Canadian citizen dies in ICE custody; Ottawa ‘urgently seeking' information
Canada is 'urgently seeking more information' about the death this week of a 49-year-old Canadian citizen while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Miami, Foreign Minister Anita Anand said Thursday in a post on social media.
Johnny Noviello, who became a U.S. permanent resident in 1991, was found unresponsive Monday at a federal detention center where he was being detained 'pending removal proceedings,' according to an ICE statement posted Wednesday. The cause of his death is under investigation.
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CNN
12 minutes ago
- CNN
‘We are not safe in America today:' These American citizens say they were detained by ICE
Federal agencies Immigration National security Race & ethnicityFacebookTweetLink Follow Elzon Lemus is always on the road for work, traveling from one place to another. But ever since federal immigration officers pulled the electrician over as he was driving to his first job of the day earlier this month in Nassau County, New York, Lemus has been on high alert, limiting his travel around town out of fear, he said — despite being a US citizen. On June 3, Lemus says he was briefly detained during a traffic stop by federal agents because he resembled someone the agents were looking for, they told him and video from the encounter shows. Lemus' arrest, and other reports of American citizens being detained by immigration officials, highlights growing concerns over racial profiling and constitutional rights — for both the documented and undocumented — as the Trump administration's broad mass deportation crackdown takes aim at people of all ages from children and families to suspected criminals by detaining people outside courtroom hearings, during traffic stops and in workplace sweeps. It's not legal for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and detain US citizens, CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said. But under certain circumstances, immigration officers can arrest citizens without a warrant if they witness an 'offense against the United States' or a felony offense — otherwise, their powers are regulated to immigration matters, according to federal law. Lemus and his coworker had just left their boss' home earlier this month when they were pulled over by officers, he told CNN. With Lemus' coworker at the wheel of their work vehicle and the 23-year-old in the passenger seat, agents approached their windows simultaneously and asked for identification, without providing any of their own, Lemus said. 'You look like someone we're looking for,' the agent says to Lemus, video of the incident shows. Lemus declined to show identification several times. If we don't get your ID, then we're going to have to figure out another way to ID you and that may not work out well for you,' the officer speaking with Lemus says on video. Lemus said he was handcuffed and searched for at least 25 minutes until officers found his identification before he was released. The electrician believes he was pulled over because he and his coworker look Hispanic, a community that has often been targeted by Trump's mass deportation efforts. Under the Fourth Amendment, Americans are protected from random searches unless law enforcement has probable cause to believe they're involved in criminal activity. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement to CNN, denied that Lemus was arrested or detained by ICE, and said he was not 'even searched or ever placed in handcuffs.' The video made available to CNN cuts off after Lemus exits the vehicle and does not show whether he was searched or handcuffed. 'The facts are ICE conducted a targeted enforcement operation to arrest an (sic) criminal illegal alien with a prior conviction of assault. An individual matching the criminal illegal alien's description exited the surveilled location and got into a vehicle. For public safety, ICE law enforcement pulled over the vehicle and requested identification. Once it was confirmed that the criminal illegal alien was not in the car, Lemus and the driver of the vehicle were thanked for their cooperation and informed they were free to go,' the DHS statement reads. 'Because of the color of their skin, the accent in their voice or their ethnicity, people are being demanded to show their papers for no good reason,' Lemus' attorney, Fred Brewington, said during a news conference. 'With no probable cause, without reasonable suspicion,' he added, saying the targeting was 'reminiscent' of when Germany was under Adolf Hitler's dictatorship and people were required to carry identification with them at all times, a comparison Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made last month. Walz came under fire for likening the actions of ICE under the Trump administration to the Gestapo, the secret police force of Nazi Germany. ICE will often detain individuals who they have probable cause to believe are undocumented, or if agents have a warrant to execute, then leave the rest of their fate to the courts, legal analyst Jackson said. 'Due process not only starts with giving people notice and an opportunity to be heard and hearings and respecting their civil liberties, but it kind of starts with stopping people, because there's a basis to do it,' Jackson said. Nearly 3,000 miles away from Lemus on the opposite coast, Brian Gavidia has a similar story to tell. Gavidia was working at a tow yard on June 12 in Montebello, California, where nearly 80% of the population is Latino or Hispanic according to US Census data, when he heard immigration agents were outside, he told CNN affiliate KCAL. When he went outside himself, an agent approached him. Although he told the officers he was an American citizen three times, they detained and questioned him about what hospital he was born in while they held him up against a fence, he said and video of the incident shows. Gavidia said he couldn't sleep after the incident because even though an agent gave him his phone back after taking it away, he said, they never returned his Real ID. 'I am American,' he remembers telling an agent. 