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    ‘I’m an American, Bro!’: Latinos Report Raids in Which U.S. Citizenship Is Questioned

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    A raid in Montebello, Calif., has stirred fears that federal agents are detaining and racially profiling U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent.They swept into the Southern California car lot last Thursday at 4:32 p.m. — masked and armed Border Patrol agents in an unmarked white S.U.V.One agent soon twisted Jason Brian Gavidia’s arm and pressed him against a black metal fence outside the lot where he runs an auto body shop in Montebello, a working-class suburb east of the Los Angeles city limits. Another officer then asked him an unusual question to prove whether he was a U.S. citizen or an undocumented immigrant.“What hospital were you born at?” the Border Patrol agent asked.Mr. Gavidia, 29, was born only a short drive from where they were standing, in East Los Angeles. He did not know the hospital’s name. “I was born here,” he shouted at the agent, adding, “I’m an American, bro!”A witness filmed video of a Border Patrol agent twisting Jason Brian Gavidia’s arm, while another agent asked him which hospital he was born at.Jonathan De JesusMr. Gavidia was eventually released as he stood on the sidewalk. But another U.S. citizen, Javier Ramirez, 32 — Mr. Gavidia’s friend and co-worker — had been forced facedown to the ground by two agents in the car lot. Mr. Ramirez was put inside a van and driven to a federal detention center, where he remains in custody. Mr. Ramirez’s lawyer said that officials at the detention center had denied his request to speak to his client.“I know enough to know this is not right at all,” Mr. Gavidia said in an interview. “Latinos in general are getting attacked. We’re all getting attacked.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      2 of 4 Men Who Escaped From Immigration Detention Center Are Caught

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      The men had been on the lam for three days after breaking out of the Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark.Two of the four men who escaped from an immigration detention center in New Jersey on Thursday have been captured, federal authorities said on Sunday.The men, Joel Enrique Sandoval-Lopez of Honduras and Joan Sebastian Castaneda-Lozada of Colombia, were taken into custody after three days on the run, according to a spokeswoman from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was unclear on Sunday where or how the men were tracked down.The authorities are still searching for the other two men, Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes of Honduras and Andres Pineda-Mogollon of Colombia, the spokeswoman said.The men escaped from Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, an overcrowded center where conditions in recent weeks have continued to deteriorate.Some detainees have been forced to sleep on the floor, and others were given slices of bread instead of a meal, immigration lawyers and family members told The New York Times. The detainees, they said, had become so frustrated with the conditions that they had begun to cover up the security cameras and smash walls and windows.The disorder has raised questions about the center and others like it around the country, where about 51,000 migrants are being held.The 1,000-bed facility is run by GEO Group, a private company that has come under public scrutiny for the building’s poor construction and bad management. GEO Group won a 15-year, $1 billion contract from the Trump administration in February to convert the building into a detention center.On Friday, Senator Andy Kim and Representative Rob Menendez of New Jersey, both Democrats, toured the center. After the tour, Mr. Kim said at a news conference that the men who escaped had punched a hole through an exterior wall, which was “essentially just drywall with some mesh inside.”“It shows just how shoddy construction was,” Mr. Kim added.In a news release on Friday, the Department of Homeland Security said that “there has been no widespread unrest at the Delaney Hall Detention facility” and that the “privately held facility remains dedicated to providing high-quality services.”Christopher Ferreira, a GEO Group spokesman, issued a similar statement and noted that the company offered services including medical care, family visitations and opportunities to exercise religious faiths.The men who escaped had been arrested on criminal charges in New Jersey. Mr. Sandoval-Lopez was arrested twice in Passaic, once on Oct. 3 on charges of unlawful possession of a handgun and once on Feb. 15 on a charge of aggravated assault, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Castaneda-Lozada was arrested in Hammonton on May 15 on several charges, including burglary.Mr. Bautista-Reyes was arrested in Wayne Township, N.J., on May 3 on several charges, including assault and illegal possession of a weapon, the agency said. Mr. Pineda-Mogollon was arrested on May 21 on burglary charges. More

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      Trump Shifts Deportation Focus, Pausing Raids on Farms, Hotels and Eateries

