58-Year U.S. Green Card Holder Faces Deportation After Airport Detention
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Victor Avila, a 66-year-old U.S. green card holder, was detained last month at a Bay Area airport by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after returning home from visiting his son stationed at a U.S. Air Force base in Japan.
Avila legally immigrated to the United States from Mexico with his family as a teenager in 1967 and has held a green card ever since, his daughter told KGTV San Diego.
Newsweek reached out to ICE and to Kiwan & Chambers, the law firm Avila works for, for comment.
Why It Matters
President Donald Trump campaigned on a hard-line immigration stance and pledged to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history.
The Trump administration said it deported around 100,000 illegal immigrants in the initial months of the presidency, and many individuals have been deported following Trump's invoking the rarely used Alien Enemies Act of 1798, something which has been criticized and blocked by judges.
ICE has been conducting raids around the country. Some of the subsequent arrests have been viewed as heavy-handed, while others have wrongly targeted people suspected of having no legal status in the U.S.
What To Know
Avila is a resident of San Diego, California, who has worked for over a decade as a legal assistant for the Kiwan & Chambers law firm, representing injured workers.
He is a father and a grandfather. His daughter, Carina Mejia, told KGTV San Diego that in 2009, Avila had been pulled over and arrested for a DUI and drug possession, and he ultimately served a few months in jail.
"Two misdemeanors. Served all his time, paid all he had to pay," Meija said. "Since then, he's been a good man, a hard worker. Hasn't gotten into trouble, not one time. He's dedicated himself to his family."
Meija said that immigration authorities renewed her father's green card twice since that arrest.
A GoFundMe started for Avila said that he has now been transferred to an ICE detention center outside of Bakersfield.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted June 11–12, which surveyed 1,136 Americans nationwide, found that 52 percent of respondents (including one in five Democrats and nine in 10 Republicans) supported deportations of people in the country illegally.
Forty-nine percent of people in the poll said that Trump had gone too far with his arrests of immigrants, as opposed to 40 percent who said he had not.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Caleb Vitello joins ICE officers in New York City on January 28, 2025.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Caleb Vitello joins ICE officers in New York City on January 28, 2025.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via Getty Images
What People Are Saying
A message on the GoFundMe for Victor Avila reads: "We are confident Victor has a strong case but it will be long road home."
Victor Avila's daughter, Carina Mejia, told KGTV San Diego: "I've visited him several times. There are days he's hopeful, optimistic. Then there's days he mentally prepares himself for the worst...I want my dad back. I want my dad home."
What Happens Next
Avila's deportation hearing has been scheduled for July 15 at an ICE facility in the Bakersfield area, with his family and legal team preparing a defense.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Commentary: The oil chokepoint Iran could threaten — but probably won't
As President Trump weighs whether to join Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear weapons program, one major factor is how Iran might respond. That leads to a crucial bit of water known as the Strait of Hormuz. For decades, strategists have fixated on the channel linking the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and open waters. The Strait of Hormuz, ranging in width from 35 to 60 miles, passes between Iran on the north and Oman on the south. About 20% of the world's petroleum and seaborne natural gas shipments flow through the strait, making it the world's single most important passageway for fossil fuel. Iranian officials routinely threaten to block energy shipments through the strait when involved in some kind of conflict. They've done so again since Israel began attacking Iranian nuclear weapons and military targets on June 13. That's a big part of the reason Brent crude (BZ=F) prices jumped more than 15%, to $76 per barrel, as traders anticipated and then reacted to the fresh outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Iran. An Iranian effort to shut the strait would roil energy markets, easily pushing crude prices above $100. But it would also be extremely risky for Iran, whose theocratic leaders have to map out what would happen next. Trump, meanwhile, has to gauge whether a US attack on Iran might trigger an effort to close the strait and how he would respond in turn. "It will be one of the central factors as the US considers whether to join Israel in attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities," Dan Marks of the British think tank RUSI wrote on June 18. The whole question of whether US forces should attack Iran hinges on a uranium enrichment site at Fordow, southwest of Tehran, that is buried at least 250 feet under a mountain and hardened against attack. Israel doesn't have conventional weapons able to penetrate that deep and destroy hardened targets. But the US does, and those giant bombs can only be carried by US warplanes. Taking out Fordow and wiping out the Iranian nuclear program would eliminate the risk of one of the world's nastiest regimes getting nukes anytime soon. That's a plus in the world peace column. But an American attack on Iran would open the door to Iranian retaliation. Iran can't beat the US in a war, but it can inflict pain on its adversaries and put Trump at odds with his pledge to end US involvement in foreign wars. Iran ships much of its own oil through the Strait of Hormuz, so it benefits from keeping the ships chugging. But it might make more sense to shut the strait if Israel or the US attacked Iran's oil facilities and it had less oil to ship, or Iran tried, there would be three basic ways it could try to stop oil shipments from exiting