'I stated I was American. He still attacked me. We are not safe, guys, not safe in America today.' CNN has reached out to an attorney for Gavidia. The Department of Homeland Security said in a post on X that Gavidia was arrested because he assaulted US Border Patrol Agents, though the partial video attached to the post only shows him being held against the fence then handing his ID to the agents. In a statement to CNN, DHS said it was conducting a 'lawful immigration enforcement operation' when Gavidia 'attempted to flee, assaulting an agent in the process. The subject was arrested for assaulting and interfering with agents during their duties.' In the same operation, the tow yard's owner, Javier Ramirez, a single dad of two and a US citizen, was arrested and detained, his family told CNN affiliate KABC. Officials appeared to target him after he yelled out to his staff, 'ICE! Immigration,' when federal agents arrived on property. For hours after his detainment, Ramirez's family worried about his whereabouts as he was without his medication, Abimael Dominguez, his brother, told the station. CNN reached out to Dominguez. Video obtained by KABC shows only a portion of the incident and captures Ramirez sitting on the ground with his hands restrained behind his back. It's unclear what happened before or after the video. In a statement, DHS said 'Ramirez was detained on the street for investigation for interference and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants.' 'These men did exactly what they were supposed to do,' American Immigration Lawyers Association President Jeff Joseph said. 'They stated clearly that they were US citizens and ICE proceeded anyways. They did not resist. They calmly stated their rights and asserted their citizenship.' 'We've got a lot of danger here when you have raids that are not really thought out … just to meet a daily quota,' with US citizens getting caught in the crosshairs, Shira Scheindlin, a retired federal judge, told CNN's Pamela Brown last week. CNN has previously reported that the agency has been under pressure to meet quotas, with the White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller calling it a 'floor, not a ceiling.' When asked about the quotas and methodology used in immigration sweeps, McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary, told CNN, 'We are not going to disclose law enforcement sensitive intelligence and methods. 70% of the arrests ICE made were of criminal illegal aliens.' Just miles from where Gavidia and Ramirez were detained and days later, in neighboring Pico Rivera, California, 20-year-old Adrian Martinez was arrested by federal immigration agents following a physical altercation with them after a maintenance worker was detained at a shopping center. Martinez, a US citizen, was on a break from work at a nearby Walmart. In video from the incident, he appears to drag the detained man's equipment cart in front of the Border Patrol agent vehicle, blocking it from leaving. A CBP spokesperson said the detained man was undocumented. Videos from the confrontation show Border Patrol agents scuffling with Martinez, shoving him to the ground at least twice. Meanwhile, the maintenance worker had already been driven away by agents, according to Oscar Preciado, a delivery driver who captured some of the incident on video. In a statement to CNN, a CBP spokesperson said Martinez punched an agent in the face and struck another agent in the arm after 'agents were confronted by a hostile group.' The statement also says the videos 'are missing critical moments and don't tell the whole story.' 'U.S. Attorney Essayli and U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino outrageously alleged that Adrian assaulted a federal agent. However he has not been charged with an assault charge because he didn't assault anyone, and the evidence of that is clear,' Martinez's legal team, Miller Law Group, said in a statement to CNN. No punch by Martinez is easily visible in three videos reviewed by CNN, including the surveillance footage that shows the entire encounter. An ICE directive from February 2025 requires ICE agents and officers to use body worn cameras — with exceptions such as when agents are undercover or on commercial flights — 'to capture footage of Enforcement Activities at the start of the activity or, if not practicable, as soon as safely possible thereafter.' Martinez was 'standing up' for the detained man, according to Preciado, but Joseph of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said while the desire to intervene is a very natural, human reaction, getting involved can cause further problems and fighting back 'is only going to get you into worse trouble,' he told CNN. 'And those are the charges that ultimately are going to stick,' he explained. '… if you get aggressive and interfere, those charges are likely going to stick, because there's going to be proof.' In May, acting ICE director Todd Lyons released a statement saying, 'obstructing federal law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties is a crime that jeopardizes public safety and national security.' After he spent three days in detention, the assault charges against Martinez were dropped and 'he has been charged with conspiracy to impede or injure an officer, a felony,' according to his attorney. Martinez's legal team called the charge 'trumped up' in a statement, saying it was 'filed to justify the federal agents' violent treatment of Adrian.' A judge ordered his release from federal custody on a $5,000 bond, his attorney announced on Friday, sharing that Martinez is home and recovering after needing medical care for abrasions and bruising across his body from the altercation. The anxiety that Lemus and others said they now carry with them as they try to resume their everyday lives isn't unique to their experience with federal immigration agents. 43% of Latino voters think others may fear immigration authorities will arrest people, even if they are US citizens, UnidosUs, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, found. Jackson said with the Trump administration's broad immigration enforcement tactics, 'everything that's happening right now kind of offends the sensibilities of what you learn in law school.' As for Lemus, every car that even remotely resembles the SUV the agents drove that day gives him pause, he said, noting he still doesn't know who the officers were, nearly a month after the incident. 'It just shows that even citizens don't got rights,' Lemus said, adding his friends and family are concerned that 'even though they were born here, they also think that it could happen to them too.' CNN's Taylor Galgano contributed to this report.
