Miami-Dade's mayor is defending immigrants with moral clarity and courage
We thank Mayor Daniella Levine Cava for her leadership and encourage others to follow her example.
Miami-Dade is an exciting and culturally rich community largely because nearly half of our residents are first-generation immigrants.
People are drawn to Miami-Dade's melting pot of customs, languages, cuisine, music, art and businesses. Our mayor rightfully celebrates our county's rich diversity as a showcase of the American dream.
Our immigrant friends and neighbors are now being terrorized. They watch as many who have lived here for decades, worked hard, raised families, paid taxes and have no criminal history are taken into custody by ICE agents. Some are being held in the blazing heat in the tents that house cages hurriedly assembled on an abandoned airstrip in the historic Florida Everglades.
People will tolerate this dysfunction and cruelty if they perceive those in custody as less than human. The state's naming of the new detention facility 'Alligator Alcatraz' sends that message.
When powerful leaders broadly refer to immigrants as 'criminals,' 'illegals,' even 'animals,' they tell us we can look the other way.
Levine Cava consistently and repeatedly speaks out against this false narrative. She reminds us that each of us deserves to be treated with respect and humanity.
In her recent Miami Herald opinion article — 'Alligator Alcatraz is not who we are' — our mayor called out the 'federal immigration actions that prioritize fear and enforcement over compassion and justice.'
She called upon our national leaders, as she has done many times before, to implement policies that 'focus on securing our borders and deporting dangerous criminals, not removing protections for people who are following the law and helping build our economy.'
The mayor rightly has her eye on the economic health of the county. She understands that we need immigrants as our essential workers, entrepreneurs, consumers and taxpayers.
In other recent statements, Levine Cava has urged those with power over immigration policy to focus on keeping families together, not tearing them apart. She reminds us that sending people back to countries 'facing rampant violence, risks to personal safety and economic turmoil [is]... inhumane and unjust.'
Miami-Dade's mayor continues to speak the truth: overcrowded detention facilities are unsafe, with poor access to medical care. Contact with legal counsel is seriously compromised at Alligator Alcatraz, and its tents and cages will be deathtraps in a serious storm. It was built on county-owned land, which Gov. Ron DeSantis took control of with his declaration that immigration has caused a state of emergency in Florida.
As the top county officer, Levine Cava has repeatedly written our governor, seeking county access to monitor this newest detention facility.
We live in a time when bullying and demonizing behavior and language erode our norms of civility. Levine Cava's moral leadership is sorely needed. Let us heed her call that everyone in this community, regardless of race, ethnicity or ancestry be treated with respect, fairness and dignity. David Lawrence, Jr., is the former publisher of the Miami Herald and chair of the Children's Movement of Florida. Cheryl Little is a co-founder of Americans for Immigrant Justice and its executive director emeritus. Chris McAliley is a retired U.S. magistrate judge.
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USA Today
4 minutes ago
- USA Today
From bromance to bitterness, Trump-Putin relationship full of twists and turns
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European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have conducted days of panicked diplomacy in the lead-up to the high-stakes summit, which they were not invited to attend. Trump has said repeatedly that territorial concessions will be necessary to end the war. But he says he won't cut a deal when he sits down with Putin that forces Ukraine to give up land. Instead, he says, he'll 'feel out' Putin and see if there's an agreement to be had. More: Why is Alaska the 'most strategic place' for Trump-Putin meeting? It will be their seventh time meeting as the leaders of their respective countries; the first six of those happened during Trump's first term. Trump has also contradicted himself over the years about when he first met the Russian leader. Here's a look at the two leaders' journey from bromance to 'bulls----,' tracing how the Trump-Putin relationship started and stopped: 'Stablemates' Trump pondered whether Putin could become his 'new best friend' in a social media post on June 18, 2013, before the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. The real estate mogul told NBC : 'I do have a relationship, and I can tell you that he's very interested in what we're doing here today.' But the news outlet later reported that a meeting between the two never came to fruition. Trump then claimed during a presidential primary debate in 2015 that they got to know one another as 'stablemates' on an episode of CBS' '60 Minutes' that Trump taped in New York − and Putin taped in Moscow. More: Putin-Trump 'bromance' broadens post-sanctions 'I got to know him very well because we were both on '60 Minutes.' We were stablemates,' Trump said. Nevertheless, Trump would go on to say on the campaign trail, in February 2016, that he had 'no relationship' with Putin. "I'm saying that I'd possibly have a good relationship. He's been very nice to me," Trump said on April 28, 2016. Dmitry Peskov, a longtime spokesman for the Russian president, said in August 2016 that Putin had never had 'any contacts with Trump.' Trump rejects Russian meddling in 2016 At a news conference on July 27, 2016, Trump asked Russia 'to find' deleted emails of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, during comments about allegations of Russian hacking. 