A legal fight is playing out around a Mexican migrant activist accused of human trafficking
On Tuesday, Mexico's Attorney General's Office announced it will appeal the decision from the previous day to release Luis García Villagrán, who has helped organize migrant caravans that travel north from southern Mexico.
When García Villagrán was released from detention on Monday, Judge Jonathan Izquierdo in Tapachula, a city in the state of Chiapas on Mexico's border with Guatemala, said authorities did not have enough evidence to prosecute him for human trafficking.
'I had never seen anything like it,' Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said during the president's news briefing Tuesday. The judge ignored a multitude of presented evidence and claiming that because 'he was dedicated to protecting migrant groups, he was releasing' the suspect.
Gertz Manero added that his office would appeal but did not elaborate.
After his release, García Villagrán told reporters the 'judge ordered my release because he said that we do not belong to organized crime' but rather to the activist group Centro de Dignificación Humana AC, dedicated to protecting the rights of migrants and recognized by the Ministry of the Interior.
The activist-lawyer, who often accompanies migrant caravans, claimed that his arrest amounted to persecution by Mexican federal authorities for his activism.
Such caravans have been criticized by authorities, and are regularly blocked by law enforcement, but have been used as a mechanism for migrants to travel safely through an area that has largely been considered the most dangerous stretch of the journey to the United States.
President Claudia Sheinbaum and her predecessor President Andrés Manuel López Obrador have both emphasized the need to protect migrants, but under pressure from the United States have deployed immigration agents and the National Guard to try to keep migrants from reaching the U.S. border. There have long been accusations that smugglers take advantage of the caravans to move people north.
When he was arrested last week, García Villagrán was helping organize a new caravan of up to 300 people that was to leave Tapachula. The march began its walk toward central Mexico and has so far advanced only a few miles (kilometers).
Authorities say García Villagrán had been wanted for years and that his arrest followed a series of investigations that identified a network of human traffickers using various migrant support organizations as a 'front' for 'human trafficking and drug distribution' in Mexico.
García Villagrán was identified as the 'person in charge of obtaining false documentation' for the passage of migrants through Mexico, in addition to operating as 'one of the main promoters of migrant caravans' and having an outstanding arrest warrant.
His arrest even drew comments from Sheinbaum who said during her daily news briefing on Wednesday that he was 'not an activist' but was tied to trafficking people — and 'that is the crime.'
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NBC News
30 minutes ago
- NBC News
Trump administration hits hurdles as it builds a key immigrant detention facility
Later this week, the Trump administration is set to open a sprawling new immigration detention facility at Fort Bliss in Texas that is slated to eventually become the largest in the nation. The opening comes after months of setbacks, including two investigations into possible improper bidding, two canceled contracts and, most recently, a death on the construction site. The facility, which will open with capacity to hold 1,000 people, is a key part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's moves to more than double the space it has nationwide to detain immigrants as the Trump administration pushes for more arrests and the agency prepares for a historic influx of cash. Once seen as the answer to ICE's detention space crunch — after a previous attempt at an answer, the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, failed — Fort Bliss is now also an example of the complications that can arise when ICE scrambles to expand detention. The agency has been under intense pressure from White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and others in the Trump administration to quickly ramp up the number of immigrants it arrests. It is currently holding a record 60,000 immigrants in detention, according to an ICE official. And it is out of space. 'It's safe to say all ICE field offices are looking for more ICE detention space,' another ICE official told NBC News. Like the 'Alligator Alcatraz' camp that Florida has built to detain immigrants, the facility at Fort Bliss is a temporary, soft-sided tent style structure. ICE is increasingly leaning toward building that kind of detention space rather than brick and mortar facilities. Last week, two of the major private prison companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group, both of which are heavily involved in ICE detention, told shareholders they expect soft-sided facilities to be a majorpart of the push to ramp up capacity, in part because the government can get them up and running much faster. 'You can't build a brick and mortar newly built facility in probably less than two years,' one former Department of Homeland Security official said. In order to expand detention capacity, though, ICE needs money. And though the Republican tax and spending act known as the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' provides $45 billion for that purpose, those dollars have not yet started to flow. Once they do, there may still be obstacles. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, under whose purview ICE falls, has instituted a new guideline at ICEthat requires any expenditure over $100,000 to be personally approved by her, which may also slow new construction, according to a private prison industry executive. (As NBC News has previously reported, Noem instituted a similar rule at FEMA, which she also oversees.) In a statement to NBC News about the approvals, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the department is 'rooting out waste, fraud, abuse, and is reprioritizing appropriated dollars.' 