ICE Is Using A Random British Guy's Tattoo To Identify TdA Gang Members
An example of a tattoo the Trump administration says identifies the wearer as a member of a violent Venezuelan gang was apparently lifted from a random British man who has no gang affiliation whatsoever.
'I'm just an average middle-aged man from Derbyshire,' Pete Belton told the BBC after the outlet linked a tattoo of a clock on Belton's elbow to the very same one in a Department of Homeland Security training manual.
Rather than signify his predilection for violence, Belton, 44, said the tattoo commemorates the birth of his daughter, with the hour and minute hands pointing to the time of her delivery.
The same image also appeared in a PowerPoint presentation prepared by the Texas Department of Public Safety in September 2024:
Other examples provided in the document include tattoos of the iconic Michael Jordan silhouette, trains, stars and crowns.
Last month, the Trump administration sent a professional soccer player named Jerce Reyes Barrios to a brutal prison in El Salvador allegedly based on a crown tattoo. Barrios' lawyer said the tattoo is merely an homage to the soccer club Real Madrid, which leans heavily on crown imagery.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have been instructed to identify members of Tren de Aragua using a points-based system, an 'Alien Enemy Validation Guide' obtained by the ACLU shows.
Tattoos, such as the above, that purportedly 'denote loyalty' to TdA, count for 4 points. Other symbolism-based points can be assigned for wearing suspicious clothing (4 points), using suspicious hand signs (2 points) or posting TdA symbols on social media (2 points).
Anyone scoring 8 points or higher is automatically considered a member of Tren de Aragua, while immigrants who score 6 or 7 points 'may be validated' as members ― but only after a conversation with the officer's supervisor.
Belton insists he's no Venezuelan gangster. But he told the BBC he's nevertheless rethinking a planned family vacation to Miami this fall, fearing it could instead turn into an 'all-inclusive holiday to Guantanamo.'
How his elbow ended up in a training manual to identify criminals in an entirely different part of the world remains unclear. The Department of Homeland Security didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Newsweek
41 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Google Issues 'High Alert' Warning for Insurance Sector
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Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
Gardeners on ICE raids: ‘People are afraid, but they still have to work'
They're known as the 'mow and blow' guys — the legion of predominately Latino gardeners driving pickup trucks and trailers bristling with lawn mowers, weed whackers and other yard-care equipment as they tend the yards of Southern California's suburban neighborhoods. But Daniel, a gardener who has lived undocumented in the U.S. for 20 years, doesn't think of himself that way. He does a lot more for his clients — trimming plants, fertilizing and weeding too. In fact, some of his clients have only tiny lawns, or no lawns at all these days, but they still need his services. And he still needs to work, despite immigration raids taking place in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties; the latter is where he has run his yard-care business for 11 years. Reflecting on his precarious position, he quieted his leaf blower and took off his sunglasses, giving only his first name for safety's sake. 'These times are really hard and everybody is afraid,' he said, referring to Latinos broadly — regardless of immigration status. 'It's really not normal, and we're always being careful, but you know, we need to work. We need to pay our bills because the bills are always coming and they don't stop.' On this June morning, his 15-year-old daughter joined him on his rounds through a Ventura neighborhood. She and her sisters — 10 and 18 — were born in the United States, but her parents were born in Mexico. The daughter was friendly with a welcoming smile, but when the discussion turned to whether she and her family have discussed what will happen if her parents are detained by immigration, she became as serious as her father. Criticisms about immigrants, worry about her parents' status — 'that's always been part of our experience, but now it's much worse,' she said quietly. 'It feels like a lack of empathy.' An estimated 1.2 million people work in landscaping and groundskeeping in the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and in California, 88% of those workers are Latino and 68% are immigrants, according to a 2024 report by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank. How many of those immigrants are undocumented is unclear. President Trump promised during his campaign that he would crack down on illegal immigration, and five months into his term, immigration raids have escalated around so-called sanctuary cities in the Greater Los Angeles area, including agricultural areas such as Ventura and Oxnard. Earlier that morning, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had been spotted around Ventura and in the Ventura Police Department's front parking lot. The police department posted on social media that its officers were not involved, declaring on Instagram: 'Our commitment: Safety for all regardless of status.' Meanwhile, the Ventura College Foundation canceled its popular Weekend Marketplace, which draws 2,000 to 5,000 mostly Latino vendors and customers every weekend to the college's parking lot, due to concerns about ICE activity, according to a recorded message on its phone. Less than three miles away from the police parking lot, a landscape crew of five Latinos was working in a front yard, building an intricate walkway from multi-shaped pavers. The boss said he was pretty sure his workers had their papers, but no one wanted to talk because even citizens who are Latino were getting swept up in enforcement actions. 