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
On a Quiet Southern Border, Empty Farms and Frightened Workers
Alexandra, a 55-year-old undocumented immigrant, was on her way to work at a watermelon farm in the border city of Edinburg, Texas, recently when her oldest son stopped her before she stepped out of her aging trailer. 'Please don't go. You are going to get deported,' he told Alexandra, who asked that her last name not be used because she did not want to attract attention from federal immigration agents. Her son then showed her graphic videos of federal agents chasing and handcuffing migrants seemingly all over the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. 'That could be you,' he said. President Trump's conflicting orders to exempt, then target, then again exempt farm workers from his aggressive immigration sweeps of work sites have caused havoc in agricultural industries across the country, where about 42 percent of farm workers are undocumented, according to the Agriculture Department. But perhaps nowhere is fear among farm workers more palpable than on the farms and ranches along the southwestern U.S.-Mexico border, where for centuries workers have considered the frontier as being more porous than prohibitive. Administration officials have vowed to make good on a once-popular campaign promise from Mr. Trump to deport millions of undocumented workers, in what he has said will be the largest mass deportation in U.S. history. As workplace raids have eroded that popularity and sparked angry protests across the country, the border region has been eerily quiet. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
DOGE enters ATF with mandate to slash gun regulations
The U.S. DOGE Service has sent staff to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with the goal of revising or eliminating dozens of rules and gun restrictions by July 4, according to multiple people with knowledge of the efforts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have not been made public. The initial target was to change 47 regulations, an apparent reference to Donald Trump's status as the 47th president of the United States, two of the people said. But ATF and DOGE staffers are now poised to exceed that goal, with upward of 50 changes planned. The revisions are part of a seismic shift unfolding at ATF as the Trump administration proposes slashing the law enforcement agency's budget and dramatically reducing the number of inspectors who ensure that gun sellers are in compliance with federal laws. Some Republicans in Congress have called for abolishing the agency altogether, and Attorney General Pam Bondi has said she wants to merge ATF with the Drug Enforcement Administration. If the plans are enacted, it would be a major win for pro-gun advocacy groups, who have long claimed ATF is an agency with too many gun regulations that tramples on Second Amendment rights. Gun-control advocates fear that the changes afoot at ATF will more easily allow potentially dangerous people to obtain weapons with little recourse. The exact scope and details of the potential changes are still being determined. ATF has hundreds of regulations, and revisions could include changing the responsibilities of certain ATF positions, updating what types of firearms can be imported, and making licensing fees refundable. 'As Attorney General Bondi has made clear, ATF is working hard to reduce regulatory red tape that burdens lawful gun owners and to ensure agents are doing real police work hunting down criminals and gang members — not knocking on the doors of lawful gun owners in the middle of the night,' said Chad Gil Martin, a spokesman for the Justice Department, which oversees ATF. The Trump administration-backed ATF general counsel, Robert Leider, an ardent Second Amendment advocate, is overseeing the changes at ATF while working with DOGE, the people said. He has shifted additional ATF attorneys to work on the changes. DOGE is a non-Cabinet agency originally launched by billionaire Elon Musk to carry out controversial cost-cutting efforts that have resulted in mass attempted layoffs and legal battles with mixed results. The agency has more recently begun pushing for policy and regulatory changes. In addition to dozens of regulation cuts, Leider and his team are planning to change the legally mandated 4473 Form that most buyers are required to fill out when purchasing a firearm, shrinking it from the current seven pages to as few as three pages. Gun sellers are required to keep the records and have them readily available if law enforcement needs them to trace a gun during a criminal investigation or if ATF inspectors visit to see if the seller is complying with federal laws. Gun rights proponents have complained that the form is too cumbersome and long, ripe for people to make mistakes. They accused the Biden administration of punitively punishing people for simple paperwork errors — allegations that the Biden administration has denied, pointing to public data that shows that