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      The abrupt pivot on an issue at the heart of Mr. Trump’s presidency suggested his broad immigration crackdown was hurting industries and constituencies he does not want to lose.The Trump administration has abruptly shifted the focus of its mass deportation campaign, telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants, according to an internal email and three U.S. officials with knowledge of the guidance.The decision suggested that the scale of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign — an issue that is at the heart of his presidency — is hurting industries and constituencies that he does not want to lose.The new guidance comes after protests in Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s immigration raids, including at farms and businesses. It also came as Mr. Trump made a rare concession this week that his crackdown was hurting American farmers and hospitality businesses.The guidance was sent on Thursday in an email by a senior ICE official, Tatum King, to regional leaders of the ICE department that generally carries out criminal investigations, including work site operations, known as Homeland Security Investigations.“Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,” he wrote in the message.The email explained that investigations involving “human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling into these industries are OK.” But it said — crucially — that agents were not to make arrests of “non criminal collaterals,” a reference to people who are undocumented but who are not known to have committed any other crime.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Deployment of Troops to L.A. Protests Is a Do-Over of 2020

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      President Trump was talked out of deploying the military to crush the George Floyd protests in 2020. He always regretted it.In 2020, as racial justice protests swept through the country over the murder of George Floyd, President Trump was itching to deploy the military to crush the unrest. He was talked out of it by his top national security advisers, who feared that such a decision would be viewed as moving toward martial law.Five years later, as protests against his immigration policies began to swell in Los Angeles, Mr. Trump said he had learned his lesson.“I’ll never do that again,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday, about waiting to send in the National Guard in 2020. “If I see problems brewing,” he added, “I’m not going to wait two weeks.”With the Los Angeles protests, Mr. Trump has seized the chance to make up for his first-term regret.His decision to send in federal troops right away, taking the extraordinary step of deploying active-duty military to deal with domestic unrest, fits into the larger pattern of Mr. Trump operating without any significant pushback from the people around him in his second term.“He saw the military as his reactionary arm,” said Olivia Troye, a former homeland security official and aide to former Vice President Mike Pence. Ms. Troye said she witnessed multiple national security officials explain to Mr. Trump in 2020 that the military takes an oath to the Constitution — not Mr. Trump — and that it should not be turned against American citizens, even protesters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      I Had an Affair With a Politician Who Denies Being Gay. Do I Keep His Secret?

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      Is what happened between us my story to tell?Many years ago, I had a brief relationship with another young man. We had sex once, and he wanted to continue but asked me to keep it secret because he was in politics. I was a hotheaded gay activist, and I refused on principle, ending the affair. He went on to become one of the most prominent politicians in his country. He was a single man for a long time, but when asked about his sexuality he denied being gay. He eventually married a woman and lives a putatively heterosexual life.I am a writer. Is what happened between us my story to tell, or is it his story to (still) hide? Is he entitled to privacy? Am I obligated to keep his name a secret even though I didn’t agree to do that at the time, and when asked to keep it quiet I refused? — Name WithheldFrom the Ethicist:Let’s start with the obvious questions: Why now, after all this time? What would you hope to gain from this disclosure? You say that this man is a prominent politician in “his country” (which is presumably not your own), but you don’t indicate that you think he’s a threat to the common good. Is what moves you a belated desire for recognition? A murky wish to be acknowledged in a story that has long since moved on without you — to insert yourself in someone else’s Wikipedia page?Sexual intimacy presupposes a measure of respect for the privacy of those involved. Would your brief encounter have occurred had you announced in advance that you felt free to publish the names of your sexual partners? And there’s an ethical weight that comes with holding in your hands another person’s private life, or an episode of it, anyway. You don’t know how he now thinks of his own sexuality, what his wife knows, how they’ve shaped their lives together or what accommodations have been made in the privacy of a life that has nothing to do with you anymore. Before you risk bruising another family, perhaps it’s worth closing your laptop and pausing to consider: Do you really have good reason to change course and stop honoring the intimacy of your youthful affair?Once a story like this reaches the media, especially social media, it can spiral far beyond your control. Depending on the political culture of his country, what begins as a personal anecdote can quickly turn into a public spectacle. The result could be more intrusive, more destructive and more lasting than you anticipate — for him, his family and for you. You can send a story out into the world, but you can’t call it home.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Detention and Deportation As Seen Through a Family Group Chat