'I will tell you this, Russia: If you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,' Trump said. At the same news conference, Trump said: 'I never met Putin, I don't know who Putin is.' 'I've never spoken to him. I don't know anything about him other than he will respect me,' Trump said. Trump routinely dismissed reporting that Russia had hacked the Democratic National Committee throughout the general election – and beyond. He said during a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton on Sept. 27, 2016: 'I don't think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia. Maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia. But it could also be China. But it could also be lots of other people. It also could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?' Trump at his second debate with Clinton on Oct. 27, 2016, said, 'Maybe there is no hacking." 'But they always blame Russia. And the reason they blame Russia, because they think they're trying to tarnish me with Russia. I know nothing about Russia,' Trump said. But he acknowledged, on Jan. 11, 2017, as president-elect that Putin's government was involved. 'As far as hacking, I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people.' Trump's complicated relationship with Putin his first term The Justice Department appointed a special counsel on May 17, 2017, to investigate alleged ties between Trump campaign officials and Moscow as part of a probe into Russian meddling in the U.S. election. Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein tapped former FBI director Robert Mueller to lead the investigation. "As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know: There was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity," Trump said in response. Trump's first in-person meeting with Putin took place nearly two months later in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017. They met again in Helsinki, Finland, at a July 16, 2018 summit. At a joint news conference with Putin in Helsinki, Trump emphasized that there was 'no collusion' between his campaign and Russia. He said the allegations 'had a negative impact upon the relationship of the two largest nuclear powers in the world.' At that press conference Trump notably, rejected the intelligence community's assessment that Russia hacked the DNC. 'I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia,' Trump said. 'I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be.' The following year, the Department of Justice released a redacted version of Mueller's report on April 18, 2019. The investigation did not find evidence that Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia to meddle in the election. More: Trump said he'd end Ukraine war in 24 hours. Now his patience with Putin is wearing thin. Roughly two months later, Trump met with Putin during another G20 Summit. 'We have had a very, very good relationship. And we look forward to spending some pretty good time together,' Trump said at a meeting with Putin in Osaka, Japan, on June 28, 2019. Trump's relationship with Putin, and Zelenskyy was complicated in his first term. He was impeached on Dec. 18, 2019, by the House of Representatives for a July phone call, in which he was asked Zelenskyy to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden. He was acquitted by the Senate on Feb. 5, 2020 and lost the presidential election that year to Biden. Trump says he'd solve Ukraine war in one day Trump's relationship with Putin came under scrutiny again during the 2024 presidential campaign, this time over concerns that he'd abandon Ukraine and would not defend America's allies from Russian aggression. At a Conservative Political Action Conference appearance on March 4, 2023, Trump said that if he were elected, he'd resolve the war in one day. 'I'll meet with Putin, I'll meet with Zelenskyy. They both have weaknesses, and they both have strengths. And within 24 hours, that war will be settled. It will be over. It will be absolutely over,' Trump said at a CNN town hall on May 10, 2023. Trump told Biden at their debate on June 27, 2024, that if he won, he'd have the Ukraine war settled before he was inaugurated. Trump also pledged during his only debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, on Sept. 10, 2024, that he would end the Ukraine war before he took office, if elected. On Jan. 7, said he'd resolve the war within his first six months in office. Trump's relationship with Putin takes a dive Trump said he was considering sanctions on Russia on his second day in office, in response to a question from USA TODAY. Of a possible meeting with Putin, Trump told reporters: "Anytime they want." Trump spoke to Putin for the first time since returning to office on Feb. 12, 2025. It was the first time any American president had spoken to Putin since his February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine. The president berated Zelenskyy on live TV a little more than two weeks later in the Oval Office. But by April 24, 2025, it was Putin who he was blasting in a Truth Social post. 'I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP!' Trump wrote. After meeting with Zelenskyy in the Vatican while both men were in town for Pope Francis' funeral, Trump openly questioned whether Putin was deceiving him about ending the war. 'It makes me think that maybe he doesn't want to stop the war, he's just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through 'Banking' or 'Secondary Sanctions?' Too many people are dying!!!' Trump wrote on April 26, 2025. Trump told reporters the next month that he'd be willing to fly to Turkey to participate in direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy. But after Putin declined to attend, Trump indicated on May 15. 2025 on Air Force One that the war would not be resolved until he and Putin held their own summit. 