Farmworker's death is first linked to Trump's ICE raids
His death marks the first fatality in one of the Trump administration's anti-immigration operations.
Alanis was the sole provider for his family in Mexico, having worked at the farm for a decade.
The Department of Homeland Security stated Alanis was not being pursued and was not in custody, claiming he climbed onto the roof and fell 30 feet.
The raid led to the arrest of approximately 200 individuals suspected of being in the country illegally, alongside protests from crowds outside the facility.
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The Guardian
18 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Republicans move to block Democratic effort to force release of Epstein files
Republican lawmakers have moved to block a Democratic effort to force the release of the so-called Epstein files, a near-mythological trove of undisclosed information about the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at the center of an internal political war among US conservatives. Democrats had been pressing for an amendment to cryptocurrency legislation that would have forced the release of information and exhibits itemized in a list of evidence held by the justice department from the 2019 child sex-trafficking case against the disgraced financier Epstein. Donald Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, teased a full accounting of the Epstein evidence, including a purported client list earlier this year. But 10 days ago, she changed course when she announced that the Trump administration had reviewed the evidence, concluded that Epstein had indeed killed himself in jail, and decided not to release the contents that the justice department said included a thousand hours of video depicting child sexual abuse. That set off a firestorm within Trump's conspiracy-minded 'Make America great again' (Maga) movement that the president has since tried to calm. Democrats had weighed in on the issue, hoping to force a release of the documents. 'The question with Epstein is: Whose side are you on?' California Democratic US House member Ro Khanna, the author of the Epstein measure, told Axios. 'Are you on the side of the rich and powerful, or are you on the side of the people?' Khanna promised to introduce the amendment 'again and again and again'. But Republicans on the US House rules committee voted down the amendment that would have allowed Congress to vote on whether the evidence – which includes micro cassettes, DVDs, CDs including one labelled 'girl pics nude book 4', computer hard drives and three massage tables in green, beige and brown – should be released. Yet the federal case against Epstein, which dates back to 2005 and involves a mysterious plea deal that allowed to the financier to plead guilty to Florida state charges of solicitation of a minor, continues to challenge what political hardliners on the right and left believe is evidence of a nefarious nexus of international power. The debacle has pitted Bondi and Trump – who was friends with Epstein, his Florida neighbor for many years, before disowning him – against the deputy FBI director, Dan Bongino. Bongino reportedly clashed with Bondi over the Epstein case and considered resigning as Maga megaphones including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Megyn Kelly have called for the release of the Epstein files. In 2023, Bongino said on his rightwing podcast: 'That Jeffrey Epstein story is a big deal. Please do not let that story go. Keep your eye on it.' The Daily Beast reported that Trump is furious at Bongino, who has not shown up for work since 9 July after a shouting match erupted between him and Bondi. Trump has sided with Bondi, leaving Bongino's future at the FBI open to question, and the vice-president, JD Vance, was evidently called in to mediate, according to CNN. Those developments unfolded as a recent CNN poll found that half of Americans are dissatisfied with the amount of information the government has released on Epstein's case. The poll found that Democrats and independents were relatively equal in the sense of dissatisfaction (at 56% and 52%, respectively) – but Republicans polled at 40% dissatisfaction. Just 3% of those polled said they were satisfied with the amount of Epstein-related information released by the government. On Monday, the drama turned to the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's convicted co-conspirator in the sex-trafficking case, who has appealed to the US supreme court to uphold a non-prosecution agreement contained in Epstein's Florida plea deal. The US justice department petitioned the court to deny Maxwell, 63, who is serving a 20-year sentence, the request. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion 'I'd be surprised if President Trump knew his lawyers were asking the supreme court to let the government break a deal,' Maxwell's attorney, David Oscar Markus, said in a statement emailed to the Guardian. 'He's the ultimate dealmaker – and I'm sure he'd agree that when the United States gives its word, it should keep it. With all the talk about who's being prosecuted and who isn't, it's especially unfair that Ghislaine Maxwell remains in prison based on a promise the government made and broke.' But Congress could now call on Maxwell to testify. Citing anonymous sources, the Daily Mail reported on Monday that Maxwell is interested in doing that. In some circumstances, under federal rule 35, a convicted felon can negotiate a reduction in sentence in exchange for cooperation. Nonetheless, the government has shown little interest in doing that, especially when Maxwell was maintaining her innocence and appealing her conviction. Prosecutors made clear at the time that they considered the case closed and would not go after lesser alleged figures in the sex-trafficking conspiracy. 'It all depends on who she would be cooperating against, and what she has to offer,' defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman told the Guardian after Maxwell's conviction in 2021. 'I would not be surprised if she had already tried to cooperate and it had failed. 'Of all the people supposedly involved with Epstein, 99% of them never made it into the government's evidence,' Lichtman added, venturing that the government may have been trying 'to avoid any frolic by the jury – that they'd get distracted by the bold-face names – but many people didn't get prosecuted here when it seems like they could have'.