fewer than 1 percent of the 130,000 or so licensed gun sellers and manufacturers got their licenses revoked between July 2021 and December 2024. People familiar with the potential changes said the form instructions would be truncated and that some of the questions to determine if a potential buyer is legally allowed to own a firearm may be condensed into one large 'yes' or 'no' question. For example, separate questions ask people to answer if they have been committed to a mental institution, have been dishonorably discharged from the military or are an unlawful user of drugs. These and others could be combined into one question under the potential changes, two people familiar with them said. The question asking if the potential buyer is a felon would remain a stand-alone question. Some people interviewed said they fear that the changes could lead to more inaccuracies — and may make it harder for prosecutors to be able to prove that someone intentionally lied when filling out the federal form to purchase a gun. In a high-profile case last June, a jury in Delaware convicted President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, for lying about his drug use when he filled out that federal form to purchase a gun. 'I know we are going to see changes to the 4473 and we are getting close, that's in process,' Larry Keane — the general counsel of National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms trade association — said on the 'Bearing Arms Cam & Co' podcast this week. 'People just need to be a little patient, give ATF chief counsel some time in dotting the I's and crossing the T's and the internal review that has to take place. But people will be pleased as we move forward, and I think we will see significant progress in correcting bad rulings.' Under the Justice Department's latest budget proposal, the Trump administration would slash 541 of ATF's more than 800 inspectors. Multiple people interviewed said that the current inspection workforce is already stretched thin and inspected fewer than 10 percent — or 9,696 — of businesses and people who hold licenses to sell, collect, import or manufacture firearms. There is no federal requirement for how often a gun store or manufacturer must be inspected. But inspectors typically visit a dealer if an abnormal number of crimes are committed with guns that come from a specific store or if a large number of crimes are committed by people who newly purchased guns from a single place. Inspectors may also visit a seller or manufacturer if they haven't had an inspection in years. Inspectors are allowed to make unannounced visits to license holders only during business hours. People familiar with ATF said that, with just a few hundred inspectors, there would probably be few firearm-related inspections. Federal law requires that explosive sites be inspected at least once every three years. There are currently around 9,000 federal explosive licensees, which means that the remaining 350 or so inspectors would be responsible for inspecting 3,000 explosive sites each year. Gun-control advocacy groups said that there would be few resources left to dedicate to firearm inspections. They fear that gun sellers and manufacturers would have little incentive to be diligent with their recordkeeping, which they said could make it harder to trace firearms involved in crimes. They said these records can be crucial in identifying gun traffickers. 'The Administration seems hell-bent on ushering in a golden age for gun criminals, gutting the only agency specifically tasked with keeping communities safe from gun violence,' John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control advocacy group, said in a statement to The Washington Post. 'These cuts would be a dream come true for gun traffickers, straw purchasers, and unscrupulous gun dealers — and a nightmare for law enforcement and public safety.' Adam Skaggs, chief counsel and vice president of Giffords Law Center, another gun-control advocacy group, agreed: 'The administration claims to support law enforcement and care about fighting crime, but they are proposing the most radical defunding of the police we have ever seen from the federal government,' Skaggs said. Trump has yet to nominate a permanent ATF director, and the administration has pushed out many of its top career staffers, including the second-most-powerful person at the agency. The administration also booted the agency's longtime general counsel, making it a political position and hiring Leider. In late February, Trump said that Kash Patel, the FBI director, would at least temporarily lead ATF — a surprise announcement that put Patel atop two major law enforcement agencies with distinct mandates. More than six weeks into his job, The Post reported that Patel had shown up at ATF headquarters only once and had scant communication with senior staffers at agency. The administration then replaced Patel in early April with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who holds the two roles simultaneously.