'Secretary Noem is delivering accountability to the U.S. taxpayer, which Washington bureaucrats have ignored for decades at the expense of American citizens,' McLaughlin said. But a current DHS official, three former DHS officials and the private prison industry executive all told NBC News that, while tent facilities are faster to build, they cost more in the long run. The federal government's cost per immigrant in a typical brick and mortar single adult detention center is roughly $125-$165 per night, according to one of the former DHS officials and the private prison industry executive. But the cost per detainee in a tent facility can be more than double that because of the added expenses related to providing things like food, laundry, air conditioning and running water in the remote areas where tent facilities are being built. Security is also a logistical challenge because it is easier for detainees to escape soft-sided structures, so tent facilities typically need more security staff on site. In the past, tent facilities have been used by Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Health and Human Services to hold migrants who had just crossed the border. But those facilities are intended to hold people only for short periods of time. CBP is only allowed to hold people for 72 hours for processing, after which they are either released, returned to Mexico or sent to ICE. And HHS prioritizes sending children to family members or other U.S. adult sponsors as quickly as possible. The Biden administration housed children who came across the border without guardians in tents at Fort Bliss in 2021. Whistleblowers decried the conditions inside and said the facility was mismanaged. Now, though, the administration envisions holding immigrants in tent facilities for the period between when they are arrested and when they are deported, which can span six months or even longer in some cases. That idea was first put to the test after Trump decided in the first weeks of his new term that he wanted to use the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as a facility with capacity to hold 30,000 immigrants. Many people even within the administration were surprised by the decision and Trump's announcement of it, but they immediately moved to implement his plan. By March, though, as NBC News has previously reported, there was a recognition within the administration that it was not truly workable, and attention started shifting to places like Fort Bliss. As of mid-May, Guantánamo had only held a total of 500 immigrants, and never more than 200 at any one time. In response to questions regarding the use of soft-sided facilities, McLaughlin told NBC News that DHS is 'pursuing all available options to expand bedspace capacity' and 'calling on more states and local governments to help expand detention capacity.' Problems at Fort Bliss DHS had asked the Department of Defense to look into alternative locations for detention centers, including Fort Bliss, in February, shortly after the administration moved on from the plan to hold 30,000 people at Guantánamo, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News at the time. The effort since then to get even 1,000 new beds up and running at Fort Bliss has been fraught with challenges. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE detention is not supposed to be punitive. Under court settlements, the facilities ICE uses must meet certain standards, providing for instance air conditioning, running water, and access to daily showers and hot meals. Part of the challenge of building at Fort Bliss, a 1.12 million acre Army base in a desert location, is that Camp East Montana, the immigrant detention site there, requires its own sewage, plumbing and electrical systems, meaning contractors must work to bring in infrastructure such as portable showers. The project has been the subject of at least two investigations by the Government Accountability Office for potentially improper bidding. A contract to build the facility was first put out for bid after DHS started looking into Fort Bliss in February, awarded to a company,then canceled by late April. A public posting about the cancelation cited an executive order signed by Trump dealing with 'radical transparency' and 'wasteful spending.' The contract went out for bid again weeks later, this time offering it as two separate projects: One for building the facility, and one for running it. That offer was pulled before it was awarded; it is unclear why. Finally in late July, it was awarded under a Navy contract program meant for small businesses, and construction began. One of the former ICE officials told NBC News that running the contract through the Navy program guaranteed quick funding, but meant the work didn't have the direct supervision by ICE that it would have under the typical process. Instead, while it is a Navy contract, the Army is in charge of ensuring workplace safety while the facility is built for ICE. The value of the contract for building the facility reportedly totals $1.2 billion; public records show the Army having contributed about $232 million of that. The Acquisition Logistics Company, which has been serving as the top contractor overseeing the project, has come under scrutiny recently. According to public records, Acquisition Logistics is a small business run by Kenneth Wagner, 77, out of his single family home in Virginia. Prior to this contract the company's largest contract, according to public records, appears to have been worth $16 million. The company's website currently presents little information aside from an address and a header saying 'Site maintenance in progress.' Attempts to reach Wagner were unsuccessful — his voicemail was full, and an email sent to an address previously listed on the website bounced back. An archived copy of the site says the company was founded in 2008 as a 'veteran-owned, small disadvantaged business specializing in the entire acquisition-logistics lifecycle.' It also touted work it said it had done for the Marine Corps, FAA, Army and National Park Service. A call to the company's chief operating officer was not returned. After the contract was awarded to Acquisition Logistics, one of the companies that did not win, Gemini Tech Services, lodged a protest, but construction moved forward. On Monday, Gemini Tech Services filed a complaint in federal court. The complaint is sealed, but a source familiar with it told NBC News that the company is seeking an immediate injunction to stop construction. Beyond questions about the contracting process at Fort Bliss, there has also been tragedy. On July 21, 38-year-old Hector Gonzalez, who was employed by Disaster Management Group, one of multiple subcontractors on the project, died in a workplace accident. 'Hector was a beloved husband, father, son, brother and co-worker and he will be greatly missed. Our support and prayers are with his entire family,' said DMG spokesperson Tom McNicholas, who confirmed Gonzalez's death. The accident is currently under investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, according to agency statements. DMG has since posted a job opening for a Site Safety Manager out of El Paso tasked with overseeing accident prevention plans and documenting safety incidents. Asked by NBC News about Gonzalez's death, DHS did not specifically comment on the matter, and referred all contracting questions regarding Camp East Montana to DOD. 'We are aware of a GAO protest for the Acquisition Logistics contract. We cannot discuss specifics because the issue is currently in litigation. However, we can confirm that this protest is unrelated to the recent death, which is under investigation,' an Army spokesperson said.
