugees swept up by Trump's immigration crackdown
50 years after Vietnam War, refugees swept up by Trump's immigration crackdown Despite criminal convictions, successive Republican and Democratic administrations have shielded them from deportation since the war's end decades ago. Show Caption Hide Caption Trump administration detains Vietnamese who came as refugees after war After the Vietnam War ended 50 years ago, Republican and Democratic administrations shielded refugees from deportation. Donald Trump is changing that. For over a month, a 43-year-old Vietnamese man has been sitting in a Louisiana detention center waiting to see whether he will be deported to a country he fled as a boy. Huy Quoc Phan, who has an American wife and kids, is among thousands of people who arrived as refugees after the end of the Vietnam War and are now being targeted for removal. The Alabama warehouse worker served 15 years in prison for his involvement in a robbery that led to a shopkeeper's death. His wife of six years, Amy, 39, said she knew of the crime, which took place when he was 17. 'I didn't hold it against him when I met him,' she said. 'I think people should be given second chances.' For decades, both Republican and Democratic administrations agreed ‒ at least for immigrants from Vietnam, a country the United States left in disgrace five decades years ago. Although immigrants from other countries were routinely deported after serving time for crimes, the Vietnamese were allowed to stay. Not anymore. In his first administration, President Donald Trump sought to end that special treatment. Four months into his second term, he has stepped up efforts to deport as many immigrants as possible, including Vietnamese. Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said people like Phan deserve to be deported because of their criminal past. 'Under President Trump and (DHS Secretary Kristi) Noem's leadership, ICE is continuing to protect Americans by detaining and removing criminal aliens," McLaughlin said in an emailed statement. Protections as refugees Fifty years after the fall of Saigon, these changes are leaving thousands of Vietnamese refugees like Phan in limbo, said Quyen Mai, executive director of the California-based nonprofit Vietnamese American Organization. 'We feel we got abandoned again,' he said. As of late May, the Trump administration had tried to remove at least one Vietnamese man to South Sudan, along with other migrants. On May 27, observers noted that at least one deportation flight appeared to have landed in Hanoi. Vietnam historically has not accepted deportations from the United States, except for a period during Trump's first administration. President Joe Biden largely halted such deportations when he came into office. Neither the Trump administration nor the Vietnamese government responded to questions about any changes to agreements for detaining Vietnamese immigrants or repatriating deportees. Although it's not clear how many Vietnamese immigrants will be affected, one Atlanta-based immigration attorney already represents more than a dozen now in detention. Through agreements between the nations, around 8,600 Vietnamese immigrants have been shielded from deportation despite prior convictions and removal orders, said Lee Ann Felder-Heim, an immigrant rights staff attorney at the San Francisco-based nonprofit Asian Law Caucus. After Black April in 1975, the first wave of 125,000 people fleeing Vietnam arrived in the United States. By 2000, nearly a million Vietnamese had settled here, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Most became permanent residents. 'The U.S. government made a commitment to the people admitted as refugees that they would be protected,' said Jana Lipman, a professor of history at Tulane University who studies Vietnamese refugee populations. Phan is among those who arrived as refugees before 1995, when the United States and Vietnam re-established relations 20 years after the end of the war. A lawsuit settled in 2021 has prevented extended detention for these early immigrants. The Biden administration limited their removal. The Trump administration now seeks to restart deportations. 'This is a huge impediment to the president's deportation program,' said Andrew Arthur, resident law and policy fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-leaning think tank. Vietnam has been among the countries most 'recalcitrant' to accept deportees, he added. And Trump's hardline removal policy looks forward rather than back to a a 50-year-old war, he said. Escape by boat Phan last saw Vietnam from a boat. He was born in 1982 to two farmers in Bến Tre, an agricultural province in southern Vietnam's Mekong Delta. His relatives, including his grandfather, fought for militias aligned with American-backed South Vietnam, according to his aunt's refugee application, which USA TODAY reviewed. They were sent to the new communist government's re-education prison camps and forced to do hard labor. Vietnamese officials seized part of their family's land. In the war-torn country, his parents made the decision to send a 7-year-old Phan with his aunt, Le Thi Phan, then 25, and her daughter, who was 3. After fleeing by boat, in 1989, they arrived in a Malaysian refugee camp, records showed. Two years later, American immigration officials accepted Phan and his relatives as refugees. He distinctly remembers his first sight of America. 'The U.S. lit up like a Christmas tree,' he told USA TODAY in a phone interview from a detention center. 