Daily Mail
36 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
OnlyFans model gets very light sentence for selling jaguar cub to man she met online
An OnlyFans model who posed provocatively with wild animals has avoided jail after selling a jaguar cub to a drug dealer she met online - forcing the endangered cat into a series of shady sales, neglect, and abandonment. Trisha Denise Meyer, 43, of Houston, was sentenced Monday to six months' probation after pleading guilty to selling the cub, then named Amador, for $26,000 and illegally shipping it from Texas to California in 2021. She faced up to eight years in prison and a $700,000 fine, but prosecutors accepted a plea deal in which she copped to just one count and was ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution. The jaguar was bought by Abdul 'Mannie' Rahman, a marijuana dealer in Murrieta, California, who renamed it Hades and kept it in his five-bedroom home before reselling it to another man living with a pregnant partner. Concerned about having a jaguar around a newborn, the second buyer eventually dumped the cub - malnourished, covered in feces, and missing clumps of fur - at a wildlife sanctuary near San Diego. Now renamed Eddie, the cub lives safely at Lions Tigers & Bears sanctuary in Alpine, California. In one 2021 video, Meyer posted a clip Amador licking at the air while lying on her lap. 'thankful to be his momma #catmom,' she wrote. She even posed with the cub between her exposed breasts on OnlyFans. Rahman, who attended one of Meyer's $1,000-an-hour hotel meetups in Austin, told the Los Angeles Times: 'All I knew was the jaguar was cute, and I had the money, and I wanted it.' 'When I'm getting offered to buy a wild animal, and it's so cute when you see it, when it's small, who the f*** is gonna say no? No one will.' After Rahman posted photos of the cub online, Meyer allegedly texted him: 'If I got word of it here. That means others are seeing that & will snitch and they will be trying to track him down.' Eventually, social media clips of the cub caught the attention of sanctuary founder Bobbi Brink. 'All we knew at that point was that there was a jaguar in Riverside,' said California Fish and Wildlife warden Austin Smith. Federal law prohibits transporting endangered species across state lines - and California bans jaguar ownership outright. Brink said when the cub was dropped off in a dog crate. 'He was shaking and urinating in fear.' The staff named him Eddie after the construction worker who found him. Experts confirmed the jaguar's identity using influencer videos. 'It's pretty horrific to see that and to know that that happens,' said Mathias Tobler of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. 'People treating him like a little pet cat and passing him around for entertainment.' Lead investigator Ed Newcomer of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added: 'They are not animal lovers.' 'They are either in it for the money or they're in it for the obsession of collecting and owning and having and controlling.' Newcomer eventually traced the seller to Meyer. 'Instantly he said, 'That's Trish Meyer. We have been after her for years. She is notorious,' he recalled. A federal grand jury indicted Meyer in October 2022. She turned herself in after more than a month on the run. Rahman was also charged and sentenced in July 2023 to a year of probation and ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution. Meyer, who dubbed herself the 'Texas Zookeeper,' was no stranger to law enforcement. In 2016, she was arrested in Nevada with three tigers roaming the backyard. She was charged with child endangerment after a game warden saw her 14-year-old daughter petting tiger cubs, but the charge was later dropped. 'My child was never in danger, none of my four children have ever been in danger,' Meyer told a reporter after pleading guilty to a related theft charge involving a Savannah kitten. 'Nobody's been hurt by our animals.' She called her kids 'young zookeepers,' and said teachers referred to her as the 'tiger mom.' Despite a ban on selling exotic animals, Meyer continued. In one case, she was accused of selling a diseased kitten that died of emaciation. In another, she allegedly sold a wild Geoffroy's cat disguised as a Bengal, which attacked the buyer. Despite her past, Meyer remains active on Instagram under the name @mimisexoticworld, where she now posts photos with a white tiger, lemur, and exotic birds. Her bio reads: 'I no longer sell animals.' Eddie, now weighing 118 pounds, lives in an enclosure with grass, climbing platforms, and a pool - next to a retired movie bear and a lion once used in entertainment. 'It's their forever home,' said sanctuary keeper John Schorman. 'It's a privilege watching all the animals thrive.'
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
ICE detains soon-to-be father in Washington state, pregnant wife pleads 'I just want him home'
ICE detained an expectant father in Washington state just months before his wife is scheduled to give birth. On Friday morning, Guilherme Lemes Cardoso E Silva was on his way to pick up his daughter in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, about 100 miles north of Seattle, when multiple unmarked ICE vehicles containing masked agents stopped him on a private road near his home, according to his wife, Rachel Leidig. Silva, originally from Brazil, is a 35-year-old visual artist currently based in Washington state. Photos posted to his Instagram account show some of his colorful work that can be seen across the country. Silva and Leidig met in 2023 at a Flaming Lips concert in San Francisco. The couple married in April and are expecting a baby boy in October. Silva — or Gui, as Leidig calls him — was meant to move to Sausalito, California, at the end of the month to be with Leidig. "He's just one of those people who it's like, when you meet him he's just so loving and warm and kind," Leidig said. "Anyone that genuinely knows Gui knows that he's an amazing person." Silva has no criminal record or outstanding warrants, Leidig said. Silva and Leidig were working with an immigration attorney and in the process of submitting an application to legalize his residency status in the U.S. when Silva was detained. After his detainment, Leidig submitted an I-130 form, or a "petition for alien relative." He was also in the process of renewing his work permit, Leidig said. According to Leidig, Silva told her that the ICE agents who detained him were rough with him and refused to show him a warrant. One agent confiscated his phone when he began recording the incident and others were making jokes during his arrest, she said. "They were behind him laughing and making jokes, saying they were glad they didn't make the news this time," Leidig said. Silva told Leidig that he was held in a holding cell for 38 hours in Ferndale where "the conditions were terrible" and he was given food that made him sick. He was also told to show his tattoos and asked if he had ever been affiliated with a gang, which he said he has never been. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A GoFundMe that was created by Leidig's friend to help support Silva's family and raise money for legal fees has amassed over $56,000 as of Tuesday afternoon. Silva is being held at a detention center in Tacoma, Washington, according to online records. Leidig says he has a court hearing at the end of the month, and she hopes he will be released then. "I just want him home, I want him to come home to me," Leidig said in tears. "We've been trying to do this legally and I want him to be here for the birth of our child, and I want him to be there for me and his son and for his daughter." Leidig says when Silva gets out, he wants to use his experience and law degree from Brazil to help others who are in his position. "He wants to make this a bigger purpose of helping other people," Leidig said.