Washington Post
30 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Lawmakers visit Baltimore ICE site accused of ‘inhumane' conditions
Two weeks after most of Maryland's congressional delegation staged a sit-in at a controversial immigration enforcement facility in Baltimore, lawmakers returned for a guided tour on Wednesday and said they were still being stonewalled about how detainees are being treated inside. 'We leave here with more questions than we came in with,' said Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Maryland). Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers have been using rooms in the agency's Baltimore field office as a holding area for people arrested amid President Donald Trump's ramped-up immigration enforcement. In Maryland, where a 2021 state law bars privately run immigration detention centers, the field office functions as the agency's primary holding facility for detainees awaiting transfer out of state. Civil rights groups have filed lawsuits in three states — including Maryland — alleging the holding facilities are not equipped for days-long detentions. And as arrests have increased, so too have concerns from immigrant rights groups and Democrats about a lack of adequate facilities. In May, the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and the National Immigration Project filed a federal lawsuit alleging 'inhumane conditions' in the Baltimore holding rooms. The lawsuit alleges detainees have been denied access to showers, blankets and medical care. In New York, a federal judge ruled in a similar case this week that the Trump administration must improve conditions in a Manhattan holding facility where a government lawyer acknowledged detainees were sleeping on the floor. Another lawsuit is pending in Los Angeles. The Trump administration has dismissed the concerns. Worries about conditions in the Baltimore holding facility and other ICE detention facilities prompted a dozen Democratic lawmakers from across the country, including Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), to file a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and ICE last month, saying each had been blocked from conducting oversight at federal detention facilities. That lawsuit came two days after six members of Maryland's congressional delegation tried to visit the Baltimore field office, only to be turned away. At the time, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that 'these Members of Congress could have just scheduled a tour; instead, they're running to court to drive clicks and fundraising emails.' Mfume said the lawmakers did request a visit in advance. Earlier this summer, DHS tightened rules for congressional oversight visits, arguing field offices — such as the one in Baltimore — fall outside congressional purview to inspect detention facilities. Three Democratic lawmakers representing Maryland — Mfume, Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Sarah Elfreth — returned Wednesday after ICE reached out and the parties scheduled a visit. During the tour, the three lawmakers said, they were able to observe three large rooms and two small ones, which held a handful of people. 'It has the kind of cold feeling that you would find in any police station,' Mfume said. The day was an unusually slow one for the Baltimore field office, Van Hollen said. That was because Maryland ICE personnel have been tasked with assisting efforts in other states and D.C., leading to less enforcement activity in Maryland in recent days, he said they were told. Lawmakers characterized their visit as lacking transparency. They said they raised about 20 to 25 issues with the ICE personnel who led the tour, including Nikita Baker, the acting director of the Baltimore field office, but did not receive immediate answers. 'We are going to continue to run those questions down,' Elfreth said. 'We're going to continue this drumbeat to make sure that ICE is transparent and accountable.' ICE did not respond to questions from The Washington Post about the living conditions in the facility, how long it is holding people there and why it turned away the members of Congress during their earlier visit. Van Hollen and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Maryland) had raised concerns about the facility with the Department of Homeland Security in an April letter, noting that it lacked a food service program and bed space, describing ICE staff members procuring emergency foil blankets and inflatable beds. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem wrote back in June that holding people for more than 12 hours was necessary because of limitations on space as a result of restrictions in the Maryland Dignity Not Detention Act. 'ICE is committed to safe, secure, and humane environments for all of those in ICE custody and will ensure appropriate conditions for confinement,' Noem wrote. Though ICE did not answer questions about how many people have been detained at the facility since the start of Trump's second term, representatives did tell them more than 100 people had been at the facility at one time, Van Hollen said. 'This is a lot of people to cram into a relatively small space,' he said. The lawmakers were denied the opportunity to speak to any detainees, Van Hollen said. 'Clearly they don't want us talking to the people who are detained here today and in the future,' he said.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Jeffrey Epstein is dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is not': Sex trafficker fights DOJ move to unseal grand jury records
Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein who after his death was convicted of sex trafficking girls and young women as his accomplice, is opposing the government's requests to unseal the grand jury transcripts in her criminal case. The Trump administration has been firefighting the fallout from the so-called 'Epstein Files' since the DOJ released a memo last month that contained little new information and concluded no further investigation was warranted into the late sex offender's alleged sex trafficking scheme. Since the uproar, which has included Republican lawmakers and many from his MAGA base, President Donald Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to make public 'any and all pertinent' grand jury transcripts in the Epstein and Maxwell criminal cases. Experts say these documents only account for a small fraction of the files related to the investigations. The grand jury transcripts are sealed, and Maxwell's attorneys say she wants to keep them that way as she continues to make appeals to the Trump administration to toss or lessen her prison sentence. The 63-year-old is serving 20 years after being convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking and other counts for her role in the scheme to sexually exploit and abuse teenage girls and young women with Epstein. Her attorneys have taken an appeal of her conviction to the Supreme Court. 'Jeffrey Epstein is dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is not,' Maxwell's attorneys wrote in a Tuesday filing. The public interest in the Epstein case 'cannot justify a broad intrusion into grand jury secrecy in a case where the defendant is alive, her legal options are viable, and her due process rights remain.' The Supreme Court will consider whether to take up her appeal in September. If the judge allowed the transcripts to be unsealed before then, her lawyers argued, the documents could impact any future litigation. Releasing the raw transcripts would 'inevitably influence any future legal proceeding' and cause 'severe and irrevocable' reputational harm, her attorneys said. Maxwell has never been allowed to review the documents. Her lawyers asked the court to deny the government's motion to unseal the transcripts. The judges overseeing the cases previously asked the government to address legal questions before they can consider releasing them. On Monday, the DOJ gave the judges annotated versions of the transcripts, identifying what information is not publicly available. However in an attached memo, Bondi admitted that 'much' of the information in the transcripts is already in the public domain. 'The enclosed, annotated transcripts show that much of the information provided during the course of the grand jury testimony—with the exception of the identities of certain victims and witnesses—was made publicly available at trial or has otherwise been publicly reported through the public statements of victims and witnesses,' Bondi wrote. The attorney general also noted that the government has provided notice about its requests to unseal transcripts to all but one of the victims referenced in the documents. 'The Government still has been unable to contact that remaining victim,' she wrote. After meeting with the DOJ last week, Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida to the Federal Prison Camp Bryan in southeast Texas. The Florida prison was classified as a minimum security prison, where she was detained in an 'honor dorm' for the best-behaved inmates, and activities included yoga and pilates. The Texas prison mainly houses those convicted of 'white-collar' crimes and minor offenses and boasts a sports field, gym, arts and crafts activities, and a theater program. Earlier this week, two of Epstein's victims criticized the Trump administration's handling of the case. The victims remained anonymous and filed their letters in the New York case related to the late pedophile. 'The latest attention on the 'Epstein Files', the 'Client List' is OUT OF CONTROL and the ones that are left to suffer are not the high-profile individuals, IT IS THE VICTIMS. Why the lack of concern in handling such sensitive information for the victims sake?' one wrote in a Monday filing. Another wrote: 'Dear United States, I wish you would have handled and would handle the whole 'Epstein Files' with more respect towards and for the victims. I am not some pawn in your political warfare.' Furor has mounted over the administration's handling of the case since the Justice Department released its July 6 Epstein memo. In it, the DOJ confirmed that Epstein died by suicide and said there was no evidence to support the existence of a 'client list' of high-profile individuals involved in his alleged sex trafficking. The memo put to an end months-long anticipation for new Epstein information. In February, Bondi had released 'Phase 1' of the files, a tranche of documents that included mostly publicly available information. She also suggested that the 'client list'was sitting on her desk. Parts of Trump's MAGA base and prominent lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for heightened transparency around the Epstein files. Those calls grew louder after the Wall Street Journal published a report last month claiming that the president drew a sexually suggestive 50th birthday card for Epstein in 2003. Trump has vehemently denied making the card and sued the Journal in a $10 billion defamation case. The Wall Street Journal also reported that DOJ officials told the president in May that his name, among many others, had appeared in the Epstein Files. Being named in the files does not suggest any wrongdoing. The president's name was reportedly redacted from documents as the administration prepared for their potential public release, Bloomberg reported last week. The Trump administration has declared itself the 'most transparent' in history.