'It was magical.' They settled in metropolitan Atlanta. He learned English, developing a Southern twang, and became his family's translator. He took care of two younger cousins. Bad choices and redemption Phan dropped out of school in 9th grade and went to live with other Vietnamese boys and men. He said he looked up to the wrong people. On July 3, 1999, then 17 and short on rent money, he and four others decided to rob a Vietnamese cafe. Detectives described them as customers who formed an 'ad-hoc robbing crew.' Several of the others beat the shopkeeper to death trying to get him to give up the money, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported at the time. Phan was sentenced as an adult and served nearly 15 years in Georgia prison, records show. An immigration judge issued a final removal order in 2002, while he was in prison. He received his GED and technical training certificates while behind bars. Since his release, in 2015, his family said he's had no run-ins with law enforcement. Phan said he worked seven days a week at Little Caesar's and in a nail salon until he met Amy on an online dating site. He got a stable job at a warehouse so he could spend more time with her. Their family, now with a toddler, moved to Alabama last year to be closer to Amy's sister, before she died in February. Arrest and detention On April 14, while waiting for his 11-year-old stepson and 3-year-old son to wake up, he heard a knock on the door. At the start of spring break, he thought his stepson's friends had come to start playing early. Instead, it was ICE agents and U.S. Marshals, who put him in handcuffs. Amy awoke to her husband calling out from the living room, where she saw several agents around her husband in handcuffs. Phan was confused. His work authorization is valid through September. They brought up his teenage conviction. 'I did something wrong in the past, but nothing wrong now,' Phan said. For two days, his wife couldn't find him. He finally got a minute-long call to tell her he was headed to the LaSalle Detention Center, in Jena, Louisiana, where the Trump administration has sent other detainees, including former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil. In a TikTok video with over 940,000 views, Amy begged, 'Give me my husband back.' On a worn piece of paper addressed 'To Whom It May Concern,' his supervisor and nearly a dozen of his coworkers called Phan 'an honorable individual, a leader for the company, and a valuable member of the community.' They hoped the court took their letter into consideration. He received documents ordering him to leave the country, but he can't comply with those orders while he's in ICE custody. Amy, who hasn't been on a plane since she was a baby, now wonders what it might be like to live in Vietnam. Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Reach him by email at emcuevas1@ or on Signal at emcuevas.01.
Qatar Tribune
25-05-2025
- Business
- Qatar Tribune
DOJ reaches deal with Boeing, avoiding felony conviction
Agencies The U.S. Justice Department said Friday it has reached a tentative agreement with Boeing that would let the company avoid prosecution in a fraud case tied to two deadly 737 MAX crashes that killed 346 people. The agreement allows Boeing to avoid being branded a convicted felon and is a blow to families who lost relatives in the crashes and had pressed prosecutors to take the U.S. planemaker to trial. A lawyer for family members and two U.S. senators had urged the Justice Department not to abandon its prosecution, but the government quickly rejected the requests. Boeing agreed to pay an additional $444.5 million into a crash victims' fund that would be divided evenly per crash victim on top of an additional $243.6 million fine. The Justice Department expects to file the written agreement with Boeing by the end of next week. Boeing will no longer face oversight by an independent monitor under the agreement. Boeing will pay in total over $1.1 billion, including the fine and compensation to families and over $455 million to strengthen the company's compliance, safety, and quality programs, the Justice Department said. 'Boeing must continue to improve the effectiveness of its anti-fraud compliance and ethics program and retain an independent compliance consultant,' the department said Friday. 'We are confident that this resolution is the most just outcome with practical benefits.' Boeing did not immediately comment. Reuters first reported on May 16 that Boeing had reached a tentative nonprosecution agreement with the government. The agreement would forestall a June 23 trial date the planemaker faces on a charge it misled U.S. regulators about a crucial flight control system on the 737 MAX, its best-selling jet. Boeing in July had agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge after the two fatal 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia spanning 2018 and 2019, pay a fine of up to $487.2 million and face three years of independent oversight. Boeing no longer will plead guilty, prosecutors told family members of crash victims during a meeting last week. The company's posture changed after a judge rejected a previous plea agreement in December, prosecutors told the family members. Judge Reed O'Connor in Texas said in 2023 that 'Boeing's crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history.' Boeing has faced enhanced scrutiny from the Federal Aviation Administration since January 2024, when a new MAX 9 missing four key bolts suffered a mid-air emergency losing a door plug. The FAA has capped production at 38 planes per month. DOJ officials last year found Boeing had violated a 2021 agreement, reached during the Trump administration's final days, that had shielded the planemaker from prosecution. That conclusion followed the January 2024 in-flight emergency during an Alaska Airlines' flight. As a result, DOJ officials decided to reopen the older fatal crashes case and negotiate a plea agreement with Boeing.