the Persian Gulf. It could mine the waters around the strait, attack oil tankers and military escorts with drones and missiles, or mount direct naval attacks on tankers and their escorts with ships, submarines, and naval drones. The US Navy and its allies in the region have war-gamed these scenarios for decades. The first thing that would happen is oil prices would soar, prompting quick action from a coalition of nations. "Closing the Strait of Hormuz would be such a severe threat to oil exports that the U.S. and other Western powers (and conceivably even China) would be virtually certain to use force to reopen the export routes," former CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack wrote recently in Foreign Affairs. Iran could cause trouble for "a number of bloody weeks," in Pollack's phrase, but it couldn't stop oil shipments out of the Gulf indefinitely. The US military and its allies are fully able to clear minefields, track and destroy missile launchers, and fend off a hostile navy, in time. Read more: How to protect your money during turmoil, stock market volatility An outgunned Iran, however, would probably use "asymmetric" tactics meant to preserve its most valuable military assets and create confusion. That could include missile and drone attacks on oil tankers, US warships, and energy infrastructure in other Gulf nations. The Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have used those types of tactics to target ships in the Red Sea. They've only hit a few vessels but have still forced many shippers to avoid the area and take longer, costlier routes. In the Gulf region, there are no alternative shipping routes. Producers ship some oil by pipeline, but capacity isn't nearly enough to replace tankers transiting the strait. Capital Economics recently outlined four scenarios for how the Israel-Iran conflict could play out. One is that it dies down without much effect on markets. But two other scenarios could have a more severe impact on energy markets and the global economy. The battle could intensify either because Iran preemptively attacks US forces or because the US decides to join Israel in striking Iranian nuclear facilities. The fighting could also drag on with no obvious exit ramp, with pressure rising on Iran to execute some kind of desperate breakout move, such as a closure of the strait. Under those scenarios, oil prices could rise from $75 per barrel now to $130 or more, causing a stock market sell-off and raising the odds of a global recession. The fourth possible outcome is the demise of Iran's Islamic government, a wild-card possibility that could go a number of ways. There's no obvious replacement regime waiting in the wings, so it's not clear if another hard-line group would materialize or something more benign might ensue. The direction of oil prices also factors into other global hotspots. A surge in crude prices would directly benefit Russia, for instance, bringing fresh cash into the government coffers financing Russia's effort to seize Ukraine. And a global energy crisis weakening the US economy could forestall other Trump priorities, such as his effort to realign trade. Under virtually any scenario, the US would eventually reopen the Strait of Hormuz and energy supplies would return to normal. The question is what the cost would be to everybody involved. It's a complex matrix of what-ifs currently under intense study in Washington and many other world capitals. Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Bluesky and X: @rickjnewman. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices.
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump installs pair of 88-foot-tall new flag poles at the White House
WASHINGTON ― Massive new flag poles hoisting United States flags have been installed on the White House grounds after President Donald Trump said they were desperately needed and that he would pay for them himself. The placement of the two 88-foot-tall flagpoles — one on the north lawn and one on the south lawn — began early in the morning of June 18. A U.S. flag was later raised on the south lawn around 1 p.m. at a ceremony that included Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner. The couple was at the White House to watch the swearing in of Charles Kushner, Jared's father, as U.S. ambassador to France. 'How do you like it, everybody?' Trump said to reporters after the flag reached the top of the pole. Soon afterward, the second flag pole of identical height was installed on the north lawn. A few hours later, after thunderstorms rolled through Washington D.C., a second flag with the same dimensions was raised. Presidents have long put their own mark on how the White House is decorated, and Trump, who built his personal brand flipping commercial properties, is no exception. "It is a GIFT from me of something which was always missing from this magnificent place," Trump said in a social media post. "Hopefully, they will proudly stand at both sides of the White House for many years to come!" Trump said he paid out of his own pocket to install the poles, which cost about $50,000 each. This week, the White House traded a bust sitting in the Oval Office of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. for one of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Trump said earlier this year he'd like to see a new ballroom built in the White House. When asked what gave him the idea to install the flag poles, Trump said he first considered the flags during his first term but blamed distractions caused by the media for getting in the way. 'I was the hunted. And now I'm the hunter,' Trump told reporters on June 18. "It's a big difference." Contributing: Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump installs pair of 88-foot-tall new flag poles at the White House
Wall Street Journal
9 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Trump Says He Thinks Iran Was ‘Weeks Away' From Getting a Nuclear Weapon
Trump Says He Thinks Iran Was 'Weeks Away' From Getting a Nuclear Weapon President Trump said he doesn't want to get involved in a conflict with Iran, but he believed the country was close to developing a nuclear weapon, and 'they'd use it.' Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