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      <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–> Livan (teammate) Feb. 15 8:55 AM 7:07 PM <!–> [–><!–>Carlos knew he fit the profile of a “criminal alien” the Trump administration had pledged to target. Not long after coming to the United States from Venezuela, he had been convicted of fraud. But he had served […] More

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      2 New York Representatives Are Denied Access to ICE Facility

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      Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez were turned away when seeking to inspect a migrant detention area inside a Manhattan federal building.Federal officials prevented two members of Congress on Sunday from entering an immigration detention facility in Manhattan where the representatives were seeking to investigate reports of overcrowding, stifling heat and migrants sleeping on bathroom floors.The representatives, Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez, both Democrats from New York, said officials at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building had denied them access to the 10th-floor detention area because it was a “sensitive facility.”The building, at 26 Federal Plaza, a few blocks from City Hall, has been the site of recent protests against the transport of migrants there by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It also houses immigration courts where ICE has been making arrests in recent weeks.Members of Congress are allowed special access to any Department of Homeland Security facility, including those operated by ICE, as long as they give at least 24 hours’ advance notice, according to visitation guidelines.“Today, ICE violated all of our rights,” Representative Espaillat said at a news conference on Sunday after being turned away. “We deserve to know what’s going on on the 10th floor.”He added, “If there’s nothing wrong, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to go in to see it.”Representative Velázquez said she was outraged about being turned away. “Our duty is to supervise any federal building,” she said.“This is not Russia; this is the United States of America,” she added. “The president of the United States is not a king.”A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said Sunday evening that the lawmakers had shown up unannounced. ICE officials had told them, she said, that they “would be happy to give them a tour with a little more notice, when it would not disrupt ongoing law enforcement activities and sensitive law enforcement items could be put away.”The representatives arrived a day after dozens of protesters at the complex tried to block ICE vehicles carrying migrants. Many held up signs, including some that said “Stop Deportations!” and “To Get Our Neighbors You Have To Get Through Us!”That demonstration erupted in a clash with police officers, some of whom blasted protesters with pepper spray. The police said 22 people were taken into custody. Most were issued summonses or asked to return to court at a later date, according to a spokesman for the Manhattan district attorney.“This is the nightmare scenario we’ve been taught to fear since childhood,” said John Mark Rozendaal, 64, of Manhattan, who has protested at the building over the last three weeks.We need to “stand up to the repression that’s coming into our nation,” he added.Santiago Castro, 28, a student who is from Colombia, said he had come to the demonstration for a personal reason: ICE agents arrested his father in Manhattan on Tuesday.Mr. Castro said he was demonstrating “for my family.” More

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      ‘Carol,’ Whose Detention Rattled Her Small Missouri Town, Is Released

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      Ming Li Hui’s detention by the immigration authorities brought the reality of President Trump’s immigration crackdown to rural Missouri, where supporters rallied for her freedom.An immigrant waitress from Hong Kong whose looming deportation brought home the reality of President Trump’s immigration crackdown to her conservative Missouri hometown was freed on Wednesday after more than a month in jail.“They released me,” the waitress, Ming Li Hui, better known as Carol to everyone in Kennett, Mo., said in a voice mail message left for her lawyer and relayed to The New York Times.Her lawyer, Raymond Bolourtchi, said Ms. Hui, 45, had been released under a federal immigration program that offers a “temporary safe haven” to immigrants from Hong Kong and a handful of other countries who are concerned about returning there. The so-called deferred enforced departure gives Ms. Hui a reprieve but does not guarantee her future in the United States.“By no means are we in the clear,” Mr. Bolourtchi said. “But at this point I’m optimistic. It’s an immediate sigh of relief.”Ms. Hui, who was born in Hong Kong, entered the United States 20 years ago on a short-term tourist visa and stayed long past its expiration, in the process building a life, having three children and becoming a beloved waitress serving waffles and hugs to the breakfast crowd at a diner in Kennett, a rural farming town in the Bootheel of Missouri.She was ordered deported more than a decade ago but had been able to stay in the country through a series of temporary permissions from the immigration authorities that ended abruptly with her arrest in late April.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More