'Look, nothing's going to happen until Putin and I get together, OK?" Trump said. Days later, on May 19, 2025, the president held a two-hour call with Putin that left Trump feeling optimistic. He said Russia and Ukraine would 'immediately' begin negotiations toward a ceasefire. Yet, after Russia continued aerial attacks on Kyiv, Trump lit into Putin on May 25, 2025. 'I'm not happy with what Putin is doing. He's killing a lot of people, and I don't know what the hell happened to Putin. I've known him a long time. Always gotten along with him, but he's sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don't like it at all,' Trump said. That same day Trump said on Truth Social that Putin had 'gone absolutely CRAZY.' Trump's last known conversation with Putin took place on July 3, 2025. Trump told reporters it did not yield progress. At a Cabinet meeting on July 8, Trump exploded. 'We get a lot of bulls---- thrown at us by Putin,' he said. Six days later, at meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump gave Russia 50 days to make a peace deal with Ukraine or face secondary tariffs and new sanctions. Trump later changed the deadline to Aug. 8 and put a higher tariff on India, which he linked to that country's purchase of Russian oil. But instead of announcing additional sanctions that day, Trump said an Alaskan summit with Putin had been planned. Strained relations with Putin, 25% chance of success As he prepared for the summit, Trump said on Aug. 13 that he did not expect Putin to quit attacks on civilian infrastructure, just because he'd asked him to. "I've had that conversation with him. I've had a lot of good conversations with him. Then I go home and I see that a rocket hit a nursing home, or a rocket hit an apartment building, and people are laying dead in the street," Trump told reporters. He blamed past allegations of Russian collusion for his inability to deter Putin and suggested Mueller's investigation was the beginning of the end of his positive relationship with Putin. "I knew him very well. I got along with him great, actually. I had to go through the Russia, Russia hoax. And it was actually, it was a strain on the relationship," Trump said. Trump said in an Aug. 14 radio interview with Fox News that he thought the summit had a 25% chance of success. 'This meeting sets up the second meeting. The second meeting is going to be very, very important because that's going to be a meeting where they make a deal," he said. Of the talks with Putin, he said: 'It's like a chess game.'
The Hill
4 minutes ago
- The Hill
Stephen Miller's revenge? Duke is now in the crosshairs
Duke University, my alma mater, largely escaped the national campus turmoil following Hamas's Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel and the Israeli military's subsequent brutal war on Gaza. There were no encampments or serious complaints of antisemitism. There were no reports of faculty harassment of supporters of Israel — just some verbal student altercations and a few peaceful demonstrations on Duke's leafy quads. Race-neutral admissions have kept the campus diverse, with an especially large Asian representation. Possibly as a result, university President Vincent Price was not among other university presidents subpoenaed and grilled by opportunistic members of Congress. In April, Price joined over 200 other university leaders, signing a joint resistance letter, perhaps assuming safety in numbers. 'We speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education,' the statement said. However laudable, this contrasted with more outspoken academic leaders, such as Harvard University's Alan Garber and Wesleyan University's Michael Roth. These have opposed the Trump administration's extortionate demands, risking cutoffs of federal research funding. Bard College President Leon Botstein said that Trump's campaign against colleges follows 'a classic antisemitic routine.' Yet Price's low-profile approach — effectively choosing 'Profiles in Prudence' over 'Profiles in Courage' — has not spared Duke. Nationwide, blanket research compensation cutbacks on all universities have already cost Duke 600 jobs, mostly through buyouts. Three thousand more positions may be at risk. Then came the July 28 l e tter, jointly signed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which strongly suggested that Duke's medical center may be guilty of 'vile racism' that 'hides behind a smug superiority.' Specifically — and without offering evidence — the letter states, 'These practices allegedly include illegal and wrongful racial preferences and discriminatory activity in recruitment, student admissions, scholarships and financial aid, mentoring and enrichment programs, hiring, promotion, and more.' The Department of Education is also separately investigating allegations that Duke Law School and the Duke Law Journal 'gave advantages to prospective editors from underrepresented groups.' On July 30, the Trump administration froze $108 million in Duke's federal research funding. Last year, the university said it spent $1.5 billion on research, almost 60 percent from government. Some on campus see in all this the malign hand of perhaps the most powerful Duke alum in the country, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, class of 2007. Miller, a conservative student firebrand on campus, may be out to settle some scores. Miller had a weekly column called 'Miller Time' in the Duke Chronicle, the daily student paper. His first missive, from September 2005, was titled ' Welcome to Leftist University.' He castigated Duke for hosting writer Maya Angelou, accusing her of 'racial paranoia.' In February 2006, Miller wrote, 'A large number of Duke professors have disregarded the basic tenets of academic freedom and abandoned their professional obligations. They indoctrinate students in their personal ideologies and prejudices and in so doing betray the very people who are supposed to be their paramount concern.' Even with additional or more draconian federal research funding cuts, Duke won't go broke. Its university endowment is $11.9 billion. The separate $3.6 billion Duke Endowment also supports it. However, drawing on these funds is severely restricted. Cuts could slow projects like the development of an HIV/AIDS vaccine. Some alumni and faculty were outraged. William Lawrence, a former Duke Divinity School faculty member and former dean of Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology, told me that the government's action 'revealed the deadly depravity of those public officials' who composed and sent it. The 'vile racism' allegation, he said, is baseless. 