'People are afraid, but they still have to work,' he said. 'So we come to work and see what happens.' A few miles away, a Latino landscaper with a shaggy salt-and-pepper beard waited in his truck while his crew loaded wheelbarrows and other equipment outside a newly landscaped hillside home with a sweeping view of the Ventura coast. He came to the U.S. from Mexico 30 years ago, he said, and has been working in landscaping in Ventura for 25 years. He's single, works with family members and 'up until two weeks ago, I had no worry about anything,' he said. 'Now it [detention] is something you worry about every day.' He'd planned to gas up his truck that morning but drove past the station when he saw 'law enforcement' vehicles at the pumps, because he was afraid they were ICE officials. 'I took some precautions,' he said. 'They haven't come up here yet; they've just been on the main streets. But I pay taxes every year. I work. As long as we are here working and contributing ...,' he trailed off and shook his head. Daniel came to the U.S from Mexico some 20 years ago, he said. 'Things were so hard in Mexico everybody was jumping [to the U.S.] looking for a better life.' At first he worked every job he could find, roofing, building homes and working in a machine shop until 2014, 'when I see this opportunity [to be a gardener] and I take it.' Now, he works five days a week, he said, visiting eight to 10 yards a day and charging his clients, on average, about $150 a month. His only advertising is word of mouth. If he and his wife are detained, Daniel said, they have family nearby who could help his daughters or 'maybe we could take the girls to Mexico, but they want to be here and stay in school.' Their eldest, he said, is studying to become an anesthesiologist at a nearby university. His daughters are hard workers, 'good kids,' so leaving would affect them 'really bad.' He glanced at his 15-year-old, who wants to be an orthodontist, and was listening intently. 'I'm always looking for a better life,' he said, 'but when you have a family, what we think about most is the kids. I think this is the point for all the parents — we have our kids here so absolutely they have a better life than us.' The fear and frustration are prevalent throughout the horticulture world. Terremoto Landscape, a landscaping firm with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco, posted information about immigrant rights prominently on its website and on Instagram. 'Landscape construction, maintenance and the entire labor engine of California would not be possible without immigrant labor,' said the Instagram post, which was accompanied by multiple photos of landscape workers with their faces covered by black boxes. 'But more importantly than that, immigrants are our friends, family and neighbors — our communities and lives are infinitely better for their presence in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and across America. The actions of ICE and the National Guard — aided and abetted by the LAPD — over the last few days have made clear the xenophobic, vile and violent aims and obvious mal-intent of the current administration.' The principals of the company declined to be interviewed, writing in a text that they want to be sensitive to nongovernmental organizations supporting immigrant communities. Independent gardening work has long attracted people excluded from other jobs, said landscape contractor Mike Garcia, owner of Enviroscape LA in Redondo Beach. After World War II, for instance, many Japanese Americans who had been held in incarceration camps during the war moved into gardening work because 'no one would hire them for other jobs,' he said. There were so many Japanese gardeners around L.A. in the 1950s that the California Landscape Contractors Assn. created a special 'Pacific Coast chapter for members of Asian heritage.' Membership waned over the years as Japanese families moved away from gardening and the chapter was recently disbanded, said Garcia, who sits on the board of the association's Los Angeles/San Gabriel Valley chapter. As Japanese gardeners pulled away from the field, Latino immigrants filled the void, Garcia said. 'If you're new to this country, a Latino looking for a better life and you can't find a job because you don't have any papers, you can pick up a lawnmower and start mowing lawns,' said Garcia. 'Latinos who couldn't speak English could still mow a lawn and write out an invoice, and they eventually took over the gardening trade.' Many Latino immigrants have to go into debt to travel to the U.S., so they feel compelled to find work quickly, said Manuel Vicente, director and producer of Radio Jornalera, the digital communication arm of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which provides information, support and recognition to immigrant workers who have limited options for work. Gardeners and landscapers are in high demand around L.A., he said, and the work doesn't require advertising or even English fluency. 'They see it as an opportunity and they're proud of the work they do,' Vicente said. 'You can see when there's a yard nobody is taking care of, and the workers come and convert that yard into something beautiful, that's gratifying for them.' And good work helps drum up more business. 'In Spanish we have a saying, 'El sol sale para todos,' or the sun rises for everybody. It means everybody has the opportunity to take a job,' Vicente said. 'Obviously there are certain jobs some people are not willing to do ... because of the wages or the difficulty, and others who are willing to take it. I don't see that as stealing jobs. For many immigrants it's the only place where they can work to make a living and survive.' Vicente helped the National Day Laborer Organizing Network start Radio Jornalera in Pasadena in 2019 during Trump's first term to help Spanish-speaking immigrants understand their rights. 'I'm a proud migrant, and I think we should change the narrative,' Vicente said. 'People think everything wrong with this country is because of migrants, and that's not true. I think migrants are part of the solution for this country and why California has one of the biggest economies in the world.' Immigrants like Daniel are working and sending their children to college, Vicente said. 'They came for a better life and they're building a better nation here, but they're also sending money to their families in their former country, so they're building two nations. We should recognize that.' The ICE raids happening now feel like racial persecution, he said. 'We are aware that they've already stopped multiple citizens, people who were born here, because they are brown and fit the profile, so I think no one is safe. Everyone who looks Latino — and I don't know what that is in that profile, but maybe it's just a brown person — so everybody in our Black and brown communities is under attack.' Over the weekend, Trump said he had asked ICE to stop raids at big farms and hotels, but on Sunday he announced plans to expand immigration enforcement actions in major 'Democrat-controlled' cities, including Los Angeles. It's hard for independent gardeners such as Daniel to do their work unnoticed. Their trucks and trailers visibly carry the tools of their trade. But the work is waiting, as are their bills. What's most galling, Vicente said, is that 'the people who don't want us here are benefactors of our work. Maybe we take care of their parents or their children; cook their food or clean their houses, do their yards or build their homes. They want our labor, but they don't want to recognize our humanity.'
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. ICE raids leave people ‘scared to leave the house' in Hawthorne
The truck carrying two men suspected of living in the country illegally was pinned between a white rusty fence and two border patrol vehicles near a busy intersection in Hawthorne. Standing by the passenger door, two federal agents were handcuffing a pregnant woman, a U.S. citizen, angering the crowd that had gathered there and prompting masked agents to stand guard with less-lethal weapons and batons. 'Let her go, she's pregnant,' a woman screamed out. 'That girl is pregnant, let her go!' 'Get back!' yelled an agent with a steel baton. 'We are back!' a man responded loudly. The sweep near 120th Street and Hawthorne Boulevard this month was one of several that took place in this working-class city; all part of an immigration enforcement blitz in Southern California that has mostly affected workers living in the country illegally — similar to those that President Trump has employed in the past. The incident, which was captured on video and shared on social media along with subsequent raids in the city, has sparked outrage, fear and anxiety in a town where half the population is Latino. At least 30% of the total population is also foreign born, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Some businesses said the raids have had an impact on them as well. Recently elected Mayor Alex Vargas has not spoken about the immigration issues his city is facing. He did not respond to requests for comment. But two days after the incident at the intersection, a small group of young people gathered to protest the immigration raids. They waved American and Mexican flags as dozens of cars honked in support. The pregnant woman, Cary López Alvarado, told NBC Los Angeles that the agents had been tailing her husband and co-worker when they pulled into the parking lot of a building where they were doing maintenance. She said she opened the gate for her husband to drive in when the agents pulled up. She said she refused to let the agents into the property. In a video she recorded and shared with the news station, Alvarado tells the agents to leave and that they were on private property. She said the agents then took her into custody for obstruction but later released her. Soon after that, she began experiencing pain in her belly and went to the hospital. Alvarado could not be reached for comment. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about the operation. The white Toyota Tundra that had been stopped that day remains in the small parking lot of the building that is home to a Live Scan business. The driver side window was broken and shattered glass lay nearby. It's been a week of upheaval in Hawthorne, the South Bay suburb where the Beach Boys got their start in the 1960s and came to epitomize the postwar beach culture of Southern California. Over the last 50 years, the city of nearly 90,000 has become much more diverse, with a sizable Latino immigrant community. Standing outside her apartment complex at the corner of Acacia Avenue and 120th Street, just across from where the truck had been stopped, Maria Perez, 68, a Cuban and American citizen, smoked a cigarette with a neighbor. She expressed anger over the incident and the raids that have been taking place in the city and Greater Los Angeles. 'I cried when I saw what happened here,' she said. 'I was hurting like everybody else and now there's fear not just here but all over the city.' Her neighbor Ruben Esquivel, 43, said the raids have caused some people to go into hiding. 'I don't see anyone,' he said. 'People who are trying to make a living are scared to leave the house. It's horrible.' Jimmy Butler, 59, was home when he started to hear honking. By the time he traced the noise to the intersection, he saw Border Patrol agents taking the two men into custody as well as the pregnant woman. 'I was upset about what happened that day,' he said. 'How do you take someone who hasn't committed a crime?' Since then he said he has been more alert in an effort to protect his neighborhood, a street lined with apartment buildings where Samoans, Africans, Latinos and Black Americans live. When he heard honking again recently, he feared federal agents had returned but he was relieved when he learned it was related to the group of young demonstrators. 'People are living in anxiety,' he said. At the corner of 119th Street and Acacia Avenue, where Spanish Mass at St. Joseph Catholic Church can pull in about 1,000 parishioners, Father Arturo Velascos said it was unclear what effect the June 1 incident, and other immigration raids, will have on attendance. 'The fact that they were here has us asking ourselves: How is this Sunday going to be?' he said. 'I know people are scared. Anyone who is undocumented has that basic fear that if they go to church or leave their home they'll be captured by ICE and get deported.' Velascos said the church has told people to remain vigilant and has held know-your-rights workshops to inform parishioners and the community. He said some people have expressed to him that they're afraid that immigration agents will enter the church to grab people. 'If they ever tried to come into our church packed with parishioners it will go bad for them because people will not tolerate that,' he said. 'You don't want 1,000 people angry at you.' Elsewhere in the city, the raids seem to be keeping people away. On Hawthorne Boulevard, some businesses said there are fewer shoppers. At 132nd Street, Gilberto Alvarez, 32, general manager at Denny's, said he was expecting a boost in sales recently after another diner in the area burned down. 'Right away we saw a bump in sales,' he said. But after Sunday's incident, he saw the number dip again. 'I was expecting to have $13,000 in sales instead I got $9,000,' he said. He said daily sales have also decreased from 500 to about 300. Business owners in the area said they too have noticed a decline in sales. They said workers have called in sick, fearing they will be detained by federal agents. However, some smaller stores said they haven't noticed a difference yet. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Sergio Hernandez, 49, stood at the mouth of his driveway, contemplating life. For more than 30 years, Hernandez has been living illegally in the country. But now, amid the immigration raids, he's considering self-deporting to Mexico. He said the raids have left him in a constant state of fear and anxiety. They've also placed an economic burden on him. Four years ago, he said, he suffered a stroke and lost the movement of his right arm and therefore his job as a polisher at a metal shop. Since then, he's been selling used items at a local swap meet. But the presence of Border Patrol vehicles has forced him to stay home. They've scared customers away as well and the few times he's taken the risk to sell items at the swap meet, he's noticed half the stalls are empty. Unable to work, he's had to dip into his savings and is afraid he'll run out of money soon. He said if he's unable to pay the $1,300 in rent and bills, he'll return home. Hernandez paused for a moment, spotting a white Chevy Escalade with tinted windows at the intersection nearby. 'See, that's the second time that vehicle has passed by here, it's immigration, you can see the lights,' he said. He said it's moments like those that cause him to be on high alert whenever he has to go to the store. 'Before you could go out and be out and about, you know — living life,' he said. 'But now people are always telling you when they spot immigration and whether it's true or not, you'd rather not find out.' Hernandez said he doesn't know when he'll return to Mexico. What's delaying his decision is the simple fact that he's become accustomed to living his life in the U.S. 'I don't understand,' he said. 'There are people living in the streets, getting drugged up and I'm here trying to work. Why are they coming after me?'