'Their presumption that 'smug superiority' will prevent Duke from solving a problem that only exists in their ideological cesspool is itself toxic to the vision that propelled Duke to greatness,' he said. More than 100 Duke graduates, initiated by a group called Concerned Alumni of Duke University, together with faculty, staff, students and friends of Duke, have sent President Price an open letter (which I have signed). The letter states, in part: 'These accusations ignore the necessity, urgency, legitimacy and integrity of recognizing all Duke community citizens' dignity and value, including historically excluded people … The Departments of Education and HHS have no cause to harass and attempt to intimidate our educational institution. Duke should reject these authoritarian intrusions. That action would be the most authentic and effective way … to recognize and affirm the rich diversity that is the Duke community — and the nation.' Despite — or because of — the stakes involved for Duke and other universities, Price's strategically low-profile response to Trump administration actions is understandable. But some of us strongly disagree. Since the early 1960s, when Duke began incrementally ending formal racial segregation, students, both Black and white, protested the pace of change. Now, with the administration's threats, there is a new challenge. 'The only answer for universities is to refuse and stand tough together. Otherwise, more and more demands will be forthcoming,' said Rees Shearer, a veteran of the 1968 Silent Vigil. That spontaneous mass encampment on the main campus, immediately following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, demanded union recognition and pay raises for the university's predominantly Black non-academic workers. A year later, Duke's Afro-American Society seized the Allen Building, the university's administrative center, again advocating for non-academic workers plus for a Black Studies program to be established, and for more Black students and faculty. 'Ultimately,' Shearer told me, 'bullies only demand more and more until academic freedom and the bedrock moral principles of institutions become so eroded that these capitulating institutions become tools of authoritarian plutocracy.' Being true to your school means different things to different people. Duke's 1960s and 1970s cohort has not been shy regarding moral hectoring dating from our activist undergraduate days, urging the university to be its best self. In the 1990s, Duke students helped launch what became a nationwide anti-sweatshop campaign, beginning with the university's popular apparel and merchandise. Today, being true to your school means standing up forcefully against what smells like government extortion. The threat of federal funding cuts demonstrates that this is no time for institutional neutrality. 'By gambling the livelihoods of our faculty members and staff, our university has proven to Trump its intention to acquiesce, a perilous move,' undergraduate Leo Goldberg said in an interview. 'Once again, American higher education has been dealt an unprincipled sellout by those who head it.'
CNN
5 minutes ago
- CNN
A man running from an immigration raid died after entering a Los Angeles freeway, officials say
ImmigrationFacebookTweetLink Follow A man who fled as an immigration raid unfolded at a Home Depot in Southern California was killed when he ran onto a freeway as federal agents moved in, local officials said. The man ran from a Home Depot in Monrovia, about 20 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began the operation Thursday morning, Monrovia City Manager Dylan Feik said. The man ran onto the eastbound 210 Freeway and was hit by a vehicle, then was rushed to a hospital, where he died, Feik said in a statement. The person who ran onto the freeway was 'not being pursued by any DHS law enforcement,' the agency told the New York Times in a statement. 'We do not know their legal status. We were not aware of this incident or notified by California Highway Patrol until hours after operations in the area had concluded.' Home Depot locations increasingly have become targets for immigration raids as the Trump administration amps up deportation operations as part of a broader crackdown. The home improvement retailer traditionally has been a place documented and undocumented day laborers gather to pick up jobs as roofers, painters and construction workers. At least 10 people were detained in Thursday's ICE operation in Monrovia, said California Assemblymember John Harabedian, whose district includes the city. He called the incident 'frightening and chaotic,' adding in a statement: 'Raids like this do not make our streets safer – they terrorize families, instill fear, and put lives at risk.' CNN has reached out to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. Home Depot wasn't 'notified that ICE activities are going to happen and we aren't involved in the operations,' the retailer told CNN on Thursday. The California Highway Patrol is investigating the man's death, Feik said. He hasn't been publicly identified. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network is working to identify his family. 'We also want to support the workers who witnessed and experienced this horrible raid and tragic death,' said the group, which advocates for day laborers, migrants and low-wage workers.
